Molly at ten months

Sweet Miss Molly.  Ever so happy as long as Mama is holding her or is close by, and showing off her two bottom teeth with frequent grins, this girl manages to be both Mama's girl and extrovert at the same time, grinning at everyone she sees -- as long as they don't try to take her away from me.  

She sits at my feet for a lot of the violin lessons that I teach these days, and eagerly greets my students with big smiles.

A few stats:

Weight: 18ish pounds, I think

Nicknames: Molly Moe, Moll, Mollywog.  Oh, and in the past five minutes Nathan has referred to her as a "Beautiful, beautiful, Artisinal quality, handmade in small batches, beautiful, beautiful, high level baby."

Expertise: Scratching faces, grabbing glasses

Her favorite food is paper, and it doesn't seem to matter that we keep explaining to her that this isn't in fact a food.  All solid foods that enter her mouth are subsequently spit back out.  Paper, on the other hand, is surreptitiously grabbed in tiny bits that big sisters have dropped to the floor, and happily gnawed on until Mama finds it in her mouth and removes it.

She fights sleep, this girlie, and often seems to have some sort of baby-insomnia where the skills she's earnestly trying to develop are keeping her awake.  She'll be drifting off to sleep, and then open her eyes, pop up, and start saying "mamama!  mama!  mamama!" or clicking her tongue, or making kissing noises.  All wonderful, adorable skills, to be sure, but sleeping is a skill too -- and one we're hoping she'll develop one of these days.

Speaking of sleep, in a sad turn of events, poor Molly fell off the bed and fractured her left clavicle on Sunday night.  She keeps looking at me reproachfully, and who can blame her, really?

The poor baby, who usually cosleeps between Mama and Daddy, was blissfully cosleeping with just me while Nathan was out of town for the better part of a week.  Despite the pillow barricade I had set up, she apparently found a means of escape.

"Really, Mom?  You thought a mere pillow could stop me from sleep-crawling off the edge of the bed?"

It was pretty evident that something was amiss after her fall, so when morning dawned I called the doctor's office and we traipsed over there so that Molly's reproachful expressions could be joined by the reproachful expressions of doctors and nurses.  

Yes, of course, I feel terrible about it.  I know I won't be getting any Mother of the Year awards at the rate I'm going.  And I probably shouldn't admit that I'm pretty sure each of my kids has fallen out of bed a time or two, and somehow Molly was just the first one unlucky enough to get a resulting fracture from the experience.

In the meantime, by Tuesday she was already back to crawling around a bit and even pulling herself up.  I've tried various tactics to immobilize her arm, but she wiggles out of everything and keeps moving.  We're safety-pinning her sleeve down to the body of her clothing, which is what the doctor recommended, and aside from that precaution, it seems like her pain levels will determine what she can and can't do, and she seems to be managing okay.  

I have to admit my soft spot for this babe of mine has grown even softer, tenderized by a dose of pity, I suppose.  She needs lots of holding and snuggles, and I'm only too happy to oblige right now.

But look!  She's still got some pretty fabulous grins going on, fractured collarbone notwithstanding.

I'm working hard with Marie on the understanding that we need to be extra gentle with Molly right now, and not touch her at all.  This is difficult with a child who scarcely seems to be able to be gentle to begin with, and the only reasonable solution may be to never leave the two of them together until Molly is healed.  

I did allow the big girls a closely supervised photo op with Molly, of course -- and no, they didn't dress up for the occasion.  They were already dressed this way, as they often are.  Regular clothes are so boring when all you want to do all day is dress up and dance and twirl and be ballerinas.  I think Molly is wondering when she can join the fun.

Dear Molly,

I've probably said "I'm sorry" to you a hundred times in the past three days, but I'll say it again here, for the record.  I feel terrible that you took a tumble on my watch.  Somehow the knowledge that it's just the beginning in a long line of life's hurts I won't be able to protect you from makes it all the more poignant, and I've spent a lot of time in the rocking chair the past few evenings, just cuddling you and singing to you.  

You're a tough one, and I know you'll be good as new in no time.  

To tell the truth, sometimes my arms get tired of holding you and I get frustrated by how little you nap and how much you need me.  I guess that, even after almost six years of motherhood, I still have some selfishness left in me.  But at the end of each long day, I still look at your sweet, sweet little face and feel like I could explode from loving you so much.

I'm heading up to bed now to snuggle you, because I can hear your cries up there right now and can tell that Daddy just isn't cutting it for you.  I guess his feelings for your {as expressed earlier in this post} aren't yet 100% mutual.  Okay, okay!  I'll come snuggle you back to sleep.

I love you, girlie.  

Lovelovelove,

Mama