A snapshot of my day:
Jane: Up.
Me: You want to come up? Shouldn’t you go play with your toys?
Jane: Up.
Me: (picking Jane up) Would you like to read a book?
Jane: (vigorously signing please)
Me: Brown Bear Brown Bear, wha…
Jane: Bye-bye. (squirms to get down)
Me: Are you going somewhere?
Jane: Bye-bye (waving)
….
Jane: Up.
This morning, during breakfast, Jane decided to let her water from her sippy cup run back out of her mouth instead of swallowing it. No big deal. She was just playing. Like toddlers do.
Let’s just say that my reaction was disproportionate to in relation to the actual harm done (which was, by the way, none. No harm. At all). I may have slammed her sippy cup down on the table. This response may have made her cry. I am not actually admitting to any of this, mind you. Because that would be embarrassing. Who slams their toddler’s sippy cup down as an instructional method? No one sane, that’s who.
I spent the remainder of my morning doing penance for my over-the-top reaction. First, I beat myself up about my temper (I rarely have one, by the way). Then I berated myself for my lack of patience. I apologized to Jane, although she had completely forgotten about the incident by that point. Then I spent some time praying after my run, while Jane slept in the stroller (because God knows I need help, if I am slamming sippy cups). Once Jane woke up, she and I spent copious amounts of time crawling around on the floor, wrestling and playing–all the while I kept hoping and praying that these are the moments she remembers, instead of my occasional parental lapses.
Parenting Jane brings out the very best in me, most of the time. But sometimes I am forced to confront my character flaws. And I just have to keep reminding myself that everyone has flaws; the real tragedy would be to see them and then do nothing to try to change them.
Yesterday I ran for the first time in almost a week. Since running replaces therapy for me, no one really wants me to go that long without a run. I get edgy. And my head starts freaking out and bombarding me with words like “bad,” “can’t,” “won’t ever”…
Does a run fix all that? In one word: yes.
But… the first run back after a hiatus of any kind (and yes, even less than a week counts) is pretty darn painful. And I had been really sick. So, I promised myself I would just do an easy 5k to get back into it. Easy, my butt. There was nothing easy about that run. My lungs felt a bit wheezy. I got tired about a mile in. I felt like I was running through watered down Jello. But I did it. And I still completed the 5k distance in less time than I used to run a 5k on race days.
M0st importantly, though, it was easier to smile at my daughter and mean it after my run. For Jane and I, there was more singing, more dancing, more giggling yesterday than there had been in almost a week. And that is worth all the effort I had to put into that run.
Strep throat. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a kid like the threat of strep throat.
Now I remember why.
On Thursday morning, I woke up feeling off–my head felt foggy, my muscles ached. At 6 a.m., I asked Amy to get up with Jane so I could sleep for a bit longer to try to ward of the impending sickness. Turns out, sleep only delayed the inevitable. By 1 p.m., when Amy mercifully came home from work, I knew that I was really sick. My fever already reached 100.3. From there, even on a steady dose of Tylenol, it climbed to 103.1 before it finally broke at 10 p.m.
Fevers, chills, hot flashes, and throbbing achiness… and an almost 1 year old to take care of. Those factors can only equate to agony. I do not remember ever being in that much seemingly inescapable pain. And it all seemed so hopeless. Jane wanted me to play. Moving around hurt. She still need to be fed, and held, and loved. And I just wanted to cry. Awful.
When people used to tell me how much my life would change after I had Jane, I thought they were idiots. Of course my life would change. I understood the ways in which it would change. Even after Jane was born, I felt like I had adequately prepared myself for what it meant to completely care for another human being. But OH MY LORD… people forgot to mention that kids don’t go away when you get sick. Jane wouldn’t issue a time out. I could hear her chanting “No mercy” as I lay moaning on the floor next to her tunnel, which she had already crawled through 101 times. It was hell.
At this point in the chaos, Amy was stricken down with the plague, too. That’s right. Both parent figures down for the count by Thursday evening.
Oh, but wait… at this point, my throat didn’t even hurt! Nope, not until Friday morning did I wake up feeling much better… except for the thousands of tiny knives sliding down my throat when I swallowed. But 3 p.m. I was at a walk-in clinic begging for mercy.
Mercy came in a pediatric dose of bubble gum flavored amoxicillin to treat strep (although no one is really sure I have strep at all… it is just an educated guess).
I am not exaggerating when I say that hell is strep throat with an almost 1 year old. Absolute torment. But it is over; we are going to be okay.
Now, if I can just get Jane to stop chanting “no mercy,” everything will be back to normal around here.
Janie hears music in the most mundane places. Washer & dryer running? Totally danceable beat. Shaking the soy creamer? Reason to shake her booty. Spoon clanging in a coffee cup? Time to groove.
I love this about her. I love that, in every day life, she already finds things that move her.
Today, I looked up to find her singing and dancing; no music was playing. I love that she is grounded enough to hear her own beat.
This little dancing imp astounds me every day. Her personality emerges continuously. And I continuously find reasons to love her more than I ever thought possible.
My 11 month old snorts. She picked up this habit when she was about 7 months old, out of nowhere. She snorts at random (sometimes, in the middle of breastfeeding, she will pause, look up at me beatifically–and snort); she snorts on command (simply uttering “snort” in her presence can start off a snorting episode). She knows it is funny. And I often snort back at her. We hang out, snorting at each other, and I sometimes get really tickled… which makes her snort all the louder. Amusing stuff.
So, here I am, freely admitting that I have encouraged this snorting. And one of my primary reasons for encouraging it: I knew it would drive my father-in-law nuts. He likes a certain sense of decorum, one which snorting completely defies. I love my father-in-law (really–I love him lots), but everyone in the family seems bent on pleasing him. And, I–well, let’s just say I get a kick out of being the one that talks back, the one that teases him. Hence teaching his lovely granddaughter to snort.
And tonight I got to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Janie was playing with her toy, looking around to see who was paying attention, when she caught my eye. I smiled, and she snorted. My father-in-law immediately assured her that there was no need to make that strange noise again. Her Nana, her Baba and I laughed. Guess who she found more persuasive? She was off in a fit of snorting like I have never seen. I swear, the kid snorted for 15 minutes. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Her Nana and Baba were shaking with laughter. And her Pop-Pop just kept admonishing all of us to stop laughing. But every time the laughing would quiet down, Janie would snort again. And her snorting just kept getting louder and louder. Her poor Pop-Pop was beside himself. Heh.
Yep, I think Snortfest ’12 might just go down as one of my prouder parenting moments…
Late this afternoon, I found myself sitting on the edge of a fountain, in the middle of a little shopping area, watching Jane sort leaves. She takes her sorting very seriously. She lifted each leaf, examined it, and placed it into a crack in the pavement on the other side of her. Occasionally, she would collect another leaf to add to the assortment. Then we would count the leaves: 1…2…3… She gets engrossed in these kind of activities. She only looked up when two sorority girls began howling with laughter at a table nearby. I thought Jane might throw one of her fake laughs their way; she loves to mimic sounds, especially laughter, at full volume. But she just studied the girls for a bit and went back to her sorting.
I am unsure what I loved so much about this time with my daughter. Maybe it was just that she had been acting like a drunken ferret in the coffee shop just a few minutes before, and now she was playing quietly and peacefully. But, it feels more significant. I think, in the glow of the late afternoon sunlight, I really saw Jane as the individual she is becoming. There is so much that she explores, discovers, analyzes every day. And I know each discovery makes her more independent, more self-sufficient. Some days that makes me sad; I feel like I am losing my baby. But today I just felt awe that I get to share the world, and my life, with this wonderful little person. And I am so excited to watch her become… whoever she wants to be.
Until Sunday, I was a dinner party virgin. I had never cooked for more than 3-4 people without assistance from someone with more culinary skills than I possess. But, on Sunday, we invited some of our dearest friends (plus their 3 kids) and Amy’s parents over for dinner. Was I nervous? No. Well, okay… a little. But mainly because 1) kids can be finicky eaters, 2) I have never cooked for Amy’s mom, who happens to cook for friends and extended family all the time, and 3) I am the only vegan in the group, but I was determined to only cook vegan food–I wanted to be able to eat everything on the table for a change.
Saturday night, I scrolled through endless recipes online. I had decided to go with a vegan meatloaf as the main dish (which, in retrospect, seems really crazy to serve to omnivores). I was going to do mac & cheeze, but decided against it; mac & cheese is like a religious experience to a kid. There is no faster way to get them to turn on you than to tell them that they are having one of their favorite foods, then serve them something they barely recognize because OOPS! YOU DON’T EAT CHEESE. So, I opted for mashed potatoes, instead. I make a mean mashed potato. The potatoes were also the only thing on the menu (besides the salad) that I had made before. And, finally, I decided on Polenta with Balsamic Kale & White Beans as my green side. Whew!
How did it go? You are so kind to ask.
In total, I spent 3 hours in the kitchen. When I look back on the experience, I really have no idea why it took so long. But I got everything on the table at the same time, all of it was still warm, and most of it had all the ingredients… most.
The meatloaf should have been called something else. Maybe a harvest loaf? There was nothing meaty about it. There were pieces of carrots in it, for Pete’s sake. The main ingredients were tempeh, brown rice and bread crumbs. Mmmm…. grainy. Look, I know where I went wrong: meatloaf was my favorite food as a kid. I just wanted to try to replicate that. And the recipe came from a reputable chef. Apparently, a chef that has a mad love affair with carrots. And grains. I should have bought Boca crumbles (vegan!) and used an approximation of my mom’s recipe for meatloaf. It has ketchup, a piece of bread… and a conspicuous lack of carrots. Plenty of vegetarians & vegans would have loved the meatloaf that I made on Sunday. But it wasn’t for me. What did the omnivores think? They ate it. But they are nice like that. I think some of them may have pushed it under their mashed potatoes. I wouldn’t blame them. And they ate the ham that my mother-in-law mercifully brought over. I have never been so delighted to see a ham in my life. For real.
The biggest hit was the polenta and kale dish. None of my guests had ever even tried kale. In fact, they looked at it as if it were highly exotic and kept repeating “kale” (yes, like aliens). And every person at the table asked me at least once what polenta was. But they loved it. Loved. They even asked for the recipe. Win! The polenta makes it a really kid friendly dish. And, since the balsamic is drizzled on at the end, you can control how much goes on each serving. I did leave out the white beans, completely on accident. The recipe works fine without them, but I will add them in next time. In fact, next time I make this, it will serve as the main dish. It really is that good.
What nuggets of wisdom did I take away from this experience? 1) Try out recipes before serving them to unsuspecting people. 2) Mashed potatoes are a crowd pleaser. 3) Kale is apparently very fun to say. 4) Sometimes it is okay to let your mother-in-law go ahead and bring that ham over. Just saying.
10 month old babies crack themselves up. It’s true.
Jane holds her sippy cup over the edge of her high chair, looks at me, drops the cup, then says, “Uh-oh!” Sometimes, for added measure, she shrugs her little shoulders and holds up her hands like, “Wonder how that could have happened?!” No one told me how hard it would be not to laugh at this stuff!
10 month old babies also tend to reflect their parents actions right back at them. It’s scary.
Any time Amy or I are drinking out of a cup, Jane will stop what she is doing, look at us and say, “Ahhh.” Every time she takes a sip of water out of her sippy cup, she says “ahhh” after she swallows. This is maddening. And funny. Seriously, which one of us does this? And why has no one made us stop?!? And, sure this time it’s funny and harmless, but no one told me how hard it would be to be a person worthy of being mimicked by my sweet child.
I am glad no one told me. I wouldn’t have believed them anyway. Just like I would never have believed how much I would love her. Or how little it would phase me to wipe snot off her face with my bare hand. Parenthood is a crazy, lovely, messy gig. It’s true.
I rolled out of bed at 6:45 a.m. to prepare for my saline ultrasound. Okay, I guess I wasn’t “preparing.” Not like I had to do much to prepare my uterus to be invaded by large syringes filled with saline. But my psyche, oh my psyche needed to be prepared. The truth: I was scared. Vivid recall of my HSG experience did not serve to abate my fears. That test hurt like a sonofabitch. Since no one indicated whether or not this test would cause great “discomfort,” I immediately assumed the pain would be debilitating. You know, because I am optimistic like that.
As I inched down I275 in rush hour traffic (my appointment was downtown at 8:30 a.m.), I became more and more nervous. Monkito couldn’t accompany me, as she had her own fun doctor’s appointment this morning that couldn’t be rescheduled. Alone and incredibly nervous, I attempted to welcome in the morning with a little Band of Horses … but turned the music off when I almost got run over by an F 150. Nothing about the morning was worthy of Band of Horses, anyway.
By the time they got me into the exam room, I was seriously considering a breakdown. I wondered how often they had women walk out from the exam room crying, telling them that this bullshit was just too much. Yeah, they have probably seen it a million times. This trying to get knocked up stuff is not for the faint of heart. It takes perseverance and tenacity, I will tell you that much.
The doctor finally made it into the room, and I started chatting and asking questions. I do this lately when I am nervous. I get real glib and rather witty. It seems fake to me… but it works. I become instantly less nervous. Maybe its that “act as if” thing the AAs are always on and on about.
Anyway, turns out saline ultrasounds don’t hurt any more than a regular ultrasound. For the uninitiated, that is not at all. But, just so you know the extent of the indignities, when I stood up after the procedure, saline came rushing out of my …. well, you know. Ew.
And, in the best news of the day, my uterus is ready for any future occupant… and I won’t even request first and last months rent… Come on, baby… Ready when you are.
Pensive Pea 
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