Suddenly Human

Kapuz

2009-07-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

I make up stories and I make up games and I immediately regret it because whatever I invent we'll play for days on end. Take, for instance, Whappowong, which is when you suddenly flop down on the grass with your legs in the air and then you drop the legs suddenly--wong-- which is very funny and also, it turns out, funny on the twenty or ninetieth try.

I made up a talking hand puppet when Sydney was 9 or 10 months old called Tickle Monster. Then I made up another one called Cousin Tickle Monster. Some days, Sydney will only talk to Tickle Monster or Cousin Tickle Monster and not to me. Somehow she trusts them, even though they often tickle her instead of answering questions. "Hi Tickle Monster! How you doin'?" she'll say, looking directly at my curled up hand. "I'm good, Syd, how are you?" I'll say in my normal non-Tickle-Monster voice. "NO TALK! Just Tickle Monster!" she'll tell me. Sigh. I used to be so much more than just a hand.

Sydney's favorite joke is to call me a boy. "You a BOY!!" she'll yell joyfully. Recently she's been told that actually her mother is a woman. "You a WOMAN!!" she'll yell at her father, generally in a particularly crowded grocery store.

She's starting to rationalize things too. The other day she told me that she couldn't sit on the potty "kapuz it pinch me."

"It.. what?"

"Kapuz it pinch me!"

"Kapuz?"

"You don' unnerstann!" she said, sorrowfully, an expression I've used often to let her know that I'm trying to figure out what she's saying, but don't quite get it yet.

"Say it again, I'll understand this time," I said, helpfully, hoping it was true.

"No potty, kapuz it pinch me!" she said, impatiently.

"OH! Because it pinched you! I see..." it had pinched her the other day, accidentally. I let her know I fixed the potty and all was well, and we went on to our customary "I don't half to be brave" which means that she won't get a "soap bath" tonight and won't have to endure the agony of getting her hair washed.

Kapuz we all know how bad that is. Just, you know, kapuz.

I See France

2009-06-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Sydney hasn't seen her favorite aunt for a month. But she loves to talk to her on the phone and tell her all the important things going on; usually those things are right in front of her, so the conversation is a little disjointed. Today, however, she proudly announced to her aunt:

"I'm wearing blue underwear!"

She was, too.

Storytelling

2009-05-25T04:12:00.000-07:00

Out of the blue, Sydney will suddenly feel compelled to tell you her favorite story. It goes like this:

"Watching a tree fall down, go BOOM! in da trunk uv da maple. But da maple okay. An' mommy pull da comealong, and daddy pull da comealong too. An' daddy cut it up in pieces an 'they go in the fire."

That pretty much sums up our entire existence, with side ventures into blueberry orchards and vegetable gardens and our new venture, chickens. Sydney hears about our need for wood all the time, and she hears the chainsaw, but the felling of this one particular tree--which hit a maple we were trying to save but didn't end up ultimately hurting it-- made a huge impression.

The story makes a bigger impression on us. Those are full sentences she's saying there. Where the heck did those come from?

Happy Birthday, Too

2009-04-18T04:20:00.000-07:00

Sydney's gotten into this bad habit of repeating things; so here we are. Our officially two year old daughter can count to ten (1...2...3....6!...6!...6!...7...8...9..10!) and recite the alphabet (A...B...C...D...4!.....4!....4!) and she can tell you what color things are (usually, they are blue), she can wash her hands and put on her slippers "all by self" as well as remove all the keys from my laptop's keyboard, and in generally she's turning into a fairly active, curious and energetic kid.

Happy Birthday, you silly little girl!

ECHOechoecho

2009-04-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

Or maybe there's a parrot in the house.

On Saturday we moved the wood splitter from the garage to the open sun so I could see what I was doing as I changed the oil and tried to get the crotchedy thing started. My husband took his chain saw and announced that he would cut down a tree that I had refused to help him with, stating firmly that it was entirely too close to the power lines and I wanted nothing to do with it. He was feeling confident--or cocky-- and announced he needed no help from me. Off he went, leaving me to my task--and to Sydney, of course.

The %$#@*^!! thing wouldn't start, and I couldn't find any of our tools, and as I struggled to remove the spark plug I was muttering under my breath all sorts of four-letter words, which Sydney immediately picked up on and said over and over at the top of her lungs. Fortunately that's when I heard the tree topple and looked up to see the power lines flailing hugely up and down, to which I stopped my cursing and said to Sydney: "Daddy hit the lines!"

We watched the lines with some dismay until they stopped their oscillation, and I ran into the house briefly to make sure we still had power. When I returned, Sydney was repeating over and over excitedly: "Daddy hit the lines! Daddy hit the lines! Daddy hit the lines!"

Soaking it all up, she is. But she's not sure how to spit it all back out. So for the past few days her sentences have been full of curse words, demands, song snippets and random sentences, so at any one time one might hear: "Water! Bear, sit down. %#@%*$!! Mary had a little lamb, laugh and play, Daddy hit the lines!"

I can see why some people jokingly say that once they start talking, you'd wish they'd shut up. It's not that you don't want to hear what they're saying. It's that you have no idea what they're talking about.

Life in the Toddler Lane

2009-04-03T15:42:00.000-07:00

For the most part, my life was pretty stable and predictable before I had a kid. I knew, for instance, that my keys were in my bag, that my hair brush was somewhere in the bathroom, that my shoes would remain empty until I chose to put my feet in them. These days things are not so predictable. I have no idea where my keys are, my hairbrush could be anywhere in the house and my shoes often have various pieces of detritus in them, including but not limited to: pieces of bark, small toys, coins, tissue paper, or baby socks.

This morning I stumbled into the bathroom to discover two cardboard tubes scattered on the floor. Last night I apparently slept with a dragon finger-puppet, which I discovered under my pillow when my own hand finally crept under there. I had our accountant's calling card safely tucked into my backpack, but I found it the other day among a recently re-arranged tupperware drawer. I just never know what might be hiding under the tablecloth or floating in the toilet. Who knows what has been thrown away in the trash can or tucked away somewhere safe.

Well, Sydney knows. But she doesn't necessarily think these things are important to tell you.

The Princess and the Pee

2009-02-25T18:51:00.000-08:00

"I farted!" my angelic, sweet-faced grinning daughter yelled out. "I farted!" she said again, and to forestall a broken record repeating of the two words which will occur if I don't answer, I replied, "yes! Yes, you did!"

Actually I had no idea if she had or not, so I had to take her word for it, like I have to take her at her word when she looks me in the eye and says the following key words:

"diaper!"
"poop!"
"pee!"

Sometimes she means it, and sometimes she doesn't. Or possibly she's getting pee and poop mixed up, or maybe she gets the poop and the farting mixed up, or maybe she's just telling me that she's wearing a diaper, or that a few hours ago she pooped, or perhaps she's telling me that she knows what poop is, or maybe, she's just saying words. It's hard to tell these days.

In any event, we've hopped onto the potty train.

So far, nothing has come of it. Except that this morning she told me that the potty was cold and then refused to sit on it, preferring instead to squat in front of it, which is not, ideally, in the end what we're striving for.

I told her father this story and this evening he decided that if the potty was cold then by golly we'd have to warm it up. So he took a heated wash cloth and wiped the thing down, and lo and behold our princess did indeed sit on the throne.

No pee came of it. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time, as long as we can keep the seat warm.

Nice Hot Bowl Wa-Wa

2009-01-31T12:50:00.000-08:00

We were fresh out of swim class, walking at the head of a crowd of people leaving the Y, and I was negotiating with Sydney.

"Mo hop-hops" she said.
I shook my head, "No, no more hop-hops until we get to the car."
"Car," Sydney said, "No hop-hops, car."
"What are hop-hops?" The woman behind me finally had to ask.

Busted!

Hop-hops are, of course, what Sydney calls bunnies, because she knows they hop, I suppose, and she and I were actually talking about Annies Bunny Grahams, which are kind of like your traditional Animal Cracker except they are all bunnies. So I had to explain to the woman that my daughter was actually talking about eating bunnies, which sounded terrible when you explained it in adult English. At least she wasn't sitting at our dinner table, listening to Sydney expound upon her love of baa-baa while eating lamb.

We'd recently heard from a child expert that not using the correct word for whatever the child says when speaking back to them is bad for language development. That means when Sydney announces that she wants wa-wa I should promptly say "water" back to her, and I should definitely not fall into the trap of referring to bunnies as "hop-hops." But on the other hand, what is language development after all but the ability to aptly express yourself? Why shouldn't I start referring to our mouthwash as "teeth juice?" Or to soup as "bowl wa-wa?" Or to the act of plowing snow as "mommy push snow?" Maybe Sydney just isn't as hide-bound, language-wise, as the rest of us. Maybe toddlers don't develop language so much as craft it.

Bowl wa-wa, by the way, is a simple meal which can be cooked up right at the dinner table. All you need is a bowl, some water, and some dinner. First you pour the water into the bowl. Then you put select pieces of dinner in the bowl. Then you mash it around with your hand. Then you drink it. If you have hop-hops and baa-baa at the same time, you might just be in toddler heaven. Or as Sydney might put it, in "baby up-high".

And Yes means Yes

2009-01-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

At 21 months, we're embarking on 2, and we all know the Terrible Twos.

Here's a sampling:

The game of Chase Me: Chase Me is excellent exercise, for child and parent alike, and consists, at least at the moment, of going round and round the dining room table or, if we're really ambitious and rambunctious, the circuit we can make by going through the kitchen to the living room through the hall to the dining room and back through the kitchen. The game is necessarily accompanied by the panicky giggle from the 21 month old and the phrase "I'm gonna get you" from the chasing parent.

Chase Me is also employed when about to do something you might not want to do, such as getting dressed or going to bed.

No: The word no is increasingly employed by both parent and child to mean things we shouldn't do (No climbing on the radiator) or things we don't want to do (no brush!) or things we're not going to do right now (No car today) or things we're not going to have anymore (no more juice). No is also a word ignored increasingly by both parties, to the point where my husband, in one frustrating moment, told Sydney sternly, "No means no!" She has taken this to heart, repeating it endlessly back to us so that we understand too: "nomeanno! nomeanno! nomeanno!" Of course she's right. In a fair world, her "no" would mean no, too. Someday soon, maybe, Dad will be forced to tell her: "yeah, well, life's not fair." Hopefully that won't be until we reach the Terrible Teens.

Smiling: Yes, Virginia, being cute and having an adorable smile will get you everything in the end. This girl has a mind of her own, a head of blond hair and the smile of an angel. Watch out, world. Here she comes.

Errant Xylophones

2009-01-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

"Nysh!" Sydney says, pointing to the swords we have hanging on the wall or to the cucumber she wants cut up smaller. "Nysh!" she says when she sticks her hand under the water, when it is that rare just right temperature that is neither hot nor cold. "Daddee! Nysh!" she says with a definitive nod of her head, which either means "Daddy is nice" or "Daddy is a knife." We assume the former.

Language has always been a confusing mishmash for me, one of the reasons I have stuck with my primary and only tongue, English, although my fluency in this particularly confusing grammatical structure is probably a fine accomplishment, given the sheer number of rules and exceptions we have to play with. Not to mention the further down the alphabet you go, the less examples of viable words you have.

Take, for instance, the letter X.

Sydney has started to take an interest in her blocks. She has moved past the knock them down, stack them up stage and has moved to the pictures, numbers and letters represented on each of the six sides. Some of the blocks are thoughtfully arranged so that the letter represents a word represents a picture, and thus we have our lesson in language while striving to play. For a while the game is easy enough. "A" is for apple, "B" is for basket... but then you get to "X" and what do you do now? What super 21 month old can get their tongue around the word "xylophone", not to mention trying to explain what it is?

This particular block set tried to represent x-ray, with mixed results:

"X!" I say, turning the block around to reveal the big X and the small x. Then "X is for xray..." and then turning it around again to the picture side, which shows a kid with a blackened middle and bones for a belly, at which point I say "and this is a...."

"Boy!" Sydney gamely says, going for the most obvious portion of the picture and conveniently ignoring the "x" part.

.."Yes," I say, "x is for... boy." How am I really supposed to explain the concept of a machine which can see your bones? She doesn't even know she has bones.

Houston, we have language, over.

2008-12-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

It's not the Queen's English, not by a long stretch. In fact most of it could not properly be thought of as English at all. But it gets its point across.

Sydney learned, a few weeks ago, to say 'no'. She's been shaking her head 'no' for quite awhile, so it was almost an afterthought when the word came out of her mouth, an emphatic, clear, beautifully simple 'no' which, though I knew I'd come to regret it later, I promptly encouraged. Now she uses the head shake for a different purpose, to indicate that she knows the thing that she is saying and the thing that she is pointing to are not the same. For instance, a hand straight up to the ceiling, a shake of the head and the spoken word: "baby" means: "There are no babies on the ceiling."

It's true, too. There aren't.

"Shoe!" she told me in a plaintive sort of way, the other day, having lost one between the cushions of the couch. "Shoe! Shoe!" she continued to whine, until I retrieved it for her. "Shoe!" she said, relieved.

But we're not done with the language feat yet. She continues to surprise us with just how much she understands, now that she can tell us, in her limited way. We were talking about the kids she'd see tomorrow in playgroup, and we mentioned one rambunctious child by name. "Bmp!" Sydney said, with a sorrowful expression and her hand on her head. I knew immediately what she meant, "yes, he's kind of bumpy, isn't he? But he doesn't mean to."

"Wow!" my husband said. That was a leap we hadn't quite expected to make, given that we're still just on nouns, yet. Perhaps perceiving she'd blown our minds, Sydney safely retreated to known territory, pointing to the ceiling and shaking her head. "Baby!" she said.

No, there's no babies up there. I'm not sure there's any here.

The Young and the Binkiless

2008-11-02T17:10:00.000-08:00

Time flies, even when you're in the midst of the largest poopy diaper you have ever seen.

And sometimes, when you're having fun, too.

This past week we made a trek via airplane to St. Louis to visit my brother and his wife. Just two years ago we swore up and down to each other, pray God to strike us dead if we didn't, that we would never, ever, ever take Sydney anywhere which required flying until she was 18. Fortunately we didn't specify the unit of time.

At 18 months, Sydney isn't saying much, but what she does say speaks volumes. For instance, if one of your only words is "hat," you will make sure that everyone around you knows that the world is full of hats. Lately the fullness of the world is divided between hats and shoes, and the newest addition, cars, threatens to push hats off to the sidelines. Planes aren't cars, though. No, planes are items which, though fun in theory, are a bastion of pure toddler torture. All these people to smile and play peek-a-boo with, a full aisle to walk up and down, and a Fasten Seatbelt Sign on for most of a turbulent flight. What could be worse?

Still it wasn't all bad, especially the Itsy Bitsy Spider with Aunt Stephanie, and the chimpanzees Sydney struck up a conversation with at the zoo, and the long, long message she managed to leave on our home answering machine, after somehow successully dialing our number on the cell phone. Her first attempt didn't make it out of St. Louis. That's because she dialed Uncle Nathan, who was driving.

Anyway, we're back. We're out of the "car". We've bought a new "hat" (it says St. Louis Zoo). We managed, we think, to bring everything and everyone back, even though we lost the parking ticket at the airport. Note to my childless friends out there: Yes, children are a lot of work. But everyone sympathizes with you when you have one. If you can stand the 3 o' clock sleepless night and the 4 pm tantrum for no reason, then having a kid will get you places. And then nice people will help you get out of those places.

Having a kid will make your blog entries schizophrenic, too. Oh well. Can't have everything.

Walking on Water

2008-09-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

First it was a few hesitant steps before falling back down onto the floor. Then it was a few more steps here and there, when Sydney didn't have any place important to go. Then all of a sudden, one day, like a switch had been thrown in her head, it became the dominant method of locomotion.

The Sydney walketh.

The entire process between the first few steps and the actively walking toddler took about two months, belying my romantic notion (and really I should know better by now) that these things just happen one day and then you're on to the next milestone, say, speaking words that make sense to the adults around you.

The pinnacle of the walking saga so far has been the walk we all took on the weekend, complete with dog, stroller and baby. On the way out Sydney was content to be wheeled about but on the way back she insisted on getting out. Once out, she insisted on getting down. And then she walked--marched, more like-- all the way back home.

Uh oh.

Gray Anatomy

2008-06-03T03:29:00.000-07:00

Years ago while I was still in high school, and the specter of having children was at least a ways off if possible at all, I entertained my friends with the notion that should I ever have children I would inflict upon them a language no one else would understand, though it would still be English. I would do this by teaching them that a knife was a "fork", a spoon a "bowl", and so forth. Of course I myself would have to learn this new language to really be consistent about it, but that didn't factor into my fantasy. I just thought it would be funny.

So these friends might think this is only karma.

Sydney and us are at the point where limited but emphatic conversation can occur. "Do you want to read a book?" will be met with an enthusiastic nod. "This one?" --another nod. "Do you want me to read it? Or Daddy?" -- another nod (the multiple choice question is usually where the conversation breaks down). Occasionally there is something which does not meet her approval and she will vigorously shake her head to indicate her unwillingness to take part.

So we've embarked on a somewhat serious effort to impart the knowledge which was passed down to us. I decided to start with body parts.

"This is your eye! This is your nose! This is your mouth! This is your ear! ..." and so on. Then I'd ask her to show me where the body part was. Until recently, I've been met with a blank, disinterested stare before Sydney would turn away to show me something much more interesting, like her stuffed dog. But the other night we finally had a breakthrough: when I asked Sydney where she thought her nose might be, she confidently and enthusiastically patted the body part she thought I wanted. Surprised, I asked her again, with the same result.

Here it is folks: Sydney's nose is where most people might think her right ear would be.

Venturing Outside

2008-05-11T05:02:00.000-07:00

My husband came home from a trip to the dump to the sounds of his daughter screaming in the wilderness, as if she'd been abandoned in a cave, or her arm had been cut off, or she was surrounded by hungry bears about to tear her from limb to limb. Concerned, he rushed towards the sound, only to confront his wife coming out of the field, holding onto their struggling, protesting daughter.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I picked her up," I replied.

Sydney has discovered the Great Outdoors; the infinite wonder of leaves, dirt, bugs, and worms. And she loves it so much that she will stay there, thank you, until she's had her fill. Never mind the black flies, the sun, the inclement weather, or the fact that its time to go eat dinner.

While we take in the whole landscape, noting the little baby on the big lawn, she's examining the minute details of grass, dead leaves, a baby-hand-sized rock which she's found hiding under the grass. She will reverence these objects for long moments, and then, as a final compliment, she will put them lovingly into her mouth, a kind of reverse engineering; I like you, therefore you must be edible.

As with all new things this too will become old hat, and we'll see her start walking through puddles, running over fields, walking into the forest, climbing up mountains. But for now the kid is rooted in one spot, endlessly picking at the growing grass. If I could only pick her up and move her to another location without causing World War III, I almost wouldn't have to mow.

One Year Later: A Retrospective

2008-04-16T18:00:00.001-07:00

One year ago today, Stanley Hilarius became Sydney.

It's certainly been an interesting one year and nine months. It's been a long, hard fought battle, but I must admit that Sydney has won. And I have the scar to prove it.

We've learned alot since those first shell shocked days. Mostly by trial and error, we've learned what Sydney does and does not like, when she'll sleep, and when she won't. We've also composed quite a few songs which, I'm sure, would make my operatic brother cringe but actually shouldn't surprise him too much. After all, I did come up with the words to the fantastic song: Fat Person, Sittin' on a Bike.

Chewin' on the Sydney Hands
Chewin' chewin' chewin'
Whatcha think you're doin'?
Chewin' on the Sydney Hands!

Magic Bag
Sydney's in the magic bag!
Cuz she is a baby.
Sydney's in the magic bag!
And I don't mean maybe.

Big Syd
It's the Big Syd!
The Big Big Syd!
The Big Big Big Big
BIG little Syd!

The Sockless Sydney
Sydney doesn't have any socks on!
What are we gonna do
About the sockless Sydney?

Washing
Oh, we're
Washing the face
Washing the face
Washing the face
So we can go to bed.
Cuz if we don't wash the face
then we can't go to bed
and if we don't go to bed
then the morning doesn't come.

Talent creeps up on you, you know.

In any case, we've managed to go back to our previous hectic lives, albeit with the copious help of relatives agreeing to babysit and rotating schedules which, whilst we were still in the midst of the breastfeeding saga, basically took me entirely out of the picture every two hours.

Fortunately Sydney took up the slack. That girl can stack a cord of wood in no time.

Wait, that's not how it happened. Turns out she was with me.

So today is Sydney's Big Day, and to celebrate, she decided to cry around 2am this morning, just about the time she first made noise. She's on her own journey, notwithstanding us, her parents, and we're really just following along. We try to guide her towards the carrots and the sweet potatoes of life, but more often than not they'll end up on the floor. Whatever she ends up putting on her plate isn't really up to us.

Happy First Birthday, Sydney!

Standing on Ceremony

2008-03-10T03:44:00.000-07:00

Babies are constantly on the move and their brains are constantly calculating the next developmental step, and most of all, babies do things on their own time, so you often miss the next big thing until it happens out of the corner of your eye while you're having a conversation with your spouse.

Look ma! ...no hands!!

Sydney has learned to stand and she's learned to cruise, and apparently she's been processing the fact that her parents don't need to hold onto things when they walk about the room or carry her about, and so yesterday, apropos of nothing, she removed her hands from her mother who was being used as a support, lifted them up, and for two seconds was standing on her own two feet with only gravity and air keeping her upright.

To which we responded with the appropriate amount of praise, while our minds were whirling. Oh no! And we just got the house child-proofed for a crawling baby!!

Next I suppose she'll start saying real words, like "president" or "tricycle" instead of "bababa!" or "rarara!"

Should I start making her apply for college now, or wait until the summer?

Cutest Baby in the World

2008-02-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

It is increasingly obvious to us that our baby, of all the babies in the entire world, is the cutest baby there is. We know this for several reasons:

1) We think she's cute. Now you'll say that we are hardly subjective and of course we think our baby is the most beautiful creature to ever crawl this earth, but we are both intelligent, objective, independent people who are not above admitting to ourselves an ugly truth, or an ugly baby.

2) All of her relations say she's cute. Again you'll argue that this is not exactly definitive proof either, since her relations will also not be entirely independent and probably as blind as we are, but we're going to take their words for it because:

3) Perfect strangers go out of their way to tell us she's cute. Or more likely, they won't talk to us at all. They'll interrupt an earnest conversation about whether to buy another pacifier to replace the 10 misplaced ones, duck their head in to Sydney's level and go: oh aren't you precious boy you're a cute one what beautiful eyes.... oh, I'm sorry. They'll finally say to us. But she's just the cutest thing.

This last phenomenon drives us crazy, as it makes shopping a hazardous obstacle course full of well meaning, googly-eyed old ladies, sentimental, sheepish middle aged men and younger people of both genders who look at our bundle o' joy with romantic ideas and have no idea what they're in for.

These conversations are excruciating, because no longer is this a matter of one adult being rude to another, as was the case throughout the long nine months of pregnancy, but of an adult ignoring the social constructs of normal human behavior to ogle directly at another human being, who, cuteness factor aside, is learning rapidly from everything around her--including that her smile will get her everything in the world, that everyone loves her, and that she is the cutest thing around.

On the other hand, we don't want her to think that all strangers are weird and scary. "Thank you," we say politely, if we can ever get a word in edgewise.

Long time human, first time parent

2008-01-16T03:27:00.000-08:00

We've been feeding Sydney increasingly chunkier pureed mashes consisting of different types of vegetables for almost three months now, and for the most part they've agreed with her. She's also developed some sense of what she does and does not like; for instance, carrots and cauliflower are on the do-I-have-to? list, while applesauce is on the I-can-not-will-not-Sam-I-am list. Winter squash, rice cereal, avocado and beets are on the favorites list.

Anyway to make a long story longer, Sydney's last meal the night before had been beets.

I put her to bed with no incident at 7:30, and then we spent an enjoyable hour watching TV, a luxury which has only just begun to return to us, puttered around for a little while, took the dog for walk and finally climbed into bed around 10:30.

I swear she has radar in her head. Okay, now's the time to do my trick! At first it was a just a cough and a whimper, then it became more insistent, finally it was definitely something I had to deal with; so I strode into the darkened room and found Sydney covered in what could only be a puddle of blood.

Did I mention Sydney's last meal had been beets?

When I turned on the light to see what was going on, I found that Sydney had deposited her very last meal onto the bed, her clothes and herself, creating perhaps the most horrifying, disgusting sight I have ever been subjected to. And it was up to me to clean it up. Talk about your Dirty Job. Also, while my very first instinct was to pick her up and reassure her that everything was alright, my second instinct was to hold her like a dirty rag, well away from me and everything else. I compromised by holding her close but away from me, in case any more of the beets should make their appearance.

Two baths and several retches later, we finally had her cleaned up enough to reassure her that everything was fine, whereupon she deposited more of her dinner onto herself and the floor and we had to start over. Eventually there was nothing left, which left us free to call the Night Nurse, a service which has been started presumably so that pediatricians can be shielded from anxious, clueless first-time parents and their stupid questions like: "Pedialyte?? What's that?"

We substituted apple juice instead, but it just wasn't the same.

Finally, around 3am, on the recommendation of the Night Nurse, we bundle Sydney up to take her to the hospital to be evaluated for dehydration. We trundle sleepily outside, put the baby in her car seat, turn on the car, and start down the road.

"Car's awful loud," my husband said.
"How's it handling?"
"Okay. Well...." he stopped the car, I got out, and sure as rain, the right front tire was flat as a pancake.

We turn the car around, limp back up the driveway on our flat tire, take the kid out of that car and put her in the other one, turn it on and remember that this car is low on gas. We debate whether we think we have enough gas to get to the nearest gas station, twenty minutes away. We decide we probably do, and drive to that gas station only to discover that it isn't the 24 hour variety of store we were led to believe it was. The attendant isn't moved by our plight, repeating that they were open at five am, but finally relents enough to inform us that the Cumberland Farms down the road is open now.

So we finally get gas at the Cumberland Farms and head off towards the hospital, about an hour later than we'd planned.

When we got there, Sydney was wide awake, quietly smiling at her surroundings and interested in all the new pull toys such as the nurse's station button. The doctor pronounced her fine, repeated the story about the Pedialyte: Elixir of Good For All Babies, and sent us home.

Was it a wasted trip? I don't know; we apparently needed the Pedialyte anyway, and our country bumpkin drugstore isn't open at all hours of the night. Plus Sydney fell asleep in the car ride over there, and we weren't sleeping anyway. We might as well be on the road. Finally, isn't it a given that the first time parent will over react the first time their kid vomits (beets or no beets)? We're just following the same story line that's been carefully laid out before us. We can't wait to see what happens next.

Creepy Crawly

2008-01-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

We have officially entered into the next phase of baby-hood. Sydney is crawling.

At first it was a just a few hesitant missteps before falling back on the much more reliable "commando crawl" which involves slithering forward on your belly lizard style to get to your desired object. Then it became more insistent. Now it is what Sydney does best.

Now we live in constant fear of what might be on the floor or what Sydney might walk into. We are not neat people, but we've cleared out the spaces the baby crawls in as best we can and we're becoming intimately acquainted with our vacuum, broom and mop. We've gotten down on our hands and knees and scrutinized the rooms from a baby eye's view, and tried to put ourselves in the mindset of a fearless but clueless 8 month old, discovering electrical cords and outlets for the first time, interesting items in the wide cracks of our pine floors, and completely uninterested in basic physical concepts such as gravity.

Even so, she still manages to find and chew on things which the more mature of us do not consider edible. So far we've pulled the following out of her protesting mouth:

moss
scotch tape
dog hair
paper
unidentified fuzz
flower petals
half a dead lightening bug
a burr

That's just the things we've found before they were swallowed. Who knows what's made it down into her digestive tract. So far, nothing obvious has been spit out the other side but I fully expect to see, reconstituted in way I've never seen before, inedible, inorganic items which have followed the same path as all the other stuff that goes into her mouth.

The crawling has also made us both uneasy enough that it invades our sleep. I sat up the other night and asked wildly where the baby was. My husband, woken up from his own uneasy sleep, assured me she was in her own bed. "Did you put her back?" I asked, because I had been dreaming that she was in bed with us but kept crawling away. My husband was silent for a time but decided to humor me. "Yes," he said, " I put her back." So far she's been unable to escape from the crib or the playpen but I suspect it is only a matter of time before those monkey instincts kick in. She'll progress from crawling to swinging from the trees before I know it.

Sydney for Ba-Rock A-Baby

2007-12-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

Magic in the Air

2007-11-15T03:14:00.000-08:00

Perhaps all parents already know this, but there's always one object, one beloved item or action which, if all else fails in a parent's myriad comforting bag of tricks, is the one emergency item you bring out because you have discovered that it works. Every time, like clockwork. That item is magic.

The first item we discovered was magic was an Infantino Sling Rider, basically just a bag with a strong padded strap, capable of carrying up to 20 pounds of baby weight. When placed in the sling, Sydney would be all scrunched up and terribly uncomfortable-looking, and would, 30 seconds later, fall fast asleep. Wearing the baby around our neck all day quickly became the norm, especially earlier in her career when "awake" generally meant "crying" and "asleep" generally "didn't happen." We began to call the sling the Magic Bag. We even gave it its own song, as we are wont to do, the lyrics of which went like this (to the tune of Magic Bus):

Sydney's in the Magic Bag!

Cuz she is a baby.
Sydney's in the Magic Bag!
And I don't mean maybe.
Magic Bag! Magic Bag!

The need for the Magic Bag has tapered off in recent months, although it is still resorted to in a pinch. Mostly things don't get that tragic anymore, and Sydney has learned to entertain herself to a certain degree. Also she is getting a lot more mobile and the memory of the womb is fading, so being squished up in a bag she can't see out of is less comforting than it used to be.

However, yesterday we went to the hospital (an ongoing saga of checkups and appointments for a borderline case of hip displasia, which was detected when she was first born by an emergency room nurse but never since) for an ultrasound and a doctor's appointment, and, because we are weaning Sydney from Mom, meant to bring the all important food and bottle combination. It was all put together properly and stored neatly away in the breastmilk cooler bag and put on the floor with all the other accoutrements we needed to bring, and it was still sitting on the floor when we got to the hospital.

We were going to be at the hospital pretty much all day, and we had no food for the baby. What kind of parents were we? We begged a few bottles of formula off of one of the nurses and bought a sippy cup (the closest thing they had to a bottle) in the gift shop, and made do with these items and some snacks from Mom's rapidly unproductive breasts. Still she didn't eat much. So much stuff was going on at the hospital that she was pretty cool with it, until we finally bundled her back into the car to go home. Then she let loose.

On the ride up earlier that day, before we knew of the food shortage, there had been a slight disturbance in the backseat, in response to which I turned on the car's CD player which had in it: Baby Beluga by none other than Raffi. My husband was less than enthused about this musical choice and teased that I just wanted to hear the CD again. I assuredly did not; this CD has been played way too many times in my presence. It was the only CD I had, though, and our reception in these parts is spotty. Rather than hunt the dial for music worthy of a six month old, I turn on the CD. The disturbance in the back quieted down and we eventually turned off the CD and thought no more of it.

There's not much you can do for a desperately unhappy infant screaming her head off while traveling down the interstate at a higher rate of speed than the posted speed limit, even if there are two of you in the car, so out of desperation I turned on the radio and cycled through the dial trying to find music and not commercials, gave up after a few seconds and turned on the CD again as an interim.

And the sudden silence from the backseat was golden.

After a few songs and a long period of contentment in the back we thought we could, perhaps, turn off Raffi and turn on NPR, but as soon as the CD went off a horrifying wail began again, and continued until I managed to get the CD turned on again. Sydney quieted down only to have the CD switch back over to Track 1, which takes longer than usual, and in the intervening silence she began to whimper again. Track 1 started. Silence again.

"Is there some subliminal message, do you think? Do drugs! Do drugs?" I asked.
"Or maybe, shut up kid or the monster will get you!" Raffi's charm was still lost on my husband. But we both agreed that we had hit upon the Magic CD, and that this CD should be carefully stored and cared for in order that we might, in a pinch, be able to make the world right again, at least for a while.

This morning we were both wide awake at 2am. Finally from the darkness my husband whispered, "I have Raffi in my head."
"Me, too," I said, "Which one?"
"Over in the meadow on a rock by the shore..."

And we both fell back to sleep.

Baby Tag

2007-11-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours just tagged us with an impossible stunt; turn to page 161 of the book you are currently reading, and then quote the 5th sentence.

While we're flattered that he thinks Sydney is reading books of such grandeur, we're not sure how we'd pull this one off. So we'll take the book that we read most frequently: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5, turn to page 161 and read:

He appears hungry, searching for something to suck shortly after feedings.

How random is that?

Breastfeeding's Final Thoughts: A %$#@*&#!! Pain in the Ass

2007-10-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Well folks, we've made it six months as the sole gravy train and it's time to get off.

On October 17th, Sydney's six month birthday, we celebrated by feeding her "solid food" for the first time. By the time we got around to doing it, she'd fallen soundly asleep. My husband suggested that perhaps we wait for another day, but I was adamant. "Today's the day! We're starting her on real food today!"

"Real" is subjective, and "solid" is kind of a misnomer, as the resulting mush made by the rice and milk was hardly less liquid than what she usually gets. We woke her up, fully expecting a false start, but she gobbled it up, as if she too were eager to get on with this new concept. That night she slept hard and fast, a phenomenon that has disappeared recently with the arrival of teeth.

And with the introduction of food, solid or not, a huge weight has suddenly been lifted from my shoulders. For one thing, I no longer have to rush home from a full day at work to feed a hungry baby. For another, it means that this whole breastfeeding thing will soon be over.

Me and Sydney have been feeding this way for all of her life and sometimes, in the evenings when I put her to sleep this way, I get nostalgic and realize that, five or ten or fifteen years from now I'll try to remember these moments and won't be able to fully recall them. But during the day when I am frantically answering phone calls, racing to meetings and oh by the way, stepping out for twenty minutes three times a day to pump myself dry, I find myself counting the days.

Especially on those days when I forget a vital piece of the pump and have to either jerry-rig the thing or go out to buy new pieces, in between those phone calls, meetings, etc. Or in the mornings when I have to wash and sterilize the various portions before I can leave. Or those days when we are out on the road and invariably Sydney becomes hungry and we have to pull over and feed her, adding twenty minutes to our commute. Or those days when she wakes up every twenty minutes and is ravenously hungry all night.

You know, most days.

My final thoughts on the matter? The bottom line is that feeding a baby is inconvenient, period. But when you decide to breastfeed, it's all on you. Dad can't help unless you pump, and pumping is time consuming, annoying and and in general a pain in the butt. Breast feeding activists are lying when they say that breastfeeding is more convenient than formula feeding. It may be true for a select few, but for those of us who are rushing around trying to live our lives and have jobs and families too it simply isn't true. It may be better for baby and mother, but better doesn't mean formula is bad. Take it from a breastfeeding mother, you are not a bad person if you decide not to put up with what I have for six months. It can be done (I did it) but it doesn't have to be, and don't let anyone make you think otherwise.

That being said, am I glad I did it? Yes-- I like a good challenge. And experience is always a good thing. Life is short and can't be replayed. On the other hand we're about to move on to a new and exciting challenge--keeping up with a crawling baby. One challenge at a time is enough for me.

The Subject of Tonight's Word

2007-10-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

Toothiness.

Nation, one of the most insidious pastimes of babies isn't rattling or spitting up or even crying. No, they do all that to make you think you've got them pegged. What are they really doing under those pouty lips?

Growing teeth.

That's right, fans, Sydney has grown her first tooth. Right now it's a cute little (sharp little) hard nodule on her once smooth gums, but that's just the beginning. She's also learning how to chew. Just tonight she wrapped her arms around my neck and planted a big one on my cheek. I had just done the same thing to her, but she went one step further. She opened up her mouth and bit down.

Maybe she's trying to see if the rest of me is edible, too. Hopefully she decided, not.