If All Else Fails, Fling Yourself Onto the Driveway

And no, I'm not talking toddler tantrums here.

I've been carrying Baby Girl much lower than I ever carried Woodstock (who spent 14 of the last 17 weeks in utero with her head snuggled under my ribs). Starting last weekend with my business trip to L.A., her low-level-lying has made me feel like I'm a near cripple. The pelvic, hip and lower back pain (not to mention the sciatic pain from the pressure on my sciatic nerve) has been nearly unbearable to sit or walk. I have spent every possible moment in bed, on my side, with my feet elevated.

As it turns out, all I needed to do was fling myself onto the driveway.

Wednesday morning, I put Woodstock in her car seat and walked around the car to my side. At some point, I caught my shoe on a crack and soon, I was flying through the air, destined to do a spectacular belly flop on the driveway. My one conscious thought was "do not land on your stomach." So I did what I'm sure was a terribly graceful turn which left my left hip taking 80% of the impact and my shoulder taking the remaining 20%.

Of course, I was wearing elastic-waisted maternity pants, which meant upon the moment of impact they slid down, exposing my the backside of my fleshy white hip to the abrasive concrete, resulting in a spectacular road (driveway?) rash.

Hoorah! I saved the baby, I thought. Then I realized that "falling" is one of the "things one must absolutely not do" when on anti-clotting drugs. Deep bruising can cause problems - more so if you bruise your organs rather than your well-padded hip, but still. Slight cause for concern.

I scraped myself off the driveway and slid into the car, wincing. Woodstock greeted me with "Funny mama!" thinking, of course, that I splayed my arms wildly in the air while falling just to amuse her. It goes without saying, I couldn't quite agree with her.

Once I determined that the bruising, while large and ugly, was not going to cause any serious issues and that Baby Girl (after some prodding thanks to chocolate milk) was moving along as usual, I felt a bit more relieved.

However, the relief has continued to come over the subsequent 48 hours, as the startling bump has caused Baby Girl to reconsider the comfort of her low-lying habitat, forcing her to relocate further up in the direction of my ribs.

If you forget that I can only sleep on one side now - all night long - and can't sit for long periods due to road (driveway?) rash on my rear side, I could almost dance a jig. The forced relocation of Baby Girl has eased the sciatic nerve pain, the pelvic pressure/pain and a significant portion of the back pain. I can walk again! Praise the driveway!

Who says there isn't a silver lining in all things?

Second Helpings

I have a secret worry. Not one of those all-consuming worries that keeps you up at night, but a little annoying nag that whispers to you just to reassure you that there is still something to worry about.

I'm worried at how Baby Girl will feel being second. Not that she will be (or is currently) any less important than her older sister (or brother), but she is the second girl - while her coming-home outfit will be her own, she will be facing a closetful of her sister's hand-me-downs (not that Woodstock isn't wearing hand-me-downs, because she dooes). Her birthday will be close to, but not on, the birthday shared by Woodstock and I. Just close enough to be "almost" - and lumped into the same 3-week-span of birthday madness shared by Woodstock, Grover and myself. She will not have my middle name as Woodstock does - even though we technically didn't name her after me. Most of all, I worry because while I'm head-over-heels-in-love with this baby already, it's a different sort of feeling than I had while pregnant with Woodstock.

I know every parent worries if they will have enough love for the second child - and that every time, they are met with a resouding "yes" - but I worry how to make Baby Girl feel special, that she is just as much an individual, and just as loved, as Woodstock is. I'm sure it will happen, but right now, I can't seem to fathom how.

Two Little Girls

This morning we took Woodstock to look at "her baby". She was all excited until she realized it would involve me lying on a table and not holding her (lately she has become very much a "mama's girl"). She squealed in delight at her first view of the baby - the baby's profile, and then promptly went back to her plastic Easter eggs and books.

The tech drug the ultrasound out as long as possible before she got down to the nether regions to discover "the parts." She asked us again if we wanted to know. At this point, I was practially begging her to tell me. Last time? Knowing wasn't such a big deal until the day of the ultrasound. This time, it's consumed me for the last 13 weeks.

Everything looks good. Hard to get a clear shot of the heart since I have an anterior placenta and she is currently transverse breech, which would explain why I rarely feel any movement - Baby's not big enough to kick through the placenta and is sideways. Here's hoping Baby decides to move head down in the next 12 weeks.

I also discovered ultrasounds are painful after 10 weeks of anti-clotting shots. Shouldn't have been a surprise since wearing pants is also painful, but I had to keep reminding the tech that while pushing harder got the baby to move into the correct position, it was also enough to nearly send me into orbit for the pain.

And as it turns out, Woodstock is getting a sister.

We couldn't be happier. Woodstock celebrated by taking a nap after the whole thing was over. It's exhausting for an almost-19-month-old to sit for 45 minutes, after all!


(Of course, you could have just read this post from April 2007 - it says essentially the same thing).

The Birthday Duo

When I found out I was pregnant with Woodstock, due in early September, there are two things I requested of the universe:

1. She be born in late August, so as to dispense with all the school deadline nonsense (in case we're still living in a state with a Sept. 1 deadline by the time Woodstock is old enough to go to school). As a kid who missed the deadline by 9 days, then ended up forgoing the 3rd grade to rectify the issue, I'm especially sensitive to it.

2. If she was born in September that she be born on a day other than my birthday. I had always felt bad for my grandmother who shares a birthday with my aunt. "How sad, I thought. She had to spend her birthday in a hospital giving birth." What I didn't realize is that giving birth was the cool part - it was the eating hospital food for one's birthday that was really crummy.

As it turns out, she was born in September. On Sunday, September 9, to be precise. Which also happens to be MY birthday.

Other than the fact that last year's birthday present (Woodstock) cost me several thousand dollars and a whole host of medical paperwork nightmares, I shrugged off the combined birthdays. It was, after all, kind of cool to see the State Vital Records guy put on his glasses, scrunch his eyes and say, "is this a typo or was she really born on your birthday?" It was also rather humorous when the pediatric urgent care nurse queried as to whether Woodstock was really nearly 30 - and if so why she was being seen at a pediatric clinic (the result of a bad habit of writing my birthday year instead of hers).

But this morning, I remembered why I didn't want to share a birthday, when Himself asked if I could find a baby sitter for Tuesday night so we could celebrate my birthday.

I started to nod my head. Then I said, "No. I can't. It's Woodstock's birthday too." Yes, she's only a year. Yes, she is not going to remember it. Yes, her "party" was last weekend. But I might as well start making accommodations now.

I'm already going to be on her hit list when she's 13 because we share a birthday, a middle name and nearly identical year-old baby photos (this according to my mother. I haven't seen said photos in so long I can't corroborate this). I don't need to give her any other fodder for what is certainly going to be angst-ridden, teenage rant against the parentals at some point in the next 12 years. *sniff* *poutylowerlip* "You don't love me. You left me with a sitter on my first birthday ever."

There is going to be enough to put me in the teenage "you don't love me" category, I'd rather not add to it quite yet.

Starting next year (I wasn't smart enough to think of it this year), I'm not working on OUR birthday. We'll spend the day together doing something fun. And while I'm not ready to concede spending my birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese (she is, after all, Himself's child too), I really don't mind the idea of celebrating my birthday twice -with Woodstock on OUR birthday with friends/family and with Himself on another day.

After all, Woodstock is the one birthday present that will never get returned, go out of style, get stored in the garage, gather dust or end up in some long-forgotten corner of my memory.

Not a bad birthday present.

Coughing, Crying and Cursing

Himself has a bad cough - I'm placing money on bronchitis (because, hey, someone always gets sick the week we're supposed to have company ... bronchitis, strep, tonsilitis, pneumonia ... and it is Himself's turn to be sick). It's bad enough he's actually going to the doctor. I can count the number of times he's been to the doctor on one hand in the 9.5 years I've known him, if that gives you any idea how lousy he must feel.

Saturday night, Himself hacked up a lung. In one valiant, irritated moment at some unearthly hour, I said, "Himself. We still have the prescription cough syrup from when you had bronchitis in VA, I found it in the move..." Himself, who won't take an Advil if the expiration date was yesterday, bounded out of bed. Every light in the basement went on as he searched for the cough syrup (just because I saw it in the move doesn't mean a) it has been unpacked or b) that I actually have any idea where it is). He came in four or five times to ask about its location. After the last time, I said, "Himself, it is either in the linen closet in the guest bathroom, under the sink of the master bathroom or buried in a box - in which case it will take you until the next move to find it at the rate we're unpacking," and buried my head under the pillow.

Last night, Himself took the cough syrup, in hopes we'd both have a peaceful (relatively) night sleep. He pawed at the sheets, tossed, turned, hacked, groaned, yanked on the sheets again and started the whole process again. And then ... he woke up hacking up a lung. Finally, he said he was going to sleep on the couch. Never one for couch-sleeping, I didn't even argue. At this rate, neither of us were sleeping.

I blissfully settled into quiet slumber, unable to hear Himself hacking away upstairs .... what felt like minutes (but was, in fact, a couple of hours) later, Woodstock wakes up with a full on yell. Nothing would console her. Exhausted, feeling drugged and wanting nothing more than to be in the horizontal postion, I brought her back to my bed.

How someone who isn't even 2.5' tall and weighs less than 20 pounds can take up the entire bed is beyond me, but at 11.5 months, Woodstock is already a bed hog. Every time I'd roll over, Woodstock would snuggle up against me. I'd wait until she was in a deep sleep, then roll over further, to no avail. Soon her fingers would be tangled in my hair and her feet would be in the small of my back.

The cursing started at oh-dark-hundred when Woodstock sat up, sunny smile on her face, said, "alldoh!" (All done) and leaned over to slobber on my face.

Today is not a good day to ask me if I like Mondays.

From the Mixed-Up Language Files of Woodstock

"Bum!" Woodstock said as she pointed her little finger skyward last night.

What on earth....?

"Bum!" She cried again. I followed her gaze (her finger is often off its mark) - there, on the power line above the backyard fence was a sparrow. But while Woodstock's verbal prowess is increasing every day (last week it was the addition of "alllllldoh" for "all done"), "bum" is not even remotely close to "bird" in any language, much less English.

I chalked it up to finger-pointing, babblings of an 11-month-old.

Several minutes later I returned outside to check on the fish on the grill. Himself handed Woodstock to me. Noticing that the bird had relocated to the fence itself, I decided to test her.

"Where is the bird?" I queried.

Her eyes immediately went the power line. No bird. She looked around for a moment ... and spotted the sparrow on the fence. "BUM!" she cried, pointing her little finger at the fence. I nearly dropped her.

"Good girl I cried. BIRD." She looked at me, then looked back at the sparrow. "Bum!" she cried, pointing at the bird and then clapping her hands gleefully.

Still not convinced, we tried later - when it came time to take the fish off the grill. This time the sparrow had moved back to the power line and had been joined by another sparrow buddy.

"Woodstock, what is that?" I pointed toward the birds lollygagging on the line.

"Bum!" she cried and clapped her hands, delighted. "Bum!" - this time pointing at the bird.

Paint me with sparkles and called me surprised - I think she is trying to say bird in context, never mind her odd choice of pronunciation.

I "tested" her again this morning and said, "Woodstock, where are the birds?" (There were none). She looked around and around, craning her neck, then stared at me with a blank stare. No birds.

"No birds, good girl!" I said.

She clapped her hands.

Who knew language development could be so entertaining.

Happy Hangover

I am too old to be going to bed at 2 a.m., as evidenced by the fact that my brain cells feel scrambled and my eyelids hurt this morning.

Woodstock and I went to visit Oliver & Kristin to help fold paper ... I mean help unpack (I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who saves moving supplies, in dreaded anticipation of the next move).

We arrived home at the unearthly hour of 12:50 a.m., at which point I left Woodstock snoozining fitfully in the car while I lugged the trash can and recycling container to the curb.

Unfortunately, our cars took up the entire driveway, so I had to "drive" the recycling container on the grass. In an attempt to miss the sprinkler heads, I went in a wide arc through the thickest part of the grass. Hit a bump and disaster! Pieces of cardboard and recycling debris all over the lawn. It looked like a box factory had exploded. I refrained from throwing a tantrum (out loud) and kicking the recycling container as I picked it all up. I did contemplate just pulling the blanket out of the trunk, building a fort out of cardboard and camping on the lawn.

I finally arrived inside the house at around 1:15 a.m. and went to put Woodstock to bed for the second time (she had spent most of our visit sleeping in Oliver & Kristin's closet). Except - now my tired little kiddo was WIDE AWAKE. I decided I was too tired to deal with it, and snuggled with her in my bed. Or tried to. Woodstock discovered my hair and, sitting right next to me, began pulling my hair, combing her fingers through it and pulling it over my face - then giggling hysterically when my breathing made it poof up.

This was not condusive to sleeping for either party. I put my hair up in a pony tail. She then began poking at my eyes, sticking her fingers up my nose (she hasn't discovered that HER nose has holes yet - but she loves the ones in mine...) and chattering up a storm. I rolled over and put the pillow over my head (a very adult thing to do).

Eventually, I got her to bed - in her own bed - sometime after 2 a.m. Neither one of us woke up until 8 a.m. I have to leave for work at 8:30. It made for a lovely morning.

I'm already contemplating naps, and I've only been at work for 90 minutes.

It's going to be a long day.

F-E-V-E-R Spells Disappointment

I am, by nature, rather high strung. As a result, there are very few activities or places that I find relaxing. In fact, there is only one place where I feel absolutely, totally relaxed - where I can seperate all of the nonsense chatter in my head from complete serenity.

It is a little campground on a big mountain next to a tiny lake, where the air, even in mid-summer is cool enough for long sleeves in the early hours of the day. For nearly 3 decades, my family has trekked up the mountain for a week of relaxation, hiking, fishing, good food, board games, reading and naps. It was the one place as a children where we could venture out on our own. Every childhood memory there is perfectly preserved, as changes in nature are measured by centuries, not by decades. (So little changes, in fact, a fort constructed by my brother years ago still stands at one of the remote "satellite" lakes located a couple of miles from camp).

This year was to be a year of firsts, and a year of much-needed respite after a year of extreme highs and lows. I was taking Son and Baby Girl for four days - meeting my family (who had arrived days before) and spending some time just being. It was to be my first year as the "middle" generation. My whole body ached with anticipation (and, later, we discovered, it also ached with tonsilitis).

The morning arrived, I piled both kids into the car with the camping gear, the snacks, the range of clothing (mid-summer to early-winter outfits in three different sizes) and all of the baby gear. We drove through some of the most scenic country in Utah for three hours, turned onto a dirt road and drove up the mountain for another hour.

We arrived elated. Sedated. Happy. Ready to unpack and soak up nature, family and the stillness that drives me crazy everywhere else.

An hour later, Baby Girl registered a temperature of 104.9.

For the next 24 hours, it spiked and ebbed ... in the early morning hours our first (and only) morning there, her fever broke without medication and I breathed easier. I bundled her up in a blanket and sat on the end of the dock to watch the ducks. She pointed and chattered a little - but clearly didn't feel like herself. Three hours later, her temperature again reached 104.9. It wouldn't abate.

I hiked a nearby hillside and stood perfectly still to capture the dicey cell signal. I called the ranger stations in the tiny towns on either side of the mountain, searching for a medical clinic.

Exactly 24 hours after arriving, I gathered up Baby Girl, her things and any "necessities," threw them in the car and charged down the mountain - leaving Son to stay an extra day and return home with an aunt.

The official diagnosis was tonsilitis and pneumonia. My heart was broken. Weeks of anticipation followed by 30 minutes of elation and 23.5 hours of worry, concern and confusion had left me heartsick and exhausted. A million questions ran through my head, "how on earth can somone have pneumonia and no signs?" "how did I make Baby Girl feel better?" "was there nowhere I was going to find solace?" "what do people in Wayne County do if they get sick, since there is ONE clinic in the entire county?!"

I cried on the way home. I sobbed the next morning, enveloped by my own case of tonsilitis, exhaustion and self-pity. Home was not the haven I had craved for weeks - rather it was a disheveled collection of half-opened boxes spilling their contents in every room as the process of "moving in" dragged on. There was no family bonding, no relaxation, no hikes or early morning fishing. Baby Girl did not go on the lake on the boat, or up to the lookout tower in the backpack, or to the beaver pond. She didn't play with her cousin, get coddled by Grandpa or experience the great outdoors within the confines of her playpen while I dozed nearby in the clear, cool mountain sunlight.

I read 50 pages between monitoring Baby Girl's temperature between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. The only reason I left the mountain dirtier than when I arrived was due to diaper leakage.

It felt like running a marathon - excited for the celebration of finishing the race, only to discover part-way through that it had been extended for another 26.2 miles and one must keep on running to the new end point.

I will keep on running. Running and running and running.

(ETA: Baby Girl is fine. Her lungs had cleared by the next morning - after some high-powered antibiotics administered via a shot. Her tonsilitis cleared up almost immediately. She slept for almost an entire day and woke up happy and healthy. I'm still working on getting to sleep for the first time).

The Universe According to Baby Girl

DADDY! - noun. Used to describe anything that Baby Girl is happy about - Himself, me, photos of herself, etc. Usually said at top volume full of glee.

Mama - noun. Usually repeated over and over (as in "mamamamama") when she isn't happy about something - lately the antibiotic eye drops I have to give her (do they seriously think that eye drops in a 10.5-month-old baby is actually going to do any good when said child screws up her eyes so tight it just runs down her face?). She is also saying "Mama" with greater frequency to mean just me. I want to know how Himself gets the "shout for glee" DADDY! and I get the "my world is screwed up" Mama label.

Tu-dle - noun. Used to mean all bath toys, most of which actually are turtles. Claps after saying it.

Uh oh - expression. Usully uttered when Baby Girl takes something, sticks her arm out over the edge of whatever she's sitting/standing on and drops said object to the floor. She then peers over the edge and exclaims, "UH OH!" loudly. If object is not retrieved in a speedy manner, she then grunts to get our attention and then repeats "uh oh!". Repeat indefinitely.

Tit-ty - noun. Used to describe any animal that moves. Miss Jan has a kitty. I'm assuming that is where she picked that up.

Hi - Used, occassionally, to say "hello" - but generally only when prompted. Always includes the "elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, wrist" princess wave.

Ba Ba - "Bye Bye" - always accompanied by the wave describe above and sometimes, if you are Miss Jan or Daddy, also includes blowing kisses (occasionally complete with smacking noise). Not always said in context. For instance, Baby Girl will stop eating, start waving both hands and saying "ba ba" and blowing kisses mid-meal. I'm convinced she does it for attention, as she typically claps afterward, thanking her subjects for their response to her performance.

She will also sign "More" - which usually means she wants attention more than actual food, but one of these days we'll get there. I've just realized that she has her own version of the sign for "milk," which only slightly resembles the hand sign I've been using for the past four months. No wonder it is usually follwed by sharp grunting yells!

I wish I could unlock the babbling she does - she'll chatter nonstop while standing at the sliding glass door, watching the birds (she'll be getting a bird feeder for her birthday, as she's totally mesmerized by the them). When she wakes up, she'll stand in her crib and yell happy noises - like she's trying to have a conversation with someone in the next room.

If she is in a chatty mood and you talk to her, she'll answer back - in some undecipherable string of babbles and hand guestures and smiles.

Makes me wonder what is going on in her head.

Shiny New Life

I am known, for better or worse, to surround myself with drama - typically not of my own creation, though sometimes when it gets really dull, people wonder.

Through the last six months of "head shrinking" - I've realized that I am an adrenaline junkie. I don't know how to function in a mode that is not the physiological equivalent of "fight or flight." I have done a fair amount of reading about the "chronic state of phsyiological stress" lately. In short, something has to change.

In the past several months, I've made strides to begin healing the frenzied anxiety-black velvet curtain of depression nonsense. I've worked at not caring so much about some things. I've tried to assuage the guilt of not saying "yes" every time - or doing everything I should be - because "should" is subjective.

And the drama continues.
* I was forced/chose to change jobs ... it was a good decision, but has come with a month's worth of continued drama, lawyers, legal advice, covering my rear end, analyzing and discovering that much of what I thought wasn't actually true.

* In an attempt to gain control and reduce the anxiety, we moved. The Hobbit Hole was up for sale. I couldn't continue to focus on healing and reducing the almost-daily panic attacks when I was worried about what parts of myself were exposed when people came through the house or how clean it was. But moving in and of itself, even just next door, was enough frenzied nonsense to send me into orbit. Especially since it happened CONCURRENTLY with the job drama (timing was not planned that way).

* Son came for the summer. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a pleasant experience. But he came the day after I quit my job, two weeks before moving day. One can only imagine the insanity.

With the maelstrom of changes, I haven't done so well at focusing on those things I need to be focusing on. There is no routine, no settled contentment. Little things turn into bigger mini-dramas overnight.

We set up the washer/dryer yesterday. The washer was a breeze compared to last year's set-up. The dryer, however, required an unplanned trip to Home Depot, 2 hours and a fair amount of "what the hell were we thinking" conversations between Himself and I - the two people least equipped to be involved in any kind of appliance anything on earth.

This morning, Baby Girl woke up with diarrhea of epic proportion. I could smell the result halfway down the hall, before I even entered her room. It was 5:45 a.m. I finished the batch of laundry I'd started before bed, picked her up (no way even she could sleep through that stench), cleaned her, changed her and dumped her back into bed with Himself. I embarked on another three loads of laundry - because, of course, the soiled pajamas, changing pad and towel were not even close to being able to be washed together.

And ... a batch of jam. JAM?! On a work day? When Baby Girl has caused an additional mess to clean and there is laundry in various stages of "done"?

But I wanted to learn and do new things this summer. Canning was part of it. A perfect storm of house capable of providing off-season storage space for the massive water-bath canner and free fruit provide the opportunity. Still, jam on a work day morning was out of the question - except yesterday's drama prevented me from doing anything with the two boxes of apricots taking up the microscopic amount of floor space in the kitchen ... and the top ones, from the top of the tree, were rapidly ripening beyond the point of no return.

I had no choice.

New job. New house. Annual visit from Son. Baby Girl's first encounter with diarrhea. Canning. Picking. Installing appliance(s). Packing. Unpacking. Waiting a very long time for a paycheck. Full-time work after a three-week hiatus. Five loads of laundry in 12 hours. Preparation for next week's camping trip. And on and on and on.

Even the shiny new life is wearing me out.

Martian Mariachi

I woke up this morning - at 5:15 a.m. - to mariachi music. Not only that, but staticky mariachi music.

It wasn't terribly loud - just loud enough (and staticky enough) that, combined with the rising sun, made me wake up 45 minutes earlier than I normally do. It was just annyoing enough to make me want to bury my head under my pillow and think of grumpy words.

I thought for sure someone was out working in the yard and listening to the radio. I got up to investigate. I'm not sure why I thought I could see anything, given the fact that our room is in the basement.

What I discovered was even more bizarre. The mariachi music was coming from ... the baby monitor.

I crept into Baby Girl's room, where she slept blissfully in a warm, steamy silence. No mariachi music. No music at all, in fact. The only noise was the purr of her humidifier.

Puzzled, I walked back into our room. The music was still playing over the baby monitor.

Himself wanted to know what on earth I was doing (especially after yesterday's closet incident). I told him about the Martian Mariachi music over the monitor. He just rolled his eyes.

--

On a related side note, some months ago I heard a baby crying over the monitor. I rushed to check on Baby Girl, who was sound asleep. Thinking it was odd that she would fall back to sleep so immediately after such choking sobs, I returned to my task at the other end of the house only to discover ... there was still a baby crying over the monitor.

Someone ELSE's baby was crying on MY monitor.

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Great Bedroom Escape

Sleeping in a new place is always difficult for me. I don't sleep well as a general rule, but I sleep even worse if I am in someone else's bed or someone else's house. That includes the first few nights in a new home.

However, either the new house has good karma or I am suffering from sheer exhaustion over the drama of the last month, because I have slept blissfully well all three nights I have spent in the new house (new being a very relative term, of course, it's 30 years old).

Additionally, while Baby Girl has her bedroom on the same level as ours, she is back in the far corner - so we had to drag out the baby monitor. I have grown unaccustomed to hearing her cries so loudly over the monitor on the rare occasion she wakes up in the night.

Last night I went from a dead sleep to a frenzied stupor in 0.7 seconds when Baby Girl let out a series of wails from her room. It shocked me so completely, I forgot to just wait it out to see if she would rescue her binky and drift back to sleep, and I launched myself out of bed in a mess of bedding, flailing limbs and grunts. Completely disoriented, I stumbled around in the blackness of our bedroom until I found the door. I opened it, and walked out.

Strange, I thought. I would have thought there would be at least some ambient light from the window in the family room. I was unable to find the banister in the dark, which indicates the necessary place to turn toward Baby Girl's room. Instead, I ran into a wall.

Still in a state of heavy delirium, I stumbled back into the bedroom and fished for my cell phone to use the LED display and brighten up my path to Baby Girl's room a little.

Imagine my surprise when my cell phone illuminated the room just enough to reveal my "adventure" had been in our completely empty walk-in closet. The door out of the bedroom wasn't even on the same wall.

By the time I found my way out of the bedroom, Baby Girl had given up and gone back to sleep. Funny how easy it is to feel so dumb at 3 a.m., even when no one is around to witness it.

Stopping Time

The phone rang this morning.

"Um, you might want to know Baby Girl pulled herself up to standing this morning."

I did want to know. I'm delighted she chose to do it on a day Himself was watching her. But really? STOP GROWING UP FOR A FEW DAYS! She's only been crawling for a mere month. She has only been pulling herself up to her knees for 10 days. She still only has two half-showing bottom teeth (that are sharp - certain parts of my anatomy may never recover feeling after last night's test run of the new teeth).

My prayers will now begin, "Please don't let her walk yet. Please."

Hard to believe that 9 weeks ago, Baby Girl couldn't even sit up on her own.

On Why Oatmeal and Babies Are Not a Good Combo

Baby Girl is now in the "I must feed myself" stage (which will last for the next 18 years, according to my mother).

It started out with rice krispies. Noticing that Baby Girl can find (and pick up) every microscopic piece of lint on the carpet, I thought "ah ha! I will engage her fine motor skills in picking up finger food to help pacify her while I cook dinner." Out came the rice krispies - small, easily eaten with no teeth (she now has two that are half-way in, but still hasn't figured out what use they serve other than to run her finger over repeatedly) and portable.

Baby Girl LOVES rice krispies and picks them up one by one to eat them.

It also keeps her occupied, when her dinner is not quite ready at the same time she is.

So I started to experiment with foods that would keep her occupied - and expand outside of the cold cereal genre. Tofu rolled in cereal dust, steamed pieces of mango, peach or pear, pancakes made with baby oatmeal, cinnamon and nutmeg ... and, oatmeal. OATMEAL?!

It was all fine until she decided that oatmeal was definitely not food fit for a spoon and was definitely in the "finger food" category.

Tonight, in the course of 45 minutes, I had to feed Baby Girl, make and bake a dozen chocolate/cream cheese/chocolate chip cupcakes, load and start the dishwasher and dash to a quilting event at church (yes, I know, what was I thinking? But I love quilts).

So I gave up on feeding her with a spoon, mixed a few pureed peaches in, globbed finger-sized blobs on her tray and let her feed herself.

Three hours later, while putting her to bed, I was still discovering bits of dried (read: cement-like) oatmeal - in her hair, her diaper, between her fingers, on her socks, down her pants ... along with bits of dried peach in her eyelashes and a smear of chocolate on the side of her face where I apparently inadvertently transferred cupcake batter at one point.

Then I saw her high chair.

I don't think I'll be feeding her oatmeal until she's figured out how to use a spoon. The sight of that high chair makes me want to run away screaming.

Daddies and Turtles

If anyone had told me 9 months ago that Baby Girl's second legible, correctly applied word would be "turtle," I would have rolled my eyes and made some sort of snarky comment.

Her first word - legible, non-legible, correctly applied and otherwise, was "Daddy" (and all its formations). Of course, this week, she started calling everything that delights her "Daddy" - including me, photos of herself, her favorite toys, Himself and anything else that catches her fancy.

Today, she was splashing in the tub, sucking on a plastic turtle bath toy - one of a half dozen turtle bath toys she's ended up with. At some point, she got annoyed because the turtle had escaped. I captured the offending turtle and propelled him back within her grasp, saying something highly intelligent like, "Look! Turtle."

"TURTLE!" she hollered. (Which came out sounding more like "dur-dle" with a very pronounced pause in the middle).

I nearly dropped the soap. I hollered to Himself, who said Baby Girl could not have possibly said turtle - her only experience with the word was in the bathtub, after all.

Except later, during second breakfast, she randomly shouted out "TURTLE" all over again. It wasn't in my head.

Daddies and turtles - what an interesting life we lead.

Dagger. Heart. Bullseye.

As a general rule, I loathe Mondays, especially Mondays where you wake up and realize you're already way behind and they day has only barely begun.

Today ... well, today was a disaster in the making for several reasons, but the only one that mattered was that at 8 months, 11 days, Baby Girl sobbed for the first time when I left her at Miss Jan's.

I watched her little face crumple and her lip jut out and quiver just before Miss Jan whisked her inside - her quarter-century of tending children dictating that the episode was much more traumatic for Mom than Baby Girl. In the afternoon, she told me that Baby Girl quieted immediately upon being immersed among the Three Princesses (the three little girls who tend to Baby Girl as if she were their own baby sister), but it didn't help ... much.

This is the moment I've dreaded my entire life ... the moment when Baby Girl realized that I was leaving her, even if it was to supplement her very expensive and growing habit of eating me out of house and home (she may be tiny but the kid has a hollow leg!).

When your break up with your "one true love" at age 12 or lose a beloved childhood pet, you think your heart has broken into a million pieces.

What no one tells you is that your own offspring, with a single glance, can make every other grief seem petty.

I'm composed, my heart is mended, all was forgiven 30 seconds after I left, but there is the tiniest bruise on my heart tonight.

Half an Hour

Last night, Himself had to work until 8, and I had an engagement downtown with him after that. Since it was Thursday, and Miss Jan sits for free on Thursdays, we opted to leave Baby Girl at Miss Jan's until after our downtown engagement.

Which meant that from the time I got off at 5ish to the time I left to go downtown at 7:40, I didn't have to pick up, cook for, change, clean up after anyone. I now know what my mom felt like on the first day of school before she went back to work.

Of course, I did have to go grocery shopping. It was surreal.

I didn't have to wear a Snugli. There was no apologies as I wandered up and down the refrigerated section for it being too cold for Baby Girl. Himself wasn't there to add extra things to the basket every time I turned my back, throwing off my carefully tuned list and shocking me when the amount was $50 over what I had calculated in my head. Then again, I nearly caught myself talking to myself - as I talk to Baby Girl when I grocery shop, pointing out interesting things, musing about brands, lamenting the lack of Asian produce.

I threw the groceries in the car and drove home. I unloaded them and turned on NPR while I put them away. No one demanded attention, food or that I please consider listening to something else.

And then, I had half an hour to myself. I made a light dinner, finished the NPR program and thought, "my day is so much longer with just me in it."

Later on, when I picked Baby Girl up and brought her home to put her in bed, I sat and held her in the dark stillness, breathed in the smell of her baby skin as she snuggled next to me and sighed.

Half an hour was glorious. But as the day ended, I was happy to have my arms full and warm again.

Why They Put Warning Labels on Baby Items

WARNING! Do not leave child unattended at any time


This is what happens when I turned to get a diaper. 0.2 seconds. I will note that the mobile no longer has animals on it. Now she has taken to dropping things off the changing table, then leaning over the edge to look for them.


In the Hobbit Hole, I can touch the bouncy seat and get something out of the dishwasher at the same time. I reached to get a spoon from the dishwasher and turned back to find Baby Girl in a fully horizontal position. I grabbed her ankle and yelled for Himself to come take a picture - quick!


**No babies were harmed in the photos above. Professional babies with stunt doubles were not used. Please do not try this at home.

You Know You're Having a Bad Week When ...

10. Baby Girl wakes up with her face covered in dried snot. You diligently wash it with a warm cloth. You arrive at the sitter's with a Baby Girl whose face is again covered in dried snot. The drive is only 7 miles long.

9. You walk out of the house, only to discover snow covering everything, and still falling, in APRIL.

8. You get to work and discover that Baby Girl wasn't snuggling before work, she was wiping her nose on you, leaving evidence mid-chest.

7. You get to work the following day and discover that somehow there is peanut butter smeared down the sleeve of your blazer.

6. There seem to be a few ants of the stubborn "refuse-to-be-squished" colony inhabiting the area under your bathtub who LIKE Cayenne pepper, bravely crossing the line of red pepper scrimmage in defiance of all of your "how to get rid of ants without using chemicals" research that swears ants. will. not. cross. cayenne. pepper. ever.

5. Not one, but two giant containers of yogurt come barreling out of the refrigerator to attack you just as you are grabbing your lunch on your way out the door. Bonus points if they land upside down on your feet.

4. Himself calls to ask how much is in his account so he can eat lunch out since he forgot his lunch, thereby missing the attack of the killer yogurts. Bonus points if you think "if you have to ask, the answer can't be good."

3. Baby Girl's doctor tells you to feed her more solids. Upon arriving home, however, Baby Girl pinches her lips together after the first bite and refuses to open them, even when you throw up your hands, strip her naked and offer to let her feed herself. She instead quite happily plays with the spoon - unless it has food on it, at which point she turns it around and sucks on the other end.

2. It is 5 days past pay day and your paycheck still hasn't arrived.

1. Your fortune cookie has no fortune.*

*At that point you may as well throw up your hands and hibernate the rest of the week away. After all, it did snow. In April. Hibernation season isn't over yet.

They Don't Teach You This in Parenting Books

Baby Girl will be 7 months in one week, and she is eating us out of house and home.

I firmly believe this is because her little body is ready for real food. However, that is easier said than done. A month ago, her eczema suddenly got worse - her chest, body creases and face are all red, rough and irritated looking. I read. Because it corresponded with introducing her first solid food (along with an alarming case of hives), we pulled her off solids. The hives went away. The eczema stayed. I read some more. We switched formula brands. Very little difference, except I like the new one better (of course - it's twice as much - which is the second reason I wince at Baby Girl eating enough to rival a growing teenage boy).

Back on solids. And ... Baby Girl is allergic to bananas, resulting in hives and a red bottom that made her scream when she had to get rid of the solid food waste. It is terribly unfortunate since she loved bananas - greedily slurping down every morsel I would give her.

We waited. I read some more. Last night, we introduced sweet potatoes (which Himself and I took part of, seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg and had for dinner - the added benefits of making one's own baby food!). They were met with a lot of interesting facial contortions and a lot of lip smacking.

Tonight, we brought out the sweet potatoes again. This time, after one bite, Baby Girl stubbornly refused to open her mouth. At all. No amount of teasing, coaxing, playing stupid little games would make her change her mind. She would even smile with her lips clamped shut. I floundered, wondering how on earth she was ever going to grow if she remained this stubborn.

About the time I started muttering how she was most definitely our child, given the level of stubbornness, I gave in and let Baby Girl hold her own spoon. I am sure there are about a thousand "thou shalt nots" about this in all those parenting books I've never read (seriously - who has time to read parenting books when one has a child? And before hand, you have no idea about what they are actually speaking, so they are utterly almost useless). Miracle of miracles, Baby Girl took the spoon loaded with sweet potatoes, put them in her mouth and chattered happily as she ran the spoon over her tongue. I repeated it until there were more sweet potatoes in her hair, on her pants and chair and face than there were in the bowl.

I am hoping some went into her mouth.