That Parenting Moment When...

That parenting moment when...
... you realize you're about to take a long, delicious sip from your daughter's bottle.
... you peek over the edge of your daughter's crib, praying to see a peacefully sleeping infant, and all you see are those big, wide-awake, terrifying eyes.  Watching their prey.  *music from Psycho*
... you realize why your daughter is so easily calmed when you sway her from side to side while she stares at her favorite lamp -- you are hypnotizing her.
... you also realize that she smiles at the aforementioned lamp far more than she smiles at you.  
... you have to choose between eating and sleeping.
... you find yourself in tears while listening to the soundtrack of Disney's Tarzan.  This song has taken on a whole new meaning to me.  *sob*  

... your daughter takes a two hour nap strapped into her carseat after you've arrived home because you really, really, really don't want to wake her up. 

... everyone suddenly becomes a potential babysitter.  

Ella and my slightly reluctant younger brother Matthew.  She loved every second.

... you convince yourself that your daughter looks just like you at her age even though, fortunately for her, there is no resemblance.  

Me at birth.  Oh, that forehead....

Balconies

The word “balcony” brings to mind quaint fixtures overlooking Parisian alleyways, decorated with blossoming flowers, drenched in the aroma of croissants baking somewhere not too far off and golden streaks of sunlight.  Rich, happy couples walk out onto balconies.  Theirs is the type of wealth that is comfortable and understated, with no need for bragging but the slight undertone of haughtiness.  The “we have no need to buy a palace in Versailles, although we could very well do so” type.  The “let’s take a spontaneous weekend trip to Dubai” type.  The chauffeurs and locked gateways and Persian rugs and fancy cigars type.  Our balcony was not that type of balcony and we were not that type of couple.

The realities of life set in fast for Edwin and I.  If it weren’t for me, I swear we would have drowned in his underwear because it always somehow managed to end up on the floor.  And I’m sure he was surprised to find himself drowning in my ever-so-ladylike farts, especially after he made his delicious guacamole, which seemed to have that marvelous effect on me.  He and I jumped into marriage and everyday life after having known each other for seven months, over half of which we spent separated by the entire United States of America.

The view from our balcony was a barbed wire fence along with some overgrown trees, which separated our apartment building from a much nicer row of town houses.  Looking down onto the ground, one saw a clunky, black boot – laces undone, partner nowhere to be found.  A wide selection of beer bottles and one empty Capri Sun pouch.  The air smelled faintly of the cigarette smoke that wafted up from the apartments below.  Weeds, weeds, and more weeds had taken over the ground, had grown over trash of previous years.  And yet, magic remained.

He was what made it this way.  Edwin was simply magic to me.  Finding the balance, this is my challenge in writing about our life.  The balance between depicting reality, however unpleasant or rough or crude, and depicting the beautiful magic that he has made a part of my everyday.  “Magic,” I suppose, is a very elusive, blurry word, yet explaining or defining it… explaining or defining him… is what truly eludes me. I am faced with the question so many storytellers are faced with: With all these winding, intercrossing, overlapping paths that finally made he and I husband and wife, where do I begin?

As for, facts, truthfulness, and accuracy: Memories have a way of blurring over time, becoming hazy the longer minutes separate you from them.  Remembering, you feel emotions, you see snapshots, you catch only glimpses of what truly happened.  Sometimes, even, you re-imagine events in ways perhaps you wished they had occurred, slightly altering the truth.  With this in mind, no matter how hard I try, how truthful can I be?  There are secrets that only he and I will hold forever.  These secrets may appear as blanks in our story, names changed, facts slightly altered to protect us from those who would use the truth against us.  Because in our experience, everyone appoints themself judge.

Standing on that balcony of ours, my eyes glanced over the litter, the weeds, the ugly fence and the “greener grass” on the other side of it.  I saw the possibilities of a future with him and all that, together, he and I could do.  Gratefulness filled my heart.  Knowing that he stood just a few feet away from me, knowing that all I had to do to hold him was walk through a doorway was infinite happiness.  When separation is the daily routine for so long, togetherness is given greater value; that dingy, old balcony could have been all the living space we had, and yet I would have treasured it with him.  This magic, this romance, this specialness was immersed in our reality and made me feel, every day, like I was looking out onto the streets of Paris.