on the move!

I wrote this a few weeks ago and just noticed I never posted it:

So because my daughter is a genius and very advanced for her age and will probably graduate from Princeton when she's ten, it wasn't a surprise when she started sitting up at 5 months, scooting around shortly thereafter, and pulling herself up at 7 and a half months. She didn't crawl, but I figured she was just gearing up to start walking at a very early age, skipping the crawling altogether.
Well. Newsflash. Tessa tried crawling yesterday. She did it a couple times, put a few feet under her belt before packing up and heading to bed. This morning, she is crawling all over the place, and quick. Crawling anywhere she sees. It's like a whole new world of experiences has opened up for her. It's great! She crawls to the shelf and pulls the books off, crawls to the couch, pulls herself up, and pulls my files onto the floor, yanks my computer cord and pulls it out of the computer, crawls to the fireplace and pulls up on the sharp stone ledge, grabbing handfuls of wood and ash in the process. She crawls to the trash and pulls it over. The laundry bin. The stool. The printer.
Good lord. I was so enjoying sitting and playing with her. Now it's going to be chasing her while she plays. It means constant cleaning so she doesn't eat every little speck in sight, it means covering all sharp edges, it means never letting her out of my sight. I was so, so content with the stationary baby. But the stationary baby has little left to explore, and will eventually branch out. Such is life. Now, what ELSE this means is that the more she moves, the more tired out she'll get. I guess each stage has its challenges and its benefits.
Regardless, having a baby is so much fun, and the most wonderful fulfilling thing in the world. I love watching the excitement and wonder with which she sees everything. We could learn a lot of lessons from babies. Everything can be looked at in a new light, change is constant, life is exciting, meeting new people is a good thing, be content with what you have, smile all the time and other people will smile too... It is cheezy but it's true. This child has turned my life around. Her wonder is my wonder. When life is good, I have Tessa. When all else fails, I have Tessa.

one day at a time

Today, unlike yesterday and the day before, was a good day. It will be like this. some days will be terrible and I will be miserable, and some days I will feel good and optimistic. I dropped T off at daycare, picked up my uniform (scrubs) from Philly, drove back, ate lunch, picked T up, and went into New Hope to meet another mama and baby. This mama in particular was someone I knew from high school, haven't seen since then, but I have to say how much of a relief it is to find another mom friend here in NJ. I finally had great mom friends in Charlottesville and had to leave them. It was something I would miss more than a lot of things. My old friendships are no less wonderful, but there is something significant and important about having friends with children. You need to be able to relate, to share, to complain, to ask advice, to commiserate. So today I got to do that, and it was really good.
School starts on monday. Right now, I feel like I can do this, and I'm okay, and I can be happy. Today Tessa was happy and we smiled and laughed together and she wasn't cranky all day and miserable. She reminded me today why we are where we are. Because we are going to have a better life. This is all a learning curve... I'm going to have to figure it out as I go along, and as with anything, I will get used to it and it will be my norm. Eventually it will feel like it has always been this way. And then things will be okay and we will have the life that was the goal, the end result. I have this baby, this sweet, smart, feisty baby who has my smile and who, like me, is hard to make laugh... We are a team. We're going to do this together. She is my heart and soul, my motivation, my reason. I feel very mama-bear right now. I'm going to do this, and we're going to be okay.

I found this today. It was good to hear someone who does and feels the same way I do. She left her husband when her baby was a few months old.
http://mssinglemama.com/2007/11/19/single-motherhood-turns-out-not-so-easy-but-not-so-tough-either/#comments

deep breath

so I heard through the grapevine single parenting was tough.... tough doesn't even cut it.
there are days when I literally convince myself that I am completely incapable of doing this on my own. i don't know if it is a phase or teething or the constant cold (thanks to daycare) but Tessa hasn't allowed me to leave her side. I get absolutely NOTHING done. Nothing is about me anymore. Nothing. And that is not a complaint. But it makes me feel really small, and really insecure, and weak. I feel like I am a slave to my life. There is so little pleasure right now, outside of the joy my daughter brings me. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. When I have a free moment, I am doing laundry, dishes, making bottles, preparing baby food, taking care of school stuff, running to appointments, washing diapers. I can barely fit in showering and making myself food. I don't even have time to eat. Everything I do revolves around Tessa. Don't take this as resentment- it's not. It is just the way things are. And it is fucking hard.
If I can barely make it right now, how will I ever make it when school starts and I have ten+ hour days plus homework and reading? When in my spare time, I have to study, how will I do the rest? This is where not being single would make life so much easier. Fuck, fuck, this is going to be so hard.
I chose this. This was my decision. I left, I thought I would be happier and a better mom. Instead, I feel completely incapable, selfish, and like I am abandoning my daughter by starting one of the most intense, hardest, and rigorous nursing programs in the country. How can I do this? How will I get through this? My daughter is going to forget about me and I will become so much less important to her. I won't be there to teach her, to watch her first steps, to hear her first words.
But I am doing this for her. It's all for her. Everything, every step I take, is for her. For her to have the best life, the happiest life.
I am barely going to see my daughter for the next year, and it is ripping my heart out of my chest. I feel like the worst person in the world. I feel like I don't deserve her. I feel like I make the worst choices and like I am not strong enough or tough enough to get through this year. I am a wreck already, trying to get by as a single parent who gets to stay home with her daughter. Add to that this intense program. It is fucking killing me.
Single mother. Single mother. Single mother. It still hasn't sunk in. I cringe every time I see two parents with a baby. I can barely speak to friends of mine who have happy relationships and are parents together. That should have been me.
But do you stay with someone who makes you feel so terrible all the time, someone who doesn't want the same things as you, someone who wants to be in control all the time, who cares so much about appearance but not about truth, who says black only because I say white, who can't grow up, can't settle down, blames all the problems on everyone else, never takes responsibility, is too old to just be starting out, who hasn't changed a bit since becoming a parent, who finds their baby to be a novelty and not a real and serious responsibility? I could go on.
I made the decision, I am starting school, I am not going to see Tessa, I will have no social life, I will be miserable and stressed.
God damn it, no one told me life would be this fucking hard.
But this promise to myself- after this year, when I am done with school, I will see the benefits huge and everlasting, and I will make the life I want to live. I will be the person I want to be, I will be thankful that I made it through the hardest time in my life, I will be stronger and smarter and more capable.I will have a solid career for the rest of my life. I will be able to support myself and my daughter, ON MY OWN. That is huge. I will have the hang of single parenting. I will make the best of it. I will find happiness again, and I will be the best mother in the fucking world. And maybe, just maybe, someday I will find someone worthy to share my life with. For now that doesn't matter. But maybe someday. FInd my joy in Tessa, be grateful for the gift of motherhood, be thankful I have wonderful support. I promise these things to myself.
I will be okay. One year. One year.

yoga babies

By the way, before I left, my mom and my beautiful friend Natalie threw me a going away party. It was wonderful, of course. But I think the highlight for me was this moment:


These ladies and I were in prenatal yoga together. Jen, far right, was our instructor. It was how natalie and I became close, and how I met amelia and jen, who ended up being my birth coach.
I love my friends to death, all of them, but it has been really special going through pregnancy and childbirth and early motherhood with friends who know exactly how you feel.
However, I am a really lucky gal for having such lovely, wonderful friends in general.

moving on.

Here I am back in Virginia.
I moved on Friday. And spent the weekend on the verge of a panic attack, biting back tears every second. I looked at the disaster that is the product of a move, all the boxes waiting to be unpacked, and cried. I thought of virginia and cried. my pup, my mom, my friends. my ruined relationship, broken family. i thought of tessa starting daycare and cried.
And I woke up this morning and couldn't think, couldn't put one foot in front of the other. I could barely move. I just wanted to collapse and sleep forever.
This hasn't happened to me in a long, long time. I found such happiness in my life in Charlottesville. Such joy in being a mother, in having a bright beam of light that is my baby girl.
And i moved, and I felt my strong foundation start to crumble around me. So I came back here, because I just couldn't do it. I had to be here one last time until I can visit again. Have to see the doctor and maybe go on some drugs because I don't know if I can do this on my own.
I, officially, am a single mother. I think that is the first time I've officially told myself that, admitted it to myself.
And sometimes I really don't know if I can do this. I mean, I know I can, I will, I have to, because my daughter is the most important goddamned thing in the entire world and deserves the absolute best life-- she gave me light, she gave me happiness, she made me stronger and smarter, she made me a woman. It is going to be hard. Really hard.
But damn it, my life could be so much fucking worse. I have so much to be grateful for. I will not be sorry for myself.
I know I need to stop writing about how hard, how sad, bla bla bla. I guess though this blog is really for me, so I can remember what I went through at what time, and look back and see how I've changed, and how Tessa has changed. So sorry, readers, if you are bored or fed up. But really, this is for me. I need to put this down into words so I can remember, and remind myself to hold it together. To really do the best I can.