Parenting
Beach baby
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
She has started calling herself “baby” in conjunction with pointing at her own picture, and it kills me, it kills me dead with its cuteness. Words still pop in and out of her vocabulary though, and most of the time you wouldn’t know what word she is trying to pronounce unless you, well, speak Carlita. I still have a hard time understanding her, and I listen to her babble all day long (especially since she is cutting naps like a jaded teen cuts classes, but that is hardly anything new.)
There has been loads of cuddles for me lately, and it makes me all soft and gooey. Even though we have always gotten along well (can we just say she was, like, the most laid back baby, ever!), I’ve never been very good at interacting with her in her awesome babyness*, and it saddens me that she no longer is a baby, that I won’t ever get a chance to do it right with her - and as much as I want to give her a sibling, it scares me even more to think I might not manage any better with #2. Or, you know, what if I did do better second time around? THE GUILT!
*I suck at baby talk, I suck at the repetitiveness that is baby play. Probably the only thing I did really well was breastfeeding and we quit that when she was 17 months - lesson learned! If/when there is a next time I’m going to breastfeed for as long as it’s wanted.
If anyone has any good toddler activity ideas to send my way, it would be greatly appreciated.
Burnt out of my fingertips
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I’m having severe blog-fatigue. That, and I don’t have a whole lot of time by the computer these days. Jelly Man will take control of the computer immediately upon his return to the nest in the afternoon, and since we cleaned the house from top to godbedamned bottom, I’ve had to put in time every single day to keep it presentable. It’s not even super clean, but it looks so much better (and feels twice as good), but argh, enough of all the dirty dishes and all that damned laundry that demands to be loaded/unloaded/stacked taking up precious time of my and Carlita’s lives that we’ll never get back.
But, I guess this is what being a “housewife” is all about, eh? And, well, I actually feel grownup these days. Imagine that!
* * *
I’m giving up candy for a year or so. Attempting, anyway. We are officially TTC these days, not just considering it. I’ve been pondering it since a good six months back, and thought I was absolutely sure we wanted to/could handle two kidlings, but now that the plan is laid and we’re actually giving it a shot I feel absolutely terrified. Can I possibly love another as I love her? (the blogosphere gives a unanimous YES to that question), and the thought of unintentionally loving one more than the other is just plain scary. Both Jelly Man and I are singletons in practice, so we just don’t know anything about sibling love and/or rivalry.
* * *
Carlita is being such a fuss about her naps. They have dwindled to next to nothing, and some nights she can will herself to be awake until 10pm, babbling to herself in bed. It drives me nuts and up the walls, it took me a while to figure out what was so infuriating about her inability to embrace sleep (something I am a champ at), but Jelly Man solved that one by pointing out how she is just like him about sleep. In other words, sleep is for the weak!
* * *
And lo and behold! The Jelly Man arrives. And so I must log off. There is more, but never enough time!
Picking up the thread, but not quite where I left off
Monday, July 28, 2008
I wrote up a storm last night before getting interrupted by a guest, and instead of saving it like a good girl I left the browser window up. We popped in a DVD and half way through I was sent off to bed because I kept falling asleep. Apparently I snore or something (I do not - at least not to the best of my knowledge, and I choose to stay in denial. So there.) This morning the browser window was gone - poof! Possibly the best post ever written and it falls prey to a drunk-as-a-skunk Jelly Man who decides that his last day of rest before going back into the trenches is the best day to set himself up for a hangover on his first day of being back in the trenches. Except it appears that his fifth week of vacation was approved by the boss because no one called this morning to complain of his absence. So he is home for another week. Lets see if he is brave enough to pull the same trick next Sunday.
This past month has been such a roller coaster, yet I’m ranking it up there as possibly the best summer of my life as of yet. Parenting is really tough (no shit!) and I keep having freak outs - mostly about whether or not I am doing a good job or not, and the reason I freak out is because I think I’m doing everything wrong - but as we’ve started to set firm boundaries for Carlita, things are less freaky and more soaringly-fucking-happy. Sure, she is hitting the terrible twos (I wish I was as confident as Jane about the non-existence of the horror lovingly known as “The Terrible Twos”, but I’m failing miserably. If this is not a phase then I’m fucked!), but in between the outbursts she is, how do I put this? FUCKING BRILLIANT! Parenting is tough, yes, but the good times make it all worth the anxiety and guilt.
I was almost ready to grab her firmly by the shoulder’s, look her into the eyes and tell her to Just say something, please!? - I mean, I did it in my mind about a thousand times. But I needn’t have. She just kind of exploded in half-words, syllables and on occasion said It’s a good day, no mistake about it, one day and hasn’t let up since. I wonder though if she knew she said It’s a good day, or if it was just words to her that sounded funny rolling off the tounge. One thing is for certain though, there isn’t much she doesn’t understand these days.
I, however, have a hard time understanding her still, and I feel kind of bad about that. Aren’t I supposed to be able to understand every little grunt? God forbid, am I an “unplugged” mother for not understanding her babble? I feel like the more I get to see of her growing personality, the less I KNOW her, and the more fascinated I am with who she is turning into. There is a will in there that I can’t touch, that I don’t influence, at least not by a lot. She is who she is, regardless of me or anyone else, and I don’t know why this is a surprise to me, but it is. I guess I just never thought about that before. As if by simply being her mother I’d know her inside out from the get-go. But it’s dawning on me that I’ll never fully know all there is to know about this girl, but it’s the parts I do know that are more than enough to get me through the day.
Untitled babble
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Every day I have the urge to sit down and write stuff - I’ve got a whole lot of thoughts churning in this fat head of mine - but it’s vacation (OH MY GOD! I still can’t get over that), and we are either doing something or Jelly Man is using the computer, and so my thoughts are running around in that hamster wheel of mine. Whenever I do get a moment to sit down the thoughts seem to scramble away and I just sit here, staring at the screen, fingers tapping impatiently at the keys.
(For example, right now I pondered getting up to bring Jelly Man coffee in bed, but then had a change of heart because when will I get to sit down again uninterrupted? Exactly!)
First off, Carlita’s speech, or indeed lack thereof. I’m getting slightly impatient about this, but I know that for now there isn’t much to do but wait. We’re scheduling her 2nd birthday well baby visit around her birthday, and I’ll bring it up with the doctor then, if they don’t bring it up first. I don’t know what to expect from this just yet. I’m slightly nervous about her getting labeled, but I also realize that if there is something abnormal about her development in that area it’s most likely due to us as her parents, and not something that is “wrong” with her. And even if it were, that would not mean the end of the world.
And I understand how this came about, too. I felt awkward chatting to Carlita when she was smaller. It is still hard for me to let my mouth run while we go about our daily business, but from the interaction we have it’s clear that she understands a lot of what we say. She just isn’t very good at forming words. The ones she do say are badly butchered, bay for bird, bai for bear, shuz for shoes, buh for ball and so on. But since I moved from the land of Danes at 10 years old I haven’t really had a mother language. My danish sort of trailed off the longer I spent in the land of Swedes (and Swedish remains my favorite language still, but by now I really suck at that too), when I moved to Funland I started using English as my primary language. I feel like I have three handicapped languages to work with, and how on earth is that a good foundation for Carlita to learn how to speak on?
Second, we will be expanding. In fact, we have had unprotected sex and I might already be hosting a fertilized egg and OMG *spazz*. We’ll know in about a weeks time. A week or so ago I asked Carlita’s godmother if she might have a suggestion as to what astrological sign we should go with (could we be any more of a mish mesh family with an Aquarius, Scorpio and a Leo? How about a Virgo, so that no element is discriminated?) and I’m kinda hoping she’ll recommend an Aries. Except, we’ll see.. in a week or so!
Third, this brings up lots of questions regarding my body and whether I am healthy enough for another pregnancy. I feel pretty good about the fact that we waited those two years, and I feel more normal, body wise, than I did a year ago. It’s just too bad that this body is in much worse shape than the one I had two years ago. Regardless of me being pregnant or not I need to look after myself better. Junk food eating has been cut to a minimum, but I’m still a sucker for pop and that needs to change. I need to get my ass back on the exercise bike.
* * *
I went out in public without a hat on the other month. Shaving my head has been one of the most freeing experiences of my life, although freedom doesn’t feel quite as free when one feels the need to always wear a hat in public. So I went without. And, well, I got a lot of stares. But, you know, growing up with dark hair/eyes/skin in a place where there are lots of blond/blue eyed/pale people make you kind of immune to the stares. It didn’t bother me one bit, I might even have felt a little proud for plowing the way for teenage girls who secretly want to shave their head but never dared to - however many that might be. Now I’m planning to send all my unused Renbow and Manic Panic hair dye to my not-quite sister in the land of Danes - her mum is going to LOVE me…
