Tunesday : You're Still the One

You're Still the One

(Twain, S / Lange, R) Performed by Shania Twain

(When I first saw you, I saw love.
And the first time you touched me, I felt love.
And after all this time, you're still the one I love.)

Looks like we made it
Look how far we've come, my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we'd get there someday

They said, "I bet they'll never make it."
But just look at us holding on
We're still together, still going strong

(you're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(you're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

Ain't nothing better
We beat the odds together
I'm glad we didn't listen
Look at what we would be missing

They said, "I bet they'll never make it."
But just look at us holding on
We're still together still going strong

(you're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(you're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

You're still the one
(you're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(you're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

I'm so glad we made it
Look how far we've come, my baby

For my Tunesday two weeks ago, I wrote about the birth of our second daughter, and in a very real way, that felt like not only the completion of our little family, but the point of completion of my chronologically public story. I understand and respect the concept of "sharenting" - the misbegotten impulse for parents to use our children's stories as fodder for internet entertainment - and I appreciate that my girls' childhood struggles and achievements are their stories to tell; not mine, even if I'd like to explore how it felt to be the mother on the sidelines while their personalities were unspooling themselves. So, from here on, I'll be treading carefully. As for this week's song: it was one of the top hits of the summer of 1998, I liked it, and my Dad had a huge crush on Shania; turning up the volume on the TV every time he found one of her videos playing.

As I said last time, my brother Kyler came to the hospital to visit us when Mallory (Kye) was born, and he was the first person to note that this tiny newborn looked like she was struggling to sit up: squirming and red in the face with angry impatience, Mallory squawked and mewled and raised her little head like a cross-fit athlete on her one thousandth sit-up. From the very beginning, Kyler and everyone else noted that Mallory was her very own person, and nothing like her big sister. (Even today he'll say with awe, "I've seen a lot more babies since then, and Mallory was special right from the start". Appropriate coming from her godfather.) I wrote before about Kennedy's infancy, that she "was such a sweet baby. Yes, she cried, but only when she had a problem. Basically, Kennedy expected the world to be benevolent, always on her side, and it was always a shock to her when something went wrong", and Mallory was, well, different. Right from those first angry attempts to sit up, Mallory was protesting the basic injustice of the world - and not allowing it to get away with any crap. Mallory cried constantly, but she was content if I picked her up - which I was happy to do (my mother says that I carried Mallory around for the first year of her life, and she ain't wrong.)

Kennedy was not exactly excited to have a baby sister - she mostly ignored the crying and the fussing, going about her own business of playing and drawing and asking for videos. Several times I tried to enlist Kennedy to watch Mallory while I quickly showered - just please rock her car seat (where I had her safe and contained) and keep her happy - but Kennedy did not see this as her duty (as, indeed, at two and a half, it wasn't), and I spent most days like most new Moms - exhausted and unwashed, but filled to the brim with love and joy. Like her sister before her, I let Mallory co-sleep with us in our bed (which did help us all to rest), with the added bonus of Kennedy leaving her bed in the middle of every night to race down the hall, open and slam our bedroom door, and crawl up the middle of the bed to take her spot between me and Dave. This just felt joyful and right - sleeping in on the weekends, our far-flung limbs in a tangled pile, the four of us made a family. (We moved to our current house when the girls were nine and six, and I asked Mal just last night if she thinks they still kept running into our room every night in this house: she believes they did. I know I wouldn't have minded, although Dave and I dreamed of a king size mattress for years to contain us all as they grew; I'm glad we never did get one, I'd mourn the empty spaces.)

Mallory got bigger, and stopped crying so much. And Kennedy grew fond of her and tried to find ways for them to play together. Those pictures at the top are some of my favourites of the girls from this time: Friends of my parents owned a cottage up in Muskoka country that they rented out sometimes, and Dave and I asked if maybe we could have it for a week. We went up that August of 1998 - singing along to Shania on the car radio, I'm sure - and as Dave's fondest memories were from the cottage he grew up with, we asked his parents if they'd want to join us there. Turns out, they did. Dave was slightly unimpressed with the cottage when he saw it, because it had a dishwasher and a laundry room; as he grew up with a bare concrete floor and an outdoor privy, this "was not a cottage". Naturally, I was pleased. The place (really a house that anyone would be proud to call home) was on a mud-bottomed lake, so although it looked beautiful, I wasn't crazy about venturing out for a swim. Kennedy, on the other hand, loved playing at the muddy shoreline and squishing the muck between her toes as she waded out - we couldn't keep her out of the water (and I was happy to watch over three month old Mallory, rocking her carseat with my foot as I read my book onshore). Dave's folks were both working at the time, and this was too last minute for them to have booked the week off, so they came up for the weekend and we had a really nice time together: us feeling virtuous and grown-up as the hosts, his Dad taking lots of beautiful pictures (like the ones above that I framed right away). Dave's parents left a day before we did, and we got to stop at the Santa's Village in Bracebridge on the way home - and how weird is that, going to a North Pole-themed amusement park in the August heat? But all together, that was our first family vacation, and I would call it a complete success.

I'm so glad we made it
Look how far we've come, my baby