Starting Out

My daughter, Helena, is six years old. She is one of the most charming, adorable children you could ever encounter. I know a lot of people feel this way about their child(ren), but most of you – I'm sorry to say – are severely deluded. Don't get me wrong, Helena has her moments. I struggle getting her out of bed for school in the morning, which I wasn't expecting until about 7th grade (she's in 1st). It takes a minimum of 9 times of asking her to do something, before she will actually listen and heed my request. By that time, I want to rip my hair out.

But she looks at me with her gigantic blue, sparkling eyes and says something like, "I was going to pick up my shoes, but I had to go number 3!" To which I ask, "What is number 3?" Her response, "It's when you have to pee and poop at the same time." When that happens, all that frustration, all that frazzled-ness and stressed-ification that makes up a mom, is all out the window. And I'm laughing like a 1st grader. And she laughs with me.

I've spent the past six years of her life, documenting with pictures, video, a previous stint of a blog with Trimester Journals (which I started when I was pregnant, but lost sight amidst peaks of extreme business and laziness). But I had something horrible happen to me recently. My computer crashed. You see, I also (in the midst of those business and laziness spells) haven't backed it up since I've owned it. And it's as old as Helena, so you can do the math. When I pause to think of the countless photos, documents, and God knows what else is held captive inside that machine, a knot fills my throat.

Besides what I am able to capture from old blog posts and Myspace/Facebook accounts, I have lost everything I had of my little Helena. And now that she is half my size, she's not so little anymore. And those moments and visuals are ones I will never get back. So, I've decided to get better. It may be too late now, but I wanted to ensure that I have a place where any future memories will be and will (hopefully) never be inaccessible.

I've started this blog as a means to honor the awesome little person that I managed to create somehow. I don't want to forget anything about her and the way her mind works as she grows. When she was 5, she said to me once, "Don't you know, Mom? Kids make the rules." I wrote it on the back of an envelope for a utility statement and promised myself I'd start a blog focused on her antics. Well, here I am. Let's hope I don't let her down.