Eleven months

My son is eleven months old today. It's been an amazing journey to this point, and one I find myself more grateful every day to be a part of.

Last night I poured over old pictures, laughing and crying in all the right places, stroking his tiny pixelated cheeks on the computer screen. Sometimes I think I'm a terrible mom. Jonas doesn't have a baby book, or even a photo album. There's just these hundreds and hundreds of pictures saved to the computer and occasionally e-mailed to friends and family. What kind of new mother doesn't make a baby book for their child?

The tired one.

It's been a rough year, not just having to adapt to a life of being needed constantly by an infant, but a year of recovering from hurricane damage, of working full-time, of worrying about daycares. It's been a year of nearly non-stop illnesses. None of these are excuses, though.

I tell myself that next year will be different. Jonas will be a little more self-reliant, or at least self-entertaining. We will, hopefully, be in a new home that isn't constantly crumbling away beneath us. And I will be a stay at home mom. I am determined of that. No more spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month on daycare, when I could be spending that money on other things, like a better place to live, food for our bellies, a reliable car.

Before Jonas, I was complacent. I'd settle for the bottom of the barrel, with the excuse that anything else just wasn't worth the struggle. Now, having the responsibility of a child, I want better. It's not that I want to be rich, live in some fancy upscale neighborhood where all my neighbors drive Jaguars and BMW's. But I do want my son to live somewhere safe, somewhere large enough for there to be room for his toys. He doesn't have that here.

So we've taken out our equity loan. Not much money, really, just enough to make some necessary repairs, pay off a couple of debts, pay for my classes. My goal is to, in the next six months, complete my courses, work from home, and be well on the way to selling this shitbox we live in.

We don't have the luxury of taking our time on this. Just in the last three months property values have risen even higher. Land that was selling for $35,000 back in March is now selling for $55,000. If we don't buy soon, we're not going to be able to buy at all.

And so, on my son's eleven month birthday, I sit and I make a promise to him, next year won't be this way.