Ready to Play.

Our girl is almost two. She mentions it to passers by and is perfecting the peace sign with her fingers to indicate her age. To commemorate her milestone she climbed out of her crib last night. Twice. She is a wild child.

A wild flower, rather.

Full of energy and light.
With actions of delicacy and moments of speed.
Just the other night I sighed exhaustedly as I watched my mother chase her through a Vietnamese restaurant.
"Want to say 'Hi'" she says.
"You can say hi to everyone after dinner, Lily".
She then reached for her third pair of chopsticks, which she handles expertly.
Just like her mama.
Except when she's running around restaurants.
Then she's her dada.

A few days ago Lily walked into the livingroom with a baseball card of Don Mattingly.
"Here Mama, Dada."
She had found in one of Alan's drawers a few pages of baseball cards that had been a gift to him during one of his hospital stays. Alan was not Donnie Baseball but he would have ben honored by the comparison. He had many great catches and hits of his own in the playing fields of Central Park. Somehow, Lily managed to pull out the card of his all-time favorite Yankee.

Hi Babe. We miss you. Thanks for the message.

It had to have been a hello from above.

We love you. And Lily has now filled up her purses with the entire collection. She will need a tutorial on all of the players, so when the time is right we will have Uncle Ron, Auntie Jill and Uncle Steve (all longtime friends of ours) come over to give her the details she'll need to follow her dad's footsteps right into the stadium.

I will be on hotdog duty. And sunflower seeds if need be.

Oh to be almost two. So much life ahead of her.

And boy could she run the bases.

Shipmates.

My birthday came and went quietly, celebrated with a few friends and family. I was, as usual, beyond exhausted, and also blue. What can I say, loss lingers.

Forever.

My favorite part of the day was in the morning when Lily climbed into a plastic container and said, "Lily sailing with Dada. Lily sailing with Dada and Mama! Come on Mama, come in boat?" So in I climbed. And off we went. For a couple of beautiful minutes we rode the waves on our yellow carpet and I imagined wind on our faces, all three of us, looking ahead, with nothing but the sound of waves lapping up against our boat.

It felt good, the quiet togetherness.

Lily is very into birthdays these days so she sang to me and other people whose birthdays had passed or were to come. She is very excited for hers which she reminds me, everyday, is "coming up". She also likes to say that presents she sometimes gets are "from Dada". Sigh.

And again, sigh.

I used to tell Alan about how I always loathed February as it was a cold and dreary month and when I was little I had to postpone my party due to pneumonia. I sulked inside my tee-pee on a hand-me-down beanbag chair. He loved that anecdote. When we learned our babe would be due in February he said "Sus, now it'll be a good month!".

He was right. (Yessssss, Alannnnnn. You were right...)

This very cold month has been laced with pretty snowfall and with me resides the prettiest snowflake of all. Lily can brighten any blue period. And her influence is instant. Although this month has had it's struggles - I think we're sailing through just fine.