one year

violet is a year old. A YEAR OLD. i was sitting there on the couch, relishing my breakfast burrito, and then she was here, a little alien in a standard-issue striped beanie. we couldn't get a nurse to come and examine her first dirty diaper, even though its contents looked nothing like melted snickers, and when she defied the "back to sleep" embroidery on her pajamas by sleeping on her stomach, the tree in the backyard went bare while we spent those nights in the red chair and kevin kept the dogs alive. there was that day she came home from daycare with a bruise the shape of baby dentures on her arm, and then the gate we bought to protect her fell on top of her instead, and then she ate a waffle with honey in it. by some grace, she lived, and it was september 18th again.

to be fair, they do tell you about the worry. "you'll never stop worrying about your kids, even after they go to college." kevin and i are worriers, so we thought oh the worry, that's one thing we're not worried about. we should collect benefits because we're veterans when it comes to worry. well, you can probably guess how that turned out.

there are a lot of things they don't tell you too. i had no idea that when i was changing violet's first diaper, i'd be wearing one of my own, a mesh one over a giant ice pack that you crack like a glowstick. kevin had no idea that he'd spend his first night as a father sleeping on the tile floor because the hospital ran out of beds. and who knew that i'd master the art (or that there was an art?) of going to the bathroom one-handed, with a baby attached to my boob, and that the only thing more cracked than my nipples would be kevin's hands from doing 45 minutes of bottle dishes every night?

i used to think that new parents disappeared into the ether because they were just so swept up in their "new lives" like a college roommate with a new boyfriend. and we are swept up. our floors aren't, much less our roof gutters, and sometimes our teeth aren't brushed either. and if you're wondering how i have time to write this blog post, that reminds me of another surprise this year has brought - how skilled i've become at typing one-handed while sitting on the floor of an empty conference room and steadying breast pump horns with my other hand. horns. if the first thing that word makes you think of is a goat or the devil, well, i'd imagine that's how this lactation apparatus got its name.

i thought, no problem, i can live without champagne and margaritas and three glasses of ZD pinot noir on thanksgiving while i'm pregnant, heck, even while i'm breastfeeding, but now i realize that i won't actually drink again until violet is old enough to drink herself, and even then i probably won't drink, not really, because who's going to drive her home after she has one too many at a friend's wedding? a taxi??

kevin and i both thought we'd sleep again too. and maybe we will, when we're 85 and sedated. they don't outright say that you can't understand the sleep deprivation until you're in it. "get your sleep now," they chuckle, those condescending assholes. i'd smile and nod while the baby kicked away and think, please, i've read all the sleep books already. all you have to do is get to three months, and then babies sleep through the night. and if they do give you a little guff, well, you just leave them in their crib "fussing" and "protesting" and "(euphemism for weeping inconsolably)" while making checkmarks on your handy ferber chart, and before you know it, you'll all be getting so much beauty sleep that heidi klum will look a little ragged next to you.

"you'll cry," my work friend told me. "you'll pump milk, you'll spill it, and it's okay to cry." i rubbed my pregnant belly and thanked her, and later, while weeping over three ounces soaking my lap, i thought, she tried to tell me. sometimes they try to tell you, but there's only so much they can do. there's a reason you don't watch "carrie" while getting your manicure on prom night. there's a reason you don't read articles about the unemployment rate over your toast and coffee on graduation day.

"one day it's you and your wife at the dinner table, and then there's this third person who's always there too," kevin's work friend said. he didn't mention this third person would throw every other bite of food at us, or on the floor, or on the dogs, but it was helpful advice anyway. concrete imagery.

but no matter what anyone advised or hinted or omitted, there's nothing that could have prepared kevin and me for how our lives would change when violet arrived. we knew we'd be giving up pieces of ourselves and that the spaces left behind would be filled by her, and while it's true that has indeed happened, it hasn't happened at all how we expected. before, we wanted more than anything to live long, healthy, meaningful lives; now, more than anything, we want violet to live a long, healthy, meaningful life - and by everything that is sacred, it had better be longer than ours.

we love this kid so much. we would do anything to make her happy. we've performed dance moves so bad they make the white man's overbite look like swan lake, and that's just to make her laugh.

and this is only the beginning.

the first piece of writing advice that i heard in a fiction class - a very famous quote from e.l. doctorow - is that writing is like driving a car at night. you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. i think it's a metaphor (okay, a simile) that encapsulates parenting even more perfectly.

happy birthday, violet. you are a more amazing daughter than we could have imagined, and we can't wait to see what's around the next bend.