Two Days is a Long Time

I don't even know Lucy anymore. In the two very long days I was in D.C., she has almost mastered the melody of the ABCs/"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Today she brought me the lid to one of her toyboxes — blue vinyl with little blue stars all over it — and started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Sure, it was a jumbled up mixture of the most notable vowel sounds from both sets of lyrics, but holy crap. She can say, ON HER OWN, 37 words that I can count right now, and it seems like she knows a new one each day. She also has more hair, which I think is going to be kind of dark. And she started making this funny look of surprise: a rounded gasp with the corners of her mouth lifted in a smile, like she knows something happy that we don't. Which I imagine she does.

So, nothing new to report, really. Except that two days is a long time when you are only 474 days old. I missed 1/237th of her life. Did I say 37 words? I forgot elbow, Elmo, and remote. Don't judge the words. Some of the 40 of them are really impressive and cerebral, trust me.

Mardi Gras

Lucy has a new trick. Well, she had a new trick briefly, but we are not doing it anymore. Because the trick is inappropriate and maybe a little degrading. Only it is really, really funny.

When you tell Lucy, "Show us your belly button," she will grin, lift up her shirt and show you. And she will also do the same thing if you say, "Show us your boobs." SHOW US YOUR BOOBS! And then of course, we bust out laughing, so she wants to do it more.

See, it's funny, right? Funny for a 15-month-old. But not funny for a 15-year-old. That is why we are not doing it anymore.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

So I'm running around with this fairly miserable toddler at the grocery store today, and I think, "Wouldn't this be so much easier if she weren't here?" We have had a rough couple of days.

The real highlight of the weekend was her foul mood at Ben and Mary Ellen's. She threw a series of fitlets, and shaking her head "no" a lot — an emerging trend I expect to enjoy. Not. Ben and Mary Ellen were their usual good sports, demurring as Lucy pawed every pristine surface in their house. They laughed, but they will be finding chocolate cupcake smeared in unexpected places for a long time. Kristen and Steve, with a four-month-old Clay who cooed and smiled quietly the entire time, seemed amused and, ahem, interested in preparing for the future. Marc and Lauren, who have been around their fair share of toddlers, were entertained. But I am pretty sure I overheard Lauren refilling her birth control prescription on the phone in the guest bedroom.

I'm kidding about most of that. Lu really is not that bad. Yes, I admit, it was almost entirely our fault, because she'd been denied a full morning nap due to brunch plans and had no afternoon nap because of the barbecue. But we're trying to live. To be social animals, out in the world. With our grouchy, messy baby. Ready to invite us over? Mind if we put a really crappy diaper in your trash can and leave tiny, oily paw prints on your windows? We'll be right there.

So yeah, life would be easier if she weren't here. And life would be...less. Despite that fact that she is a tremendous inconvenience for someone who still doesn't weigh 22 pounds, she's pretty much worth it. She sleeps as I write this, so I like her more (see "Night Night," two entries ago). She is funny. She likes to dance. She gives hugs. She'll even kiss you if she's in the mood.

Tomorrow at work, one of my co-workers is bringing a baby goat to work (long story). I have always loved baby goats — maybe more than baby humans. A herd of baby goats followed me down the street once. I felt like Snow White. For Lu's sake, I really hope tomorrow's baby goat is not that great. The bad news for me is that no one raises toddlers for 4H.

Live on Stage...

It's worse than teaching your dog to fetch or play basketball. Lucy knows tricks. We pass them off as signs of intelligence. But really, they are just her parents' tricks and Lucy is our happy little seal.

Daddy: "Lucy, what noise does a dog make?"
Lucy: "whooo hooo hooo hooo hoooo!"

Daddy: "Lucy, blow a kiss!"
Lucy: "mmmmmwahhhh." Then she blows a kiss.

And the hit parade goes on. Granted, we are just underscoring behavior she picks up from us every day (that's a scary topic for later - here's hoping she doesn't fart and point at the TV like her dad). But, she seems more and more like a person every day — even if she is just playing to our cues.

For the first time, I'm starting to feel the emotional responsibility of being a parent. She's going to watch us to see how to act. Helpful for getting her to root for the right sports franchises, but scary for getting her to interact with other people.

For now, I'm happy with the Arsenio Hall tribute everytime we ask Lucy about the dogs. With a little luck and the right mixture of TV shows, she'll be a nice person.

Night Night

I go into Lucy's room every night before I go to bed. I turn on the hallway light, open her door and creep in. She is almost always asleep on her stomach, blanket and Duck wadded beneath her. When I try to straighten them, she snorts and smacks and draws her knees under her. Or sometimes she flops onto her back, irritated and frowning in her sleep. It's impossible to love her one bit more in these moments. I want to wake her up and eat her.

I don't wake her up, because even now, her sleep seems precious, though consistent. She goes to sleep at 7:30 every night, sleeps until 7 or so, and has done this regularly since she was about 5 months old. I am told to be thankful, that lots of babies don't start sleeping through the night until, well, they are not babies. I credit Jason with Lucy's sleeping (both through the night and not in our bed). His mantra: "You just have to have confidence in her. She can do it." And she did.

But until she did, I was a wreck. I read so much on the topic, I became convinced that sleep was the central issue in her (our?) well-being. She would be maladjusted, low-performing, angry if she didn't get enough rest. Not unlike her mother. Back in those early, weary days, her sleep was as fragile as a spiderweb. Naps could fall apart with the breeze. Jason says that when the baby monitor crackled to life, I would look at it in horror, like Satan herself was stirring. I would have done — and did — anything to get Lucy to sleep, and happily murdered anyone who awoke her. I once stood in the yard and shook my fist at a teenager riding his unmufflered motorcycle through the neighborhood in the middle of the afternoon. I considered calling the police. PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO SLEEP AROUND HERE.

I am grateful that period was relatively brief, and that she has learned to sleep like a champ. Sometimes she dives into her crib before Jason can finish one verse of "American Pie." Other times, she talks and sings to Duck for awhile. But there is no crying, and sleep always comes. At least, for Lucy. Just like I am told to be thankful she sleeps, I am told I won't sleep the same ever again — me who snored my way through Central America by bus. But so far, what markedly less sleep I get is a little sweeter with one last peek at her.

The Interpreter

I like to brag a lot about all the words Lucy can say, but I realize that most of them are intelligible only to me and Jason. For those of you who care, here is a brief translation of the Lucy lexicon.

Words she says:
• Dadada = Jason, Father, the black hair sticking up from beneath the covers
• Mamama = Kate, Mother, the most important person in the world
• Dah = dog
• Duh = Duck
• Buh = book
• Wa-wa (plus a hand motion that looks like a stereotypical Native American war cry) = water
• Ooh-ooh-ooh = the sound a dog makes
• Mlah-mlah = the sound a kittycat makes (say "kittycat," not "cat" which sounds like "cow" the sound below)
• Moo (quietly) = the sound a cow makes
• Uh = up
• Uh oh = uh oh or I just fed something to the dogs
• Gogogo = Go? (from a TMBG song. We're not sure she knows it's a word, but she says it a lot.)
• Dye-dye = bye-bye

Words she signs:
Cheese or anything that rhymes with cheese
Eat
All done/all gone
Water (see hand motion above)
Good
Hook 'em Horns (this is enthusiastic pointing with some help from Dadada)

Her report card from school keeps saying she's talkative: "Lucy talked all afternoon, then she talked herself to sleep, then we knew she was awake because she was talking again." Enamored of the sound of her own voice at 13 months, 17 days. Nothing like her quiet parents.

Taming the Beast

We seem to have reached an exciting and stormy new phase in Lucy's development, about 11 months early by my count: tantrums. Wednesday morning, she repeatedly pointed to something high on a shelf, her lips pursed and blowing. Hark! She wanted the container of bubbles up there. Genius baby, I thought. So I took her outside on the front lawn to blow the bubbles. But the special container designed to keep her from spilling the bubbles also prevented her from being able to get the wand in and out of the container, which she wanted to do HERSELF. Unsuccessful, and uninterested in my help, she threw herself onto the grass in a screaming, snotty rage. The hysterics grew and she could only be calmed after several minutes of Baby Einstein.

On Saturday, she spied another container of bubbles, which Jason handed to her. On finding it empty, the beast emerged again — she dramatically collapsed on the kitchen floor in a full-on, wall-eyed fit. This was an illustrative moment about our different parenting styles: I was practically in tears myself, saying "What do we do? Look at her, she's acting like an asshole." Jason just stood there and laughed his ass off.

The thing is, we're both right. On the one hand, it's just plain hysterical — both the idea that anything in this loved, well-fed child's life merits such melodrama and that she's capable of expressing it. On the other hand, at some point we have to figure out what to do. We were out a few times this weekend, and I could see a little storm stirring in Lu's head. I wished I had some kind of plan, some technique besides "give the beast whatever it wants, anything to stop the screaming." That feeble technique won't work because these fits seem to be borne of frustration about something she can't say or do herself, not something she wants that I could give her. And if I could always give it to her, wouldn't that turn her into an asshole?

The answer to these questions, or at least some varied, published opinions, are in the parenting section of the bookstore, which I haven't visited since the simpler times when sleeping and eating were our main concerns. I hadn't expected to be back there until she was closer to the terrible twos. Maybe the early appearance of tantrums is just further evidence of her accelerated development, the bratty little genius.

3 is the Loneliest Number

When I was little, my mom had a rule: "You can have one friend over, or you can have three friends over, but you can't have two friends over. With three, somebody always goes home crying."

I have a long list of who went home crying. All too often it was me. Early memories of the Bizarre Friend Love Triangle include (with most likely to cry appearing first):
• me, Molly Peterson, some other girl from Brownies
• Nicki Ferraro, Jenny Cole, me
• Jackie Karr, me, Andrea Holder
• me, John Livington, Laurie Foreman
• me, Emily Davenport, some other friend from camp
• Emily Davenport, me, John Livingston

The list, pathetically, continues into adulthood, but I won't embarrass myself by sharing the overgrown playground politics. Suffice it to say, my mother was right.

So when I heard that the Stephens and the Websters were BOTH having girls, I immediately came up with...three. Small Person Stephens, Merriam Webster (the baby girls' respective prenatal nicknames) and Lucy will be spending a lot of time together, whether they like it or not.

Lucy will have an advantage because of her age and her bossiness, which is a trait she seems more certain to inherit from us than her height. Jason was legendarily bossy; his mother tells of him feeding specific lines of dialog to the other kids in their Star Wars role playing games. And me, well, I was that losing combination of bossy and dorky. I could rule for awhile, until it dawned on the other children what a woeful spaz I was: "Wait a minute, we're eight years old, we should be watching cartoons, not acting out Greek myths with our Barbies." Then they sent me home...crying. Maybe the bossy/oldest combination will work for Lucy, and she can successfully dominate little S.P. and Merriam.

It's paradoxical to wish for her to be the boss, much like it's hard to wish for her to be cool. I want to mitigate her suffering at all costs, yet I want her to be someone I would like (i.e. someone who has suffered a little). Mostly, I guess I should just wish for peace as we parents drink beer and have semi-adult conversations, while Lucy, S.P. and Merriam quietly torture each other, whoever the ruler is.

In Like a Bunny, out Like a Bear

Lucy has graduated from the Bunny room at school. They didn't have a ceremony or anything, but I did get a little teary as I hugged her teacher Rokeya on the last day. Lu was oblivious, desperate to eat some abandoned Cheerios she'd discovered under a high chair, which mysteriously grossed me out (or just embarrassed me? Maybe because they were someone else's Cheerios?).

So now she is Bear. Raaar! At first, the move seemed like going from first grade to high school. They sleep on mats on the floor during naptime. Are they kidding? They sit at little tables and chairs and eat their snacks off a tray. Like...people. I'm so sure. I was certain she'd be demoted back to the Bunny room within days.

But "raar" indeed! She has slept on a mat for four days in a row. Every successive day, she eats more and more of her snack, less distracted by the novelty of a tray to dump on the floor. The best part about the Bear room is the playground, where they spend most of their time. Lu has never even been to the park! She's afraid of grass! Yet every afternoon, about she and 9 other Bears can be seen wandering around the grubby, sandy playground. They dig, climb, push carts around, eat sand, observe the dog in the neighboring yard. They even paint on big sheets of paper taped to the side of the building. On Wednesday, I watched one Bear, smocked in an adult-sized t-shirt to cover her already sand- and snack-soiled clothes, stick a chubby paint brush in her mouth, then flash me a neon-green grin. They assure me the paint is non-toxic.

My own little Bear seems to be adjusting well. Yesterday, she protested when I picked up her sandy, sticky body to go home, the once-docile Bunny now ferocious in her opinion. For now, the mama Bear is bigger and has the car keys, so we went home.

Ambitious Toddler Seeks Exciting Opportunities

Lucy's not a baby anymore. I won't write sappily about how much I miss my baby (at least, not in this entry), because for the moment, I am in love with my new toddler. Her level of engagement with the world, with us, is so entertaining that I can't believe I tolerated having a worthless little newborn lump. I'm just kidding. Kind of.

As her toddler resume grows, I make plans for her future...
--She loves to read, whether it's one of her books, or the menu at a restaurant. She seems to understand words on a printed page. Pulitzer-prize winning author!
--She tries to count, pointing rhythmically to one thing after another the way we count out her Cheerios at breakfast. Mathematician/future checkbook-balancer (equally ambitious goals in my mind)!
--She knows where her ears, mouth and nose are, and can sometimes identify those same parts on other people. Physician!
--She can pick her nose and eat her boogers. Sometimes she will pick her nose and offer you one of her boogers. Um, McDonald's employee?
--When you give her a brush, she brushes her hair (or at least rubs the brush on her head, but she doesn't have much to work with). She also likes to brush your hair. Salon owner or celebrity stylist.
--She also knows what sunglasses are and where they go, though she refuses to wear her own. Secret service agent/very famous person.
--She is enamored with light switches and cabinets -- on/off, open/close. Cause and effect is satisfying. Scientist/inventor!
--She toddles. Her first stumble has become drunken little steps. She weaves around without help for a long time, and she gets more confident every day. Olympic athlete! Alvin Ailey dancer!
--When music comes on, she dances and bangs her hands. One of her current favorite toys is a xylophone. Jazz musician!
--Other current favorite toy: talking telephone. Receptionist.

My own goals and dreams aside, she can be whatever kind of person she wants to be. What's amazing is that she is a person! (By the way, Jason has now shown me how to make things bold on the blog, so you'll be seeing much more emphatic writing from me.)