Alright, alright, alright

It worked, my dear St. Elsewhere. You read me from afar that I have words that need to be put down. ;)

I'm working within the constraints of a nap that is unpredictable with a long To Do list. Let's see what I can get down in 15 minutes. *sets the clock*

First and foremost, Babel is wonderful. He's amazing, frankly. He's so smart and engaging and adorable and funny and adaptable. He's 15 months now, and besides the hard month of June during the cataract diagnosis, it's been amazing. But even that month was beautiful, hard as it may have been.

The little guy had surgery days after his first birthday to correct strabismus (lazy eye) brought on by the cataracts. The surgery was extremely hard on TH and I, lasting twice as long as it should have, as well as giving Babel a terrible wake up from the anesthesia. We had to wait three months to see the final results, and it has been a long, tepid wait. We follow up with the PO (ped ophth) tomorrow with hopes that we can stop patching and forge ahead. Truthfully, TH and I have both been uneasy with patching this week; it seems the eyes get a little too wonky from the hour of the patch, so we've both agreed to hold off until this next appointment. I feel guilty doing that, but at the same time, the thought of patching right now makes me literally cringe. One week away will not do harm if we're still to continue, so we'll see what we encounter tomorrow.

In the mean time, Babel should probably be renamed Babble. Oh my goodness, does he talk! It's adorable. He reached his first 100 words by 14.5 months. About 20% are in Romanian, as we're raising him bilingual. We practice One Parent, One Language (OPOL), and it's going fantastic. TH is incredibly disciplined with keeping to his language, and it shows. It also helps that MIL and FIL are Babel's favorite people, and he gets to spend a lot of time with them, which includes lots of language. His grandfather just might be his favorite person...but it's a close tie with his father. ((((Boys))))

As for me, I am still at home, living the life of luxury. ;) Right. But a grand gig, it is. I've picked up a shift at the local yoga studio in exchange for free yoga classes, and it's just what I needed. My yoga practice has grown immensely, and I am really considering doing a teacher training in the summer. (I'm also running regularly, and I believe you could actually call me A Runner!) I've also picked up an art class for young toddlers at a local store. It's been a challenge, mainly with the mothers who expect their children to be clean after 45 min painting, but I love it. The kids are so sweet, it allows me to get messy with them, and it allows Babel to spend some time with new friends. All good things.

And, my 15 minutes are up. I will leave you with a few adorable stories. I feel like I am constantly bubbling over with adorable stories. Proud mama, I am.

- Babel's been having a little problem with one of his contacts slipping down (b/c of the strabismus surgery), and he's gotten very good about letting us grab onto his little face and try to move it back into place. He's also become a very good cleaner upper, thanks to TH teaching him "la loc", which means something along the lines of "to put back in its place". (He's learned "away", but "la loc" is the fan favorite. It's funny to see what words he clings to in which language.)

So, last night at the dinner table, I was digging around, trying to get that contact in place. When it finally shifted, Babel declared, "la loc!" TH and I just shook our heads at him. So smart to put those two concepts together! We're constantly in awe while watching him learn.

- Babel loves to read, and he gets so excited for his books now that he says "book-a-book-a-book-a-book" soooooo fast and giggles. It just melts your heart.

- He loves my phone, try as I might to limit his time on it. He was playing the It's A Small World app (which just sings the song to animations), and he mumbled something to himself. I asked him what he said and checked the page he was on, and my ears had heard correctly. He's taken to repeating the last word of things he hears, and he had said "Hope!" since he was on the page that says, "It's a world of hope." He then looked up at me, straight into my eyes, and told me "HOPE!", while nodding his head slightly at me, a gesture I figured out I do when affirming something he's learned. Yes, Babel, your mama sometimes needs to be taught about Hope, the thing with the feathers. Thank you, dear little one.

Right Here

There were days when I wondered if everything we were going through was worth it.

It is. All those tears can be made up in a few sweet hours of cuddles. I swear, it fades. It never will disappear, of that I'm sure, but it doesn't hurt so badly. It's hard to hurt like hell when you're holding more love and perfection than you ever thought was possible in the world.

It was worth it, every last tear.