beanski

fifteen months

She's officially a toddler. There is very little baby left. In fact I can't recall the last glimpse I got of the baby. She's a big girl. She knows EXACTLY what we are saying at any given moment. 
 

Do you want a snack? She runs for the fridge. She stands in the bathroom and points at the medicine cabinet and says TEETH! approximentally 15 times a day. She has the cleanest teeth of any kid in America. Renee, do you want to read some books? Do a puzzle? Play with your Little People? And she drags out the respective item. She can identify and properly put together her shapes puzzle and knows the difference between a pentagon and an octagon.

I mean SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS MY BABY?

When I ask her if she wants to go outside or for a ride in the car she retrieves her shoes and her coat and not-so-patiently waits for me to put them on. She'll put her dirty clothes in the hamper, dirty diaper in the garbage and put her toys away in their baskets when prompted. She can identify every part of her body (or my body or the doll's body) I've thought to ask her: eyes, nose, teeth, mouth, cheeks, chin, hair, ears, belly button, toes, feet, hands, fingers. She understands EVERYTHING and she loves to be told GOOD JOB! I think the kid would wash the dishes and do the laundry for me if I asked her to as long as I promised to clap and say YEAH RENEE! when she was done. She thrives on it. Now, if only that tactic worked on her father.

She picks up new words every day but the ones I can remember off of the top of my head are: MoM, Da-DEE, light, twee (tree), up, baw (ball), hi, no, eyes, yep, kitty, dog, wow, whoa, teeth, cheese, keys, hot and her favorite word this month: mow (more). More EVERYTHING. More peaches, more water, more milk...even if her first helping isn't gone. She says Dad-DEE when she hears the door open downstairs and I can see her mouthing MoM through the window at daycare when I pull in to pick her up. She has mastered the signs for more, milk and All Done and the rest, well let's just say I sort of suck at teaching baby sign language. Although I was sitting on the couch the other day and she walked over and started making the sign for Milk and then turned around and ran towards the fridge. I literally just about crapped my pants. She has been repeating signs and words forever but for her to put together that she was thirsty for milk enough to come over and sign it to me just about killed me.

She is coming out of her shell more and more every day and the more we encourage her, the braver she is getting. She is putting some trust in people besides us and I am so very proud of her each and every time I see her step away from my hip long enough to play with her cousin or give her grandma a hug. She seems to understand when I tell her that I'll be right back and I think she finally believes me, that I am indeed coming back.

She gives the cheese when I get the camera out and says CHEESE! and I'm ashamed to say that is the only way I can get her to even look in the general vicinity of the camera. Otherwise, she turns her face away from me and runs away. Photographing a running toddler is much more difficult than a baby who sits still or even one that crawls. I have about 1000 pictures this month of her running away from me.

Speaking of which, she LOVES to be chased. And to be tickled. She'll look you straight in the eye and then turn away and take off just hoping you'll follow. Or she'll come and lay down next to me on the floor and sort of awkwardly tickle me hoping that I'll starting blowing on her belly. And I always comply even in my ginormously pregnant state because the belly laughs? I could sustain myself emotionally entirely on that little girl's belly laughs. No day is a bad day when you've heard her laugh.

We've been getting ready for her brother or sister to come and even though I know she has no clue what we REALLY mean when we tell her the baby is coming, she acknowledges it. She will point at the infant seat or go in to the baby's room and show me the baby's diapers. Or she'll point at my belly. She is a helper by nature and while I know a huge adjustment is going to have to be made on all of our parts the day this kid is born, I think there is a part of her that is going to like being a big sister and I think she'll like helping me take care of the baby. The other part? I think the other part is going to be completely and utterly pissed off.

name that kid

Some of these names I hate and some of them Ski hated. Some of them we both like. Just like last time, I suspect we'll be sitting in the hospital room six hours after s/he is born figuring it out. 

You can vote for one or two or three on both lists and it is strictly anonymous. I meant to put D'Brickashaw on the lists per my brother-in-law's request but was thinking that maybe it doesn't flow with Renee. I could be wrong though. I mean, I have been wrong once or twice before.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Online Surveys & Market Research

we let our kid eat batteries

Yesterday I felt good for the first time in two weeks. Picked up a happy baby, got gas for the pimp ride, went to the grocery store where I purchased a fresh bag of Halloween candy and some mouth-watering California peaches. Leftover lasagna was sitting in the fridge waiting to treat me to a cooking and dishes-free night. My feet were not the size of sausages for the first time in two weeks. All was right in the world.

That was until we headed out the door for our evening walk after giving The Monster the KEYS because she says KEYS and she's so proud of herself and who could NOT give her the KEYS when she says it so sweetly?

The trouble with the KEYS is not really the KEYS themselves but the little light that the cheapskates that I work for gave me on my first day of work. Apparently she put that in her mouth because about two blocks into the walk I heard her sort of gulp on something.

I look down and she's chewing on the light which is thankfully still attached to the key ring. I grab it from her. The sides fall open and there is nothing inside.

I can not say with any certainty that that light has worked in the last year or that its guts weren't laying in the bottom of my purse. I can say that I went home and googled 'toddler swallows foreign object' thinking they would tell me to let her poop it out and the first hit talks about how dangerous those little batteries from hearings aids are if swallowed.

Off to the Emergency Room we went. IS THE EMERGENCY ROOM EVER NOT BUSY? I HATE the ER. It took us THREE HOURS to get the kid X-rayed and for some intern of a doctor to tell us that nothing showed up on the X-ray.

Apparently she didn't swallow anything, at least not anything metal. But you have to go get it checked out, right? Because well, battery acid eating away at her stomach isn't exactly what we're going for.

It is amazing how much you change as parents in a year.

Neither of us ever even panicked. I didn't give a rip when the nurse looked at me like some sort of failure of a mother to have let my kid possibly eat a battery. Because you know what? Show me someone that is perfect. Show me a mother that hasn't given her kid something she probably shouldn't be playing with just to shut her up for a few minutes. Show me the mom that has never fed her kid a french fry or 89 goldfish crackers while traveling because WHAT THE HELL ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO GIVE HER? The van is pretty sweet, I'll admit, but it doesn't have a stove and an oven so I can whip her up a healthy plate of spinach and egg whites.

I do the best that I can. And I grow a thick skin. Because I know, we know, that we would never purposefully let anything bad happen to her.

this is the post where i say nothing at all

1. My fantasy football squad is a complete and utter failure.

2. My kid let both my dad AND my mom pick her up multiple times this weekend. They babysat and she was totally fine with it. This weekend alleviated a good deal of anxiety for me. She also has fallen in love with Tara (Happy Birthday, Tara)! I have been so worried about what is going to happen to Renee when I have this baby and now I know she'll be fine.

3. Ski and I both got massages on Saturday and the damn thing didn't help my stupid hips at all. I need new hips. Or a chiropractor. Or pain killers. Or all of the above. Hell, I'd settle for one single Bells Two Hearted Ale.

4. I have chili, lasagna, marinara sauce and enchiladas in the freezer. I'm planning to do quiches, banana bread and muffins, cookies and chicken wild rice soup. Anyone have any other good freezer ideas so that I don't have to cook for say, six months after this kid is born?

5. I'm getting impatient that The Girl's bedding isn't here yet. And I'm getting lazier so I have ALMOST resigned myself to not getting either of their rooms done before the baby comes. I need to learn to sew and to paint and I'm FIVE FREAKING WEEKS from where I was when Renee was born. PLENTY OF TIME TO LEARN ENTIRE NEW TRADES.

6. I love the fall and the weather and the leaves. I will love it even more next year when I can get out there and enjoy it.

7. Renee points at my belly when I ask her where the baby is. I almost DIED the first time she did it. The kid doesn't miss a trick.

8. My husband deserves a medal of honor for being married to me. I am a total bitch and all I do is complain. At least she does things to make him feel like this is all worth it (Thanks Mu Shu Chicken).

i can't stop reading about teenage vampires

I resisted the teenage vampire books for months, ignoring the Harry Potter references and claims that Meyer is the next J.K. Rowling. I mean SERIOUSLY. It's Harry-fricking-Potter and I don't want to hear your over-hyped, melodramtic, I-mean-seriously-are-you-comparing-a-series-to-HARRY-FRICKING-POTTER (scuff, scuff)?

I couldn't get involved because, well, The Potter is sacred around our house.

Then, on Saturday, I realized that I needed something other than useless baby gear and Baby Girl rooms to focus my energy on. Because I wasn't really any fun to be around and Ski was sick and tired of me droning on and on about shit he really could care less about.

Although he *LOVES* the new monitor even more than I do. Ask him. Our evenings seem downright quiet without the constant buzzing of the shittiest monitor of mankind and since we don't have anything else to talk about other than politics (a subject that is seriously starting to wear on me) and football (fantasy football talk is already old...here in week 3), we talk about the new monitor and how totally rad it is.

And then I walk hobble upstairs every 30 minutes to make sure she's still in there because really, I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING. IT'S TOO QUIET.

In addition, we can't come up with one single agreed upon name for our unborn child and internet? IT'S STRESSING ME OUT. Even more than the useless baby gear and Baby Girl rooms, the whole naming your kids thing? IT SUCKS. Maybe I can find a vampire name hidden in the pages? I have to confess that the thought seriously crossed my mind, especially when I got to page three and realized there is a character named Renee in the series.

I would LIKE to spend my time cleaning and doing laundry and organizing but my hips just can't do it. One day of it and I hobble around for three. Nope, I need something that doesn't involve babies or physical exertion of any kind.

So, teenage vampires it is.

Since I started reading about teenage vampires, I haven't been able to get anything else done. I haven't taken or edited a picture. I haven't cooked dinner. Well, I wasn't cooking before but now I have an EXCUSE for not doing anything. It's the vampires. I have to know what happens next.

Have you read the Twilight series and what do you think? ALSO: Do you have any ideas for names that go with Renee? Boy or girl really, I'm getting desperate.

i guess this means she's a big girl now

It happened suddenly. Tell me you see it. Because I wept when I processed this picture.

She's a big girl. The baby is gone. My BABY has been replaced by this LITTLE GIRL. She wears jeans and black Mary Janes with rhinestones that she absolutely ADORES and a pink peacoat that makes my head explode from the cuteness.

That little baby that used to whine and cry when I gave her a hug and a kiss on my way out for work in the morning now flashes me a big six tooth grin and waves. Like, "Cool Mom. Later. I'll see you when you come to pick me up."

Ski dropped her off at daycare this morning. One of her buddies had been gone for a couple of weeks and she looked at him like "I'm glad your back" and then walked over and plopped down next to him and started playing cars, complete with car sounds.

We left her with a babysitter so we could go out for an anniversary dinner and she waved at us as we were leaving and greeted us with a big smile when we returned. No tears. No fear. Just "Well, I'm glad you're home so I can go to bed now, I'm exhausted." She had a snack, I put her in her crib and closed the door and she went to bed. Just like that. No nursing. No bottle. No rocking. No singing. No Mommy required.

This is what we've been working towards.

To help her to understand that her Dad and I will never ever leave her and that no matter what, we'll always come back.

To make her feel comfortable enough to be even a little bit independent and confident and sure of herself.

It's here and it has turned me in to the baby. 

I wonder if I'll ever look at her and see anything other than that five pound alien that came out of my womb or if I'll ever forget how for a short time, for a bit over a year, we were one. I sustained her physically with milk from my own body as well as emotionally as she became upset almost the instant she sensed it from me.

Now she has emotions and experiences that are entirely her own. She has friends. She understands now that I am not the beginning and the end of her world. I am just someone to help her along the way.

I've been learning to let go since the minute she was born. It doesn't get any easier but I have to do it for her. Because I don't want her to feel even the slightest bit guilty for growing up and becoming the person she wants to become.

i am slowly but surely losing my mind

Please excuse me as I currently have a one track mind that is only physically capable of thinking about what I need to do to get ready to have a baby. In what feels like about SEVEN DAYS. I would like to talk about something besides that but I am not physically capable. Ask Ski.

I borrowed a lot of baby gear when I was pregnant with Renee because I figured that it was a waste of space/money to buy all of that stuff and I was worried about buying it all and then not using it. Like, what if I drop $350 on a breast pump and then don't use it? Right now I'm trying to figure out which of those items that have been returned to their proper owners do I need to buy this time? And I have a whole lot more of the JUST BUY EVERYTHING JUST IN CASE going on this time because I am completely and utterly terrified of how I will juggle two of the little monsters. These are the items I am considering. Are they wastes of money?

1. A pimped out swing like this or this - I borrowed a travel swing for Renee and she wasn't big enough to sit in it for like THREE MONTHS and by then she wanted to be in the Bouncy seat so I never used it. But I often wished I had one of these papasan-style ones specially designed for newborns when she was really little. I think this wish will be more pronounced when I am trying to get food on the table for the Toddler. But I could be wrong. Tell me I'm wrong because they cost a lot.

2. A new pump. Is there something better about the newer Medelas than the seven-year-old one I used to pump milk for Renee? This time I at least know I CAN breastfeed and short of this baby not latching or something, I plan to. So a pump doesn't seem like a bad idea? Plus the one I have doesn't let you pump on only one side because one of the parts is broken. It annoyed me a lot during those early days with Renee when I was just trying to get comfortable. Again, SWEET JESUS we are going straight to the poor house if you say they are better. 

3. One of those slings or a new carrier. There are too many options in this department and it makes my head spin. But if I get another HOLD ME MAMA baby, it would be worth it, right? I have a Baby Bjorn and a Moby Wrap but the Moby takes TIME to get on that I'm not sure I'm going to have and the Bjorn isn't very good for small, small babies.

4. Activity Gym like this or this - I borrowed my sister's but her little guy is using it now. Renee liked it a lot so I'm pretty sure I'm going to get one of these. The question is, what one? Does it even matter?

5. Some of these. We swaddled Renee with receiving blankets and we all managed just fine but are these better? Worth the money?

6. A monitor for the baby's room - We have the Fisher Price monitor for Renee and I hate it with a fiery passion of a thousand suns. I know Graco makes a digital one with two bases so we would only need one handset downstairs which appeals to me but it also costs more than the price of feeding a small child for an entire year. And then I read that it sort of sucks. So then I looked at Sonys but they don't have the fancy two bases thing that we probably don't need anyways. And then my head spun off because I couldn't make a decision so I didn't buy anything and have I mentioned that I AM RUNNING OUT OF TIME? Do you like your monitor and what is it?

I also need to get a crib mattress, mattress pads, a conversion kit for our stroller, pack n play sheets, a new Boppy (my old one was purchased at a garage sale and it is stretched out and nasty) and a bath sponge. So when I told Ski that it would be cheap this time because we already 'have everything?' UMMM YEAH, I think I lied.

Also this: When should I start talking about the whole potty thing and have a potty for her in the bathroom? Because I've been coming across those during my shopping travels and wondering if I am totally dropping the ball on that and going to end up with a kid that isn't potty trained before kindergarten.

me + ski - three years

Three years ago today we tied the knot. Looking at the pictures makes me incredibly happy. Because we looked so happy. And we are still happy. And I'm so thankful for that.
 

  

  
Our story: For Posterity and because I have never written down how it all went.

I met Ski for the first time in 2001, in a smoky bar, in the Highland Park area of St. Paul. The creep I was dating at the time, The Drummer, and I hesitate to even call it dating but lack another term for the destructiveness that was the relationship, introduced us and I can vividly remember chatting casually about what a waste of time working was. We had both recently entered the working world from college, where you have lofty expectations for establishing a career and becoming a grown-up, and we both understood what the roll of the eyes meant when we talked about what a waste of time it was to work in corporate America, where working for a Big Five was a lot more like the equivalent of pushing paper and filling an empty seat in a conference room than it was about trotting the globe in business suits building complex computer programs. I can distinctly remember the laughter flowing steadily and leaving the conversation thinking "The new bass player is hilarious."

I had been dating The Drummer in the band he joined for a while and had frequented that bar on many a night, drinking way too much Leinie's Original out of the keg, swaying in time to the music. I would love nothing more than to say that my world changed that day and we lived happily ever after because it would have saved me all of the pain and heartache that happened later. But it didn't change. Me and the new bass player became casual friends, chatting between sets, hanging out together with big groups of people when the band was finished playing or on off-nights. I continued my destructive relationship with The Drummer and the bass player found himself and dated Britney Spears. No, not the REAL Britney Spears but this anorexic chick named Britney that had close to as much emotional baggage as the real deal. She never liked me and I never understood why.  

My perpetual roommate at the time and I drove to southern Minnesota one night to watch the band play. The Drummer spent the evening flirting with the cocktail waitress at the rundown bar right in front of me, while his best friend tried to grope me on the dance floor. Needless to say, I was angry. While the drama unfolded and my sister's boyfriend at the time, who is now her husband, told The Drummer's dirtball friend to leave me the hell alone, I noticed my roommate in a booth with Ski and I remember wondering what they were talking about. I stormed over and told her we were leaving and that was the beginning of the end of my band groupie days. The Drummer and I patched things up after that but he eventually ended up cheating on me again and after a year or so of being treated like some sort of second class citizen, I finally cut off the relationship and quit going to shows.

It was months later, after the anger towards The Drummer had worn off, that he and I and Ski started meeting occasionally for lunch in downtown Minneapolis. I had, in the meantime, had a couple of just as destructive and equally heartbreaking relationships, and was getting pretty jaded on the ways of love. It was my birthday in January 2002 and we got together a big group of people to celebrate. I was late getting to the meeting place and I was bummed out when I realized that Ski had left. Apparently he had come to my birthday party alone and when no one showed up, he went home. I called him and he came back out, in the middle of a snowstorm, to celebrate and delivered me my only birthday card of the night. It was hand-made, with a picture of him playing guitar with a stern look on his face and it said, "What Badass wants, Badass gets...and Badass wants you to have a Happy Birthday, fruitcake!" His stage name at the time was Badass (pronounced Ba-doss and not Bad-ass) because he's a smart ass and it gave them something to joke about on stage. I would overhear women in the bathroom at shows talking about how hot Badass was, totally oblivious that wasn't his real name. I still have the card. Why I kept it, I'm not sure, but I kept it nonetheless.

Fast forward a few months, post break-up with my last pre-Ski boyfriend, to the time when Ski and The Drummer bought a house only a mile or so from where I was living with two of my girlfriends. I had recently instituted a No Men Rule and had promised myself to spend some time alone, figuring out who I was. A few days after they moved in Ski and I got together to hang out and I made him watch The Princess Bride for the first time. Not long after that I drove him home after hanging out doing nothing one night and he kissed me completely out of the blue. I was shocked. I still had my No Men Rule in tact and he was one of my few very trusted friends, I surely didn't want to risk such a good relationship by ruining it with dating. Did I? I remember being so confused and not knowing what to do. We didn't talk for a few days and when he called I think he said something along the lines of, "When can I see you?" I was totally overwhelmed and down on the whole idea of dating and I don't remember how long it went, a week or maybe more, before we ended up getting together. I asked him what had happened and said that I felt weird about it and I can still remember his exact words. He said, "I've wanted this for a long time but have been waiting for the timing to be right. I've looked at it from every angle and you and I WORK. We just do." It's hard to argue with someone that is clearly so sure of himself and a day later when talking to my roommate about what had happened, she said, "He told me that he liked you that night in Mankato and to tell you that The Drummer was bad news." She never told me, and truth be old, I probably wouldn't have listened, but I realized that he HAD thought about this for a long time and he WAS sure about it.

Things moved fast from there and we moved in together just a little over a year later. Living in that apartment with him was one of the happiest times of my life. We stayed in on the weekends and learned to cook and not just to cook burgers and fries but to cook things like filet mignon and sesame crusted tuna. We started experimenting with wines. We built the foundations of what our marriage is today. We didn't need anyone else. We had eachother and we were happy.

A few months after moving in together, I got offered a job in Duluth. It had been my dream for a long time to move to a smaller town and Duluth had always been number one on the list because of its culture and how beautiful it is. I didn't want to raise my kids in the city. He didn't hesitate. He quit his job and we found an apartment up north to call our own. To this day I believe God Himself was smiling on us during that time as less than a week before we were supposed to move (on one salary), he got a call back on a resume he had sent and he got offered a job too. Two computer programmers finding work in such a small town was a borderline miracle.

I remember pulling out of the parking lot, following a U-Haul full of all of my possessions and the man that I was madly in love with. My phone rang. I answered it.

He said, "Are you ready for this adventure?"

I smiled and said, "Of course. I can't wait."

In my heart, I married him that day. Because it felt a bit like jumping in to the deep end with my best friend. And the best part about it was that I wasn't even the least bit scared to do it. And neither was he. Nothing, not even that first apartment being so run-down that it couldn't run water and lights at the same time, bothered us. We were too young and too naive to let things like that cause stress.

We bought our house in March of 2003 and finally officially tied the knot three years ago today. A year and a half after getting married, we got our first positive pregnancy test in the bathroom of that house. We were both thrilled to death. Watching his little girl's face light up when I tell her that Daddy is home melts my heart every single day. Because I am lucky that he is her Daddy and I'm lucky that in a few short months we'll welcome our second child. And I am so incredibly lucky that he is my partner on this journey. There are bumps and trials and situations where we don't necessarily agree but there is no greater feeling in the world than knowing it doesn't matter what life throws at you, your relationship can and will handle it.

Happy Anniversary, honey.

the third trimester

We made it to 28 weeks. The goal that has been floating in and out of my mind for months and months. Each and every time I wake up from the (almost nightly) reoccurring nightmare that involves me running for the bathroom with amniotic fluid running down my leg screaming IT'S TOO EARLY! I tell myself as I'm sitting in the bathroom trying to catch my breath that I just need to make it to the third trimester. Only 37 more days, only 11 more days and finally last night as I sat there checking and double checking that it was in fact just the nightmare (again), that tomorrow is the day. I know this number is somewhat arbitrary but I needed a goal to grasp on to, something even slightly concrete to get me through the nightmares and something to tell my weary brain to will it back to sleep.

With this relief comes a bunch of other physical frustrations. I am fairly confident that the baby flipped to breech because in addition to the kicks going from ribs to bladder, the heart burn subsided and the back and hip pain reared its ugly head. I was literally in tears on Monday because I just wanted to get down on the floor and play with my baby and her Little People and my body was having none of it.

Then I panicked and screamed at my husband that we needed to hurry up and get things ready for this kid because I can literally feel my body slowing down and I would really like to have a room for it to call it's own when it comes home from the hospital. Renee's room being half-finished made me sad for months and I would like to avoid that this time.

The time is slipping away.

I so desperately want to spend this time making her feel special and loved and not sitting on the couch fighting back tears because I don't want her to see me upset.

I want to take her to the zoo and hold her tightly on my lap and tell her all about how it might be hard for the first few months after the baby comes but that someday she will be thankful that she has a sibling. And I so desperately want her fourteen month little self to have the mental capacity to understand that.

I have officially gained more weight than I did during my entire last pregnancy and the number on the scale is higher than it has ever been in my life. I feel like it is spiraling out of control, my attempts to be healthy thwarted by sheer exhaustion and the contractions that taking a walk around the block causes.

I have struggled with whether to schedule a c-section or to let it happen naturally and whether I am being stubborn or stupid for even considering either choice. Perhaps the safest way for the baby to enter this world is through the birth canal but when you start weighing the whole risk of uterine rupture, these kids being so close together, the impact of two major abdominal surgeries on my body, having another emergency surgery and the toll that plays both emotionally and physically AND having a husband that is very clear in his desire for me to schedule the operation and I feel like there is no right answer. Will I be able to lift Renee out of her crib post op?  Was the recovery not-as-bad as I remember because that's how I want to remember it? I just can't seem to come to a resolution on the whole thing. I do think the baby is breech right now so I guess if it stays that way I won't even have a choice. And all of this energy and this worry will have been in vain.

It just HAS to be hormones, right?

fourteen months

We’re heading in to the fourteenth month of The Life After Baby, as opposed to the The Life Before Baby where we could actually eat dinner without someone pointing at our water glasses and our plates and screeching until we give it ALL to her so she can either pour the water all over herself or put the food in her mouth and then promptly spit it back out. After that, we get the pleasure of cleaning up the mess, followed by a feeble attempt to change her soaking wet/dirty clothes, an act that usually ends in her slamming her head on the floor complete with more of the screeching that has become the predominant sound around our house as of late.

Makes you want to run home and get started on making a baby, doesn’t it? 

I could also throw in the fact that teething is by far one of the most tramatic experiences of my life and that she insists on climbing at all moments of her life. AT EVERY SINGLE MOMENT. The stairs, the couch, the chairs, EVERYTHING. And good God it tires me out. I just want her to sit down for seven seconds. She will have none of it.

But this makes me want to have 10 more. It is a good things she's cute.

I choose to believe that all of this defiance and frustration directly relates to her desire, and so far inability, to put together the sounds for any words other than MOM (her favorite and I LOVE that it is MOM and not Mama or Mommy), Da, light, up, kitty, Ba (bath), twee (tree) and dat (that). She also says Doh a lot but I have yet to come up with the translation for that other than every other word in the English language that she can't figure out how to pronounce. I imagine if it takes her much longer to figure out how to talk, I might just end up in a mental institution because she has clearly a LOT to say about EVERYTHING. The Point was a really great idea up until the point where she figured what everything was called and now just wants to find a way to get the god forsaken words out of her mouth. The Point now causes panic on the face of her mother. Will I be able to figure out what it is she is trying to say before she throws herself into hysteria?
 

This month, it was certainly not all bad though.

In fact, the older she gets, the more Ski and I talk about how we just can’t comprehend people choosing to not have children. Sure, we haven’t been able to have an uninterrupted conversation in over a year. And are well in to the territory when we do try to talk, she starts babbling louder and louder and LOUDER until we give up and return our undivided attention to her. And sure we can’t really go out and get drunk with our friends every weekend but the return on investment is the swell of pride you feel when she learns a new thing, or when her face lights up when you pick her up from daycare, or how incredible it is that she literally transformed from this little blob of a baby to a confident, headstrong, dare I say it, toddler right before our very eyes. It is easy to imagine it when it is someone else’s kid you are watching grow but ENTIRELY different when you are the single responsible party for her entire emotional and physical well-being.

She clearly loves music and spends the time where she isn’t throwing little hissy fits drunkenly staggering around the house pressing buttons on toys that invoke music or pointing at the corner where her daddy’s guitar is stored in hopes that he’ll play her a song. She immediately starts dancing by swinging her little booty back and forth when the first note is played with this pleased, contented little look on her face. And her dad beams with pride.

She is OBSESSED with her dad's Twins hat and I think is really hoping they make a run at the playoffs this year. I usually see Ski pull in the driveway and when I say "Daddy's home" she frantically paces around looking for his hat and then literally runs over to the door and waits to give it to him. This is one of those odd little quirks that I never want to forget. I can see where she learned to pretend like she is combing her hair or brushing her teeth or talking on the phone but why does she think he needs his hat on his head the minute he gets home? When she figures out how to talk, I can't wait to ask her all about this weirdness.

She has earned the name Hurricane Renee as she can single handedly pull out every toy, book, wallet, magazine, telephone, remote control, kitchen utensil, etc., etc., etc. on an entire level of our house in a matter of minutes. And now that she is walking, no counter or end table or corner is safe. Every night after she goes to bed as we are returning everything to its proper place and inevitably trying to locate something important like the cord for the monitor so we can hear if she’s upstairs screaming her bloody head off, we often look at each other and say, without saying, “I have no idea why we even bother.”

She has developed a strong attachment to a green, fleece polka dot blanket, an attachment that literally seemed to pop up over night. She seeks it out when she is tired, rubs it on her face or throws it on the floor and burrows her face into its softness. She carries it from room to room, Lionus-style, and will wake up in the night frantically searching for her beloved.

She’s a fragile flower, little Miss Renee. She doesn’t like new people or big crowds or being touched by strangers even one little tiny bit. You can look at her, sure, and she’ll probably even give you a big smile, but don’t get too close. It doesn’t matter how many times I try it or how many hours I have fretted about the fact that seems to be sort of terrified of people that she doesn’t know, I have recently come to grips with the fact that it is just the way she is. The shyness is part of her being, part of her soul. These days instead of feeling guilty about that and feeling like some sort of a failure as a mother to have a child that clings to me with every ounce of strength in her grasp, I am choosing to focus on how much I love that she is so sure of herself, of what she wants, and that she isn’t afraid to speak (or more appropriately, SCREECH) her mind. I know that someday she'll spread her wings and put some trust in someone other than mom or dad or Becky at daycare but I also know now that it will be on her own terms, when she is good and ready for it. And that my job isn't to force it, my job is to make her feel safe enough to try.