Thanks. Whew.

So how much luck, good fortune, blessedness (whatever you like to think of it as) can I expect. None. That’s how much I expect. Because I think by expecting none hopefully I won’t seem arrogant to whoever decides this stuff, and then I will get me some more.

Anyway, I found out this week that the occasional but very sharp pain in my hip joint that I’ve had on and off for years is actually something. It is early degeneration of my hip joint. AKA osteoarthritis. And while researching it on the internet that evening, and learning that I’m kind of destined for it to progress, and feeling kind of weepy about it, Michael came in and bolstered me up very sweetly. And it made me kind of brace up and realize that at least I wasn’t sitting there searching for information on something life-threatening on the internet. Just lifestyle threatening. And I’ll take that any day.

Then here was this. Sami and I went to Target on Saturday. Yes. Target on a Saturday right before Christmas. Argh. We had to park in the far reaches of the lot. And even out there, it was packed. We did our shopping, pushed the cart to the car. I unloaded my stuff, then unloaded Sami and put her in her car seat, pushed the cart off to the side by another one then hopped in to head for our next stop about 2 miles away. We pull in to my favorite neighborhood specialty meat shop to shop for some fish for dinner. And as I pulled in and went to gather up my purse… OH GOD I didn’t have it! You all know that sick, sick feeling. As I sped back to Target (Sami going, “Mommy fass! Mommy fass!”), and I mean sped, I couldn’t help but run through in my mind the fact that I have probably 40+ different cards (not credit, but just—you know—membership cards, savings cards, and a handful of credit cards too) in there and I would have no idea how to go about beginning to contact the issuers. And of course, I had just gone to the bank and bestowed some actual cash upon myself. A rare circumstance. I’m usually very cashless. But decided sometimes that can be a hassle, so had been very extravagant and took out a hundred bucks in cash.

I knew with the crowds and crowds of people the odds of my cart still being there, let alone with my purse still in it, were slim. The one flicker of hope I held onto was that I had seen Glum Cart Retriever Boy coming out to that area of the lot as we left. I pulled back in, hopped out to see if I could find it on foot to no avail. Hopped back in the car, and headed to the front of the lot, guessing I’d go in and see if by any long shot someone might have turned it in.

And in a gleaming ray of light, there was Glum Cart Retriever Boy pushing a cart filled with some other junk AND MY PURSE. I sputtered and stuttered and pointed at the purse and said, “Mine. Purse mine.” He delivered it unto me.

Oh sweet Jesus, I was grateful.

I’m not doing that anymore.

Also, I think spending the time to photocopy every card in my purse front and back might be a worthwhile expenditure of time. Doncha think?

Here and Now

Awk I’ve been delinquent about getting in here. But since I can’t possibly catch up on everything now, I’m allowing myself just to pick up in the present so I’m not overwhelmed. So there.

Sami's a parrot now. She will try to say anything I ask her to. And she is hilarious doing it. My favorite is when she thinks she has a word down perfectly, and so repeats it very clearly over and over. Like “oppus.” As in, “Mommy work inna oppus?” You know. It’s a room in our house. And she loves to page (and I mean it – she browses through the plethora I receive page by delicate page—thanks MyCokeRewards.com) through mazzagines.

And suddenly, instead of asking “Whassis?” She now waves her hand in an impatient fashion, and demands to know, “Whassis’bout?” About EVERYthing. A stain on my shirt? Whassis’bout. A sack full of groceries? Whassis’bout. A new card I opened during her nap and added to the Christmas card holder? Swear. Two seconds into the room, and she notices it, and needs to know whassis’bout.

She’s a fashionista. She can spend hours trying on her shoes. Her favorites are the sandals from last summer that she outgrew but that I haven’t yet boxed up for Goodwill and instead threw them all into an otherwise empty drawer in her room. Her toes stick out the end about an inch. Divine. And oh. Belts. And for the past two days, she drug out her little one piece swimsuit, and has me help her put it on over her clothes. She was happy wearing it for hours yesterday. So convenient at diaper changing time, too.

She loves to shop. And if I happen to try something on with her in there, she’s so complimentary. “Ohhhh. So cute, Mom.” And of course, she encourages me, “Get tit, Mom? Get tit?”


Today she had a freak little stumble that made her kind of fall into a rocking chair in my oppus. With the dog on top of her. And the chair cross rail had broken off some time ago, leaving a bit of a sharp wooden point, and of course, her head hit that.

Michael was on the phone, and I could hear the long, long intake of breath that indicates a ‘real’ injury, and after the long, long intake we know to anticipate a really hearty scream. I ran with her into the bedroom to try to keep the noise from Michael’s phone call. And I did what I’ve done dozens of times, and that is to hold her to me and rock back and forth, trying to soothe her. Only this time, feeling the wetness that I assumed were her tears, when she finally calmed down and I pulled my hand away, it had blood all over it. I was pretty calm I guess, but went back into Michael, and together we found that she had only a tiny nick on her scalp. But my word! By the time I got a wet cloth and cleaned up her hair, my hands, and her scalp, it looked like I had mopped up a small murder scene. So that’s my lesson in case she gets a worse cut on the head in the future. They bleed a LOT. I want to remember that so I don’t freak out and assume lots of blood indicates lots of injury.

Copying Mom's method of sunglass storage 

Um, yeah. That's her nose with a mascara smudge from my eyelash curler. She was playing with it, but got confused and held it to her nose instead. 

August 2006 -- almost 2! 

The Sami Signature Wave 

One of her favorite outdoor activities... just spraying water everywhere and into everything 

Transitions.

I get so wrapped up in things. But yet then not. Like, I get all those email notifications from BabyCenter about the development of your child. And while some of them kind of amazed me in the past, because they would send me an email that had me feeling like they had peeked in my windows that week and were writing about exactly what was going on with Sami. Then I started noticing all their advice and reassurances were actually kind of getting on my nerves with their smarminess, and I got tired of being told not to worry about something that I wasn’t going to worry about anyway. You know?

So when Sami was around 18 months, and I got one of their damned emails that just all of a sudden and without warning made me feel like I should have had Sami weaned off her bottle, I’ll just admit I questioned myself. Instinct seemed to have gotten me along so well through those first 18 months. And then all of a sudden they go popping this on me. And I was like, “Well, shouldn’t someone have mentioned it a little before this so I could work in this direction, for god’s sake?” But anyway, so I suddenly felt like I just had to get Sami off the bottle. That and a young woman’s comments while we were out shopping one day. (But that’s a story for another time. It still stings. And the snappy comeback that would have been PERfect hit me only moments after walking away. Alas, timing was everything.)

But then I told myself, hey, Sami has always been a stellar sleeper, and is so sunny, and she’s right where she’s supposed to be when we visit the doctor, and oh so many good things. What the hell do I care if she still wants a bottle of warm milk right before her nap and bedtime. Why would I upset something that is working so well for us? Well, I wouldn’t. That’s why.

And that’s when I really started earnestly dismissing canned advice. I realized that even though I remained childless and child-avoiding right up until the age of 42 when I had Sami – this stuff pretty much comes to me in of itself.

I knew—just knew—that the time wasn’t right for us. Just as much as I was confident I would know when the time was right for us.

Heh. Heh. Only I didn’t. Know, I mean.

Ack! Sami weaned herself off the bottle not quite 2 weeks ago. We didn’t talk about it. I didn’t see it coming. No big fuss. Just all of a sudden, she didn’t want it at bedtime anymore.

Coupled with about a week of difficulty going to bed. Isn’t that odd? At a time when she was acting frightened—or something—of going to bed and in my mind should have wanted the additional comfort piece of having a bottle, she dismissed it. I’m still scratching my head over it. Bad dreams? Her dad was on vacation from work, and we all got to enjoy extra time together and so we were all doing fun things most every evening and she didn’t want to go to bed and miss out on fun? I don’t know.

But then after about 3 nights of me offering her a bottle and her saying, nonchalantly, “No,” I stopped offering. And it hasn’t come up again. I waited about a week, shuffling them around in the cupboard to get at the sippy cups. But still nothing. So 2 days ago, I got them all out, and all the nipples and tops and whatnot, and because I’m not THAT brave, I put them all into a bag and chucked them into the storage room in the basement under the stairs. (Or maybe I did it because growing up on a farm you were constantly but only occasionally going to need a baby bottle to feed an orphaned lamb or calf, and so you always kept a few around. Odds of running across stray lambs or calves in the city? Uh. Yeah. Oh well.)

And then when I was coming back up the stairs, and on the wall I saw the black and white photo of her when she was just days old. And I got all sappy and teary on myself, and realized again that she’s not a baby any more. Like seriously.

Like, we’re approaching 2 you know. In a few days. I remember when she was just that teeny infant-y stage that isn’t so, you know, rewarding, or entertaining. They’re so, um, needy. And I remember thinking about what she would be like when we got to 2, and thinking about how fun that would be. And well, guess what. It is. It is just the best thing ever.

Her constant, “Whassis?” I literally got to watch her “get it.” Get that everything – and that means every thing - has a name. Coupled with listening to her try to say each of those names too. Oh, is there anything so sweet as this time?

Other moms tell me, “Oh you wait. It just keeps getting better and better.” But I’m skeptical, because how can it get cuter and better than this? (Okay, I’m not really skeptical so much as I’m afraid to think that way because I like NOW so much, how can it possibly get even better but I really do believe them, and I can’t wait.)

Just think of all the things I get to watch her “get.” Oh delight.

But then, in the tiny little fissures where some dark ink seeps through if I’m not careful to hold it at bay, then I also have to think about how someday someone might laugh unkindly at her. Or break her heart. Or lie to her to hurt her. Or that she’ll lose a pet or a person she loves. And I can’t stand it.

But all those things happened to me. And they do to everyone. And I made it through all that to find love and happiness and joy in my life.

So I feel this very overwhelming responsibility to arm her to cope with everything life will deal up to her. Now how in the hell am I going to do that?

Maybe BabyCenter will send me some advice.

Oh. That Kind of Hot.

Well, yesterday Sami touched the iron. Oh boy. I had told her and told her every time I got the iron out that it is VERY hot and NEVER to be touched, and on and on. Well, when she saw I was distracted by being on the phone, she snuck over there and deliberately touched it with her finger. I only saw her pull back from it. And you know how it takes an instant when you're burnt before it hurts really badly? She just looked really surprised, and then the "ouch" hit, and she wailed.

Now, I had my iron on the absolute hottest it goes, because I was ironing damp cotton and linen stuff. But unbelievably, her finger did not blister, just turned red. And we ran downstairs and ran cold water over it, and then I got some ice in a cloth, and she would just sit there bawling and daintily holding her little finger tip onto that ice. It really was so cute.

And I know after about 5 or 10 minutes, it didn't hurt anymore that badly -- but she kept replaying the whole scene in her head, and cried over and over about it. Then when Daddy got home, and we were still sitting there--me holding her in my lap with the ice--and then when we told Daddy what happened, oh God, we had to bawl all over again.

Michael and I agreed that really, as sad as you feel for her, there's no way to make them learn why you keep telling them not to touch hot things until they burn themselves once. And at least it was just a fingertip, and no blister. Much better than the oven or stove or something. So now she knows. Before I think she thought when I told her something's never to be touched because it is VERY hot, she just thinks in her head, "Oh. Hot like a french fry that will cool down" ya know? So now she knows. And I guarantee you she steered clear of the iron when we came back up later.

Summer Sami

Well, we’ve been so busy that finding the time to write has seemed impossible. But day in, day out – perhaps hourly, I observe things that I feel a need to write about. Alas, by the time I carve out the time (or ignore Mt. Laundry), so much of it doesn’t come to mind. I resolve to try to get back to writing daily, so the task doesn’t seem so monumental—looming—when I don’t get to it for a while. That just causes me to put off getting started even longer.

I was never around children much before I had Sami. And due to not being around kids, they actually kind of made me nervous. I could watch my older sister interact with them with great success. But mimicking her style just didn’t fit with me. And so I felt self-conscious and, well, weird trying to hang out with children. So just didn’t do it much. With that said, I put forth that I have virtually no point of reference when I say that Sami seems so smart to me. But Sami does seem so smart to me!

I don’t mean that she’s wildly advanced beyond her peers in areas like talking, music, or anything measurable like that. More that I’m just blown away on nearly a daily basis by watching her discover something or by her “telling” me something that I’ve no idea where she picked it up. You know, lots of kids do that, I think—but if they’re staying with other people or at daycare or school, I think their parents chalk it up to, “Well, she must’ve learned that at daycare,” etc. But Sami’s in our very controlled (well, I use that term loosely to describe our household, but you know what I mean) environment. She’s always with me or her dad. So when we check in with each other and there’s no basis for her knowing it…

Anyway, what fun this is. This raising of a child at this stage—watching her watch the world from her perspective is absolutely priceless—clearly the dearest thing to me in my whole life.

We showed her one of those big, ugly, clingy beetles? She didn’t even hesitate to just pick it up. And even when it clung to her, she was still just interested in it. She knows an amazing number of words now. But many of them take interpretation, and she realizes it, and so watching her try to relay to me what she’s trying to say, using other gestures, is so fun. And funny.

“Be” denotes many different things for Sami. It can be Sunny Bunny, an airplane, a photo of herself, a video of herself, other children or babies, a bird. And now there’s a new one… she kept saying it, but while making this pinching gesture with her hands, putting her index fingers and thumbs together over and over because I wasn’t getting it. And finally, I did. About a week ago, I shelled a peanut in front of her, and shared a peanut with her. She was trying to copy the movement I made while shelling the peanut. It was awfully cute.

We haven’t had yogurt in the house for a few weeks (just lack of decent shopping to blame there), but the other day at Target, Michael said she wanted out to push the cart, and she went straight for the yogurt and chose her usual brand and some flavors. And then she started asking for it by name at home, “Goo guh? Goo guh? Goo guh?” Her perception is that if I’m not getting it the first few times, she will repeat it over and over and over. But what’s cute is she doesn’t get frantic or frustrated. She’s terribly patient about it.

And sometimes, there’s just no figuring out what she’s saying. And I’ll just say to her apologetically, “Honey, I’m sorry. I just don’t know what you’re saying.” And she’s off to something else. She doesn’t pitch a fit, which I think is pretty amazing. I would if people didn’t “get” me.

Anyway, we just had a vacation with my family in Iowa. And Sami totally bonded with her Aunt Bec (“Bock!”). Within the second day, while shopping, Sami would refuse to let me touch or push the cart—it had to be Bock. I couldn’t feed her, dress her, brush her hair. Nothin’. It all had to be done by Bock. Well, don’t think for one minute that I was threatened by that. It was SO nice; I took advantage of the time to sneak out to the patio and read my book. Or just to relax. To have someone who I honestly believe loves Sami as much as her dad and I do, and because practically any knowledge I’ve picked up about childraising came from her – to have my sister taking care of my daughter was wonderful all the way around. Not just because I got to take some breaks. But more importantly to see Sami interacting with someone new, and enjoying her Aunt Bec so very much. And ummm, I think Aunt Bec enjoyed it just as much.

Anyway, I could write pages about our vacation, and maybe I will if I find more time. But for now, I’ll stop here.

Speaking

I can’t justify the time to write – so much is “undone” in my house, but there are a few amusements I must get down onto (cyber)paper…

Sami’s vocabulary surprises me constantly now. But some of it is just plain damn funny at this point, and not reacting inappropriately is a daily challenge. Case in point... well, several, in fact:

• Our “shirt” is her “shook”
• Our “cars” is her “gorsh.”
• Our “French fry” is her “fah-fie,” but you must say it very rapidly
• “Please” remains “piss”
• “Thank you,” generally appropriately applied, but pronounced “tinkoo”
• And most notably of late, and I’m sorry here if you lean towards prudishness but I didn’t plan this stuff, but “foot” is “fook” and that’s my polite way of spelling it
• Coupled with “cock” for “truck” and you have numerous moments throughout your day that require laugh-stifling

I know the instant we react to the more questionable pronunciations that she comes up with, we reinforce that there is something amiss, and we’ll be very sorry. So we don’t react to these markedly funny ones. We mustn’t. And it has been quite effective. But here’s the issue, when we get around my family, how do I get them not to react to them? We’re vacationing amongst my family within a few days, and I know they’ll find it all hilarious and don’t practice even a portion of my well-placed self-discipline. Woe will most certainly be me.

Sami’s really changing and growing now. You can almost see the synapses firing and connecting in her little brain minute by minute. The observations she makes and the things she’s able to figure out truly stun me. One day she’s pushing all the limits and trying my good nature almost beyond that good nature. And then the next she’s all sunshine and cuteness. Go figure.

And then, most wonderfully, she has grown out of her little independent stages exhibited occasionally where she’ll have no part of you cuddling her, and has occasional bouts of cuddliness. Oh my. To have her crawl up in my lap (patting my leg with an urgent, “piss, piss?”) and snuggle up against me and actually – yes – SIT there for tens of minutes by me, asking to have her arm or leg or belly tickled. Oh, it is heaven. I sneak sniffs of her hair, too.

So this is what it is like to be a parent. Wow.

Things I’ve Learned; and Things I Can Hardly Stand

I’ve learned that I really, truly love being Sami’s mom. If you don’t know my entire past history (and really, there’s only a handful of people that do), then you may not appreciate the profoundness of this self-discovery. Basically, it freaks me out.

I’ve learned that the word “love” seems wildly inadequate for describing how I feel about this child of mine—this developing personality and soul of hers. I mean, I have pretty fierce passions and love for other people in my life – I am not and was not a stranger to strong feelings of love and caring. But I can’t even yet fully comprehend the impact she has had on my heart. Who knew?

I look at her, I watch her, I gaze at her. It is like if I could do nothing for the rest of my life but just spend time watching her go about her little business, I’d be perfectly happy. All the better if I get to do it along with someone else that adores her too (her daddy; Aunt Bec) so we can cast sidelong and amazed and amused glances at each other during the watching.

Oh God. This singing of hers. I used to call her chatter singing, but now that she’s actually making attempts at singing, it is all in perspective. This is the most priceless thing I’ve ever been witness to.

I’ve been singing Rock-a-Bye Baby to her, and then at the end of every verse, I supplement her name and others, so it goes, “…and down will come Sami, Jazzy and all.” Okay? So the first verse always has to be Jazzy (our dog, whose name Jasmine became Jazzy as soon as Sami had a hand at it). Then the second verse must be Katie. (The cat.) Then the third and fourth verses are usually Daddy and Mommy.

It must be the simplicity of the song, and the insertion of our families’ names in there that have captivated her so. She asks me to sing it all the time. She calls it Bay Boe. The Bay Boe song. “Bay Boe? Peace? Peace? Peace?” Until I sing it. I write that politely, but in reality, her request is more like, “Bay Boe? Piss? Piss? Piss?” I adore her.

And once it gets into her head from me singing a few verses. She’ll go off and start playing somewhere within earshot, and she’ll sing it as well. Oh my. She has a hearty volume, and isn’t shy about the fact that most of the words fail her. So long as she inserts “bay boe” and an occasional family name, she’s willing to sing her little heart out. So full of the right rhythms and tonality, but made up of sweet nonsense syllables and tuneless rising and falling scales of notes. I am not kidding when I say I sometimes truly feel as though those moments of listening in to her singing like that just make my heart feel as though it will burst.

It is so bittersweet to me. At the time I am enjoying it so fully, but it nearly brings me to tears, because I know this phase is so short-lived. I know soon she’ll learn real words, and there won’t be that sweet, sweet making up of syllables and sounds. I worry that soon she’ll become so self-aware that she’ll get self-conscious and shy about singing out loud (trust me when I tell you I will do everything in my power to ensure this doesn’t happen, but I fear it nonetheless).

I’m not really that polite of a person, generally speaking. But I must be more polite than I was aware of, because outside of “Daddy,” the first word she learned, and that has endured, was “please.” Okay? Then shortly after that came “thank you.” And not only that, but as she matures, she uses it very appropriately. At all the right times. Do you know what it feels like to hand her something she’s asked for, and then to have her say, “Thank you?” Or tinkoo, as it were. I always tell her, “Well, it’s my pleasure, my dear.” I always preached that my selfish nature would require a very grateful child. And sure enough, here she is.

Decked out in her Easter finery, making the little face she makes when she's really impressed with something, but trying to act nonchalant--that little right-side dimple gives her away every time. 

Blue-eyed Baby :-) 

Sami searching for Easter eggs at a friend's 

A Good Plan

So we’re days away from the 20 month mark.

Michael and I always struggle with the “how old is she?” question. If it is from another toddler parent, we can breezily say the 19 month or 20 month answer. But if you say that to people that aren’t toddler parents, you can see they’re kind of out of touch with counting months, because when you say it they kind of zone out for a few seconds while they try to figure out how old that is. I told Michael that pretty soon we can just say, “She’ll be two at the end of August.” That should help out the inquisitors, and save them from the task of calculating month-counts.

Sami is talking so much now. She has many recognizable words, and a few that she’s adamant about, but that we haven’t quite gotten up to speed on, and she’s a master at the nonsensical—but perfectly intoned and rythymed—jabber that amuses me so. She’ll give a running commentary on our daily doings and I can hardly stand it it is so cute. Replete with pointings and gestures and whatnot.

This morning Michael was kind of thinking out loud as we watched her eat her breakfast of cereal while we ate our bowls of cereal. She’s so adept at it now. Anyway, he says this, “You know, we just love her so much, and adore her so much. And she’s going to love us back, and think we’re the greatest for a few years, and then she’ll get to be in her early teens and think we’re idiots and not want to be around us. Then she’ll get past that and like us again, but then she’ll be in her late teens, and she’ll be ready to go out on her own without us. And how are we going to deal with that?”

I thought about it a minute, and I shrugged and said, “We’ll be pretty old by then, and we won’t have that much going on – so we’ll just go with her.”

He high-fived me.

Then he got her out of her high-chair seat, and took her in his arms over by the window to look outside, and told her what our plans are. She didn’t seem that concerned about it, so we feel like that’s a pretty good plan.

Yikes. She looks so grown-up all of a sudden in this one. Freaks me out. 

Sami's puppy, Jasmine at about 5 months--Sami can't say Jasmine, so we all now call her Jazzy. 

Almost 19 Months

Sami will be 19 months old in two days. Wow.

She currently is just this little, dear person to be around. Her dad and I regularly marvel at how easy she is to be with, now. The unpredictability of infanthood is all but gone. Now that’s not to say the emotional ups and downs of toddlerhood aren’t present, but she’s pretty evenly tempered and has a generally sunny disposition. But we’re in the process of renovating a house, renting out a condo, etc, now, and it requires dragging her along for long boring afternoons at un-kid-friendly locales, while Mom and Dad work on things. And she’s just so… accommodating. She’s perfectly happy and entertained just to watch us at work. She’s always just so interested in the goings-on around her. She’s a born observer, and has been ever since she could sit up on her own.

That said, it also happens to be one of my favorite indulgences to find time to sit and observe her. Often, she’ll get absorbed in whatever has her interest at the moment, and loses awareness of me watching—that’s my favorite. Kids this age are so much brighter than I anticipated. She really amazes me. One day she can’t “get” the whole shape-sorting toy thing, and the next day—poof—she never misses.

Some of her quirkier traits (and forgive me if these are common to all 19 month olds—I’ve no comparisons so everything amazes and amuses me) are:

• An obsession with peeling stickers off of items. Like, we shop for toys at secondhand stores, and her best thing is peeling the price stickers—and I mean every last teeny bit of them—off each item when we get home. Of course, sometimes she gets them peeled off before we get to check out at the store, and it is kind of embarrassing to have to endure a price-check delay at freakin’ Goodwill.
  
• Our house now generally looks like a tornado has recently left things in total disarray within—toys are everywhere (you can’t pick them up while she’s awake; I generally do a pick-up every night after she goes to bed, but it is pretty pointless); but that doesn’t lessen her meticulousness at picking up every little scrap of paper she can find, and purposefully bringing it to me wherever I am in the house for proper disposal. And I’ll just say, there are lots of little scraps of paper at my house since I have a paper-saver as a husband, and a 5 month old puppy that will shred anything she can get her teeth on.
• I sing. I'll just admit it. And I was singing me-me-me scales the other day, and now Sami--right in the middle of doing other things--will get a little sly smile, and go, "Me-me-me-me," and then wait expectantly for me to join her.
• I've been teaching her her "parts." Like, you know, "Where're your feet?" "Where's your belly?" Where's your hands?" Where are your eyes?" etc. And I know it is probably irresponsible on my part, but instead of teaching her where her head is, I've always called it her melon. As in, "Watch where you're going, or you'll clunk yer melon!" And so she triumphantly pats her little head when I go, "Where's your melon!" And it never, ever fails to amuse me.
  

And now for something I’ve learned, at my old age:

• While I’ve always had a mental concept of myself as being very laid back, nonjudgmental, and understanding of others, it kind of seems to have turned out that once Sami came into our lives, weirdly my husband arrived at a different conclusion that I might be (gasp) a control freak. And after enough Dr. Phils, it dawned on me that in certain (and I’ll just say very few) circumstances, perhaps my efforts at showing others the right way to do things could conceivably be perceived as being controlling. I like to think I’m enlightening others (particularly my husband) on how to correctly and efficiently do things for what are obvious reasons; maybe—I realized—lightening up on some of those issues might serve us all well as a family. Like, for instance, when Sami’s bathtime is over, it was so important to me that all of her myriad bath toys be emptied of water, and stacked up neatly onto the tub edges. And not just any edges, the back corner edges were the only ones that made sense, onaccounta that way during the day, the baby and the puppy can’t reach them and (another gasp here) toss them wantonly into the tub when they’re running around playing while I’m working. Then, a couple of nights in a row, I threw caution to the wind and just left the toys in the bottom of the tub (!). Hmmm. Turns out that’s lots quicker, and nothing bad seemed to stem from the practice. Go figure. I’ll let you know if any of my other theories get disproved; however unlikely.

Sami is picking up words constantly now. Today, her dad was encouraging her to put toys in the shape-sorter, and when she picked the first one up, he goes, “One…”, and she grabbed another and went “Two…” Our mouths dropped open when we looked at each other – because, um, we haven’t taught her how to count yet. Haven’t even tried. Coincidence? Probably. But it was still funny.

She can say, “bubble” as clear as day, and it applies to both the little plastic jars of bubble potion that we play with, with her and the puppy, and to a glass “snow dome” music box I have, that I never called a bubble, but of course with the round clear glass, looks just like a bubble, and so she thought up on her own to name it that. Bottle, juice, cheese, Jazzie (the pup), Kay-ee (Katie the cat), have all been added to her repertoire of Dah-ee, peace?, duh (for down or done), and “dee” for either tv or dvd—not sure. But it means she wants to watch her Baby Einstein tape or dvd. She can also say, “cwazy” at appropriate times to describe the dog, her mother, or whatnot. She popped off with an “Oh, geez,” this morning after her daddy said it. And just yesterday, every time she handed me something, she said something that sounded eerily like, “There-ya-go.”

If Michael and I don’t reign in this unmitigated adoration we have for her, we’re going to be in very big trouble pretty soon. We’re going to toughen up – I just know we will.

Hand Sots

Months ago, Aunt Bec purchased for the dear miss 2 pairs of little mittens. I had tried them on her at one point, but she really wasn't wanting much to do with that at the time. So we stashed them in her closet.

Then the other day, she was playing with some sots (socks in Sami-speak) she had pulled out of her drawer, and she was trying to put them on her hands. I teased her and said, "Sots don't go on your hands!" And she thought she was very funny and whatnot. Then I grabbed the mittens, and told her that in fact they do make sots for your hands, and we put them on her. She wanted them right back off.

Yesterday she stumbled across the mittens again. And this time she asked for them to be put on her. Oh my God. So cute. She held up her hands in front of her face, and would gaze from one to the other, greatly admiring them. And she would pump her little fingers up and down inside of them, fascinated.

Yeah, we were just in the house -- but she wore them for nearly an hour. Then she would just go around the house touching mundane things as if they were suddenly transformed into amazing treasures by virtue of touching them through mittens.

I finally took them off of her because I could feel that her hands were sweating in them.

Then, at dinner last night, she saw them on top of the island in the kitchen, and "Pease? Pease? Pease?-d" until I put them on her. Then she ate her dinner with them on. She's not that adept with a fork anyway -- so it made for quite a show.

17 Months

Um, yeah. It is been, like, a while since I’ve made an entry. It is called being busy beyond busy, yet busy doesn’t really describe what my life has been like for the past few weeks. Primarily due, I guess, to a work thing… a big new deal we rolled out onto our website. But geesh, it has been crazy.

On to Sami… she just turned 17 months old. And she amazes me every day. And amuses me every day, too. Nobody told me how very funny these kids are. My absolute favorite thing, that I fear will of course be short-lived because she’s learning words now, is when she loses awareness of me watching her, and “reads” a book to herself. In that made up kid language, but with all the appropriate inflections and rhythms. I can hardly even stand it.

Some other items:

• She still doesn’t regularly call me mom or mama, and I have to place blame on Daddy for that. It is difficult for me to teach her my name for me. Someone else has to do that (like I’ve taught her the word “Daddy” and have reinforced it time and again.) I think he just forgets. She’ll get it eventually. But I still can’t wait to be called “Mom.”


• She can say “shoes” pretty clearly, although somehow she alters it to be more like “shoos.”


• Socks are “sots.” I love that one.


• Something is “bots.” But I cannot for the life of me figure out what that word means to her. She says it distinctly and often, but so far there is no correlation that I can reckon. Most notably of late, she says it when she sees the mirror rimmed with animal figures that I put above her changing table a couple of weeks ago. I think the other times I’ve noticed she says it is like, in the car. I don’t know – she’s got me there.


• But her most prevalent word is “please.” Which she says as “peace?” You can’t fault her for a lack of politeness, that’s for sure. It started out as this godawful grunt/scream thing when she wanted something – you know, reach for it vaguely, then grunt adamantly until someone hands it to you. And I’m serious, on like the day she started doing that, I let it occur about twice before my eyes bugged out and I looked at Michael and said, “We’ve got to nip this one in the bud NOW.” He couldn’t have agreed more. So we hatched a plan whereby we would show no reaction whatsoever to the grunt/scream, and would instead only react when she said please. Oh, it worked like a charm, my friend. Within a couple of days, she had “peace?” (or alternately “piss?”) down pat. You’d see her get overly anxious about obtaining something or another at times, and forget and do the grunt/scream, and then I’d be the typical mom and go, “What do you say?” and remind her. She says it constantly now. But I’ll take a “peace, peace, peace?” any day over that… noise.


• She’s adept at opening pretty much all the doors in our house, and has been for a while.


• She can unscrew lids off of things. Yeah, as you can imagine, I learned this one the hard way. Not once. No. Multiple times. It takes me longer to catch on than it does her, apparently. Mostly, as far as I know, she has eaten Chapstick, hand lotion, Aquaphor, a touch of Vaseline, and possibly some mustard.


• She’s been climbing the stairs for months, but just this week learned how to get back down them, all on her own. She could do it for a while, but needed our help to get her started on the top stair. Now she’s all over it with no help. Her dad amazed me months ago, by teaching her how to safely climb down off of chairs, the couch, our bed, etc. He showed her how to roll onto her belly, then slide down feet first. That way if something should go awry, she’s still pretty safe using that posture. And she has her hands free to slow her descent. Anyway, then using that same method, he taught her how to go back down the stairs that way too. It really was brilliant. Most kids learn to go down face-forward, scooting on their butts I think. But then if something goes wrong, they can easily tumble forward, headlong down the remaining stairs. This way, even if something goes wrong, she’s got full control to stop herself from falling at any given time. Seriously – try it if you don’t believe me. It is virtually impossible for her to tumble down the stairs.


• Well, until we got the puppy. Yes. It is a whole sordid tale of its own, that’s for sure. To summarize until I can revisit the whole thing on a follow-up entry – the whole thing drove me to the brink of insanity. And I am pretty sure I’m not kidding. Additionally, the puppy (a Weimaraner) has had about a name a day. We—okay, make that I—had a profoundly difficult time choosing a name. It got pretty ridiculous. We seem to have settled on Jasmine for now, though. And we mostly call her Jas, or Jazz.