11.21.06
Posted in Evelyne at 11:27 pm by admin
Un an déjà ! Eh oui, Evelyne a eu un an il y a déjà quelques semaines. On a fêté ça en petit commité, juste nous trois. La demoiselle a bien sur été bien gâtée. On dit que le premier anniversaire est surtout pour les parents, que c’est leur chance de célébrer 365 jours de survie à l’agrandissement de leur famille. Personnellement, je n’ai pas trop ressenti le besoin de faire la fête. Je ne ressens pas cette première année de la vie de ma fille comme une étape si monumentale que cela. Je vois ça plutot comme un prolongement naturel à ma vie jusque là . Si je pense à fêter, c’est plutot tous les jours. Je me sens tres attachée à Evelyne en ce moment, et passe beaucoup de temps à juste la tenir dans mes bras en lui souriant et en l’embrassant. Ce qui tombe bien puisque Evelyne a développé un cas d’angoisse de séparation assez soudain. Elle pleure dès que je m’éloigne. Même quand elle peut voir que je reste dans les alentours, elle s’accroche à moi. Parfois alors qu’elle est entrain de jouer tranquillement, elle s’arrête, se “précipite” sur moi (elle ne marche pas, même pas à quatre pattes, donc elle se déplace en “scoochant”, cad en tirant ses fesses sur le sol en prenant appui sur ses talons), se jette dans mes bras, se serre contre moi. Puis quelques instants plus tard, apres avoir fait le plein de carresses… elle repart jouer tranquillement.
Lors des semaines qui ont précédé l’anniversaire d’Evelyne, j’avais régulièrement des souvenirs du meme jour il y a un an. Ca a duré quelques semaines avant et quelques semaines apres le 25 Octobre. On ne peut jamais oublier comment on se sentait les premiers jours de la vie de ses enfants je crois.
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10.12.06
Posted in Evelyne at 1:53 pm by admin
You wake us up every night these days, sometimes multiple times a night like last night, and yet, as Bronya says, “you can’t get mad at her, she is so beautiful. You want to be mad, but you look at her, and you kiss her a million times”.
When I lean over your crib to sing you a lullaby to lull you back to sleep, you grab my neck with one arm and bring me closer so that our cheeks will touch each other. I can hear your breath slow down and become more regular, but you won’t let go.
I’m half asleep myself, I’m cold standing barefoot in my pyjamas in your room, I ache in the awkward position this puts me in with the crib’s railing pressing on my stomach, and yet, I won’t move as I just take in the sweetness of the moment.
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10.05.06
Posted in Evelyne at 10:12 pm by admin
Evelyne aime :
- le bain - elle pourrait y jouer pendant des heures
- wasabi - poursuivre la chatte, lui tirer la queue, lui arracher ses poils, lui taper dessus, lui attraper les oreilles, font partie de ses activites preferees
- le fromage - elle ADORE le fromage. Tous les fromages. Chevre, cheddar, brie, babybel… je n’ai pas encore essaye le Roquefort, mais je suis sure qu’elle aimerait. Les genes francais sont bien presents ! Ca fait meme rire Bronya de la voir s’empifrer de mozarelle :). Il faut dire que c’est tout un spectacle
- les croissants - c’est son papa qui lui a donne cette mauvaise habitude, qu’y puis-je?
- le porte-monnaie de maman - et elle fait une crise quand j’essaie de le lui reprendre des mains pour payer les marchands
- la musique - et tout ce qui fait du bruit. Elle adore ses maracas et nous fait des concerts entiers avec
- les livres - elle aime tourner les pages.
- les citrons et citrons verts - ca fait des balles parfaites, juste a la bonne taille de sa main, et elles sentent bon en plus
Curieusement elle ne semble pas avoir de doudou prefere.
Par contre, Evelyne n’aime pas:
- qu’on la change - elle pleure des qu’on la met sur la table a langer
- les legumes - enfin pas trop
- qu’on lui lave la figure
- etre a quatre pattes ou sur le ventre - elle deteste que l’on essaie de lui apprendre a crapahuter
Visiblement elle est plutot heureuse comme gamine, non?
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10.02.06
Posted in Evelyne at 11:55 am by admin
It is scary how sometimes Evelyne changes almost overnight. Dylan keeps mentioning how she looks different from the day before. I notice it too. I don’t know if it’s because we know her better than others and therefore see little details that others won’t notice, or if for other people it would be even more striking. Sometimes, as I watch her, I see glimpses of what she may be in a year or two or more. I will catch something out of the corner of my eye, like an expression on Evie’s face, that makes her look like she’s a little girl and not a baby. It’s usually just a very fleeting feeling, something that’s hard to grasp and gone as soon as you think you’ve put your finger on it. It makes me feel like my mind is playing tricks on me.
Oops, the baby’s waking up. I’ll have to finish the thought another time (not that there was much of a thought to start with).
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08.17.06
Posted in Evelyne, France at 9:36 pm by admin
They should hang this big giant sign at every point of entrance to France each year during the month of August. What is it with these French people ALL taking their vacation at the same time? Everything was closing for many weeks in Paris. The one night we asked my Mom and sister to watch Evelyne, Dylan and I wanted to go to a nice restaurant in Paris. I called six of the best restaurants in town (all from a “top up-and-coming new places” list): all of them were freakin’ CLOSED. It drove me nuts. How dare these French people take their vacation during the summer and how dare they not be capitalist enough to want my money ;-)?
The trip was great, and yet it felt awfully good to be back home. Evelyne was awesome most of the time. She is quite the little traveller. But being out of my regular environment for so long was pretty hard on me. There were two things in particular that I found tough:
- Always being with someone. Whether it was my daughter, my husband, my Mom, my sister, my brother… There was always someone around. I had very few chances to be completely alone during 5 weeks. I couldn’t find the right situation/day/opportunity to just drop Evelyne in someone else’s lap to go for a walk or to run some errands. And had I tried to spend more time by myself, I probably would have felt guilty about it. In any case, it weighed on me very heavily towards the end of my stay. A few days before we left, I spent an hour alone wandering in the streets of the Marais in Paris. I never felt so giddy in my life I think. 10 minutes into my walk, I was smiling at everyone I passed by. I felt FREE, and LIGHT, and CARELESS! I have really enjoyed my days alone when Evelyne is at Bronya’s since we’ve returned even if they have been mostly unproductive.
- Having to comply with someone else’s schedule on top of Evelyne’s. My schedule revolves around my daughter’s, and I hadn’t realized to which degree that is true. I guess I unconsciously was expecting the same from others, and when they didn’t (which is perfectly normal: why would someone who doesn’t live with a child think of naps, feedings, andother baby imperatives), well there were obvious tensions. This is particularly true with my mother who is living at the pace of a retiree (albeit a very active one). I felt constantly stretched between her and my daughter and never felt I was spending adequate time or paying adequte attention to either. And it didn’t help that my mom kept telling me that I looked tired and stressed. No mom, I am not stressed, stop stressing me by telling me I’m stressed, I AM NOT STRESSED I said Of course I was stressed. My vacations in France are always a bit stressful anyway.
So lessons learned. Next time, I think I’ll find more opportunities to leave Evelyne with others and enjoy some time for myself, and I will reserve some time for Dylan, Evie, and I to just go spend a few days as a small nice little nuclear family so that I can take a vacation from my vacation.
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04.23.06
Posted in Evelyne, Uncategorized at 11:19 pm by admin
All this time I’ve been wondering what Evelyne got from me (since it’s obviously not facial features). I think I got a bit of a clue today. Twice today she was trying to do something with one of her toys and the toy was not “cooperating”. I’m not sure what she wanted (pull them apart? get them closer?) but each time it was obvious that she was growing frustrated with the way the toy behaved. Each time the frustration grew to the point that she threw major temper tantrums. Big tears, cries, really angry baby. The “why don’t you understand me?”-like frustration. The “I can’t get what I want” screams. At six month old, my daughter is giving us a little peak into her personality. And I recognize what I see. Now I know what she got from me.
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03.17.06
Posted in Evelyne, Uncategorized at 10:36 pm by admin
I’m sitting in Muni on my way back from AKQA after one of my first days back at work. My thoughts start to drift away and I suddenly find myself daydreaming about Evelyne. Her little square head, hamster cheeks, bright eyes are there right in front of me. I suddenly feel overwhelmed by emotion. I have not felt like this about someone in a long time. I’m in love!
A few nights before, as I was feeding her before putting her to bed, Evelyne released the nipple for a little while, turned her head towards me and raised her hand to my cheek as if to give it a little “carresse”. Again, that wave of love just washed over me and I gazed at my daughter with tears in my eyes under the emotion. After I finished the bedtime routine, I told Dylan that I apologized to him but I had fallen in love with someone else. Evelyne’s the name of my latest flame.
Dylan laughed. But the next day after playing with Evelyne, he declared he was in love with her too. “You know that feeling you have when you are just falling for someone? Well it’s like that”. Yes, I know that feeling. It’s sweet and exciting.
So all is well and basking in the love of our little “menage a trois” at the Henrys right now.
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01.24.06
Posted in Evelyne at 6:06 pm by admin
In my family, girls look like their mothers and boys like their fathers. I look a lot like my mother. So much so that when I have my glasses on and tie my hair in the back, I sometimes scare myself when I inadvertently catch myself in the mirror.
So it was a given that if I had a daughter she’d look like me, no? Well, Evelyne does not look like me at all. It’s still early to tell, but if you look at pictures of her dad when he was a baby, the resemblance is obvious. She has is lips, his chin, his big brainy forehead, and hair plantation. She may have my ears and (thank God) my non-existant eyebrows :-). That’s it. So it’s strange. I have had to come to terms with the fact that my daughter won’t be, as I had always assumed, a mini-me, facial structure, expressions and all. I thought I’d be looking into a mirror of myself, and instead I get this entirely different person, a female version of Dylan. I was truly disappointed at first, almost competitive about it too. Something about how could my genes be less good than Dylan’s? What happened here? Where’s my half of this kid? That’s not the deal we had. She’s supposed to be 50% me, no? I had her so that I could pass my genes down, where are they then? But I’m over it now, especially as she is growing into her own personality and as she is developing new expressions. I’m now looking less at “who does she look like?” than “who is she as an individual?”.
The big cheeks are from neither of us and we don’t know where she gets that from. My daughter: part Dylan, part me, part hamster.
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Posted in Evelyne at 12:02 am by admin
060118-4
Originally uploaded by Je suis sophie.
Evelyne is fun these days. I can manage to make her smile on a regular basis, sometimes just by getting my face at the right distance from her and talking to her calmly. I can’t help it, every time she beams one of those cute smiles at me, my eyes get all watery!
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01.10.06
Posted in Evelyne at 11:44 pm by admin
I’m not usually a very physical person. By that I mean I’m not the hugging type. Some people need to always be up close to others and touch them or hug them. Well, that’s not me. I suspected that my relation with my child would be different. I mean who would not like to cuddle from time to time with a little live teddy bear? I even was afraid (and still am) to have a child that would not like to be held and to cuddle. But I didn’t think that the physical bond would be as strong and important as it is. Even taking into account that the relationship at this point is physical by default (there is no real other way to interact with Eveylne at this point and she needs to be carried everywhere), I am surprised at its effect on me.
All my senses are newly stimulated by my daughter. There are moments when I miss holding her. Even if my back is constantly hurting from having to carry her around and even if I can’t do anything while I have her in my arms, as soon as I put her down in her bouncer or on a bed, I miss the contact. I can’t help but kiss her whenever she’s against me. Today she “hugged” me for the first time (or that’s how I decided to interpret her clawing at my neck :-)). I love those “calins” as we say in french. I rub my chin, my nose against her. I massage her and run my hands on her back. I smell her. Oh that smell :-). I’m crazy about it and I keep inhaling it as if I needed to memorize it. Actually, I think I could recognize her by smell at this point… All this was to be expected, and there is nothing new there to other parents I’m sure, but it’s quite interesting and surprising for me to feel this way.
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