Motherhood Diaries (Riley at 19 Months)

A note from myself to me/you/Riley on this sweet, sweet season of motherhood:

I’ve never felt such a painful kind of joy and love. Knowing how Riley is at this moment isn’t how she will be in a month or two or three is tearing me to pieces. I’m so overwhelmed with love and adoration for who she is and in awe of her precious perfection! This is unlike any other stage of her existence and will never be the same. I know more heart melting joy and love is to come, but oh to have her little face so close to mine when I hold her, staring down at me, focusing on something on my face while I take in her chubby cheeks, her droopy lips, and the sweet drool. Usually before a silly smile or sound erupts out of her. She is very unaware of her precious state. She is so present in each moment and everything she feels and expresses feels more real than anything I’ve felt or expressed in a long time.

I’m in tears as I walk my morning trail, typing out these sentiments. Yesterday Riley turned 19 months old (December 2nd). I couldn’t be more proud to be her mama or more grateful to get to spend every day with her. Time away to myself in the future sounds lovely, but I cannot bring myself to miss a day or even an hour that I could be with her currently (any more than I have to). This time is too fleeting. These are the good old days. The present time will actually alway be the good old days. May I never forget that and may I never stop being pulled back into the present by miss Riley Sunday.

She is already more incredible than I could have imagined and I still cannot believe she is here. Sometimes I watch her from a distance in our home or at the playground and really take in “her” as an individual. It blows my mind that she appeared and that we brought her here. How? When? We are too lucky. Too blessed. How can she be real? But she is — and when I get home I’ll get to wake her up very soon and hear what her first declaration of the day will be again. Yesterday I opened the door and she sat up in her crib, pointed outside the door from which I came, eyes barely open and hair sticking up in all the right places, saying “Beep beep! Oven! Cookies.” The other day she was pointing to the bathroom door yelling “Poop! *Fart Noise* Mama!” I die laughing most every morning, she is the funniest kid and always surprises me.

Currently her favorite things to do are drawing at her little table with crayons, checking all of her stuffed animals for poop and giving them a wipe, putting on her baseball cap while announcing “garden!” as she walks to the back door to put on her rain boots, watering said garden with a tiny pitcher, laying on her stomach to get “closer!” to any ant or creepy crawly on the ground so she can watch them move, running away and then announcing “back!” before running back to where she came, singing “ring around the roses” with Scott and I, filling in the words “roses” “posies” and “down” when we pause, asking me to open the upper pantry door so she can see the bag of Rancho Gordo beans that she believes has a drawing of a lady laughing so she can laugh with her too (and then asking “why?” for why is she laughing? to then answer herself “stink toots!” like we taught her to say, ha!). She also likes to see the box of lentil pasta by Tolerant Foods because the man is holding up the spiral pasta in the picture and she thinks he is shaking the pasta’s hand, so she says “nice to meet ya!” when she sees him. Talking is her strong suit and she is almost always seeking conversation or narrating her actions. All of her little stories she recounts from our days are our favorite (what a trash truck does, our trips to the farm, what she gets up to in the grocery store, people and things from our local coffee shops, etc)!

I once tickled her after she licked my face and now it is part of our normal bedtime routine — that before I lay her down she licks my face and yells “tickle!” and I tickle her and it repeats over and over. My face and teeshirt are pretty wet when I leave her room at the end of the night and it makes me smile. She is still a climber but more able than before. She falls often and a goose egg on her head or a bloody lip are commonly seen around these parts. But she recovers fast and still wants to tackle whatever feat she was attempting once again. She is brave, I mean really brave, and tough too. Kids can bump her, pinch her, pull her hair, step on her fingers, cut her off, or take something from her, and she doesn’t cry or wine. She usually studies them, very curious as to what just happened and almost seeming amused. She wants to swing high in the swings, hang from the monkey bars, climb to the highest point on the playground, be thrown in the air, spun upside down, to run into the crashing waves at the ocean, and pet every living creature — telling me often of her desire to hug a spider.

She works up such an appetite now too, eating well at all three meals, enjoying her afternoon snack, while also nursing four times a day and two to three times during the night. She loves it all. She gets most excited currently for tofu tossed in “nonos!” (coconut aminos), spiral lentil pasta, toast of any kind, raisins, corn, tempeh, Brussel sprouts, carrot ginger soup, and oddly enough - kichadi, which she calls “Indian” and is very fond of saying the word while eating. She asks for a taste of everything, though, and currently doesn’t dislike much. Her favorites rotate from week to week — and last week’s popular green beans get pushed to the side during this week’s dinners. I love seeing how her preferences ebb and flow, the order she eats things off of her plate, and am in awe of her patience to find every last onion piece in a stew and eat it individually before moving onto the larger, more filling components. I even watched her pick the little bulbs off of a blackberry one by one the other day. Her attention to detail is amazing! I wish I had the calmness of mind to enjoy something that slowly and intricately.

On the note of breastfeeding, may I just encourage anyone struggling during year one, year two is the sweetest and best yet. I’m so thankful for all the moms who wrote me during our many nursing struggles (especially around nine to eleven months) encouraging me with stories of how easy and enjoyable it is to nurse their older toddler. This second year has been a nursing dream and I’m just too thankful for words that she still loves milk as much as she does. I’m soaking up these next few months knowing that as we approach two years she will be most likely weaning. I’m letting her be the guide and am really grateful for the peace I now am able to feel around it all. Especially the night wakings. I know I don’t want to wean her for my own personal and emotional reasons, and therefore have made peace with the fact that I will be tired for a while. It’s hard at times, but knowing the end is near has me holding onto her in the night even more tightly and fondly.

I will leave this diary entry from motherhood here. There are of course lots of hard moments (tantrums, high energy requirements, big emotions, etc) but I don’t feel compelled to catalog them here today. Truthfully, I forget them now so quickly, it is these sweet moments that stick and play in my mind over and over. Let that be a lesson to myself when the moments are hard, they aen’t the ones I’ll even remember.

My heart is extremely full, bursting, really, and I just cannot express the joy motherhood has brought me in the recent few months! I pray this feeling of gratitude is something I’m always pulled towards. Thank you Riley girl for helping to break down more walls, open more doors, and polish extra windows within me than I knew I had, you have been the best little teacher, and watching you grow is the one of the greatest honors of my life. Just below getting to be a wife to your dad. He loves you so much sweet girl — we both do.

x Jessie, Mama, Wife

Previous Motherhood Diaries’ entries:
Riley at 14 Months