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A First Birthday and yet another sad goodbye |
1)
I’ve spent the last six weeks doing nothing but suctioning out boogers
from Annabelle’s nose as she catches every bug that reaches even the
exurbs of the Twin Cities
2)
I got lost in a timewarp at a used baby supply store called Once Upon a Child.
I went in and when I came out I realized I’d lost six weeks of time while
hovering over a used Pottery Barn chair.
3)
My dog ate my computer. (I know, I
know, that excuse only worked when McDuff was alive)
4)
I look Annabelle on a hike in the
6)
Her birthday party was so elaborate that I spent weeks with the party planners
I hired to make the event the social event of the year. I’m sure it will
be compared to Capote’s Black and White ball in years to come.
On
a sadder note, my beloved 16 year old basset, Murphy, who was my first daughter
(Margaret always said “Murphy taught you to be a mom”) and who
spent 16 years at my side left me for the
Annabelle
truly continues to be the most amazing child. I sometimes watch her laughing at
a ladybug or screaming with happiness as she hangs on her jungle gym and I
wonder – if her birthmother could see her now, what would she think? Would she have still made the same
decision to let her go? Before I
adopted Annabelle, I thought I would be so offended and upset if someday she
decided to go find her birthmom. I thought that somehow it would diminish my
role in her life if she needed to find that other mom. But now I realize I am
going to be fine with that decision if it comes. I got to see her face light up
when she went for a ride around the block in her little wagon. I watched her experience pizza for the
first time. I know how to make her
smile by just singing a funny song to her.
And I’m so proud of her for being an amazing baby that now,
I’d actually like to share her with her birthmom and say “hey, you
did good by this little girl”.
Okay,
on to documentation. Oh, where to
start.
I’ll
try to go chronologically.
Outdoor
time
We
spent so much time outside this summer so here are a couple of photos of the
setup in my yard….. I have a
lot of yardwork to do and Annabelle would just hang out on her playset while I
worked. And then we got to draw the admiration of everyone who walked by too (I
live on a corner with lots of walkers around).
Murphy
Last
photo of Annabelle and Murphy, on the day Murph died.
Visit
fromKokshetau friends
Then
we got a great visit from Cindy, Tony and Jadyn Kaplan – the Kaplans were
in Kokshetau with me for a couple of weeks. They live in Portland, but both sets of
their parents live in South Minneapolis so I will get to see them when the come
back for visits. We remarked on how
at this point in their lives, Jadyn and Annabelle had lived together longer
than they had lived with us.
Unfortunately, there was no grand reunion with the two of them running
through a field and wrapping each other in a hug (perhaps my hopes were set a
bit unrealistically?). But
Annabelle did grab a toy from Jadyn somewhat rudely. I take that as a sign of
familiarity! Jadyn had his first
birthday party and Annabelle insisted that we remind him where his roots are
(and it’s not Kokshetau) and presented him with a twins ballcap. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any
photos of J & A together so you’ll have to settle for a pic of
Annabelle and Cindy and a video of the two kids.
Sept 06_files\Kaplan
Visit Movie Short.mpg
First
Word
Annabelle’s
first word was uh-oh. This is not
entirely unexpected with me as her mother.
She says uh-oh as I bang her head on the car door getting her into her
carseat, she says uh-oh as I drop her breakfast on the floor, she says uh-oh
when I drop the stroller on my foot and scream “son of a bitch”.
Actually, it’s pretty funny – I’ve got a disease called Swearitus Uncontrollus which I inherited
from my father, who (to paraphrase the Christmas Story dialogue) worked in
swear words as an artist works in clay.
So in reality, although it would have been nice if her first word was mama or duck or something sweet, it really could have been a hell of a lot
worse - uh-oh is pretty innocuous considering the possibilities.
(by
the way, I apologize for the crackling noise on the videos – my camera
has clearly been stretched to the limit and something has snapped in the video
functionality)
A
Gated Community
I’ve
set up a gated play zone (It’s important to keep the riff raff out so
this is an exclusive play zone) on the three season porch that provides endless
possibilities for fun.
Here
are some of the activities to be had in this zone o’ fun.
Dancing
Spelunking
1st
Birthday!!!
Hard
to believe my little girl is already a year old, but sure enough, on September
27 she turned one. Anyway, I did
plan a birthday party for her. But contrary to what I implied in my list of
excuses, two days out, here was my birthday party plan: 1) champagne cocktails, 2) funny hats
Very
detailed, huh?
Party
planner extrodinaire I am not. Plus, everyone I invited with kids
couldn’t make it. So it was “family” – in the sense
that the haugen family are family which is every sense except actual DNA. Plus, Annabelle’s godfather Wally
(not that she’s ever going to get actually baptized since the
Episcopalian church doesn’t seem to actually want to help me with that,
Grrrrr) flew in from SoCal. So it
was an intimate gathering which is all my tiny living room allows anyway!
The
best birthday present (If only she is this easily satisfied in the
future….)
And
the girls enjoyed their first cupcakes too!
The
evening of the party, Lisa & Stewart hosted a dinner party for us so that
in addition to Annabelle’s birthday, we could also remember Margaret
since she and Annabelle share that date of the 27th. Margaret died
on the 27th of March so she will always be remembered on
Annabelle’s birthday. Subtract
6 months from Annabelle’s age and that will be how long Marg has been
gone. Sometimes I do that
math. When Annabelle turns 10, Marg
will have been gone for 9.5 years, when Annabelle turns 25, Marg will have been
gone for 24.5 years. And I
can’t imagine that. But then
I couldn’t imagine surviving six months without my best friend
either.
Anyway,
Lisa wanted to host a beautiful dinner party so we could talk about Margaret
and remember her. So that’s what we did. But first, we had some fun with the
girls. Every Sunday night, we feed
the girls together – sort of a “family dinner” thing. So we fed the girls and then for the
first time, we stuck them in the bath together. Oh My God, talk about double
the cuteness. Truly, I could have watched them splash around in the tub for the
whole night, they were double adorableness.
Okay, That was
September. I really will try to be better about October entry. After all,
Annabelle can’t keep her wonderful fan base guessing about her Halloween
costume!!
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