12 months old is coming

Just to update on the adventures of Sincere-Girl - her cape was pretty ruffled after the trip to the consulate. Didn't handle it nearly as well as she used to. Almost left a poopy diaper on the window of the woman who "helped" with the passport application. The completely condescending lady with the big gold cross on her neck. The Swiss woman who got bitchy at me when I misunderstood her directions because she didn't use the American English version of some terms. Yeah, glad we made it out of there without too much damage to the process.

Passport arrived. We can escape if we want to!

And baby A's birthday, her one-year-old, is coming. During a sleepless night, I've found myself looking up PTSD and colic. Do I actually think I have PTSD? Probably not. I don't know that I get vivid flashbacks of those early months, but I do still get queasy when I see a twin stroller. The thought of another infant makes me scared, as does getting pregnant again. I realized that as I start thinking about her birthday party, I feel a bit of the sadness I felt at Mother's Day. My heartbeat goes up a bit, in an anxious way, when I think about approaching the anniversary of her birth. That's sad.

As if we might re-live all the things that hit us so hard - the difficult labor, the C-section, the problems (and not great solutions) breastfeeding, the nights of her screaming and no sleep, the confusion and sadness of how this was supposed to be such a happy time ("oh, when she gets older you'll miss those newborn times") of bonding, and quiet cuddling and turned out to be so hard on us, on marriage, on everything.

In a way, I'm looking forward to writing over the coming 5-6 months. How horrible is that? But I am. To replace fear with calm, sadness with laughter, confusion with getting to know our beautiful little toddler better. And I hope that at some point I might feel twinges of happy and not just sad on her birthday. It has to happen eventually, right?

I think it will. I just know that this first birthday is going to be a bit mixed for me. I'm sorry about that, little one.

On a lighter note, from Baby A's first two friends' birthday parties I've learned a lot about what a room full of babies and toddlers need to have a good time: novel crackers, and a bunch of helium balloons. And each other. That, we can manage.