little penny is off in her dreamland....

so i know it is good for penny to go to sleep... i mean she is a growing little monster and rest is important.. but it is almost 8pm on a saturday - or actually a sunday i think and i wish she didnt have to go to bed.. its really bumming me out :(

sometimes it amazes me how fantastic i think she is and i wonder if she knows what a little miracle she is or that she is so beyond loved by so many of our actual and our adopted families..

i guess i will get some sleep too....

i heart being a mom.

so i was at gymboree yesterday withe the little one and i met a mom there that didnt like being a mom. she seemed tired and uninterested in her child. it was sad. it made me realize how lucky i am to have a child that i want to spend every second with.

we have been spending a lot of time playing at the gym lately and i am still not sure which of us is having more fun. ironically a few people in my life seem to think that this lack of free time i have is because i am dating someone.. it makes me laugh on the inside.. how would i ever find time to date anyone when i am so enthralled with this little monster.. there are so many things happening between play time and learning time and cooking homemade baby food i just dont have anymore to give to someone else.. and why would i want to when i have already found the great love of my life....

starting over...

june 26 2011

back when myspace was cool there was a section for you to list your heros - mine stated “single moms”.. i had written that, maybe 7 maybe 10 years ago, with my mom and my old friend christina in mind. i had never thought that one day i would become one of those ‘heros’.

i have a little angel. sometimes i think she is a terror. i have a love for her that i cant put into words. sometimes i want to crawl inside of her little body. sometimes i want her to crawl inside of mine. love doesnt cover it. 

being a single mom is hard. you have fears and struggles just like everyone else. and i think, like everyone else, sometimes you want someone to share those things with. in my case i just want someone to share it with that isn’t limited to hand claps, rasberry tongues slobbers and a simple mamamamama here and there. but i talk to her anyway. she is my best friend.

we have traveled together. we have cried together. we have comforted each other. we have fallen asleep and woken up in strange places but always together. she is the greatest thing i never expected.

but it is hard. today i was doing laundry and i was thinking if other people who thought they had it rough only knew. you put the baby in the stroller, you load the stroller with dirty clothes, you wait on the elevator and finally make it to the laundry room just in time to see you dont have enough money for two loads and its back to the house again. this time you woo the little one with cheerios which end up all over the floor on the way back to the laundry room. the wash only gives you 28 minutes of rest/play time before its back in the stroller for round two - mission laundry into dryer. and then an hour later you make the trek again - only this time the baby doesnt want the stroller or the cheerios so you carry her back to the laundry room and you gather the clothes into the basket and try to carry a load in one arm and a 22 pound squirmy brick in the other just barely making it back to the front door before dropping everything. 

and then its dinner and bath time and a story and a bottle and a rock the baby to sleep. and now its my time. before i follow her to bed. i think i missed a meal or two so its string cheese and some nuts (food stamps dont afford much more than formula and food for the growing munchkin) - but i wouldnt have traded this day or any others for the world.

ironically her father is calling on the phone. i look at it with a sigh. im not sharing these special moments of her life with him. he is not worthy and i dont have the energy. maybe he will just disappear. or maybe he will start obeying the terms of the restraining order. or maybe he will stop delusion-ally thinking he is a part of this life that has been lived without him for this long and as long as i can afford to keep him at bay...legally to start...

mommyhood.

there is something very special about being a mom.

there is something particularly special about caring for a baby with a little cold. for your baby. for the child you carried inside of you for the better part of a year. that you carried. that only you could care for. and when they come out into this big scary world it is you that they continue to turn back to when they need the nourishment you provided them from minute one.

there is something amazing about being up all night listening to the little sniffles and wiping away tears in the early hours of the morning and knowing that this is what you were put on this planet to do. to be a mommy. to care for you little one.

there is something that no other person can fill in a childs life sometimes. and it is in those unfortunate circumstances that the power of being a mom ignites deep inside of you and throws you into the action of caring not only for the right now for your baby but for the future. because it is up to you to make sure that nothing happens to that little creature that started out just smaller than an olive when it made its bond to you. it is your job to fight for what is best and what is safe for her.

i have never been so proud to be a mom. i have never felt the strength that i feel now in knowing with every part of my soul that each day i am making better and better choices to keep danger from my daughter and to work harder and harder to make this crazy world as safe and serene as she deserves. there will never be a day that someone comes into her life and causes her to feel less than or guilty or shameful for things that she is still too young to even understand. not on my watch. not now. not ever.

i have grown to love my daughter more in these last few days than i thought were even possible. i know now what i have to do and i will fight with everything i have to do that.

i used to say that single moms were my heros but never really understood why. today the mystery has been revealed to me. there are some things you just have to live to see the light through.

and sometimes being single sucks...

i cried today for the first time in a long time.

the thing that no one tells you about love is that when you realize what you once had and get a glimpse of a second chance of that its hard to spend the days waiting for a possible future with that person to begin again. yes - this is about love.
i had someone once and totally screwed it up because i was full of fear. because no one had ever just loved me like that before. and now i am scared, even though all signs point to hope, that i will lose that chance again.

i had someone once and i miss him. dearly. and he is far far away and i only just saw his face two days ago for the first time in years. and i knew when i saw him that it was real. that what we lost might just have been put on a shelf and not completely forgotten.
i was at a bbq today with other families and seeing them with their kids made me so lonely. it made me so single feeling. this once my-kid-is-all-i-need mom is starting to want something more. and it is a certain someone that i miss. and it is a certain someone that i want. and i just cant wait for a chance to make it all right.. and if he isnt right and it isnt right to find that special someone that isnt in the past but in the future and dreaming of someone just like me right now.

settling in...

internet in the new apartment is back up, so are the black out shades and some artwork =)


the little angel-pie is sleeping and i'm laying on the couch taking a much needed back break.. now that the munchkin is starting to crawl she wants to be held longer in between each try..

she truly is the light of my life..

a short list of movies i shouldn't be watching...

jerry mcguire.