Years Rolled On

 

Today is Reagan's tenth birthday.

Something important occurred to me this past week. 

This blog is nearly ten years old, and that is no coincidence. I began blogging in March of 2011 when Reagan was a baby. I was at home a lot. She was born in the middle of flu season, so I didn't want to take her out much when she was tiny, and I was too exhausted for the first few months to do more than make it through the day most days. Putting on makeup and taking excursions just wasn't in the cards often. I started blogging to try and catalogue my day to day with her. There were all these moments we shared, but it was often just us. I knew she'd never have vivid memories of that time, and I wanted a record of the seemingly mundane tidbits of that hazy time after a baby is born. 

I also started blogging because, despite never being alone, I felt alone at times. I wanted to explore thoughts I might normally bounce off an adult, but so often I was home alone with a baby who cried and grunted and cooed. I wasn't yet a member of my book club. That came along in 2012, and our monthly meeting remains a fixed mark on my calendar; I love the books, obviously, but every month I leave reminded, once again, of how much I need adult conversation.

Anyway, this past week I've read back through a great many of my Reagan-centric blogs. It occurred to me I don't sit to blog as often as I once did because I now have two wonderful, talkative children. Reagan and I spent most of yesterday alone. We shopped and had lunch and visited a local coffee shop and had very adult conversations all day. 

Without further ado, a countdown:

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

This book, The BFG by Roald Dahl, is a book Reagan read for school. Yesterday in Target she told me she wanted to buy it. She said that though she's already read it, she wants to read it again. She said she, "just wants a copy of her own." I think she thought I'd say No, as if anyone on earth better understands this desire, the desire to own your own copy you can place on a shelf and put your hands on when you want to, more than I do. 

It's been a Reagan-centric weekend full of shopping, memories, and carbohydrates. It seems impossible it's been a decade. I remember watching and rewatching the movie Valentine's Day when she was a few months old. Some cable channel was rerunning it all the time. Your world expands emotionally when you have a baby, but physically it shrinks to the rooms you frequent in your own home. I am sure more than once I announced with glee, the infant Reagan my only audience, that Valentine's Day was starting again. We'd shuffle from the bedroom to the living room in our old house, settle on the couch, and watch that movie again as if I didn't know every line. Maybe I'll watch it with her when she's a little older. 

Happy Birthday to the one who made me a mama. Happy Birthday to my dad; he has graciously shared this day with Reagan since her birth on his birthday in 2010. 

AZ