tidbits

Paige
What terrible news. She (she, because I doubt she'll be reading this blog anytime soon) is almost all the time in my thoughts. How can such a thing happen!? And more so, how can it happen just after a woman starts feeling baby moving and the joy it brings, and then finding out she's having a boy. To say how unfair it is, will be an understatement.


SMC
That is single mothers by choice. Choice. I won't go into the Hebrew translation/semantics (kind of complicated to explain), but in brief there is a word (well exact me has to say compound word..) to talk about a person (mainly woman) who is the only or main care taker of her kids, be it by divorce or becoming pregnant through donor sperm etc. I think in English single mum also refers to it all. Then this new word was coined with the meaning of the woman (or man, but that's too rare) who is the only parent of the kid, there's no one else in the background. And I like this word and use it to describe myself. But then they also added - by choice. And well... there was recently a discussion about it on my board, because someone stated how she doesn't like the 'by choice', as she didn't see what choice she had. Most of the woman said she did have a choice, how she could have probably compromised on such and such a guy or went to shared parenting etc. I am with that woman on that that having a kid alone was not so much a choice but life circumstances. The same thing about choice could be said about many other paths we take/don't take in life. For example, at one time I very much wanted to be a pathologist. Circumstances more than anything, and I didn't become one. And it's not a bad or a good thing. As for the word choice in Single Mothers by Choice, I see it as describing my motherhood and not how I got there (single). I chose to become a mother. I didn't choose to become a single one. And just to clarify, I am not saying it's a bad thing or that I'm miserable etc. I couldn't be any happier than I am now, choice or no choice.

love
I very much expected baby to pop out of me and me to feel tremendous love for her, because you know, I've been waiting for this little girl to come into my life for such a long time, from long before I knew I could do this and that I could do this on my own. Too many years of dreaming of her/him. So of course I'd love her the moment she enters the world! More so that I was bonding with her during pregnancy. But then maybe it was the horrid birth and maybe those first very difficult months, and maybe those are just excuses, but I didn't feel love for my little girl. I cared for her a lot and would do anything for her, but it wasn't love. Not sure when I started actually loving her, but today? I love this little girl to pieces, I love her to the moon and back and back again. I just love love love her. And I try telling her how I love her, so she'll grow up with that word on her lips :-).

breastfeeding
I think mostly when I mentioned breastfeeding, it was in a negative context. Well, I just want to say how so very much I am lately enjoying breastfeeding my little girl. She is hard to breastfeed as she grabs and pokes and pulls and you name it with those little hands of hers, but shhhh... I am here now to tell you how I love it. How I look at her on my breast, how she claims that soft tissue to be hers! And I love that, love how natural it is for her, how it calms her, how it feeds her, how it's just there for her and how she knows it!

a crawler
yikes! I knew it would come early (she is so very active and achieved previous goals early too) and for some time knew any minute she should actually be crawling and not going backwards or doing the jumping thing she does to advance. And while it's not so easy as the floor (laminated) is too slippery, more so with it being winter and the trousers, but omg! She now can get anywhere she wants! And I am so behind on the child proofing!