Feb. 28
Busy
Eliza has just spent the last half hour, and counting,
futzing with the top on an empty saline solution bottle. We have finally
found the thing that is even more exciting than keys.
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Feb. 27
In Which We Are Accident-Prone
This was not a weekend in which the members of the D.-Goossens
household distinguished themselves with their suavity.
I will cut to the chase and say that we are all still
alive and that no one has suffered anything life-threatening, but
frankly, this is a miracle.
I kicked things off on Saturday when I did not see a
knee-height flower barrel as I was walking around Northampton with
a babe-in-arms. I did not drop Eliza, but I was pretty sure, for a
couple of minutes, that I was going to have to amputate. This, however,
was but an appetizer, an amuse bouchee, if you will, for things to
come.
Yesterday, Jim went skiing with a friend and his son.
All was well for a while, and then Jim managed to fall
in such a way that his ski pole jammed up hard against his left ribs.
When he came home, he did not look like a happy ski bum. It was bad
last night but this morning it was worse — he had a very hard
time getting up from a prone position, and though he tried very gallantly
to gut his way through it, when he picked Eliza up, he looked a bit
greenish.
Long story, I took Eliza to work, and Jim took a field
trip to the hospital — where he proceeded to spend 5 hours,
as they CAT-scanned and prodded and poked him to make sure he hadn't
ruptured his spleen. He called me with periodic updates, inappropriate
jokes about how it's a good thing he has life insurance, and musings
about his will.
When he got the all-clear from the CAT scan, he commented
that he might have to go to church this Sunday since he had made some
deals with god if there were no internal injuries.
He does probably have a cracked rib (oddly, they didn't
X-ray to confirm), and the doctor sent him home with bigtime narcotics,
but I'm very disappointed because there has been no crazed opiod-induced
rambling as yet.
Oh well.
Finally, today, Eliza went on some sort of maniacal
quest to accrue as many injuries as possible.
She kicked it off this morning. Cruising around the
bathroom from tub to cabinet to toilet (a fairly seamless route for
her as there are handholds the whole way) she managed to lose her
footing or her grip or something, and split her eyebrow, like so:
(Behold also weird missing middle tooth. Finally coming
in, but WTH? That is just SO STRANGE!)
Barely had she recovered from that when, flailing about
on the guest bed, she managed to ram her head at the wall.
When I took her to work, she decided to open my file
drawers, and as I was still forming the thought of resigning myself
to the mess she was about to make, opened and shut the thing repeatedly
and managed to pinch her fingers not once, not twice, but three times
in the space of about 5 seconds.
Finally, playing with a nifty stand-and-cruise bead
maze, she squatted, lost her balance, tipped over backward, and pulled
the bead maze down on top of her.
I think we are all going to go to bed and try to forget
that this day happened.
***
Some things do not go well together; note italics.
While our menfolk were mangling themselves on the slopes,
I got together with my friend and her toddler
son for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. He spied the
lucky bamboo and had to be persuaded to leave it alone so
that it did not become unlucky. Then he had to poop and/or pee
but only wanted to do so at home, and not in the restaurant
bathroom.
Sitting in the dining room, I ordered rice
for Eliza. From her vantage point in her high chair, she
sprinkled the rice on the carpet.
After we'd had enough of this, we headed to my friend's
house. Eliza wanted to play with the toddler's stuff,
and he wasn't really that thrilled about sharing.
Eliza likes writing implements, so we gave
her a non-toxic, water-based marker. She was very excited
and promptly graffiti'd herself.
I gave her a bath when she got home.
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Dear Diary
Finally, veering left-ward into completely unrelated
territory, the other day, I was looking for an essay I wrote in college
and dug up out of the same box my diary from 1983-1988 (what can I
say, not the most diligent journaler).
It is, in a word, appalling. The main subjects are the
following: 1. How much I love Miami Vice. 2. How much I love A-ha.
3. How much I love Duran Duran. 4. Incredibly detailed descriptions
of minor exchanges with real-life persons I was crushing on which
are along the lines of "Omigod, he LOOKED at me! And then he
BLINKED!! He has never LOOKED AT ME and then BLINKED before!!! I wonder
what it MEANS?!"
Along with said inanity comes copious misuse of terms
I obviously have NO idea about. At one point I refer to someone as
a masochist because he walked down a hall with me.
Actually, judging by these entries, that could be true.
Anyway, I think my favorite entry might be this excerpt
from Valentine's Day, 1985, which, coincidentally, reveals that this
whole "Unclear on the Concept" business that I have taken
to documenting with the cats and Eliza is a hallowed tradition.
Unclear to me in this one, clearly, is the whole prayer/god thing.
Behold:
"...
On different tracks, please take a message to god that I want a thin-ribbed
corduroy skirt like this:
(drawing included
that illustrates how the waist must be fitted and the skirt loose
and billowy)
get it please!
thank you!"
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More Movies
Here is a movie about Eliza's
Recent Adventures.
And here is a movie about Bouncing.
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Feb. 23
Home Movies
Go here
for a movie about Cruising.
And here
for a movie about Eating.
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Feb. 21
Officially, I Was, Of Course, Neutral,
But Secretly, I Kind of Wanted a Girl
So I could do THIS:
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Feb. 20
Sleep Deprived
Eliza got up at 2 a.m. ready to party last night. Sadly
for her, it was a one-woman party.
At 4 a.m., Jim and I convinced ourselves that she was
probably in desperate pain from something and we gave her Baby Tylenol.
She finally fell asleep in my arms, and because she'd been crying
so hard for 2 hours, as she slept, she continued to draw in great
big shuddering, sobbing breaths.
She slept restlessly. She fell asleep on her left side,
with her right leg flung across my body. 20 minutes in, she suddenly
flung herself onto her back, spreadeagled.
When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt that Jim was eating
alphabet-shaped Valiums. I distinctly remember him crunching down
on an A. I told him about my dream in the morning, and he thought
that was interesting, but he would've preferred alphabet-shaped speed,
so that he could keep up with our little partier better. I promised
to dream better next time.
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Feb.17
My Kid Works!
All those other times that I said Eliza just did the
cutest thing ever? I was wrong. No, this, THIS, is the cutest thing
ever.
For many months now, Eliza has patiently tolerated,
one might even say indulged, Jim and my obsession with peekaboo. At
first, before she got it, she just sort of smiled, more amused by
how entertained we were than truly entertained herself, I would say.
Then, after she figured out object permanence, she would
sit there as I did the whole, "Huh, where did Eliza go?"
hiding behind my hands, towel, whatever, and would pull the towel/move
the hands, whatever, with an attitude of "Yeah, here I am, what's
the big deal?"
When I shower, I bring Eliza into the bathroom with
me and surround her with toys. Occasionally, just to make sure she's
not sucking down toilet bowl cleaner*, I pop out from behind the curtain
and smile at her in yet another variant of the game. She smiles back,
then resumes her toilet-bowl-cleaner drinking.
Today, however, she was standing at the tub's edge,
much as one day she will belly up to a bar (Oh god, I just really
horrified myself with that image), chatting to herself in Eliza-ese.
And THEN! She pulled the shower curtain aside and peered
around the corner at me. I said hello. She pulled the curtain closed
again. And then pulled it open again with a big grin. And again, and
again. By the time I finished my shower, her little head was damp
and her curls were frizzing every which way in the humidity.
There's not a word out there that can accurately sum
up the cuteness.
The thing is, I am a terrible hypochondriac. I am a
hypochondriac for others. Jim pees a lot for a guy, and I went through
a phase where I was convinced he had diabetes. Eliza's doctor gets
a call from me at least twice a month because I'm convinced that this
runny poop that she made just now, it is cholera.
On some level, though, I don't worry nearly as much
about her physical health as her mental health. I find the stories
of autism, of kids who seem normal and then start to slip away emotionally,
absolutely haunting. On the scale of horrible things, I can deal with
the thought of something going wrong with my girl physically better
than I can stomach the thought of losing her emotionally.
I have no reason to fear that she is autistic; I don't
know why I fear it so much. But every time she does something like
this, something that suggests her increasingly intentional
emotional engagement with the world, whether it's reaching up with
her hands when she wants to be picked up, or waving at me when I leave
for work, or playing peekaboo, I can't help but heave a little sigh
of relief. My kid works!
*Don't have a conniption, I'm just exaggerating for
effect. We lock the toilet bowl cleaner in the cabinet. We never let
her play with anything stronger than Softscrub.
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Feb. 16
Hi Mom, This One's Got Swearing In It
Whenever I take Eliza out into the big bad world, I
can count on two things: Someone will tell us she's cute, and several
people will say, "Oh, she looks tired."
This annoys the (avert your eyes, Ma) motherfucking
FUCK (OK, done now) out of me for two reasons:
1. I don't know where people come up with this impression
— they say it regardless of whether she's had a nap or a good
night's sleep, or what her mood might be that day (although it does
seem to happen more often when she's in quiet-pensive-staring mode).
So it's possible her eyes are deformed in some way I'm not aware of,
but I know when my kid is sleepy, and it is NEVER when they think
she is.
2. That statement almost always carries a whiff of judgment
with it. Like, what a shitty mother you are, taking your kid out in
public when what she really needs is a nap. To which I say a. See
above, and b. You know what, if I had a STAFF, then perhaps I could
leave my kid home when I need to go shopping, or to the copier, or
whatever, but unfortunately, I have neither a staff, nor 36 hours
in the day to get things done, and so I must occasionally take my
kid with me when to do so is not optimal.
I've been getting increasingly hostile about this issue,
and yesterday, when someone at Starbucks said it to me as I wheeled
my freshly rested baby in, I think I reached my breaking point, because
first of all, she was, as stated, freshly rested, and second of all,
I am not some over-entitled upper-middle-class mom who just fritters
away her time at the local coffee shop in reckless disregard for her
child because, thirdly, Eliza LOVES Starbucks; it's her favorite place
next to Big Y—taking her there is a treat for her.
I didn't say anything to the Starbucks people, but I've
now spent the last 24 hours thinking of the right, horribly devastating
answer to give the next person who says that so that they will be
terribly, terribly traumatized and even though the damage will have
been done where we are concerned, they will never say that again to
another parent.
Both of my pinkies are kind of bent, and in high school,
when I got tired of people asking me about this, I started to tell
people it was a birth defect, which embarrassed the crap out of them
and they stopped asking. I floated the "It's a birth defect"
possibility to my co-worker Joanne this morning, but she said that
was too mean. She said that it would be better to tell them that "No,
my kid's not tired, and you'll know when she is." Which is good
but entirely too nice, frankly. I was thinking I'd try, "Why
would you say that?" but frankly, that's still a little too mild
for my tastes.
Any suggestions?
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Feb. 15
Für Die Deutscher
Hier haben wir Eliza in Deutsche-mode. Die hoschen die
zu dem pulli (und die andere pullis) gehören sind ihr noch viel
zu lang, aber die T-shirts und so passen schon. Steht ihr gut, findet
ihr nicht?
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Ack, It's Going Too Fast!
Now that Eliza has discovered mobility, there's no stopping
her — I think we got the baby gates up just in time, because
over the past few days, she's gotten both daring and pro-active. This
afternoon, she couldn't see me because I was down the hall while she
played in her room, and she got anxious (we're in a bit of a separation
anxiety phase). But rather than sitting and wailing until I reappeared,
she started crawling in the direction of my voice. Still complaining
loudly as she went, mind you, but very clearly proceeding with a goal.
I was so proud of my little problem solver.
The other thing she does is, if it will support her
weight, she will try to pull herself up on it. This whole getting-to-standing
thing just rocks her world. The tub, the rocking chair, cabinets,
whatever it is, she is SO THERE with the pulling up. Her current favorite
thing to do is to stand in the hallway, holding on to the spokes in
the stairway banister, peering at whomever, or whatever, is walking
up the stairs. If you sit on the other side, i.e. on the stairs, and
smile at her, this is the best entertainment a girl ever had. Keeps
her happy for hours, and then when Moesie walks by and sticks her
head out between the banisters from the other side? Oh, are we happy
then!
Brilliantly, along with this new Must Pull Up On Everything
imperative, she has also
figured out the sitting down business. I need to take a picture of
it, because it's almost alarmingly cute. She sticks her butt way out,
like it's a sensory organ testing the air for potential sitting obstacles,
and squats as low as she can, and then, thud, falls the rest of the
way, which is about two inches.
Here's where the Ack-too-fast thing comes in, though
— this afternoon, I saw her doing this hydraulic yoga butt business
in the photo above, a whole bunch of times. She raises and lowers
her butt over and over, getting her feet under her as well as she
can but still looking like drunk Elvis. I had just about dismissed
it as another of her quirks when I realized that what she was doing
was working out how to get to standing without having to pull up.
She's figured out the basic engineering on the legs and how to position
her arms, but she can't quite get her feet under her enough and her
butt still overbalances, but omigod, it's like the speed of the stuff
she learns increases geometrically.
At this rate, she's going to be discovering cold fusion
by May.
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Feb. 14
A Comment on Ice Skating
Matt Savoie, men's figure skater: He should get an
award for Only Skater So Far This Olympics Not to Use Totally Lame
Music.
Gorecki's Symphony No. 3: What an excellent
idea! Hey, something that a. we haven't heard 469,856,234 times before
( Carl Orff: Please go away. And stay away!) b. wasn't irritatingly
spliced together from three movements of totally different tempos
and/or c. DIDN'T SUCK!
Figure skaters are all relatvely young people, and I
would venture that a significant portion of the men are gay. How is
it that they cannot muster anything that is not appalling where music
is concerned? Seriously, I can't deal with figure skating anymore,
at least the amateurs, because even when the skater is good, I hear
the opening strains of yet another Bach pastiche or folk song montage
or muzak version of Barbra Streisand's greatest hits and I want to
hurl. Whereas (to return to the praiseful portion of this post) I
actually left the computer to watch Savoie skate because I heard this
delightful, innovative musical choice. The last time I remember being
excited about the music was in 1994 when that crazy Russian chick
and her partner ice-danced to Michael Nyman's Memorial.
And then the outfits. What is WITH the outfits? Again,
gay men and girly women dominate the sport — that just doesn't
even compute.
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Blog Entry Wherein Eliza's Parents Both Do Silly
Things
Awwwww. Tiny Man just brought me his hot pink mousie
again. He's been dropping it at my feet throughout the evening. So
cute.
This morning, I decided I just didn't feel like enduring
the clothing-related screaming. Especially as I had already had to
endure an hour of I-don't-care-if-it's-4:30-I-want-to-get-up screaming,
and two sets of Oh-God-you're-changing-my-diaper-and-it-feels-like-you-are-flaying-my-flesh
screaming. Verily, it was a scream-filled morning. Someone, I'm not
saying who, but someone seems to have been born in the wrong
month because clearly she is fulfilling all the stereotypes about
Tauruses being ri-goddamn-diculously stubborn and hot tempered.
Anyway, I handed over the clothing duties to Jim this
morning and returned home at 2:30 to be met by the sartorial marvel
above. The good news: This outfit MATCHED. The socks, the pants, the
fleece— everything had the same sea-green in it. It was actually
quite stunningly cute.
Sadly, however, there were two fatal flaws: 1.The fleece
was on backwards. 2. The pants (and shirt underneath the fleece) were
pajamas.
I wasn't going to say anything because God bless my
honey for even braving the screaming, and the matching? SO TOTALLY
ADORABLE!! But then I got the giggles, and then it morphed into full-scale
hysteria and then I figured he was probably standing around downstairs
wondering why I was treating the neighborhood to my best impression
of a whooping crane, so I should just say something. To Jim's credit,
he admitted that he thought the pants might've been a misstep, but
he couldn't find any others. Because he didn't look in the closet
(I just moved the pants from the drawer to the closet the other day
- her clothes take up more room, not so much in terms of number of
oufits, but because they require more material).
Lest you think I gloat, this evening I learned that
you should not let your kid carry your stash of meds.
Eliza's thrush persists/has returned/not really sure.
Anyway, I called the doctor, who said that thrush is notoriously difficult
to get rid of (think yeast infection, girls) and gave us another prescription.
For which I made a special trip to Stop and Shop, thus cancelling
my workout for the day.
After we paid the pharmacy, I put the bag in the cart
as we got the rest of our stuff rung up, whence Eliza grabbed it and
was waving it around merrily. Only, when I got home, there was no
medicine to be found anywhere, either in my car nor among Eliza's
things.
The whole thing was an utter mysery, until the pharmacist
called. Someone, he said, found our bag of medicine in the parking
lot and had turned it in. Missy, clearly wise to the fact that this
was more the vile yellow stuff that she prefers to spit out, had chucked
it when I wasn't looking.
So, to sum up: Eliza's parents? Not so much with the
smartiness today.
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Feb. 13
Napping, Ouch
There is a huge downside to this nap business. Theoretically,
of course, naps are meant for Baby to recharge after 3 or 4 hours
of frenetic activity, and for Mama to get some work done/nap herself
(hahahahahaha).
In actuality, napping just presents that many more opportunities
for Baby to get up ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED. How can this be,
you ask — her bed is against the wall; there is only one side
for her to get up on. Ah yes, but apparently there are some tears
in the time-space continuum, because sometimes, that same old side
is suddenly SO the wrong side that I go into her room and I think
I will spontaneously combust from the wrath.
I'm developing a thesis, which I mean to test in the
next few days, that the harder she fights the nap, the pissed-er she
is when she wakes up. I will have ample opportunity to test this theory
because lately, the afternoon nap situation is very wrath-filled indeed.
(I have another theory, that perhaps she is preparing to jetisson
the afternoon nap, but, oh, how I hope I am wrong.)
She used to go down more or less willingly around 3/3:30
and nap for 45 minutes, at least. But now, she is in rebellion. Napping
is for little babies, not big girls like Eliza. So she fights it,
and fights it, and she sits/stands/lies there so tired she literally
cannot keep her eyes open, but she is so stubborn and she WILL NOT
GO TO SLEEP, DAMMIT!
And then I lie down on the bed with her, because even
though she is a BIG GIRL, the snuggling with Mama is still almost
foolproof in inducing the afternoon nap and she lies there in my arms
shoutingandshoutingsandshoutingandshou.........
......and then suddenly she is SO GONE that I can pick
her up and put her in her crib, or we could go on Dancing with the
Stars and she wouldn't notice.
But, oh, do I pay for my treachery, because then she
wakes up an hour later she picks up right where she left off, only
louder .......TINGANDSHOUTINGANDSHOUTINGANDSHOUTING.
And then, even when she wins the argument about bringing
the toothbrush and Mama's hairgel downstairs, she is just mad, and
pretty much stays that way for the rest of the day.
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Feb. 10
Crazy Von Beethoven In Her Exercise Pants
Eliza loves music. This is not surprising, given her
parents. I hope that she will inherent Jim's ear, and not mine, but
I have my doubts. This morning, as she was poking at her keyboard,
she hit the O from the alphabet section — it sings the letters
from the ABC song as you strike the key—and said, "Oooooooooo,"
in a mournful, lowing-cow sort of way that did not bode well for her
sense of pitch. I comfort myself that it's entirely possible that
she was not mimicking the keyboard.
***
Eliza got, like, 6 (six) pairs of pants for Christmas.
And 6 weeks later, they are ALL too small. I put them on her and she
looks like the poor little match girl with her little exposed shins,
except the shins in question are too fat to complete the hallucinating
waif imagery.
This Wednesday, we took a trip to the mall, mostly because
Mama needed the exercise of pushing baby around. We took a detour
into Children's Place, where we found the exciting Wall of $4 Sale
Items Including Pants In Eliza's Size. I purchased many, including
the pair pictured here, which are an illustration of everything that
is right about baby clothes. I mean, look at them: they have little
zips up the bottom of the leg for when you want to take off your pants
without unlacing your sneakers when you are about to play a killer
game of streetball.
I love these pants. I want to put them in the re-big-ulator
and make some for me. Especially in that radioactive, "Kiss me,
I'm Irish" hue. I hope they still fit at St. Patrick's Day.
***
We had the Verizon repair guy over AGAIN to try and
fix our temperamental DSL line. Jim called to report that he remarked
on how big Eliza's gotten. Dude, you're not supposed to spent so much
time at your customer's homes that you can track their kids' growth.
***
My baby is making me crazy. I have such an enormous
mental inventory of funny things Eliza has done, that at random points
throughout any given day, something will pop into my head and I start
to laugh. There I am, walking across the campus and Bam! mental picture
of Small Creature getting extremely frustrated because while crawling
around in the bathroom, she has managed to get herself straddling
the bathroom scale and cannot figure out how to get her back half
over it and is now doing all sorts of yoga positions to surmount the
obstacle.
And all the frat boys go, "Hey, it's that clog-wearing
geezer who tries to turn a grin into a pensive squint and looks instead
like she has Bell's Palsy. Again."
Not that I wanted to socialize with frat boys.
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Feb. 8
Magic Toes and Angry Standing
When Eliza was on the way, many of my more yarn-talented
friends blessed us with home-made blankets. They're all beautiful,
soft, wonderful treasures. But I have to give the edge to this one,
by Jen from book club:
When Eliza is put to bed awake, she hooks her fingers,
and, sometimes, gloriously, her toes into the holes created by the
loose knit.
None of that happened tonight, however. Apparently,
yesterday's standing incident heralded a new sleeping phase, and I
am having a VERY difficult time keeping a straight face about it all.
The new thing is, unless Eliza is put to bed when she
is truly knackered and conks out immediately, the following will occur:
She flips onto her stomach, crawls over to the nearest patch of crib
rails, pulls herself to standing, and gets very angry. Sometimes,
she cruises around her crib holding onto the railing the whole time.
Sometimes she just stands. Either way, she is very, very shouty.
I usually listen to her for a while to see if she'll
calm herself down, but she hasn't so far. So I go into her room, and
there she is, standing up, stomping her little feet, red-faced, her
hair a wild crown of fuzz, peering over the railing which is about
nose height on her, and screaming epithets at the world. The cuteness
of it makes me absolutely hysterical every time; the image comes back
to haunt me at inopportune moments, like when I'm trying to calm her
down and get her back to sleep. "Shhhh, lovey, just go to slee—
hahahahahahahahahaha!"
But then, as I hold her in my arms and rub her back
and finally get her calmed down, she does the best thing of all. She
sighs and drops her little head against my shoulder, and the heavy,
sweet, relaxed weight of her in my arms is perfect.
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The Peanut Gallery and the Show
Last night during Eliza's bath, both cats sat on the
radiator watching. Both seemed a bit nonplussed at the proceedings:
And really, who can blame them: The two-legged small
creature's bath habits are just plain weird. First, there
was the obsession with sucking on the washcloth all the time. Then
there was the phase where she had to push all the soap bottles off
the ledge into the water before she would get in herself, followed
by the phase where she had to hod the shampoo bottle for the entire
proceedings. Now, we are in the acrobat phase. Small creature may
NEVER sit in the baby tub in the approved fashion but must instead
perch weirdly at all times. This has made hair washing a considerable
challenge, because when I so much as hint at orienting her correctly
for the rinsing, we get the hot-pokers-are-singeing-my-flesh scream.
Last night's cat-consternating hi-jinks took it to the
next level: She kneeled athwart the tub, and spent a very long time
patting the wall and making clacking sounds with her tongue, a skill
she had just discovered:
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Feb. 7
She Stands in Protest
Eliza generally goes down for a nap at 3/3:30-ish every
day. Come about 3:15 today, I implemented the usual pre-nap procedure
- binky, rocking chair, saying "Hey, you look tired, why don't
you sleep?"
I put her in bed and there was brief whining, followed
by 15 minutes of happy-drunk-sounding chatter. Then there was effortful
grunting and more chattering. Then, wailing. Angry wailing.
I went in to check, and the napster had pulled herself
up to standing on the bars of her cage crib, pitched her binky
over the side, and was now loudly demanding justice.
The whole scene —tiny anti-nap resistance leader
effecting property damage — made me laugh pretty hard, to the
point when she started smiling sort of uncertainly like somene who's
not in on the joke but doesn't want to be the idiot who didn't get
it.
I scooped her up, and you know, it's entirely possible
that I didn't imagine the relief that crossed her face when she saw
me, because she knows how to stand up, but she hasn't figured out
the un-standing procedure yet.
All I can say is, two minutes later, after some strictly
pro-forma writhing, she fell asleep in my lap.
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Feb. 6
Eliza, Facilitator of Uncomfortable Moments
Today, I came home to a sleeping baby and the cleaning
lady.
The baby was sleeping because Jim had taken her to the
Moms and Babies movie. I will not dwell, for the moment, on the fact
they he took her to see a Woody Allen movie, because, oh, the ick-factor.
The good part was that when she came home, she took an atypically
early nap (the horror of Woody Allen tired her out, I believe). which
was good because I had to bring her to work this afternoon for a meeting.
As for the cleaning lady, she should really be called
"The Priestess of Clean," because we have been living in
our own filth these four weeks whilst she cruised merrily in the Caribbean.
God bless her for taking a vacation, but omigod I did NOT know what
to do with myself, house-wise. I've completely lost my OCD compulsion
to sweep, and mop, and dust. It was all I could do to wave one of
those glorious Clorox Disinfecting Wipes in the direction of the toilet
three weeks in.
Our Priestess must be appeased at all costs. She got
a very nice Christmas gift from us and we make her uncomfortable with
the odes we perform to her every time she comes over because omigod
what if we had to go back to DOING OUR OWN CLEANING?! Today, when
she asked about the random computer desk standing in the hall, Jim
gave it to her without a second thought. I helped her load it in her
truck. Because if the Priestess wants an old computer desk for her
little boy, we will schlep it to Williamsburg on our backs if need
be, JUST SO LONG AS WE DON'T HAVE TO EVER CLEAN AGAIN.
Anyway, the tiny maniac was sleeping while the Priestess
cleaned and I hung out downstairs. Both monitors, the one upstairs
and the one downstairs, were on, which I thought nothing of, until
suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard this incredibly loud Ppppppplllllrrrrtt!
I headed upstairs to Eliza's room but then I thought,
woah, what if that was the Priestess, that would be embarrassing.
So I stayed downstairs until I heard a distinctively Eliza-esque cackle
over the monitor to confirm that the previous emission was indeed
one of her trademark, uncannily life-like fart impressions.
What made it that much better was that upstairs, I was
met by a visibly relieved Priestess, to whom the whole "Omigod
did she just fart really loudly?" scenario had clearly occurred.
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Diaper
Rash, Final Update
I would just
like to say HA! And, I TOLD YOU SO! And, NEENER NEENER NEENER!
My suspicions
were right all along. I will grant that adding vitamin E-based ointment
to the nether regions probably did not help, but mainly, I am just
psyched that I am vindicated.
Did I mention,
I'M SMARTER THAN YOOOOUUUUUUU!
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Crawling
For months— well, actually, pretty much since
birth— we have been treated to Miss Eliza's whinging and whining
about being on her stomach. The smart money, frankly, has been on
her to skip crawling and go straight to walking since she was about
3 1/2 months old, she hated any and all stomach-related activity so
much.
Then, a little while ago, she figured out how to get
from stomach to sitting, which apparently started the reconcilation
between Eliza and her belly.
Then came the backwards pushing, in some ways a more-than-literal
step backwards since it made her so angry that after all that work,
she was actually FARTHER away from her target.
Then came the day she hitched her knees up under her
torso. And overbalanced hideously and fell on her face. That was a
screamy 10 minutes or so. Especially because it was pure slapstick
and we laughed. Our maniac does not take well to being laughed at.
She seemed to stall out at this unhappy plateau, but
somehow, while we weren't looking, she figured it out.
A few days ago, Jim and I went, Huh, did she just move?
And there she goes, now, our little creeper. Every day, she goes a
little farther, a little faster. On Friday, she crawled the width
of our friends' house. On Saturday, she cornered. Now, we have to
figure out, and fast, how to get that safety gate up before she decides
to make a run for the stairs.
Yikes. Our kid can crawl!
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A Phrase I Never Thought I'd Say
You have no testicles— leave your sister alone!
(To Barney)
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Feb. 2
Something That Is Not a Good Idea
Eating a beef and bean burrito for lunch on a day that
you have karate.
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Feb. 1
I Thought It Was Cute, But Apparently It Means I Suck As a Parent
For about a month now, Eliza has been doing middle-aged-beret-wearing-white-man
jazz-head, that side-to-side head waggle most often seen on white
guys trying to show how down they are with that hideous avant garde
jazz crap, not that I'm judging them for their musical tastes or anything.
Anyway, as annoying as it is on the aforementioned niche,
that's how funny it is on a baby. She mostly does it when she listens
to music, but also when she's singing a cappella (at least that's
what I think she's doing when she makes that sustained aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
noise), and occasionally, just randomly as she's going about her business.
It seemed harmless to me, and often very funny because
she's very earnest about it when she does it.
Then, I read
What to Freak Out About the First Year, and now I am, appropriately,
completely freaked out and not a little depressed, not to mention
wallowing in parental insecurity. Says here in the chapter on the
10th month (I skipped ahead) that this is "not ordinarily hazardous
to your baby's health." However, then it goes on to tell you
how to get your kid to stop headbanging, rocking and headrolling (oh,
and don't I LOVE that this is lumped in with the really disturbing
behaviors), and let me sum up: I need to show my baby more affection,
I need to play more musical games, I need to do more activities and
I need to revamp our bedtime routine. And in case you didn't get that,
the implication is, you DON'T LOVE YOUR KID ENOUGH, YOU COLD-HEARTED
BITCH.
Or teething is painful. Either one.
It's probably not the teething thing, though. Tonight
at the Y, the child watch people came and got me 15 minutes into my
workout because Eliza had freaked out and was trying to crawl over
to the dad in the room reading stories to his kids, because she's
thinking, oh god, please adopt me, the guy they call dad's OK, but
that mom-woman, jesus, she's a NUTJOB! Take me home with you now,
before she COMES BACK! OH SHIT, TOO LATE!
On the upside, I was right all along about the butt-rash
being thrush — the antifungal meds have just about cleared it
up. Which means the Burt's Bees stuff, while probably indeed a factor
in the severity of the rash, did not actually cause the rash.
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