Balance

Genevieve is cruising along now. She waddled across the entire living room with her walker a bunch of times. Her toes are curling under less; she’s learning to trust her feet’s ability to support her.

I worked at trusting my legs’ strength to support me at a yoga class this afternoon. My muscles were quivering, sweat was dripping down my chest and I briefly doubted whether I’d make it through without passing out. The final relaxation was such a relief at the end—with the cool breeze from the ceiling fans wafting over my tired body.

Genevieve is learning to find her balance and so am I. We learn when we’re young and then we need to keep relearning, or perhaps “discovering” is a better word. She’s discovering the world for the first time. I’m discovering the world and myself for the umpteenth time.

That’s the beauty of yoga. It gives me the opportunity to begin again at anytime.

More

Genevieve and I played in F.A.O. Schwartz for over two hours. The first stuffed animal she hugged to her chest was a brown shaggy thing called an Ugly Doll. It had two removable Velcro kidneys. Next was a Peek-a-Boo baby doll wearing a duck suit, then a moment later, a Peek-a-Boo baby doll, Pistachio, wearing a hippo suit.

She hugged at least half a dozen bunnies, two tigers, a handful of teddy bears and a small ottoman. She rode a fuzzy rocking airplane and duck, crawled along a $250,000 life-size piano, which she drooled upon, and wiped up a few hallways of the store with her roughed-up pink knees.

We then met up with Nick, rode the subway home together and rented some videos. We watched “Sideways” tonight. This is the kind of film I like—character driven, realistic and very funny in that uncomfortable, you feel for the person way.

Genevieve is really progressing with her eating and speaking talents. She seems to be clearly saying, “More”, when she wants, well, more. And she ate corn niblets off of an adult fork, all on her own. I wish I could get that excited when I speak single-syllable words and correctly aim an eating utensil into my mouth.

I guess I could. I mean, there’s nothing stopping me. Except my own, what should I call it? My own adult and reasonable self. Why must I be so reasonable?

Why can’t I just cut loose and find joy in the word “more”?

Rolling

Muggy, muggy, muggy. Damp skin and wet clothes. Ah, I love the summer.

Genevieve said her first true word today as Nick was leaving, “Bye-bye”. She waved and said it again to Rebecca when we were leaving her place. Then later on she waved to the toilet before I flushed and I got another “bye” from her.

She’s also almost saying poop, as in, “Bye-bye, poo-poo”. I show her how we dump her poop in the toilet, flush it and then it magically disappears. I remember reading somewhere that sometimes toddlers get upset when their poopies go bye-bye, so I’m glad to see at the moment she has no attachment to them.

She’s also feeding herself all of a sudden. She can dip her spoon into the baby food jar, scoop and get most of the food into her mouth. True, on some swipes toward the mouth the spoon turns upside down and it’s anybody’s guess which direction the food will fly. And she thinks it’s hysterical when I’m picking her food off the floor to rub her sticky-icky fingers in my hair. I must admit, I find it rather humorous, too.

We’re heading into a holiday weekend, which makes me very happy. I’m looking forward to spending family and friends time.

On the whole mood thing today, I am feeling pretty okay, which for me, is pretty okay. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but I’m rolling with it. Rolling with my feelings. Rolling with not getting everything done. Yup, tonight, I’m just rolling.

Giddy Up

Genny and I got quite a bit done today. We returned some things, went to Starbucks, dropped off the van for inspection and all the other usual suspects. I was able to keep plugging along all day even when I was feeling on the verge of getting depressed with Genny. I think I was doing in spite of my feelings. I chugged through my depression.

Gen even took two decent naps today. I snuck one in myself this morning. We had a decent dinner and the dishes have already been washed. It’s only 8:30 and Nick and I have already spent some quality time together. He’s just run out to rent us a video. I can’t remember the last time we did that.

As I’m writing about all these good things, there’s a voice in the back of my skull beckoning me, whispering to me, twitching it’s little finger at me. This voice is creepy and scraggly and it wants me to remember all the things I have to be anxious about. It’s trying to remind me that I am not adequate. It’s seeping, oozing the message that I’ll be collapsing into its comfortable teeth any moment now.

I feel like if I keep writing about it in this manner that it won’t be able to get me. I feel as if I’ve actually separated myself from it for the first time in a long while. I want to feel giddy. In fact, I’m on the verge of it, but there’s a corner of myself saying don’t give in to the bliss because if I do, then I’ll be sucked up by the raspy creature. To give in to the bliss is the equivalent to opening myself to the monsters that lie beneath the bliss.

But I feel like that’s just another trick of the depression monster to keep me from dropping into bliss. Damn it, I will be happy now. I will allow myself to enjoy this feeling of being enough. I am not a fraud. I am authentic. I am real. I am a good person.

I am riding this camel out of the desert. I’m riding this baby to the Promised Land I see in the distance. That’s it. I’m riding there now.

Enough

Another long nap for Genny this morning. Once again I had to wake her up in time to get ready to go on our missions for the day. Genny was off to the babysitter and I had a job interview and a therapy appointment.

Well, no one was at the office for my job interview—it was a part time writing gig. Then I hustled uptown to Lloyd’s and got to “go to the chair” for the first time. The chair is simply a comfy chair where the hypnotism happens. He led me through a hypnotism about allowing change to happen and then invited my unconscious to show me anything it had for me.

I had a vision of myself riding on a double-humped camel through the desert. I was laughing and resting my head against his front bump; I was sunk down in between the two humps. Then my mind snapped as if to say that most camels only have one hump, so suddenly I was riding atop a single humped camel and I could see a sparkling city ahead that I was riding toward. Pretty cool. I left his office feeling pretty sparkly from head to toe.

Gen and I then got chores done—grocery store, pharmacy, laundry, making dinner. Nick and I even worked on my website tonight. Now, of course, I am utterly wiped out. What else is new?

I don’t think I’m going to get much more done tonight and that’s okay. Enough for one day. Enough.

Adieu

Genevieve took a massive nap this morning. In fact, I had to wake her up after two hours and twenty minutes so that we could get ready to leave—her for the babysitter and me for work.

I shushed my way into her room and sat and watched her nap for a few minutes before I woke her up. She sleeps in a soft-sided pack and play and she was sleeping on her belly with her butt up in the hair and her head pushing into the mesh siding. Her two favorite fingers were gently being sucked in her mouth and her dirty blonde hair was sweated sideways to her forehead.

I think this is the sweetest I ever see her, when she’s sleeping. And not just because she’s asleep and not harassing me, but because she looks so perfect and peaceful. Unfortunately for her babysitter, she didn’t look this peaceful at all this afternoon. I guess that one big nap was enough to carry her through today.

I’m totally not liking my haircut today. It looks nothing like it did when Danny the hairdresser styled it. I think it’s hopeless. Heavy sigh. I guess that’s what you get when you spend twenty-five bucks on a haircut. And my cheap manicure is chipping already, too. Have I learned my lesson? Absolutely not.

Tonight is bill night and I have a lot of other doodads to try and get done, so I must say adieu.

Sunday

There’s nothing like a day of physical labor to get your muscles aching—especially when the day before you took an intense yoga class. We moved, cleaned and organized our new hand me down furniture today. Genny was content to crawl around from room to room with us. Everywhere she went she found a new piece of low-lying furniture to pull herself up to standing with.

We also made a Costco, or is it Cosco, run and stocked our pantry well. Then we were back home doing more work.

Our apartment is finally beginning to look like adults live here. Funny, now that our place clearly has a baby living in it (lots of toys in every room), it feels more adult.

I wonder if it’s another sign of adulthood, I’m feeling very tired and it’s not even 10:30 yet. I think it’s just the result of a nonstop weekend. It’s time for me to shut down so that I will be able to start back up again tomorrow.