My child is revealing some mad dramatic skillz that she'd been hiding for a while. This last weekend was the first time I would actually use the insipid momspeak phrase "crankypants". Mo rocked a killer toddler refusal-to-nap-and-hey!-I-want-that combo. Any time something might be taken away from her was the END OF THE WORLD, complete with wailing and gnashing of teeth (which still works even if you've only give five of them - go figure). The poor munchkin just could not get things to go her way. It was exhausting for all of us.
And yet, she comes by it honestly. So much so that I have a small inward laugh every time she melts down. @ is a skilled pouter and I've been known to lose my cool on a regular basis (just to keep the skills up, you understand?). I laugh now when the worst that happens in her life is that she is prevented from gnawing on the remote because it will be sooooo much less funny in ten years when the meltdowns are about issues of greater magnitude.
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The house is quiet
Mo is asleep. She came home from daycare wired and excited, wriggling up, down and across everything and both of us. I set her to bed early, partly because I needed the break and partly because she's wired from not napping more than 20 minutes all day. I wish the child would sleep in the daytime - thank goodness she sleeps like a rock at night.
@ is asleep after a long, stressful week. We argued this morning after the unpleasant discovery that having a child is not the tax boon we had been hoping. We made up in that uneasy way you make up when you know the issue will come back again only you're too tired to continue arguing the point just now.
The dog is curled up under a stool, as is her general wont. I think she knows she'll be taken to the groomer tomorrow where they will shave her to get rid of the extraordinary number of mats in her hair. Poor, neglected pup.
I'm hungry and exhausted, wishing I had more hours in the day. I started something on double pointed needles yesterday. I'm both eager and dreading getting back to it. The needles are fiddly and my hands cramp from the effort, but the yarn is a beautiful variegated purpley-pink. Still, I'm engrossed in a book - nothing strenuous - Anne of Green Gables - and it's so hard to turn away when Anne cracks her slate over Gilbert's head. *sigh* Gilbert Blythe and that silly Anne Shirley.
The house is quiet. We all are resting.
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Milestone and sleepwalking
Aside from a raging case of PMS that bordered on a PMDD awareness spot, the first birthday came and went with little fanfare. My mom and siblings came into town, we had everyone out for pizza and cake. I was in such a foul mood, I saw the end of my marriage quite clearly in front of me. I made deep withdrawals on the relationship bank account on this one.
My general winter mania has subsided. The last vestiges of it will be taken care of this weekend as I take a two-day pastry class at a local cooking school.
(Two days! Pastry! Yay, carbs! I am not a great cook, but I enjoy baking immensely when I actually bother to do it. While I do feel more than a twinge of regret that this will mean my husband is flying solo with the baby this weekend - he deserves a week's vacation with pay for what I put him through last weekend - I'm giddy about the idea of learning to make croissant dough and beef wellington. You know, because all those nights we opt to have cold cereal for dinner, I've been kicking myself for not working up the nerve to wrap beef in pastry. Clearly I had no better use for the money burning a hole in my pocket.)
I've finished a few knitting projects and find myself enjoying knitting. It's a little frustrating, though, because I'm still quite slow. @ has sighed more than once that I'm ignoring the television (and him, because television viewing is a team sport in this family) to fiddle around with needles and yarn. It'd be nice if it didn't take so long.
I didn't make big resolutions this year as I usually do. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it "the next feminist issue", I am intrigued by Arianna Huffington's
Sleep Challenge. The average number of hours of shut-eye I get is diminishing. Not due to the baby; I'm getting to bed later and later. I wish I could say that I am sacrificing sleep for the endless household chores, but that's not it. The house is a still a mess. I'm just up longer to see it. So, I'm nominally committing to getting to bed earlier.
That may be the extent of my current ambitions. To sleep more. Work is uninspiring, despite the fact that I'm having a great year so far. The days are quiet and routine, which I enjoy. Things putter along, and me with them.
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Saying the same thing everyone says, pt. 2
I am well aware that I am not the first parent in the world. I'm not the best. I flatter myself to think I'm not the worst. I call my friends or the doctor when I have questions that can't be answered by one or the handful of baby reference books I have. Mostly, though, like most of my friends, I'm winging this whole fiasco.
The kid hasn't broken so far, despite the fact that she shut the drawer on her fingers this morning while I was practicing that school of parenting known as "benign neglect". She eats, she laughs, she plays, she poops. She's low maintenance, really, except when she isn't which is so rare that I blog much less about adventures in child-rearing than I thought I would.
I would like to think this is why it is understandable that @ and I were quite alarmed over the holiday when Momo refused to sleep at my father's house. The entire week that we were at my dad's place. Hours of wretched, wracking sobs. The child sounded distraught.
We are not so well-equipped to handle this kind of thing since she's never been like this. Of course, that she does it at my dad's place led to all manner of parental advice-giving. Which was about as well-received as you might imagine.
On Momo's diet:
"You don't feed the baby enough solid foods."
"We feed her solids, Dad, but the books say most of her nutrition needs to come from breastmilk or formula for the first year."
"Jen, I'm talking about the way generations of babies were raised, not some quack trying to prove a new technology."
On Momo's stranger anxiety:
"Jen, you're making it hard for other people to watch your child."
"How do you mean?"
"You pick her up every time she cries. She depends on you and won't go to anyone else."
"I think it's just stranger anxiety, Dad. This is the age for it. We don't push her."
This led to an interlude in which my father attempted to cuddle with Momo through a 30 minute crying jag as she tried to wriggle out of his arms. Finally, she gave up and fell into a nap punctuated with little sobbing hiccups.
On my choosing to let the child play independently for long stretches of time:
"You ignore your daughter and knit all day long."
I am particularly talented, you will note, in that I both pick up my daughter too much and ignore her. All at the same time.
On my insistence on having a car seat for the baby:
"I rode in cars without a car seat. You and your brother and sister rode in cars without car seats. I'll go slow. There's nothing to worry about.)
*sigh* It was a good visit, but I'm glad to be home.
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