Christening Photo

Here we all are on Elena's big day. The extra girl is Isabel, my cousin and the daughter of Elena's godparents.

Baby Elena nears one

Having a baby is just about the loveliest thing in the world and pretty soon, I won't have a little baby anymore. Oh sure, the toddler years are even more fun and I am enjoying watching her personality unfold. But this year has flown by and now my last little baby, who will always be MY baby, won't be a baby anymore.

The sleepless nights and how the early days pass in a blur of feedings, changings and naps. Those beautiful moments when I strip her naked and trace the line of her chubby leg and just marvel at what my body created. The sheer perfection of her body and the delight her tummy, tushie and chubby, yummy legs incite. The new discoveries; the first smiles, push-ups, rolls, dragging forward on straight legs, thumbsucking, new tastes and new people to love her. I can't even pinpoint certain moments with Elena like I can with Eliza and this bothers me. I suppose this is true of the second child--the first is so new. I remember coming to get her after she spent a few hours at C's for the first time. She just kept smiling at me and I realized, oh, she's happy to see me. I don't remember the first time she waved but I can see her waving. Last week at Costco she pointed, copying Eliza but it wasn't the first time she pointed.

I don't remember the first time she finally crawled on bent legs instead of trying to move forward in a downward dog kind of position. I just know one day she learned to crawl for real. She now knows how to get from a crawling position to a seated position and she'll often drag a straight right leg when crawling to make getting onto her butt easier. I remember the first time she showed real excitement towards food, hurling herself forward in her high chair to get to a spoon of bananas. It was at my mother's house. I don't remember her first bath in the bathtub but I know now, how much fun she has flapping her arms up and down in front of her to splash.

She delights now in her little body, moving from one position to another. She loves toys and is very curious, wanting to open cabinets and doors. She gets a real thrill from banging on Eliza's piano and very clearly likes her father, however little he's been around. She loves my mother, craning her neck to watch her whenever she's in the room. I remember her excitedly crawling towards my mother and my mother had a friend over, too busy to notice. Elena got very upset and my mother had to stop what she was doing and pick her up.

I remember the first time Eliza spotted her on the living room floor, gnawing on a chocolate valentine heart still in it's wrapper. She cried real tears when I took it away from her, clearly enjoying this new and wonderful treat.

She loves to talk now and though she can't say words, she has long conversations with us, the TV and her toys. If I sing "boom boom boom" she makes a "bbb" sound. So she is trying to talk. She is a lovely, lovely, lovely little baby.

I guess I remember some stuff but it still doesn't seem like enough. It all goes by way too fast. I like the sleeplessness of the beginning because it has a way of making it all unfold in slow motion. Then the nights get longer, the sleep gets better and everything moves forward at warp speed. And I can only hold on and embrace what is happening because live everyone, I am unable to freeze this moment and make it last longer.

Oh my baby Elena, what a wonderful gift you are.

Elena's Big Day

So my little baby was baptized yesterday, April 11th 2010 just three weeks shy of her first birthday. We had an absolutely lovely day.

The weather was perfect, nearly 70 degrees. My cousin Jim, the godfather and his wife, godmother arrived the night before with two of their three kids. Eliza and her cousins enjoyed their first sleepover together in the playroom and surprised us parents by actually sleeping.

The day of the christening was special but I had everything pretty well organized. I ordered sandwiches from the excellent deli down the street and had my father pick up the cake and fruit platter from Wegman's. My only culinary contribution was a pear/arugula soup that had only partially defrosted but it quickly thawed on the stove and I threw it in the crock pot to heat while we were at the church.

Getting Elena ready was fun. Leslie brought the christening gown her godmother made for her daughter Isabel. It is a gorgeous long white gown that is fitted on top but flows down well past the feet. She looked like a fairy princess with a long trailing, train. Leslie had to put it on and it was a bit complex and Eliza and her cousins Daniel and Isabel helped. Then I made sure to get pictures of Elena with her godparents, cousins and sister. No good photo of Eliza in her christening gown exists as C was rushing me and bossing me around that day. This time, I relished the fact that he would arrive shortly before the church ceremony and the prep time would unfold without the stress of his commands. I do regret being so focused on getting photos of her with various people that I forgot to get one good photo of her alone in the dress. So every occasion carries it's own regrets.

When C arrived with his two kids, we took more photos and then walked to the church. We got there to find Aunt Carmie, my godmother, the only one there. Soon we were all assembled and we found we'd be the only family there that day which made the occasion solely ours.

Elena was her usual, mellow self. She was pretty tired at this point but she quietly sucked her thumb during most of the prayers. Daniel and Isabel, eager to help, became the Priest's assistants. Holding open the bible, Daniel became an integral part of the service. Leslie was every bit the doting, attentive godmother, unfastening Elena's gown so the priest could reach her neck and then refastening it at just the right moment. Leslie held her for the big moment when the water splashed her head. It was truly a lovely time.

A large group of us walked back to my place to enjoy the beautiful weather. I expected 29 people at my apartment, 26 showed up. I am a perfectionist and it wasn't perfect--the gallon of iced tea I'd made was gone in 15 minutes, I forgot to put serving spoons on the fruit platter, my father forgot to bring enough ice to fill the ice bucket. But it was still a wonderful day and considering I'd done it all with very little help, everything went smoothly. When I made the toast, celebrating my godmother, the fact that my mother is Jim's godmother and now he is my daughter's godfather, and Eliza's wonderful godmother Michelle, I really felt the warmth and love of everyone. C's family is annoying, as always, but it was wonderful to see his kids interact with Jim's kids. It was the kind of family gathering we used to have at my grandmother's and it was wonderful.

My grandparents have yet to see Elena, rotting away in an assisted living facility far, far away. It will cost me around 1,000 bucks to see them which is why I've not made the trip yet. But I miss them. One one table I put a bottle of wine from Abruzzi, my grandmother's native region of Italy. On the other table, I placed a bottle of wine from Calabria, my grandfather's homeland. This was my way of making them part of our day.

Congratulations Elena. I am blessed to have such a joyful, wonderful, beautiful little girl.

Rainy Days

I'm doing something unusual right now in the sense that I'm writing while both girls are in the room with me. It's been a tough day and I'm hoping right now that when it ends, I'll feel energized by the fact that we managed to have a good day. We don't have any real problems at the moment, no horrific stomach flus or injuries that would make today a really tough day. Just the typical, nasty rainy day blues.

Elena has been sick for over a month now. I don't know if it's one cold that will never leave her or a series of cold, one right after the other but Eliza has nicknamed her "Run Run." She's had an ocean of snot in various colors draining from her nose since late February. Two doctor visits and a 10 day antibiotic have helped, but not eliminated the problem. Throughout much of this, she has maintained her sunny disposition so that's helped me maintain my sanity.

Today she is protesting more than usual but right now she's calm and enjoying playing with Eliza's magic markers. Eliza and I did an arts and crafts project today, making ducks, flowers and Easter baskets from cut-out pieces of construction paper. The six ducks are now taped to the window over their blue construction paper pond. This little art project managed to keep Eliza pretty happy for close to two hours now. And the happiness continues for the moment as she happily names her little ducks "Sarah, Lara, Vonn and Tina." The poor little baby ducks are not only legless but apparently not worthy of names either but they don't seem to mind.

The playroom is a mess and Eliza just tramped on something and now screams like she's enduring an injection.

"I have to clean up this messy room," she screeches, then promptly sits down. Now she's back on her feet marching and the room remains a mess. I could push it, yes, but you should have heard the tongue lashing I got when I asked her to take her plate from the table to the counter. She spewed forth everything from "I don't wanna" to "You don't like me" to "I'm not a very nice girl." Never mind the fact that I tell her it would be very nice of her to clean up her plate, she'd much rather cry and hop on the poor self-esteem bandwagon by wallowing in the bad self-image that comes with selfishness instead of performing a simple act that might correct this poor picture of herself. Sometimes it's not worth the fight but I do find it interesting how early they learn to manipulate by claiming to feel unloved in order to get out of helping around the house.

It's 12:40 now so I'm less than halfway through this day that started with Eliza's bloody nose. As the baby cried, I stripped the bed and I have to say Eliza was very good about cleaning up her face and the bathroom door. I'd just gotten her bedding blood-free and back on her bed when I scooped Elena out of her crib and realized she'd apparently crapped during her nap. And oh yeah, that Huggie leaked.

So laundry machine's going (thank goodness I have one after 15 years of living in New York City and laundromats) Eliza just tossed a stuffed bear wearing an "I heart Israel" sweater at me and Elena tries to write on a plastic storage bin with a twistable crayon. It's all good here, right now, I swear. Tonight when I sit down to watch "Lost" that show better be worthy of the day I survived. It better be the best television episode that ever was, the kind of TV to rival "Who Shot JR" that people talk about for years to come.

But it won't be. Oh well.

Spring

I haven't written about my girls for a while so I'll start with something Eliza said in the bathtub last night. Both girls were bathing together and Eliza presses her little 4-year-old butt to Elena's 11month old butt and says "Look, we're touching tushies, like a tushie high-five." For the rest of the bath, she continued to roll her butt towards Elena's and say "High Five!"

It was a lovely, funny moment in a lifetime of funny moments. We enjoyed a wonderful spell of fine weather last week. Oh Elena's been sick with oceans of snot running down her face but we enjoyed a playground at the beach, the local playground at the lake, two get-togethers with Eliza's school friends and a picnic in the park that was crashed by a squirrel. Throughout her sickness, Elena has proven to be an absolute joy, the kind of baby one dreams of having but doesn't usually exist. When she spiked a fever, she was unsmiling and needy for all of 24 hours. But even now, as I type this, she is crawling on the floor happily playing with an empty snack bag (bad mama) and a plastic circle of fake peas or grapes or some kind of play food.

Eliza has grown more challenging. She wants constant attention and entertainment and for a single mother, this is difficult. I do not relish plopping her in front of the TV for hours (what do you think she's doing right now) but it has become necessary. She wants constant companionship and while she does seem quite capable of playing on her own, lately she has protested doing so. She misses the cutoff for Kindergarten here next year, a small detail that has filled me with a lot of anxiety. Could I afford New York, she'd be registered for Kindergarten next year. Because I can't, she is set to attend a local preK program that only lasts for 2 and a half hours a day. It will be her third year of preschool and a big step down for her but I've fought with both the local public school and even the privates on this issue and they won't budge. If they're going to stick to a date on the calendar so it's the allmighty, it shouldn't vary from state-to-state. It's a much harder pill to swallow when I know all I have to do is move back to NY and she'd start school when I think she should.

I even thought about relinquishing her to C but the thing is, he doesn't really want her. When I tried to talk to him about the subject, he simply said "That's the way it is" and didn't offer any guidance. I am glad he knows he's not capable of being a full-time anything, but I can't force a situation he does not want just so she'll start school on time. So instead I obsess about it and I'm thinking of moving to Connecticut where I also have family. But it's very expensive and I can't do it without a job.

So I've spent a lot of time looking and applying for jobs. Since I started my job search last fall I've only received two rejections and one confirmation that they received my application. That's it. I've applied for something like 50 jobs and this is all I have to show for it. Yes, it's disheartening, especially when I add that my savings runs out and I won't be able to stay in this apartment or any apartment when that happens. So I'm hoping to find a job before my savings runs out. I am growing less optimistic as the days pass.

But still my girls are lovely. Elena turns 11 months on Sunday! Only one more month before she hits a year! It is sad and wonderful at the same time. I will cry as I bid adieu to her babyhood but I know we have so many more wonderful moments and milestones together. This is only beginning.

John Edwards and Child Support

I'm going to take some time today to write about an issue that's important to me. Yesterday, I watched the ladies on "The View" talk about John Edwards and the baby he allegedly fathered with a woman outside his marriage. Barbara Walters said the woman, Reille Hunter, has kept the child out of the media spotlight and John Edwards supposedly has agreed to financially support them. Sherri broke in saying that Mr. Edwards only had a responsibility to support the child and Barbara Walters corrected her statement by saying he's agreed to support the child. So I guess even women think that a man who fathers child should only financially help the child and not the person who cares for the child.

Forget that John Edwards is married and that this woman should have known better. We have no idea what Mr. Edwards may have said to her in private. The one thing we do know, without a doubt, is that he's a liar.

I bring this up because I'm disappointed that a panel of women still think that men who have unprotected sex should only be obligated to support the child. It's this kind of thinking that has made child support such a ridiculously low amount of money. Yes, I'm a single mother so this is an issue that's very important to me.

Most women can't provide a home, food, clothes, health insurance and school costs on child support alone, unless the father has a sizable salary and is willing to pay above the mandated child support minimum. So most single mothers must work to supplement whatever support they receive from the father, and this is true if the parents are married or not. Alimony and money above child support have become optional as women are now seen as people able to earn an income.

However, what everyone seems to be ignoring is how hard it is to find and maintain work when caring for small children. If the woman is lucky enough to have a good career before she has children, as a single parent, she might find herself unable to keep up her workload without any help from a spouse or family member. Or if she's some one like me, the job that she had before having children may simply not be possible with children. And the idea that once the kids start school, the mom can work is also not accounting for the 50 hour work weeks many people put in now.

Should the child's mother not have health insurance, a home, the ability to care for herself so she can take care of this child? If people argue that some women may be "gold diggers" who use a child to get money from a wealthy man, I say it's the wealthy man's responsibility to protect that money, especially if he's married.

Judging by the women's response on "The View," only women with good, stable jobs who can afford to take care of themselves and provide a home for their children should have children. It seems like birth control and the right to work have served to make only women responsible for the children two people create. Men can go ahead and have sex with whoever they want without having to worry about consequences. Depending on where they live and how much money they make, they might only have to pay $300 bucks a month for that kid. And it doesn't matter if he's married to the mother because unless the couple is married for seven years or more, child support is all he might be required to pay.

Birth control and women's growing numbers in the work force should not serve as another excuse for men to act irresponsibly.

In terms of my own situation with C, many of my friends have asked if he's financially helping me and the answer is yes. I believe C is giving me more money than would be required of him by law. But it still barely covers our expenses and doesn't cover my rent at all. If C had custody of the kids, he would pay a babysitter more than the monthly check he cuts for me. Factor in the cost of school, food and doctor copayments, he'd easily be paying twice as much money per month to care for his kids if he had custody. Sure, he'd get the opportunity to live with them, but the kids would spend the majority of their time being shuffled from daycare to school.

But that's only my side of the story as as you know, it's his word against mine. Only the numbers are provable.

Here are the numbers in the state of New York. By law, for two children, the non-custodial parent is required to pay 25% of his take-home pay, minus any deductions for other child support to the custodial parent. Health insurance for the children, school and child care are suggested, but not required by law. The non-custodial parent must provide a home for himself but does he need 75% of his take home pay for this? But by law, 25% is all that is required for the care, feeding and housing of two children.

Mr. Edwards may be financially responsible for the rest of his life for an extramarital affair he chose to have. But Ms. Hunter, she's the one that has to get up in the middle of the night when the kid is sick or night potty training, she has to prepare and provide meals, take the kid to the doctor, drive the kid to and from soccer practice, tour schools, fill out the required paperwork, serve on the PTA, take the kid for new clothes and haircuts and dental appointments. When she has to work or get her own haircut or maybe even go to the doctor herself, she has to arrange for some one to be with her child. In fact for the next several years, she can't make any kind of plans without making sure some one is available to take care of her child. Is this massive responsibility worth nothing?

The rewards of motherhood are great and worth the responsibility Ms. Hunter will incur. However, please stop letting men off the hook so easily by saying a men should only pay for their children. Women typically still earn less than men and still do the majority of caring for aging parents. Two people create a child, two people have the ability to prevent a pregnancy from happening should they choose to have sex. I think asking men to financially help the women who care for their children is reasonable. After all, she is caring for this wonderful, living, breathing part of him.

Filet Mignon would be so nice

As much as I love both my daughters, let's face it the games a four-year-old plays can be so tedious. It seems that my daughter has been obsessed with food since birth; first the boob, then sweet potatoes, then a fish stew I couldn't shovel in her mouth fast enough, then chocolate ice cream and endless bottles of milk. I don't remember when I got her the first set of pretend food, I only know that from day one, it's been the favorite. Not the first set, most of which is gone, but any pretend food. Her Melissa and Doug ice cream set might be the all-time most played with toy and it doesn't even show signs of wear and tear. Chrissa's picnic lemonade set from the American Girl store easily gets more play than all of the dolls Eliza owns combined. It may have been the best $25 I've ever spent.

The only problem is Eliza wants to pour lemonade and play picnic constantly. I can't tell you how many thousands of pretend calories I've consumed slurping that lemonade. The set also contains little sandwiches and watermelon slices. Yesterday, when Eliza decided to play beach, naturally the picnic set got in on the act as well. No one goes to the beach without sandwiches and lemonade, right?

Tired of beach and the endless cups of lemonade, when Eliza opened her beach bag ready to offer me another "picnic snack" I requested filet mignon. This would stump her and hopefully end this endless waltz of slurpy mime chewing.

"les-ignon?" Eliza looked at me quizzically. "Is that another word for sandwich?"

I laughed and shook my head. "It's like steak," I said.

"I don't have steak,"Eliza said. "How about this yummy, delicious sandwich?"

"Sure," I said, probably sounding similar to a tire deflating. I long for spring and real picnics outside with both my girls. But for now, it's a carpet beach day and fake sandwiches with an endless pitcher of pink lemonade.