How can this possibly be? A whole year has passed since our crazy, amazing, sweet, sassy, gorgeous little babe bounced into the world and started stealing hearts. It feels like she was just squished up inside of me, getting hiccups on the hour and kicking me so hard in the ribs I would lose my breath. Back when we had no idea who or what was inside of me, and only imagining the ways in which this baby was going to change our lives. Although we didn’t officially know the gender, I will never forget the moment I woke up in the middle of the night and my whole body was buzzing with the definite realization that the creature inside of me was most certainly a girl. I remember poking Gates awake and telling him that I knew it was a girl. And he basically patted me on the head and was like “I’m sure you’re right, (crazy)” but he would never understand what I felt that night, and that was just one of the many things about being the one to physically grow and birth a new life for us that made me sad that he would never really understand what it was like. I asked him all the time throughout the pregnancy, wasn’t he jealous? Didn’t he wish he could feel what I was going through at least for a little while? Didn’t he realize how amazing it all was??! As shitty as some of the stuff women have to go through during pregnancy, birth, and after is – I am still so in awe of the whole process, and feel beyond lucky that I am a woman.

It’s also crazy how quickly we forget how bad it was during our time in the trenches… those first 7 months where OG literally was not sleeping for more than 1 hour stretches at any time of the day or night and we were so exhausted I was bumping into walls and driving to the wrong clinic for work and putting the milk in the cupboard and forgetting if I had already put shampoo in my hair or not over and over so I was washing it like 4 times in the shower. Where if we did get her “down” I would collapse on the couch and cry because I knew that I shouldn’t even bother trying to get a little sleep myself because the second I would drift off she would be awake and screaming and hungry again. And how her reflux was so bad that I wouldn’t even bother changing out of spitty uppy clothes because I would just be covered in sweet, sticky, gloopy boob juice as soon as I put on something fresh, so we wandered around together damp and milky, both of us dazed and crazed and starving. That was months of our lives, and we were miserable and grumpy and so freaking tired… and yet looking back it doesn’t even seem like it could have been that bad. And we already are talking about how it wouldn’t be that hard to just have another thrown into the chaos. Babies turn people crazy, that’s for sure.

Having Olivia has given me a whole new perspective in life, and I am happy to say that I have taken my new insights and grown as a person. Of course your priorities shift naturally once you have a child as a necessity of um IDK, keeping your child (and yourself) alive, but this past year has helped me really cut the crap out of my life in a way I was never motivated to before. I also suddenly was seeing the world around me through the eyes of someone new to planet earth, someone who was amazed by every single thing every single day because everything was new and shiny – that I started putting real value into the everyday monotony of life in a way I hadn’t been before. Music is glorious, food is spectacular, the wind blowing through the trees is magical, butterflies flying by is beautiful, bubbles are mind blowing, animals are miraculous… And along with my new appreciation for the simple things in life, I also found myself wanting to keep my little naïve loaf of bread away from things in life that could possibly take away the sheen of perfection that currently enveloped her view of the world… And so some things and people that were putting a smudge on my own rose colored glasses suddenly seemed easy enough to part with. People who know me well used to tease me about how much I hated change… how I held on to things and memories for dear life and was deeply hurt when I had to get rid of possessions of nostalgic value, or when long standing traditions were no more. But throughout this year I’ve definitely changed, and I think for the better. I don’t need to keep forever the threadbare fleece blanket that I got when I was underdressed at a freezing Packer game with my dad and he helped me apply for a credit card to get the blanket as a freebie to keep my cold ass warm enough to endure 4 quarters on an aluminum bench.  I used to associate the blanket with holding onto the memory of that game and time spent with my dad, but I know now that the memories will always be there, blanket or not. I think it was watching Olivia change from newborn to toddler seemingly overnight that helped me see that you cannot possibly hold on to every single moment in life, no matter how many tiny onesies and favorite pacifiers, and snuggly baby blankets you tuck away somewhere… so I’ve all of a sudden found it easy to get rid of things. They are just things. And when my parents teased me about what I would do when they sell their house someday I think I shocked the heck out of them when I said that would be ok, that they needed to do whatever made them happiest. This coming from the kid who sobbed uncontrollably when they replaced some carpet once because I was so resistant to change. I must be getting close to being a grown up.

HOWEVER, one thing that I know for a fact you can never have enough of, in this age of digital file storage, is pictures. I can, and will, shamelessly live behind my camera for at least part of life, from the daily, everyday, boring, things to the big, spectacular, miraculous, adventurous things… It is so awesome to be able to document so much of life in photographs. #nofilter.

This new grown up mindset comes at truly the most perfect time, since we are officially moving out of our beloved Bayview neighborhood and on to bigger lots, higher taxes, and the desperately needed MORE SPACE. Who doesn’t need a 10 car garage? So while I’ve definitely shed my fair amount of tears for the big change upon us and all of the goodbyes that make leaving our first home together so hard… And though I’ve definitely been terribly sad to leave the place where we came home as husband and wife and where we first brought home our peanut, and where each and every nook, cranny, and shedded dog hair holds a special memory – from the billboard across the street that I would watch change for hours on end in the middle of the night while I rocked a fussy baby while the snow softly fell and my heart was full enough with love and wonder that the lack of sleep didn’t seem so bad, to the light fixture in the kitchen that Gates and I replaced after some youtube tutorials and a quick check that our life insurance policies were in order and only after we started the project and were in too deep did we realize it was dusk and we had to turn the electricity off to hook up the new wires and so we had to complete the task by candlelight and flashlights, to the couch where we once laughed so hard over something involving the word “specks” that I couldn’t breathe and thought I was having a stroke… the time has come for a brand new adventure and I couldn’t be more excited for all of the new memories we are about to make.

So…

Goodnight Bayview

In the light tan house

There were years of love

And a baby’s bed

And a picture of –

Said baby’s sweet fuzzy head

There was one little dog sitting on his chair

And one grouchy cat

And a litany of hats

And a comb and brush and a bowl full of mush

And a very tired Mommy whispering “hush”

Goodnight room

Goodnight bloom

Goodnight Lake Michigan reflecting the moon

Goodnight Puddler’s

And goodnight South Shore

Goodnight Groppi’s

and 794

Goodnight Triangle, goodnight Goodkind, goodnight air,

Goodnight Bayview, everywhere.

 

Suburban bliss, here we come!