Vivienne James

It seems like overnight she went from being my "little alien" to a human being with an aspiring personality. And she's only going to get older? These are the thoughts that keep me awake in the middle of the night now (as opposed to what I should wear to work the next day, or how dirty my house is, or OMG I seriously need my hair done, or my growing TO DO list -- okay, this stuff still runs through my head only now it's more like -- how can I deal with sending Viv to daycare?, OMG how can I get dressed for work if NOTHING fits me right anymore??, and yes my house is perpetually dirty, and who cares about my hair now because I barely have time to do it anyway). I'm digressing.

"You see, all of those cheesy things that people say it is, (the "it" being the act of having a baby), they are all true. Whatever cheesy thing you can think of to say about how a baby will change your life in unimaginably beautiful ways, whatever that thing may be, IT'S TRUE. IT'S ALL OF THOSE THINGS!" This is a statement I have been known to make lately to people and I'm sure it drives them crazy. It makes me crazy and I'm the one saying it! It's just the sort of thing I would have thought was so ridiculously cheesy before I had a baby. I don't know that I'm saying it, really I don't! It's the only way I know how to express how Vivienne has changed me. I'll just be chatting along with a friend and we'll be talking about how sleep deprived we are, or how we can't just veg out when we want to anymore, or how EVERY minute of EVERY day is taken up now by some tiny person who can't even talk. And then it happens! I start thinking of her little face and start to get all flustered and out it will fly like vomit -- THAT STATEMENT! And to top it off I'll have some lame grin on my face as I'm staring off in the distance.

Here's the problem: I can't even find the right words that would describe how I feel about Vivienne or what my life is like now. There are just not any words in the English language that can do it justice or articulate how I feel. It's like I can always feel my heart beating on the outside of my body. Or it's like for no reason at all I will get chills up and down my body thinking about her. Maybe it's like when you're on a roller coaster, and you are almost to the top. Right before the part where you go free falling downward so fast that your heart is in your head. Right before that moment, you know that butterfly feeling you get in the pit of your stomach? It's like that ALL THE TIME. You see, this is why I end up just spouting some super vague blanket statement about cheese!