sticking with pumpkins & swings, thanks.

The last few days have been shit. Can't stop thinking about my mom, Rowan is back to being a beast at bedtime and waking up throughout the night (is there such thing as a two-year sleep regression?!), someone needs to clean my house, and I have a thousand tasks hanging over my head that I just...can't even.

My epiphany at 5:20 this morning (because I'm also back to my early-morning insomnia, which is fab) was that maybe it's because of my birthday. I turn thirty-five this Friday, but it's not the number that's bumming me out. Now I qualify as Advanced Maternal Age AND to run for president! Watch out, bitches! No, thirty-five isn't the issue. It's my mom. 

My mom wasn't an overly sentimental person. She was absolutely a loving person, and absolutely the kind of mom who hugged you and kissed you and said out loud and often that she loved you, but she was far more practical than sentimental. I can't imagine her crafting sappy blog posts about her bayyybeee turning two, or feeling compelled to take a weekly belly picture throughout pregnancy. So I couldn't tell you for sure what would be on her mind during this, the week leading up to my birthday. Would she be remembering how uncomfortably pregnant she was back in mid-October of 1980? Would she be remembering how worried she was that I'd be a horrible sleeper like my sister? Would she be remembering how she prepared my two sisters for my arrival? I don't know. But I do know she'd be thinking of me. And it just makes me sad, thinking of how she's not thinking of me.

Everyone says the "firsts" are hard - the first experiences after losing someone you love. My birthday is turning out to be an especially tough "first." And then it'll be the holiday season, which...yeah. That's too much to even contemplate. So I'm just trying to be gentle with myself for now and focus on the best distraction I have - Rowie. We've been busy since fall started: classes three mornings a week, and tons of time outside while the weather's been so amazing. Her priorities right now are swings and pumpkins, as you can see:

Tire swingin' with our friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

Painting pumpkins at Gramma's house. Gramma had to give her a sink-bath after. :)

Her new favorite swing.

"Mama, this a pumpkin! Right here!"

My sous-chef mixing pumpkin bread.

So my priorities right now will also be swings and pumpkins, and the girl who can't get enough of them.

Last picnic lunch of the year (probably).