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.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
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:
And now for something I’ve learned, at my old age:
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.
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.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, January 30, 2006
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:
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.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Monday, November 21, 2005
Thankfulness
Gee... I started to write this entry about my thankfulness without even realizing the time of year. And then when I had to title it, I realized it is a pretty timely matter. :-)
Sami was sick this whole past week. I'm talking SICK, and I'm talking it went on for 7 days. Just stop here if you're squeamish, but she had diarrhea and intermittent vomiting for 7 days straight. That's a long time, and usually--from what I understand--a child of 14 months would normally get pretty dehydrated, and have a much more serious reaction to this type of stomach flu than what we experienced. But it was still traumatic for me--made so by this being her first "real" illness that I've experienced that I couldn't "fix" with my Doctor Mom theories, which I hold in abundance. And yet she never once acted like she felt sick, or like she hurt... blessedly.
Anyway, there is a whole other story of my feelings of incompetence in this situation, and another one of the Mama Bear coming out in me when my Baby Bear was sick, and my lashing out at Papa Bear for some bad but inadvertent decisions.
But currently she's all better. Robust, healthy, great appetite, happy, funny, sunny... and so tonight--well, really all day--I've been especially aware of and appreciative of my daughter's restored good health. It culminated at dinner tonight. I made us each a grilled cheese sandwich, and served it up to her with some oranges, and some cooked carrots. And she ate so eagerly but so cutely. Now I know that just sounds stupid, but she was just this little delight all day long. And when we sat down for dinner, and I cut her sandwich (and mine) into 4 diagonally-cut triangles, she just enjoyed it so much. I have this weird affinity for dipping my grilled cheese sandwiches into ketchup. Well, dipping is a huge attraction with Sami right now, but if I give her access to said dip, it is just a nonstop dipping disaster, up to her elbows. So instead, we compromised, and I dipped on her behalf. But that didn't diminish the joy she took in dipping "like Mom."
She ate every last bite, and was so very fun at dinner with me. Giggling, and giving me pretend bites, but then pulling it away from me at the last second and popping it into her own mouth with such delight in tricking me.
That's when her dad called on the phone from work, and he goes, "What are you doing?" I answered, "Nothing." But my voice betrayed that I was kind of emotional, and he picked up on it right away, and goes, "What's wrong?" And I said, more or less, "Well, that's just it. There's nothing wrong. And I'm feeling all..." He knows he's treading in murky waters when I say anything like that. Am I sad, or happy, or psychotic.... or what? I said, "I'm just so thankful for Sami, and for her feeling so good again, and I can't help thinking about parents who have a child that doesn't get better."
He truly cannot even bear such thoughts. So he mostly didn't even respond to that. But his lack of response is his response in these cases, I've learned.
Then, as if I wasn't humbled enough... later I was giving her a bath, which was just another delightful event of the day. She was having a ball, and figured out a new way to dump water out of a toy cup, then put it on her head, and I thought about all the times that Michael and I look at each other and question... reverently... out loud but hushed... "...do all parents love and enjoy their children this much?" And usually, out of a sense of humility, I decree that all parents must.
And then you hear about our current local headline news item--about the father who is a "person of interest" in his daughter's death. And the estranged mother that hasn't spoken or seen the daughther for nearly 4 years.
And right in the middle of her happy bathtime, my stomach wrenched, and I got tears in my eyes that I took pains to hide from Sami.
Sami was sick this whole past week. I'm talking SICK, and I'm talking it went on for 7 days. Just stop here if you're squeamish, but she had diarrhea and intermittent vomiting for 7 days straight. That's a long time, and usually--from what I understand--a child of 14 months would normally get pretty dehydrated, and have a much more serious reaction to this type of stomach flu than what we experienced. But it was still traumatic for me--made so by this being her first "real" illness that I've experienced that I couldn't "fix" with my Doctor Mom theories, which I hold in abundance. And yet she never once acted like she felt sick, or like she hurt... blessedly.
Anyway, there is a whole other story of my feelings of incompetence in this situation, and another one of the Mama Bear coming out in me when my Baby Bear was sick, and my lashing out at Papa Bear for some bad but inadvertent decisions.
But currently she's all better. Robust, healthy, great appetite, happy, funny, sunny... and so tonight--well, really all day--I've been especially aware of and appreciative of my daughter's restored good health. It culminated at dinner tonight. I made us each a grilled cheese sandwich, and served it up to her with some oranges, and some cooked carrots. And she ate so eagerly but so cutely. Now I know that just sounds stupid, but she was just this little delight all day long. And when we sat down for dinner, and I cut her sandwich (and mine) into 4 diagonally-cut triangles, she just enjoyed it so much. I have this weird affinity for dipping my grilled cheese sandwiches into ketchup. Well, dipping is a huge attraction with Sami right now, but if I give her access to said dip, it is just a nonstop dipping disaster, up to her elbows. So instead, we compromised, and I dipped on her behalf. But that didn't diminish the joy she took in dipping "like Mom."
She ate every last bite, and was so very fun at dinner with me. Giggling, and giving me pretend bites, but then pulling it away from me at the last second and popping it into her own mouth with such delight in tricking me.
That's when her dad called on the phone from work, and he goes, "What are you doing?" I answered, "Nothing." But my voice betrayed that I was kind of emotional, and he picked up on it right away, and goes, "What's wrong?" And I said, more or less, "Well, that's just it. There's nothing wrong. And I'm feeling all..." He knows he's treading in murky waters when I say anything like that. Am I sad, or happy, or psychotic.... or what? I said, "I'm just so thankful for Sami, and for her feeling so good again, and I can't help thinking about parents who have a child that doesn't get better."
He truly cannot even bear such thoughts. So he mostly didn't even respond to that. But his lack of response is his response in these cases, I've learned.
Then, as if I wasn't humbled enough... later I was giving her a bath, which was just another delightful event of the day. She was having a ball, and figured out a new way to dump water out of a toy cup, then put it on her head, and I thought about all the times that Michael and I look at each other and question... reverently... out loud but hushed... "...do all parents love and enjoy their children this much?" And usually, out of a sense of humility, I decree that all parents must.
And then you hear about our current local headline news item--about the father who is a "person of interest" in his daughter's death. And the estranged mother that hasn't spoken or seen the daughther for nearly 4 years.
And right in the middle of her happy bathtime, my stomach wrenched, and I got tears in my eyes that I took pains to hide from Sami.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
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