16 Months

Delly, you are 16 months old. You are running around like you’ve been up on your feet for years, and you are talking up a storm. You have quite a few (barely recognizable) words, but the biggest change is that your constant babbling and chattering is now very conversational, with varying intonation and gesticulations and pointed looks and apparently great meaning. You like to walk around with phones (or things that look like phones, like remote controls etc) and hold them to your ear and say Hi! Hi! Hi! In the morning when we finally give in to your distress calls and come into your room, before we can even reach the light switch your hand shoots up into the air to wave as you yell Hi!

One of the first times you said please, you happened to have also thrown your hands in the air at the same time. We praised you so heartily, that you got the idea that the hands in the air thing is the sign for please, so now every time we prompt you to ask nicely for something, your hands shoot up and you say Pees!

This month you mastered the stairs, and you can scoot down them on your tummy like a bullet. You're getting more into climbing, too. You were able to climb onto the sofas and chairs for a little while already, but now you like to do it more often and you’ve started climbing and standing on other things too, like your kapsule chair and our heat registers, and onto Daddy when he lays down on the floor to do his stretches. You climb onto him like a cowgirl and bounce around. I guess it’s not doing an ounce of good for his back, but it sure is funny. We just keep him hopped up on muscle relaxers and let you have your fun.

You can count all the way to 2 now. You are mastering your negotiation skills, and when we tell you that you can have One of something, you say Two! How many feet do you have? Two! How many ears do you have? Two! Etc. You're pretty much brilliant.





You've just recently started getting separation anxiety. Daddy almost always drives you to school in the morning, and when he goes outside now to warm up the cars, you think he's leaving without you and you freak out. I have to hold you and watch him through the window so you can see him outside to calm you down. When Sarah came over to watch you on Christmas day so we could go see a movie, as soon as you saw her you got all whiney and clingy and were stuck to our legs like glue. You even do it a little bit when we drop you off at school now, hugging our legs when we bring you in and take off your jacket. Though I don't want you ever feeling distress, it does seem like comforting evidence of how much we're bonded as a family. You've been in fulltime daycare for most of your life, you love it there, and sometimes it has seemed like you actually prefer it there with all the fun and playing -- but you really get it now, that even though you spend most days there, you belong with us.

Love,
Mommy

a moist toddler is a happy toddler

We have been havig a bitch of a time with Delma's morning wake-up routine. She'd been going to bed at 7 every night and for a while she was sleeping til 6, which is fine. It's really f-ing early, but whatever. A month or 2 ago she went back to waking up before 6. Sometimes even earlier than 5. We wouldn't get her out of bed til 6, but she would be crying (that awful pissed-off fake-crying), so it's not like waiting to get her up gave us any extra sleep. A few weeks ago we started keeping her up a little later to see if she'd sleep later. No dice.

I've been really dry now that we have the heat on in the house, I wake up with my mouth all dried out and it's pretty uncomfortable. I thought maybe Del is having the same problem, so yesterday I bougt her a humidifier. It was a toss-up between the frog one and the penguin one. I even called Josh from the store to see if he had a preference. We decided on the frog. It would be easier to look at the frog and talk about it and say "what does the frog say?" "Ribbit!" I couldn't do that with the penguin. What the hell does a penguin say?? But Del wanted the penguin, she kept looking at the box and saying "kitty!" So, we went home with the penguin, which is actually cuter than the frog anyway. But I digress.

It could be, and probably is, a coincidence. But this morning, after sleeping in her room with the penguin at full blast all night, she slept til after 6 and for the past half-hour has been happily chatting away and singing in her crib instead of wailing. I was still up at 6, but at least I've had some calm, quiet time to check email etc. Please please please let this not just be a fluke! Knock on wood, fingers crossed...

smart money

I've been lusting after this Built By Wendy pattern forever. I've seen so many people blog about it and show their adorable little tops made from it. Today I decided to splurge, and went to the Built By Wendy site to get it. $14.95 plus $9.00 for UPS Ground. That seemed a twee bit steep. I Googled it to see if I could find it somewhere cheaper, and doncha know Simplicity has it for $8.95 and free USPS shipping. Sold.

In refreshment news, I am long overdue in reporting on our best investment EVER. Soda Club. We make seltzer at home whenever we want, and can add little flavors to make sodas or flavored seltzers. Reusable liter bottles that are supposed to last something like 3 years. Refillable CO2 canisters that make appx 110 liters of crazy-fizzy yumminess. We are so hooked on seltzer now in our house that it borders on the absurd. We call it "bubbles." "Babe, want some bubbles?" "Do you need bubbles?" "I'm out of bubbles." "Delly, want bubbles? Do you hear Daddy making bubbles?" Whole lotta bubbles goin on round here. I actually feel like it's made us happier people. Never underestimate the power of bubbles.

gotta get my butt to Providence

...to see Craftland. Looks so so so cool.

15 Months

Delly, what a fun month you've had. You're much more interested in talking now, you've started parroting a bit, and you have a short list of words. Unfortunately, many of your words are indistinguishable: "Mommy" is "mama" or just "ma." "Milk" is "ma." "More" is "ma." Cats say "ma." The Baby Enstein Animals DVD that you're obsessed with and that we just call "Animals" is "ma." I know you think you're saying distinct words, and you get annoyed with us for not always correctly interpreting. You were saying "meemee" all morning today, and I think that you were trying to say "mommy." You can't really handle combining vowel sounds in one work, you can only say Mama or Meemee but not Mommy. Donkey is "donk-donk." Ducks say "cock cock," and since that's obviously so freakin' funny, I try to get you to say it every chance I get.

You're so proud of yourself for looking in books and recognizing things that you know the words for. This morning you went running into the bathroom to show Daddy a book that had an apple and an orange in it, and you were saying "baaaall." Close enough, they're round. You were so excited.

You just recently discovered TV. we've played some shows for you for a while now, like Yo Gabba Gabba, and you'll watch it but you get antsy and want to play, and you never used to actually request TV. Then one day I was tired and I sat you with me on our bed and put the Animals DVD in, and you were hooked. You took to it like a full-on crackhead and now you are completely hooked on the junk. We usually keep our bedroom door shut so you can't wander in and pull our bookshelves onto your head, and now you'll stand at our bedroom door, trying to turn the knob and will howl for "ma." If the door is open when we're getting dressed or something, your spidey senses start ringing and you come running into the room and try to climb onto the bed screaming for "ma." Our bed is too high for you to haul yourself onto, but you'll walk around it trying to get on from every angle.

What I am really loving right now is the fact that you can just putter around, running up and down the hall, looking at books in your room, all happily by yourself. Last weekend Daddy was baking bread in the kitchen and I was working on a project at my laptop in the living room, and we had the radio on and you were just running around doing your thing, stopping to hug our legs or show us your toys every few minutes. It was just so genuinely realxed and pleasant and made me get all teary. We really do have a nice life.

Love,
Mommy

on the mend

2 weeks ago I was pregnant. We went in for our first prenatal check-up and ultrasound, and there was no heartbeat. For some reason (intuition?), I had had a very bad feeling about this pregnancy right from the beginning, so I wasn't entirely surprised when we found out we'd lost the baby. I was and am very sad, of course. And angry about our pans being messed up -- I was really looking forward to a June baby and a summer vacation from work, playing at the beach and the park with Delly and the new wee one.

I was hoping to miscarry naturally on my own withut having to get a D&C. I worked with an acupuncturist, I tried to reduce stress and worked a lot from home, took some half-days etc. It didn't work. I was completely stressed, was walking around in a fog, and was so run-down that I got horribly sick and developed bronchitis. I ended up getting a D&C this past Friday, and while I was practically out of my mind with anxiety about it, it went fine. Recovery has been a breeze, the worst part was dealing with the after-effects of having been intubated while suffering with a non-stop cough.

The emotional relief after getting the procedure done was incredible and totally unexpected. All of the waiting and wondering what my body would do and when it would do it was over, and it left me feeling practically giddy. I didn't quite realize just how much of a mess I'd been. Until you're on the other side, sometimes you just don't see how poorly you're doing. I was really just barely dragging myself through every day, hanging on by my fingertips. I'm tempted to say it was the worst 2 weeks of my life, but for all the pain and the heartache there was always Josh to love me and Delma to make me laugh. That little pip-squeak manages to make me laugh out loud every single day, no matter how awful I feel, and she is the best therapy ever.

Josh and I have been quite charmed. Our life is not perfect but we really haven't had to face major challenges yet as a couple. We have agood jobs, we found a way to buy the house we wanted, with both Delma and this last pregnancy we decided what time of year we wanted to have a baby and we got pregnant on the very first try... on a whole the major life planning stuff has gone according to our plans. This has been a bitter pill to swallow, dealing with this lack of control in our life, events out of our hands. For me that's been the hardest part of this whole ordeal. It's a good lesson for us, though. There are bigger forces at work, and I wasn't meant to have a summer vacation next year. Things will work out the way they're supposed to, even if it means being trapped in the house in the dead of winter with a toddler and a newborn. Right now that sounds like a nightmare to me, but hopefully by the time that happens it will feel perfect.

14 months

Delly, you are 14 months old. To celebrate, you decided to FINALLY sprout some teeth. Yay! You went to bed with one tooth popping through one night, and woke up with a second. About a week later, a third popped. And just this morning, about a week after your last tooth, the fourth came through. Full steam ahead! I must say that so far -- knock on wood! -- you are handling it like a champ. We've had a couple rough nights, but those were really because you also happened to have gotten sick during your first week of teething. But really we're all pretty much sailing through teething so far with minimal tears. Though I probably just jinxed it by saying that.

You are a really good walker now and can reach all sorts of completely not childproof things now that you've got all this height working for you. You love animals, you want to hug our cats all the time and you love seeing dogs when we're out. You are fearless, if a huge dog gets in your face and sniffs and licks you, you just laugh. All animals are "kitty" to you, including dogs and even the goats and llamas at Bishop's Farm. You also say ball ("baaaaah") and shoe ("doooooo"). This morning you started pointing to other round things, like the button's on Daddy's coat, and saying ball. Your sweet little brain is working very hard.

You are off bottles completely now, only drinking your milk from sippy cups. You also don't get any milk at bedtime anymore -- you were only getting it out of habit and weren't drinking much, so we stopped doing it one night to see how you'd deal with it, and you were fine. So now we just read some books, sing the Shema, and plop you in your crib and wash our hands of you entirely til morning. Again, I fear I'm jinxing us, but you are so great about going to bed. No matter how crazy our day is, we know that we just have to hang on til 7pm, and then you'll be tucked away in bed and we can spend the rest of our night doing special mommy/daddy things, like fighting over who gets to play Ratchet and Clank.

I think my favorite thing that you do right now is hug our legs. As you run around playing and getting into things, you'll just come up to one of us and throw yourself against our legs in a huge tight hug, and sometimes toss in a bonus of rubbing your facecrazily against our legs. I know what you're doing, you're trying to burrow into us to get a little closer. I know that feeling, of hugging and squooshing and never being able to quite get close enough, that's exactly how I feel when I hug you.

Love,
Mommy

3 down, a kajillion to go

Happy Bananaversary, Josh. Yet another action-packed year, filled with mystery and mayhem and still not a single fight. And also not a single recent picture of just the 2 of us.

zombie baby

Our girl is walking. And falling a lot, and still crawling when she's in a hurry, but finally, really, truly walking. She's been taking a few steps here and there for a while, but one evening last week Josh and I just sat on the floor and had her walk back and forth between us over and over and over, and finally some little switch flipped in her brain and she figured it out, and started walking by herself all over the place. Just like that, right then and there. It was such a trip.

Her balance is very iffy and she looks like a zombie walking around, all wobbly with her arms out in front of her and her mouth open. She was walking toward me this weekend and Josh said "Look out babe, she's coming for your brain."

We got some little Delma-sized furniture from Ikea, because when I go to pick her up at school and she's sitting in a mini-chair at a mini-table with all her short friends, it's just so cute that I can't stand it. We got her a little table and chairs set where she will hopefully one day create adorable crafts. Or do puzzles. Or something. And we got her the new kids' size POÄNG, which in addition to being fun to say, is also really nice. We put it together and told Delma it was hers, and she's been climbing on and off it ever since.



We have a strict policy of not letting her walk around with a bottle -- she needs to be sitting in her chair to drink it, just like any other meal or snack. Normally we strap her into her booster seat at the table, but now that she has this chair she likes to sit in it for her bottle, which is fine. It's actually better, since she can get up by herself when she's done instead of us having to untether her. This morning she didn't finish her bottle, so I set it aside on the coffee table. A little while later, she was sitting in her chair and she got off of it, went and got her bottle, and went back to her chair to sit down and drink some more all by herself. I'm constantly amazed by how much she understands now, and all the things she can do.

A year ago she was barely focusing her eyes, grunting and squirming and puking on herself non-stop. And we thought she was amazing. I could not have imagined what kind of person she'd start to become, how fun she would be, that every single day she would give Josh and me reason to just look at each other and say "Babe, how CUTE is that??"

more babies to pray for

I made a huge tray of baked ziti for Morgan's family on Friday. I didn't know what else to do, we've never even met the parents I don't think. I included a note asking them to please call us if we can help at all with grocery shopping, errands, housecleaning, watching their boys... Anything at all. I hope they take us up on the offer, even though we are complete strangers.

And I recently started exchanging emails with an old friend of mine, we used to be best friends but drifted apart and haven't seen or spoken with each other in several years. His second son was just born last week, with only one kidney. They knew that he only had one kidney, from ultrasounds etc, but until he was born there was no way to know what complications there would be, if any at all. Just got an email from my friend this morning, saying the baby is not doing well, he was admitted to ICU because of problems with his heart and his brain and they're running lots of tests. Just a nightmare.

I know it's such a simplistic thought, but it's just so bizarre going through a major life event -- whether the tragedy of a death in the family or a baby in ICU, or a joy like a honeymoon or a baby being born -- and having the rest of the world just carry on and keep turning, business as usual... Your life is turned upside-down, and yet there are still bills to be paid and work to be done, and people all around just doing their own things like always. It makes you feel so completely out of sync with the world. I thank God for this level of normalcy that we have back in our lives now again, now that life with Delma just feels relatively predictable and stable. My heart breaks for my friend's and Morgan's families. I hope they can bring healthy babies home with them soon and find their ways back to normal, stable, blissfully boring days.