She's going to be ok...

So one of my biggest fears when I found out I was pregnant, was what about Tessa? She was, after all, eleven months old... she was my baby. How was I supposed to have a new baby and still take care of this baby? I didn't want her to get overlooked or to ever miss out on anything. Lucky for me (ha!), nine months is a LOOOOONG time, and she grew up a lot. She also has a personality the size of Asia, so she's hard to ignore. She's definitely got that going for her, but I still wonder if there's enough attention to go around.

Yesterday I was at the park with Tessa and Eve while the girls were at swimming lessons. Tessa was thrilled to run around the park instead of being strapped in her stroller inside a sweltering indoor pool. She was doing laps around the playground- up the stairs, down the slide, up the stairs, down the slide. Then Eve woke up and wanted to eat, so I sat on the grass to feed her... because that is what I do these days. I am a full-time feeder. As I start feeding Eve up pulls a minivan and I watch as a mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather and little girl the same age as Tessa get out and make their way to the park. I watch as Grandma holds her hand, mom hovers next to her and the dad and grandpa follow closely. I then look over at my own toddler playing by herself with the only supervision being a full-time feeding mother who is ten feet away and in no way capable of assisting her if she needed it.  My guilty feelings return in full force. I looked at the other little girl and thought, "now that's a girl that's going somewhere- with support like that- she will definitely get into the Ivy League."

And then I look back at Tessa to see her bored with the stair, slide routine moving onto the ladder that curves and turns into a bridge. It's the one thing on the playground I don't understand. Do playground architects WANT little kids to break bones? Maybe they get a kick back from the orthopedic doctors or something. But that's where Tessa was heading. I thought about getting up and distracting her, but I knew that would only make her more determined. Plus, do you know how long it takes to get "situated" to feed a baby in public? I decided to sit it out and hope she would see the error of her idea and move on.

She climbed up one, then two, then three rungs of the ladder. She was approaching the "bridge" portion and realized this was trickier than anticipated- so she started saying "owie, owie" because in the "language of Tess" owie means anything bad. I told her to come back down. She looked at me and climbed up. And then, right when I was getting up because I was sure she was going down, she figured it out and climbed to the top. As she stood on the playground and turned around to look me, I gave her a thumbs up, and she gave me a huge smile- 'cause she knew she just did something cool and she was soooo proud of herself.

At that moment I looked over at the other little girl in time to see her mom helping her down the slide as her grandmother waited to catch her at the bottom.  Her father was videotaping it with his phone and her grandfather was watching nearby.  I looked over at Tess as she continued climbing the ladder and mastering it more and more each trip. I could see her get better and better each time. I also knew that if I had been there holding her hand the whole time, it wouldn't have been the same. She got to do it by herself, but she also knew that I was watching her the entire time. She knew that I would be just as excited as she was and that's why she turned right to me when she finished. I know that maybe Tessa doesn't have all the attention I would like to give her right now, but I learned that there is no need for guilt because my little girl is going to be just fine.

Who needs the Ivy League anyway?