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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01.13.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:01 pm by admin
the lizard-face
Originally uploaded by Je suis sophie.
Yeah! I set up flickr to send pictures to my blog to liven this up. Cool.
As a test, here’s the little lizard face we love. Evelyne loves playing with her tongue. In general as an answer to us sticking our tongue out at her.
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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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01.05.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:06 pm by admin
Poil aux pieds. (J’ai eu un disque de Bobby Lapointe pour Noël ;-))
Quel retard. Je réecris dans ce blog juste le jour où Maman repart pour la France et donc où je me retrouve de nouveau seule avec Evelyne pour la première fois depuis longtemps. Cette fois-ci, ce sera pour un petit bout de temps. Notre prochain visiteur sera Emmanuelle pour une nuit dans deux semaines, et après ça nous aurons une fin Fevrier très occupée, mais entre temps, j’aurai j’espère l’occasion de trouver une petite routine avec ma fille.
La visite de maman s’est très bien passée. C’était bien agréable d’avoir de la famille pour le premier Noël d’Evelyne et de passer le Nouvel An avec ma mère et ma fille.
Seul hic : ce drole de truc qui m’est arrivé hier. J’étais pliée en deux par des douleurs incroyables dans le dos et le bas de cotes, ce qui m’a fallu une visite aux urgences de UCSF. Pas de diagnostic ferme, mais deux doses de morphine ont aidé. J’espère que ça ne se reproduira pas !
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