jianantonic | Entries tagged with bess

Today is my niece Bess's 5th birthday. So much in my life and in the world has changed in 5 years; it makes it seem like Bess has always been here. But at the same time, I think, wow, my baby niece is 5!

There were things I really thought would be different about the world when you turned five. You're at the age where your memories will last you into adulthood, and I really hoped your early memories would be of growing up in a progressive era. Born under the first black president, growing up under the first female president. You wouldn't have to look hard to find great role models for anything you want to be. Instead, we've unleashed some of the worst of our country, and I'm sorry you're seeing it now. We should've been past this long before you were born; you should never have to see someone who allegedly represents you on a podium, speaking to the whole world, and saying such disgusting things. I know it doesn't really matter a lot to you now, but I'm still sad that your childhood will have this in it. I'm confident, though, that you still have plenty of places to look for your role models, and you will find the good ones.

Bess, you still have those big inquisitive eyes and long, thick eyelashes you were born with. When you are an adult, you may harness them to launch 1000 ships. Right now, they work in your favor more than you know. You do have that "look at me, I'm so sweet" pose down. You're just being silly when you do it, but one day you will learn to really harness the power. Please use it for good.

You may not like that you're still the baby, even though you're growing up. But as a 33-year-old baby, I can tell you that it's worth embracing. I love you, baby girl.

I'm going to play bridge in the Charlottesville game later today. After I showered and got dressed, I went downstairs and my mom was horrified by my choice of outfit. It was a maxi dress that I got at Falcon Ridge. Very hippie, but whatever. Mom said it was too revealing and she wouldn't give me the car keys until I changed. Rather than take up the fight on this one, I changed, just like she asked.

Lucy has had some really great misquotes this week. Here are some:

She couldn't get the word "aneurysm" right in her head. The background is that we rode roller coasters all week last week and some of them shake your head pretty roughly -- she complained of potential algorithms, amoebas, and algebra.

She was singing songs from The Sound of Music, including "The Lonely Gopher," which has been stuck in my head continuously. I would welcome an algorithm to get it out.

In the Taylor Swift song "Shake It Off," Lucy thought one of the lines was "bakers gonna bake" rather than "haters gonna hate."

Tonight we have dinner reservations at The Bavarian Chef. Lucy wonders why a fancy restaurant would be called The Barbarian Chef.

Yesterday, Bess noticed my tongue stud.

"Meg, I saw something in your mouth!"
"Oh, this?"
"What is it?"
"It's my tongue stud. My tongue is pierced."
"Oh yeah, I was gonna get one of those."

That kid. Then this:

"Meg, I'm growing!"
"Are you going to grow to be as tall as your mom?"
"No, Mom's not tall enough."

Rachel, WT and I took the kids to Grand Caverns on Tuesday. After the tour, the guide asked if anyone had any questions. Frankie was right in front of the tour group, and shot her hand up. "I don't have a question. I have a comment." I could see WT and Rachel both freeze in terror. What might come out of this 7yo mouth? After stumbling over her thoughts for a moment that felt like an eternity, Frankie says to the tour guide, "You have a really nice speaking voice!" And we all breathed a great sigh of relief.

I almost hope these girls never figure the world out, because their innocence and misunderstandings are just too fucking precious. I'm sure they will find new ways to be adorable as they grow out of these things. But I still want to bottle it up like it is right now.

I'm in Virginia for two weeks with my family. Week one was spent in Williamsburg, and we got to my parents' place in Charlottesville today. I haven't seen the girls since Christmas, and they're really growing up. Bess has so many adorable affectations of being three. She can talk, but her pronunciation is a little wonky, and her syntax is hilarious. The best example of this is her "l's" -- every "l" has a syllable after it. It's not "milk," it's "milik." It's not an "elbow," it's an "ellabow." (She has always loved elbows. She grabs at the skin of any elbow she can reach.) She also doesn't really know the pronoun "she" yet. It's always "her." "Her is tired." "Her is hungry." Etc. My favorite Bessism today was when she mashed a bug in her hand, then gave it to me and said "Meg, this bee got dead." That kid.

She has an imaginary friend, her gramma. She talks about all the things her gramma does with her -- my mom is Nana and her maternal grandmother passed away before she was born. This gramma is entirely fictional. But oh what a life she lives! She doesn't sound very old, either. She does a lot of stuff.

Part of me hopes Bess never grows out of these things she says. With all of my nieces, I always wonder how they could possibly be more adorable as they grow up, and they keep shattering my expectations. I'm sure whatever is next for Bess will be just as cute as her speech is now.

I miss Gwen. She will have learned and grown bored of so many new things in the time I've been away, I'll have missed them completely. But I'm super lucky to be there for most everything. I wish I had that with my east coast nieces, too. After I told them the story of how I'm going to be known as Gwen's Aunt Potty (did I write about that here? -- sign language for "aunt" and "potty" are very close), they decided to adopt the name for me as well. Yay :)

Delayed in Denver. Due into pdx at midnight, will probably be after 1 when I get home. Up at 630 for work tomorrow. Fuuuuuck. I didn't take my vitamin supplements on my trip because I figured I'd get plenty of D between camping and a Caribbean cruise. But that appears to have been a poor assumption. I've been super fatigued all week, and I'm absolutely dreading how full my day is tomorrow...I'm going to a craft event after work, about which I am excited, so I don't want to flake, then picking Z up at the airport around 9 or 10. I hope the five hours of sleep I get tonight are extra restful, anyway. I woke up at 7 eastern...Bleh. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I shouldn't bitch...I've just had two fantastic weeks of vacation. It wasn't all fantastic, but it was largely fun and happy. I'm always depressed post-falcon ridge, too.

We're boarding in a moment and my battery is just about done, but two quick niece stories first.

Bess is learning colors, but so far she only knows the words, and really sucks at matching them to the actual colors. She was wearing a color block dress the other day, and I quizzed her on the colors. She answered "red" for the green, blue, and purple patches. She said the red one was yellow, though. Doh.

Frankie is kind of obsessed with boobs. She always wants to touch them...mine, her mom's, nana's...one night at dinner, she was sitting in my lap, and she reached for my chest and announced to the whole family, "Meg's boobs are humongo!" My brother couldn't handle that, but I thought the whole thing was funny. (They're not humongo.) Time to go. I hope I sleep on the plane.

I think my favorite thing about flying first class is that people assume I'm famous. How else do you explain such a sloppy looking girl traveling by herself in first class? Heh.

My youngest niece turns 2 on Thursday. 2 is of course very young, but it seems like she's growing up super fast. Here are some reflections from the past year.

Sometime in the past year, your family started calling you "Knucklehead." At first I thought that was a little harsh -- you're just a baby! -- but then I witnessed some incidents that sold me on the nickname. Hey, would you rather be Tooter MacGruter? 'Cause that's me. You'll probably grow out of "Knucklehead" eventually, but I'm 30 years old and your dad and Uncle A STILL call me Grute. So how is it that you're such a knucklehead? Some people would call it persistence, but you have an amazing ability to ignore lessons from times you've hurt yourself. You are my niece most likely to spend time in a full body cast, but for now you just give yourself a lot of bumps and bruises. I have watched you climb up on things, fall off, and climb back up again repeatedly. You don't get discouraged -- maybe your ability to push on through frustrations will lead you to make great scientific discoveries. Or maybe you'll just break every bone in your body. Possibly both of these things. I have faith in you. I have also watched you walk face first right into solid objects. You're fearless, I'll give you that!

My favorite knucklehead moment was when I was visiting you at your house just last month. We were hanging out in your room, and you grabbed a bucket of books and dumped it out, and then dove head first into the bucket. Then you got yourself stuck face down in this bucket with your legs kicking in the air, and you couldn't get yourself upright. I asked you if you were stuck or if you wanted help while I watched you kick at the air, and you insisted that you were not stuck and did not need help. After a couple minutes of flailing, you got yourself back on your feet. Good job, Knucklehead.

I don't have many good pictures of you from this past year because you are always in motion. Every picture I take is blurry because you won't sit still. You do know that you're supposed to say "cheese!" though, and any time I point my phone at you to take a picture, you grin and shout "tseeeezsh!" but you don't really look at the camera or stop moving even a little bit. You take after your older sister Lucy with your hair growing wildly in every direction. You follow your sister Frankie around a lot, and even though she sometimes complains that "BESS IS RUINING IT!" whatever "it" is, she loves you very much.

You're very mobile and adventurous, as we've already covered, and you're getting more vocal every day. One of the cutest things you do is refer to animals by the sounds they make. Monkeys are ee-oo-aah-aahs, and horses are yee-haws. It's precious and I hope you never grow out of this.

One of your more inexplicable traits is your love of elbows. Frankie has her shiny blanket, but you're not one for a security blanket. When you need comfort, you like to grab someone's elbows and squish the elbow skin around in your little hands. Apparently your mom did this when she was a kid, too. When you bonked your head on your dining room table, you cried loudly until your dad presented his elbow to you and told you to "go nuts." You started squeezing his elbow and calmed down almost immediately. It's like elbows put you in a trance. It's bizarre, but really adorable. On my last visit to Brooklyn, you started playing with my elbows, too. It felt like a rite of passage. I've never felt so honored to have someone want to play with my elbows before! I know that sounds silly, but one day you'll understand how great it feels to know that your niece feels safe with you. I love that you're old enough now that you know me a little bit, and you accept me as part of your family. When you're older, it will be a given -- of COURSE we're family, I'm your aunt! But you're too young now to understand exactly how I fit into your life, so it's pretty cool that you let me have my spot in your family, even though you don't get it yet.

UpsidedownBess

This is about as still as you get.

I love you like crazy, Knucklehead. Happy birthday!

Bess! You are one! That makes me feel a little old, but I am the youngest of all your aunts and uncles, so I hope I'll always seem like "the young one" to you. I wish I got to see more of you, but I do have some great memories from your first year. Actually, going back a little farther than that, I remember when I first found out you were coming. Your dad left a message on my phone that said, "Hey Meg, call me back. Rachel and I have some news." And I knew he was going to tell me that another baby was on the way! I was on a work trip in San Diego with a guy named Ben. We were both temping for this government contractor and we'd had a long day and were having margaritas at a Mexican restaurant when I heard the message and called William back. I barely knew Ben, but it was definitely a bonding experience of sorts for him to be there when I got the news about you. I was so happy that I cried, right there in that Mexican restaurant. I love being an aunt SO MUCH, and getting another niece was fantastic news.

I was like a little kid waiting for Christmas when it was time for you to come. You were due in mid- to late- February, and as soon as the calendar turned over to February 2012, I could barely contain my excitement. Is she here yet? Is she here yet? I was playing bridge when the news came, and I was so excited. I ran to find McKenzie and screeched that our new niece was here!! I'm not gonna lie, I was hoping you'd be named Margaret, after our grandmother (and me!), but your parents decided to go with a "B" name to honor your grandmother Barbara, and Bess is certainly very lovely. It's okay that you're not Margaret -- I got over it :) Your middle name means a lot to me, too. Virginia is after our grandmother Elder, our home state, and our beloved family friend, Virginia Page. You and your sisters are all city girls, but I hope Virginia will still be a big part of you all. It's kind of a big deal to our family. I wonder how that will play out in your life.

I got to New York as soon as I could, and I spent the first week of March in the newly acquired 7F apartment. You were such a good baby. With two older sisters, a dog, and the noises of New York, there was always chaos around you, but you were very calm. You were content to be held by just about anyone, or left on the changing table in the living room to nap. You almost never cried. The loudest thing about you was your poops. They were so loud! You acted like you didn't even notice, but I laughed every time. This is a Massie trait. Some people think it's immature, but I think if something makes you laugh, that's a good thing. Who doesn't love to laugh? So I laughed at your poop noises, and I hope that doesn't embarass you now. Massies are gassy people. You're going to have to learn to laugh it off, or you'll spend way too much of your time being mortified. Farts are funny. Embrace it :)

Everyone was so crazy about you right from the start. Frankie corrected me when I called you her "sister." She said "No, Lucy is my sister. Bess is my BABY sister." She adored you, and was very patient and gentle. She was sick, so she wasn't allowed to touch you very much the week that I was there, but she doted on you from a distance. Lucy, too. She just stared at you while you slept. Your sisters were so excited to have you. We all were! And you were so good!

I got to spend a little more time with you over the summer, when you were about 5.5 months old. You had developed more of a personality by then, but you were still just as happy as could be. I put my favorite picture of us here in this post. Look how happy you are! And of course I'm so happy to be squeezing on you. I'm really glad that you were happy to let me hold you and play with you when you were so young. A lot of babies only want their parents, and that can be so hard for an aunt who just wants to love you and hug you.

You were very ahead of the curve for babies. First of all you were kind of a giant. You were also teething early, and you were very strong, rolling over already and doing things that other babies take much longer to do. Don't grow up too fast now! It's fine to take your time :) You were still a totally chill, happy baby at this point, but you did have a minor meltdown when we all went to Busch Gardens for the fireworks one night. You were not a fan of the loud booms, but your Uncle A and Granddaddy held you tight and got you through it while the rest of us rode on the swings. I am also the youngest, so I know sometimes it sucks to be left behind because you're too little to participate in something, but there are a lot more perks to being the baby of the family than there are downsides. You'll see.

I visited you in Brooklyn again in December, when you were getting close to 10 months old. By this point, you had developed a little more specific attachment to your parents, and you would cry or fuss more when I tried to hold you. But that didn't stop me! Usually you'd settle down and be cool with me after a minute or two. I carried you in your ergo every morning on the walk to preschool with Frankie and then to Elie's for your daycare, and I'd pick you up with your mom in the afternoons and carry you home in the sling again. I loved doing that. It was like a cuddle session. You would do this really hilarious thing where you'd throw your head back and make a kind of maniacal laugh/roar noise. You're so funny! Apparently you didn't do that for your mom and dad, so that was our thing. Thanks for letting me carry you like that. It really was so special for me to do that.

I haven't seen you since that visit back in December, but we've done some Skyping and I look at pictures of you every chance I get. I guess I still don't know you that well yet, but I sure do love the crap out of you. I can't wait to spend more time with you. Happy birthday, darlin'.
Bess