Something To Look Forward To

Me and the kiddo.

I think it's interesting how my daughter likes to "help" me with various chores around the house. Granted I usually try to get these done while she is napping or distracted (because she has more than proven she can't be trusted around cleaning supplies just yet). Still, there are a few things I do when she's around, and she always wants to get in on the action. Her favorite chores are:

• Sweeping
• Dishes (She likes to hand me things to be dried. Many a plate and mug have met their match in this way.)
• Vacuuming
• Putting Away Laundry (This usually entails various clean clothes being tossed at me while I am trying to put something else on a hanger.)

I try to do my best to encourage this behavior. Every once in a while I catch her wiping off the table on her own when she's made a mess during a meal, which always makes me happy. She's also got a pretty good grasp on the concept that it is good to keep things picked up when they are not in use (although she doesn't always think about putting things away on her own without a reminder yet). 

Hopefully once she's another year or two older I can start passing off a few chores to her completely, to get some help around the house and teach her responsibility. I'm not gonna pretend that most times when I clean the bathroom I don't get lost in a lovely little daydream about her being old enough to clean that herself. That's gonna be awesome. 

The trick, I think, is going to be timing the transition just right so that she still thinks it is fun and doesn't realize that chores are something she might complain about until she's already too used to doing them to bother. It's an interesting little parental rite of passage that I am sure every parent goes through but somehow seems to be one of those things that never actually gets mentioned to you when you start thinking about having kids. I have a few ideas on how to get her to be a willing participant in keeping the house clean. Hopefully this desire to be helpful will keep up long enough that my plans will go off without a hitch.

Of course, I know that however well it does or doesn't go, when she hits her teen years, all bets (and likely cooperative feelings) are off.

Irregular Reading

You know, I have noticed over the last few years that my reading habits have altered quite a bit. For one thing, I don't read nearly as much as I used to. I think this is largely because, with a few exceptions, I don't like reading during my daughter's awake time. This is partly because I want/need to keep an eye on her and interact with her, which is hard to do when my nose is in a book (I get really immersed when I read and tend to become completely oblivious to my surroundings). Also though, it isn't as enjoyable for me to read because I am so easily distracted, I have a hard time sinking into the story. Then, a lot of my child-free time is spent doing other things I can't do when she's up and about (and playing video games).

That isn't to say that a good enough book won't get me to find a way to read read read, however.

Case in point:

Even though I am about halfway through the final Eragon book, Inheritance, and knew that I would have at least some quality reading time when I went on my trip last week, I did not take the book with me to California. This is because the book is freaking huge and I really did not feel like trying to lug it around in my carry-on, weight-wise or space-wise. So instead I took a stack of comic books and my shiny new Kindle, which I hadn't really taken out for much of a spin yet (even though it is already crammed full of books for me to read).

I finished the comic books about halfway through the flight out and then fired up the Kindle and pulled up The Secret Garden. I started reading this to my daughter at bed time, a chapter or two a night, last November. But right around Christmas she decided she wanted to start interacting with story time and we've been reading her picture books together instead. I knew it was coming, but I wasn't really expecting it to happen in the middle of an awesome book. Silly me. Anyway, the book was available as a free download from Amazon (huzzah for public domain!) so it was one of the first to get loaded on my Kindle. I love love love that story, it is one of my all time favorites, so I really wanted to finish reading it. I finally got the chance this past week.

Not too long into the return flight, I finished that book. Then, I scrolled through my Kindle for a bit deciding what to start reading next, knowing that I probably wouldn't finish it before I got home and returned to Inheritance (not to mention A Clash of Kings, which I am reading along with Leigh over at Tor.com). After a little bit of waffling, I decided to give The Hunger Games a try. I have been wanting to read it for well over a year now, and with the movie so recently in theaters, it has been more on my mind than ever. Plus, it was right there at my fingertips. Easy decision, really.

But back to my point. I got about a quarter of the way through it on the flight, and even though I have had plenty of other stuff to do since I got home, I made the time to keep on reading this story. Because ohmygoodnessitissoamazing. I mean, I knew that it would be good. Several fellow readers close to me in whom I have complete trust have recommended it highly. Also, the internet discussion of it has suggested at its wonderfulness quite clearly. It's one of those rare series that I have recommended/gifted to people even without reading because I believed the people who told me it was so good. But wow, I was not prepared to not be able to put it down. It is rare that a book gets me like that these days. It is quite a wonderful treat, to be honest.

I finished it up on Tuesday and immediately dropped a few dollars at Amazon to pick up the other two books in the trilogy, but I am hoping I can make myself wait to read them. I still have some other books to finish. Which, now that I think about it, is another way my reading habits have really changed over the last few years. Outside of school, which I don't really think counts for leisure reading, I have never been one to read more than one book at once. This past week I had three going. That's more than a little bit insane to me. Still, a good story is a good story, right?

Do you have any weird reading habits? Have you noticed yours changing over the years as life presents you with new and differing circumstances? What books have you picked up and just not been able to put down?

I can't help but wonder how my habits will change further over the next few years. As my daughter gets older, will I be able to revert back to my old reading habits a little bit more? Will I start juggling even more books as I try to pre-read anything she wants to get her hands on to make sure it is appropriate? Hmm...I definitely look forward to seeing where this road I am on takes me to next, that's for sure!

In the meantime, well, today I get to take myself out for a lunchtime movie date. Guess what I am going to see?

It Keeps Me Young

I am by no means in the age range that most people would consider "old" but more and more lately I find myself reminded of the fact that I am in my thirties, and that isn't exactly young. As much as I know that I am a fundamentally different person than who I was a decade ago in a lot of ways, I don't really feel any different. Getting married and having a kid were both huge lifetime milestones that I felt should have changed everything about the way I look at the world and about how I perceive myself in relation to it. And yes, in some ways, they did, but throughout I still very much feel like me, like I haven't changed at all. It's funny that something so big just becomes your new normal so quickly and it becomes hard to remember just how different life really felt before it happened.

I mean, as much as my days revolve around my daughter and spending time with her and taking care of her, I don't ever really feel in my mind like what I expect a mom should feel like. Every once in a while I'll be doing something with Baby Girl, or I'll just get a glimpse of her making some face or discovering something new, and I'll be completely bowled over by the realization that this is my child. That my husband and I made her, that she wouldn't exist had my life not unfolded as it has. And that I am responsible for making sure she has every chance of growing up safely and happily and becoming a good person and a member of this crazy world we live in. It's a bizarre feeling. It's not like I ever forget that I'm a parent or anything, it's just that it's so much a part of my life I don't even ever think about it. So when I do, I am hit with a huge feeling of awe and wonder (and more than a little amazement that I've been entrusted with such a huge responsibility).

It seems like every day when I look in the mirror, the signs are there that I am getting older. More grey in my hair every day, and I've started to notice lines around my eyes and face. My body definitely doesn't have as much get-up-and-go as it did ten years ago. But none of that stuff bothers me. It surprises me from time to time, certainly, but I have no problem with aging naturally. I am not going to dye my hair to cover up the grey (I am actually kind of curious to see how long it takes to turn completely), and I won't be spending oodles of money on those expensive anti-wrinkle creams. I earned those laugh lines. I think that the biggest reason why I am not bothered by getting older is because in my heart and my mind, I am still a kid. 

As I grew up and my friends began to put away their childish toys and pursuits in favor of newer, more grown up, replacements, I only ever followed half-heartedly. I never let go of my love of toys and cartoons entirely, and while I did go through my party phase, I don't think there was ever a time I wouldn't have rather gone to see the new Disney movie (or stayed home to play with Legos while watching Powerpuff Girls) than to go out clubbing. I come by it honestly, I have grown to realize. I come from a long line of women capable of dealing with the responsibilities of adulthood while still holding on to "childish" pleasures. I think it lends us a little extra bit of happiness in our lives, to be honest. 

As I've grown up and moved even farther away from childhood, I've never stopped playing with and collecting toys or watching cartoons. My collection of Disney movies and other cartoons on DVD was quite impressive before my daughter came along, thank you very much. I have also, somehow, managed to seek out other people in my life who share the same outlook. All of my closest friends still embrace that "kid at heart" spirit to varying degrees. For a while I thought that everybody was like this, that everyone had some pursuit from childhood that they had kept with them when entering the realm of grownups. Sadly, I have learned that this just isn't so. There are a lot of people who frown on those of us who still play with toys or watch cartoons without the justification of entertaining a child in our care (and even quite a few who think that engaging in play with children is really just going overboard). I feel a little sorry for those people, to be honest. I am sure they have things that they take pleasure in, but no adult emotion can compare to that outright glee of childhood joy. It just can't. That's why you have to keep your inner kid alive in my opinion, because if you let her die, then you lose that sense of wonder about the world, and life is a lot less fun. There's enough doom and gloom out there for us grownups to deal with, if you ask me.

I also think that this outlook helps to make me a better parent (not than other people, but than I would be otherwise), because I can take just as much joy out of the things my daughter loves as she does. I can play with her and not be phoning it in. It gives us a chance to spend even more quality time together, which I am very thankful for, because, you guys, my daughter is awesome. And she's just going to keep getting even more awesome (then she'll become a teenager, but once she grows out of that, I fully expect her to be awesome again). We are standing here with all of the years to come spread out before us and the possibilities are endless. 

I used to worry that with her being a single child (we have no plans for more children) she would have difficulty learning some of the concepts that siblings are great at teaching--like sharing. But I don't so much worry about that anymore. For one thing, I am trying to remain mindful of those lessons and ensure that she gets to spend time around other kids so I can monitor her progress. For another, it never really dawned on me until recently that as much as I love to play with toys too, well, she's going to have to learn how to share with me. (Hey, there are plenty of ponies for both of us to play with.) As she starts to find all of my toys scattered around the house and claim them for her own, it's a good refresher in sharing for me as well, it turns out. Win-win.

I guess what it boils down to is that I would rather be young of heart than look young of body any day. As much responsibility as parenthood is, having my daughter around certainly keeps me young of heart. Now, if you need me, I'll be playing with my daughter...

The Zoo! In January!

When my husband first got me a membership to our zoo, the lovely Fort Worth Zoo, it was a Christmas present, but it was kind of delayed a little so I ended up activating it in January. This means I usually make a trip to our zoo in January each year to pick up my new membership card. Now, they changed the way they do their cards sometime last year, so I actually didn't have to go pick up a new card this year. Still, I had already planned a trip over there with the kiddo when I learned this, so I went anyway, just because it was a nice day and I hadn't been in a while.

Those of you who live around these parts will already know that it usually happens that we have a handful of incredibly nice sunny mild (sometimes warm, even) days in January. These usually occur right before we get that end of January/start of February super cold freeze accompanied by the once yearly (what passes for) snowfall in these parts. This past Tuesday was one of those nice days. It was sunny and clear, and it was a little brisk, but nothing that walking around the zoo couldn't shake off. So the kiddo and I enjoyed a nice little visit with some of the animals. We didn't check out the whole zoo, we just hit up the Museum of Living Art (MOLA), which is the really awesome redone herpetarium, as well as stopping by the penguin house. We did stop by the zebra pen on the way to let Baby Girl count the zebras like she does in her book.

That in itself was really kind of incredible. Barring the aquarium exhibits, she has usually pretty much ignored all of the animals on previous zoo trips. This time, however she was really engaged whenever we stopped to look at something, and she gave much more attention to the animals in the aquarium exhibits as well. I can't wait for spring to roll around so we can actually spend more time at the zoo. It's going to be so much fun watching her discover all of those marvelous creatures!

They have these little statues all over the zoo. I love them! Poor Baby Girl is going to hate them by the time she's six, because she will never not go to the zoo with me and be forced to be photographed with one.

Here she is checking out the fish on the other side of the aquarium, totally oblivious to that turtle by her feet.

Of course, it was pretty darn cool when she did notice him.

After which she had to make friends.

MOLA houses many, many turtles. She had fun trying to race these guys back and forth for a bit.

She wanted to be sure I saw the penguins too.

She also enjoyed hanging out with this little guy for a bit.

Before we went to the zoo, I took Baby Girl out to lunch, just the two of us. She ate all of her fruit and then went on to totally eschew her chicken fingers in favor of my chicken enchilada soup. She is getting nicer and nicer to eat out with all of the time. While we were enjoying lunch, and knowing we were heading to the zoo next, I decided that I would like to declare Tuesdays "Adventure Day" from now on. It's a day where we usually don't have too much to do in the way of chores and errands. Rather than sitting on my butt in front of the television while she runs around the house like a lunatic, I think I would like to get out of the house for a while. Go to lunch (or maybe pack a picnic) and then wander around this fair city's lovely attractions. On nice days there will always be the zoo, the park, or the botanical gardens. We also have a ton of museums around here, and I think she's getting to the age where she can really start to appreciate these kinds of things. It will be good for both of us. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Kid's Picks

I've mentioned before what an avid reader I am. My husband is much the same way. There isn't a room in our house that doesn't have a few books tucked away somewhere (whether they are supposed to be there or not). One of our biggest fears when deciding to start a family was that our daughter might not take to reading. So far, that fear seems to be wildly unfounded. She loves books, and they are as much her toys as the ponies and stuffed things and building blocks.

Once she started sleeping through the night, in her own room, I began the nightly ritual of reading to her before bed. While she was still super little, it was just to get her used to that as part of the nighttime routine, and for her to get used to me reading to her. So I would read children's books without pictures, classic books maybe a little above her age range, and she would usually drift off (or bounce around in her crib) while I did so. We have finally hit the point where she has started wanting to actively be part of this routine. She now wants to pick from her (large) selection of picture books at bedtime, bringing me several stories to read to her as she sits next to me and engages in the story.

So I thought for today's post I'd share with you her top five favorite bedtime books.

That's Not My Dragon

This book is just cool. It features a small mouse trying to find his dragon. He looks at a different dragon on each page, pointing out why it can't be his dragon. One's ears are too tufty, another's tongue is too fuzzy, and so on. The really nifty thing about this book is that for each dragon, you can actually feel the thing the mouse is pointing out. There's a little bit of fluff for the tufty ears and what feels like a piece of velcro for the fuzzy tongue. It's wholly wonderful. Of course, at the end the mouse finds his dragon, so there's even a happy ending. In addition to touching the different textures, we also like to have her find the mouse for us on each page to make it a little more interactive. Baby Girl has actually memorized this one. The other night, she "read" it to me. That was awesome. I also learned, thanks to some friends, that the publisher actually has made several of these books, with different animals and such (and in many cases different textures to explore as well). We just got That's Not My Dinosaur and I can't wait to see how she responds to it!

Does a Zebra Fly?

This one is pretty cute too. It features several different African animals and starts out with a silly question about that animal, with an illustration showing them acting it out. The illustration is on a flap, behind which we get another of the animal doing something it actually does. For example, the page with the title question shows the zebra flapping it's arms for all it's worth, trying to take off. The flap reveals, however, that while a zebra can't actually fly, it can use its stripes to help hide. I like that this book has an educational element about the animals depicted. For extra fun, we like to count the animals on each page.

First Words

This one is pretty straightforward. On each pair of pages it features an item with the word written next to it. The fun bit is that there is a flap on each set of pages behind which the two items are combined. So for example the page with frog and ball then show a frog sitting on a ball. Some of them are really silly, like the green beans in the sock or the egg wearing a scarf, but it is lots of fun. Baby Girl has most of the words down pretty well, and she has even started being able to put the combinations together (she really has "mouse rides in the wagon" down). She very much enjoys opening up the flap I think.

Belly Button Book!

My husband and I are also both huge fans of Sandra Boynton, so of course we have a multitude of her books in Baby Girl's library. This one is by far her favorite though, I think. Basically it is just hippos singing the praises of their belly buttons (and balloons), which kids of course find endlessly amusing.

Hippos Go Berserk!

Another Boynton classic. This one has lots of fun illustrations and easily lends itself to serve as a lesson in counting. Plus, it is a fascinating treatise on the party habits of hippos (and one non-hippo guest).

Of course, she has many, many more books, but these are the five that see the heaviest rotation, both at bedtime and when she feels like "reading" to herself. I think our worries that she might not enjoy reading were all for naught. She does truly seem to take pleasure in looking at and touching and arranging books. She can spend hours going through our books as well as her own (our poor bookshelves will never be properly arranged again, I fear). I'm sure it doesn't hurt that she often sees me and my husband curled up reading. She understands that it is something we enjoy doing and therefore must be fun.

It also leads to super cute moments like these:

Reading time!

This was our family reunion in 2010. My husband was taking a break and catching up on his reading and Baby Girl wanted to join him. She very much wants to be like her daddy. As evidenced in this one:

Checking out Daddy's book.

This was earlier last year. She stumbled across her father's book and climbed up on the couch with it. No one else was around, I just happened to wander in and find her like this. It was an awesome moment in parenting.

How about you? What books do your young readers enjoy the most?

Another Semester, Another Family Music Night

I have mentioned before, I am sure, that we have been taking our daughter to a music class regularly for a while now. It's done by semester, and we just wrapped up our fifth semester of the class. For each semester you get a CD of songs that will be sung throughout the term, each CD focusing on a different instrument. This semester the focus was bongos. It's a ton of fun, and Baby Girl seems to love it. The class we attend is actually also taught by a dear friend, so that makes it even better. At the end of each fall and spring semester, there is a Family Music Night, which is an extended session that all of the teachers and students in the program attend. They get a live band to perform the songs from the semester as well as a few other fun tunes, and everyone basically parties down. Family Music Night for this semester was this past Wednesday, so I have a new crop of photos and videos of Baby Girl being super cute and getting her groove on.

Here she is dancing it up with her shaker eggs:

She loves to see the band. So much so that she tried to sneak up on to the stage with them:

Here she is dancing with her daddy:

Here are some more moments of awesomeness for you:

Eggs?

I'll be honest, I have no idea, but so cute!

Oh, hello there.

She really dug the ceiling fixtures.

Dancing with Daddy.

Um, I may have closed the egg in the car door,
purely on accident, mind you.

Whee!

Shake shake shake!

I love maracas!

I must organize them all...

...just right!

Time to climb on Mommy!

Stealing Daddy's hat now.

What?

Family shot!

Playing with her new frog guiro, spoils of the evening.

This frog is awesome!

It was raining like nuts, which is why we are all a bit bedraggled, but it was still oodles of fun. They had an instrument "petting zoo" set up too, where you could peruse various types of bongos and chimes and other such percussion instruments. We checked it out afterwards (since we arrived a little late due to said rain) and ended up getting Baby Girl a really cool wooden guiro carved in the shape of a frog. This is awesome because she loves frogs and because we bought it at TCU.

If you are wondering about the poor mutilated shaker egg, I had it in an outside pocket of my purse and when I was getting Baby Girl out of the car, it fell out unbeknownst to me and landed just inside the door frame. So when I went to shut the door...oops. The dent doesn't really seem to be hindering its performance at all, so there's that.

Anyhoo, that's another semester of fun music and memories wrapped up. We start back up in January. I think this semester the instrument of choice is bells. I'll be curious to see what the musical selections are. I do love the CDs we get with the class--you get two copies of each album so you can play one in the home and keep one in the car, which is kind of neat. They always include a great mixture of old folk songs from lots of different cultures, as well as the "Hello" and "Goodbye" songs that we sing at the beginning of each class.

If you've got little ones and are looking for a fun developmental course to do with them, I highly recommend this one. Our class is mixed ages from zero to four years, and the program we use (Music Together), which is phenomenal, has programs designed for up to seven years old. We take ours at TCU, as I mentioned, through their Music Preparatory Division.

A Much Needed Break

Phew. It has been a week. I, of course, managed to come down with a cold the day after my birthday (there's that small favor, at least), but it kicked my butt through Wednesday. When I wasn't feeling worn-down and miserable, I was feeling completely loopy and fuzzy-headed from the cold medicine.

Of course, my lovely, wonderful, sweet, adorable baby girl did her part to help matters by deciding to explore the myth of the "terrible twos." This pretty much sums up my week:

Nap time? Nah, I think I'll just destroy my room, thanks.

So yesterday I played hooky from Baby Girl's Little Gym class, letting my stupendously wonderful mother-in-law take her instead, and I went to a movie.

It was glorious.

Went and saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes and enjoyed it very much, despite never really caring for the original film (or the Marky Mark remake). It is just a very well-told story and a very well put-together movie. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a film to see this weekend and haven't caught it yet.

The timing yesterday worked out that I wouldn't be back in time for the movie if I tried to go to Little Gym, but I didn't need to actually head out until well after Baby Girl and Grandma left for class, so I ended up with a little over an hour all by myself at home yesterday morning. It was quite surreal. True alone time is a thing of distant memory for me these days, and I almost didn't know what to do with myself (I ended up playing Mass Effect for a bit before I had to leave).

Still, it was a nice break. Even though my husband and mother-in-law often try to remind me that I need to make time for myself, true "me" time, not just sneaking in some gaming or reading when Baby Girl is asleep, nothing really drives home the truth of that fact like actually getting some of that "me" time.

I need to start making more time to just take some time, you know? Realizing this and accepting it are only part of the equation. Now I just need to work on the actual doing part. At the very least, it will allow me to appreciate Baby Girl even more if I get a bit of extra time away from her. My first thought when I got home from the movie and she ran up to hug me? Man, I cannot wait until she's big enough to come to the movies with me!

Birthday Week!

We have had a kind of crazy (in a good way) week over here in Cori-land. My daughter turned two on Wednesday. I have always been one to make a to-do of my birthdays, and because she is the center of my world of course we had to have a party for her, even though she is entirely too little to really realize what's going on. Since her birthday was in the middle of the week, we decided to go ahead and have her party this past weekend, on Sunday evening. I am super glad we went that route, because it allowed us to get all of the crazy work part of the celebration out of the way and then just enjoy the rest of the week basking in the glow of the aftermath.

We hung balloons and streamers, picked up some barbecue, and I made cupcakes. I got bouncy balls for all of Baby Girl's friends, and set up Duplo and coloring stations for the kiddos. There were leis for everyone in general--until Baby Girl decided that she must have them all, that is. There was also Baby Girl's slide/fort that I put together inside the house when we got it and still haven't moved outside because it's too darn hot. Add to that family and friends and it was, I must say, a rousing success. Here are some of the highlights:

Balloons and streamers!

Indoor slide! Complete with QA Cat.

Bouncy balls for everyone!

Pineapple cupcakes, with lemon or strawberry frosting.

The birthday girl's cake.

Lei Collector in action.

Must have more leis!

Blowing out her candles.

She wasn't quite too sure about her cupcake, though.

Hugs for everyone!

Of course, that didn't mean that we did nothing for her actual birthday. Hubby took the day off and we spent it together. There was her two-year checkup in the morning, but we got that bit of unpleasantness out of the way bright and early. It wasn't even that bad, Baby Girl was incredibly well behaved, she didn't even cry when she got her shot, or her nasal flu vaccine. The doctor was impressed with her laid-back nature. I remarked to Hubby on the way out that Baby Girl sure does have everyone fooled. In the last six months she has managed to jump from the twenty-fifth to seventy-fifth percentile in height. She also jumped up from the very bottom of normal in weight to the twenty-fifth percentile (whew). Gonna be tall and skinny. She defintely doesn't get that from me. Thank goodness she takes after her father!

After lunch we let her open the rest of her presents.

Tony tests out the trampoline.

An easel to stretch her creative muscles.

She is starting to get the hang of this unwrapping thing.

Wally checks out the stomp rocket.

3..2..1...LIFTOFF!!

Feeding her My Little Pony a bottle.

I can't stress how much she wanted me to get Elmo out
of the box RIGHT NOW as soon as she saw him.

We wrapped up her birthday with dinner at a Mexican restaurant--that kid loves her salsa. She will eat it with a fork or spoon (and did this time) if I don't pay close enough attention. Then we went home, had brownies, and played until bedtime. All in all, it was a good day.

Of course, that's not the end of Birthday Week, oh no. Because today, my friends, is MY birthday, yay! (Baby Girl's first gift to me was saving me from having to go through labor on my birthday by arriving more or less on time.) We won't be doing anything quite so elaborate as the celebrations for Baby Girl. But Hubby did take the day off again, so I look forward to spending it with him. I will also be going to the yarn store in a little bit. Tonight I'll have dinner with my friends and family (we're going out to eat this time around so I don't have to clean up), then catching Conan the Barbarian after that. I mean, come on, shirtless Jason Momoa in a movie opening on my birthday? Clearly this is one of my presents.

So I am off to enjoy my day. I hope yours is lovely. Have a fantastic weekend folks, and I'll see you back here Monday.

Time To Kick The Habit

Hoo boy. There is a battle headed for my household, I can sense it. I fear it will not be pretty.

No, I'm not talking about potty training (though that is also looming and holds its own set of horrors for me).

I'm talking about getting my daughter to stop sucking her thumb.

After she was born, I waited whatever the recommended time period was before first giving her a pacifier. I think it was just a few weeks, I can't really remember. She more or less took to her binkies, and I quickly figured out what kind she preferred and made sure to always have an extra (or two) on hand at home and when we went out.

Baby Girl at around three months, with binky.

Then, at about four months, she just decided she was done with pacifiers. Didn't need 'em, didn't want 'em. I figured this had to be a good thing, because it meant I wouldn't have to somehow to convince her to give them up once she got bigger. She didn't immediately replace the pacifiers with thumb-sucking. She lured me into a false sense of security and then ever so slowly I began to notice the habit developing. I honestly didn't worry about it too much because as far as I could tell the only time that thumb ever made its way into her mouth (outside of feedings) was when she was getting sleepy. If she was able to self-soothe, who was I to argue with her on the subject?

Back in May I took her for her first ever dental check-up and the dentist was quick to ask if my daughter sucks her thumb. She could tell from the way the teeth were coming in. The dentist advised me that while it wasn't necessarily an urgent matter to stop, it was still best to break the habit early on, before her teeth could be seriously screwed up. She recommended the product used to help nail-biters kick their own habit, said it works wonders. At the time, I nodded and thanked her and remained polite while inside I bristled at the unasked for parenting advice. Yes, it could get to be a bigger problem later on down the road, and sure, if left unchecked it could lead to all kinds of expensive dental work in the future. But it's one little thing that makes her happy right now, and why should I take that away from her? I discussed it with my husband and mother-in-law and we all kind of seemed to be on the same page on this topic, so I decided to just let things be. I told myself I wasn't even going to think about the thumb-sucking until after Baby Girl had turned two.

But. Ever since then, I have been unable to not keep an eye on it, and I have to admit, I don't like what I see. At first it was just when she was going to sleep. Then she started doing it when she was feeling cuddly (or had found a particularly lovely piece of fluff). After that it seemed like any time she was sitting down or laying down was an opportune time for that thumb to go in her mouth. Now it seems like something she just does when she's bored.

In April, cozied up in the rocker.

In May, having a dragon party in the hallway.

I have kept on trying to tell myself it's no big deal. But lately, I have to fight to get her thumb out of her mouth when I am trying to get her dressed in the morning, or to brush her teeth. That's just too much. She is such a fiercely independent creature, I think she can live without this habit. Of course, she's probably gonna be fighting me on it, tooth and nail.

She will be two next Wednesday. Wednesday is also grocery day in our house. So. I am giving her until then to enjoy it, because when we go to the store next week, I am picking up that nail-biting stuff, and next Thursday, the gloves come off.

Wish me luck.

Revisiting That To Do List

So two weeks ago I posted my "around the house" to do list here. It looked something like this:

1. Frame several maps/posters and pieces of art.
2. Hang up framed items.
3. Pick up professionally framed maps/posters and hang them up.
4. Hang a sconce that has been sitting in our front room closet for months.
5. Convert my daughter's crib into a toddler bed.
6. Figure out how to refinish a piece of wooden furniture.
7. Refinish the chair that will go with the desk in the front room.

As of today items one through five are totally done. I love how the house looks with the walls finally occupied by all of our wonderful geeky art. It is fantastic. The random sconce isn't too bad either. 

As far as my daughter's switch to sleeping in a big-girl bed, it has been mostly a smooth transition. She usually is pretty good about going to bed or down for her nap. I believe that at least part of this is because her dad is such an avid napper, and she sees from his example that sleeping is an okay thing to do. We have established a little bit of a routine that involves her unplugging her night light after about five or ten minutes and then walking over to the door and running said night light back and forth across the door until I go in to plug it back into the outlet, at which time she will get back into bed and say "night, night." Sometimes this only happens once, sometimes it happens several times. Usually after about an hour or so she falls asleep. Every once in a while I will hear her playing in there, and I am staying away unless the noises I hear suggest things are being used in a really improper way. Earlier this week she kept trying to get into her dresser and I finally asked if she wanted to change her clothes. After a hearty "yeah!" We put her in new jammies and she was out like a light. Once or twice I have gone in after nap time to find that she had pulled a pair of shoes out of her closet and put them on her feet before conking out. But more or less she's got the whole thing figured out, and she seems to like the new configuration in her room.

Now, item six on the list, well, I have more or less accomplished that. In theory, I know exactly what needs to be done. Which leads us to item seven...

...yeah, that's still definitely a work in progress. Last weekend I went out back during nap time and got all set up, and I did manage to get the first layer of the current finish removed. Yay, me! But it was hot as all get out (we've been over a hundred degrees most days for a while now), and I may have gotten dosed with some of the stripper fumes even though I did take precautions. Because the rest of that night? Ooh, I was not feeling good, y'all. So when nap time Sunday rolled around, I really didn't have it in me to go back out there and work on the chair again. Then Sunday evening I felt the beginnings of a sore throat, and our AC went out (again). This led to a rather miserable Monday. We got the AC fixed back up Monday afternoon thankfully, but in between that and whatever I had come down with and my bad experience on Saturday, well...that poor chair just sat neglected on my back porch all week. I do still want to try to get it done before my daughter's birthday party though, which gives me a little over a week. Gonna try a new tack--I got up early this morning and took another layer of the finish off (and was extra careful about the fumes). I think I've gone as far as the chemical stripper can take me though, so tomorrow and Sunday I'm gonna sand that sucker down for all I am worth and see where to go from there. Wish me luck!

Hey, I did get the cushion re-padded and recovered at least. That's a start, right?

Then I just have to work on cleaning the living room carpet (and the rest of the house) before that birthday party...

Walking A Fine Line

I knew going into this whole parenting thing that I would be facing some large challenges. I also knew that once each challenge was met and (hopefully) overcome, it would only clear the road for the next new challenge to take its place. This will continue probably for the rest of my life. I'm good with that, I really am. That doesn't mean it isn't still difficult from time to time, however.

For me, as a highly routine-centered control freak (I used to joke that I am borderline OCD, but I don't think I am that bad, and I don't wish to take away from those who actually do suffer the clinical affliction), there is certainly an extra dimension added to addressing the challenges that arise.

My daughter has hit that age where she wants to explore everything around her and is mobile enough to get into most of it (and is smart enough to start figuring out how to get to the things that are just out of her reach). Now, the obvious challenge in this is letting her explore safely. It is a good thing for children to be interested in the world around them, and it builds their problem-solving skills when they try to figure out how to get into that cabinet or find a way to reach what is on the high counters or desk. So there's that. Trying to keep an eye on her while still letting her do her own thing, trying to decide when to help, when to discourage, and when to just let her call the shots--well, I am figuring all of that out too.

But with my need to have everything just so, I am also finding a challenge from myself. For example, Baby Girl loves to pull books and DVDs off of the bookshelves. Sometimes she will empty an entire shelf, stacking them up elsewhere. That I actually find pretty easy to deal with. We have fun putting them back together (she likes to help) and I can put them back in (more or less) the order that they are supposed to be in. Though I will be honest, those books are no longer in anything resembling the correct order. But that is okay, because I am planning to reorganize how the books are shelved soon anyway, and she's not hurting herself or the books...and a large chunk of those are her dad's anyway. But other times she will just rearrange things on the shelves. Pull them down from one, put them back in a different order or on another shelf. She seems to enjoy this immensely. Sometimes I see her doing this and I have a whole inner-monologue fight with myself in order to keep from stopping her fun for no reason other than mommy is a little crazy. Sometimes I don't see her doing this...and that worries me way more than it should. Like I said, I am mostly okay about her Feng shui activities with the books, that's fine. But the DVDs, dear god, the DVDs. That is my personal domain. That is my sanctum of order. Those things have to be where they are supposed to be. My poor insane self can't take knowing that they might be on the shelf out of order.

Yes, I know I am nuts.

So I have to fight with myself not to overreact when I realize that Baby Girl had indeed rearranged my DVDs at some point in the recent past (again). Sure, I could instate a rule that she is not allowed to touch the DVDs without mommy's help, but that would be almost impossible to enforce unless I was willing to follow her from room to room in the house. The only thing being hurt by her exploration is my nerves, and when I weigh the actual (negligible) damage against allowing her to grow, well...I just have to suck it up, don't I?

Lately she has become extremely fascinated with the dishwasher. First she realized she could open and close it, and she got tremendous fun out of that until I started just keeping it locked. But once I did that, she realized that she could turn it on. I think I have finally managed to avoid that issue by taking the knob off of the switch. It seems pretty difficult for her to turn without it, thankfully. But she is vigilant! If my husband or I forget to lock the thing, she is right there, opening it it up, putting things in it--one time it was pretty much the entire (clean) contents of the silverware drawer, yesterday it was her stuffed bear. But this is just a matter of me staying on top of keeping it locked. I can deal with that, and she lets me know if I have failed, obviously, and it is an easy thing to rectify.

Of course, none of that does me any good when I am trying to unload the darn thing. She has realized that this is an opportunity to be seized! She sees me taking things out and she wants to help. This has resulted in a need on my part to revamp the way I unload the dishwasher. We've got it in energy-saver mode which means that I have to hand-dry everything before I can put it away. So I have had to get clever and try to get the heavier and/or breakable objects (like plates) out of the way first so that the kiddo doesn't try to get them on her own. She will. Watching her try to carry around one of our dinner plates makes my panic mode kick in PDQ, let me tell you. It also means checking for knives first thing. I usually wash knives by hand, but sometimes I get lazy, and let me tell you, talk about panic mode, when you see your not-quite-two-year-old reaching for the knife in the silverware tray! Yeesh.

But I want to encourage this tendency of hers to help me pick up and put things away. I really do. I think it is awesome. It just means that I have to fight some battles with my own control-freak self, as well as make adjustments to my routines. I won't lie, my kid is pretty remarkably well behaved. I have no idea how long this is gonna last, but while it does, I count myself remarkably lucky, and I am gonna do whatever I can to encourage it to continue. If that means scrubbing out some of my ingrained tendencies, well, so be it.

It is funny to me. People always tell you that parenthood will change you and your life completely. You do what you can to prepare for this, you try to expect the unexpected. But still, you can never see just exactly which buttons are going to get pushed, and which habits will need to be overhauled. What holds today may be completely unhelpful tomorrow, come to that. It is definitely a roller-coaster ride, and right now, she's the one in the driver seat most of the time. She still lets me take control when I need to (this I also expect not to last), so for now I am just gonna hold on and pray I don't fall off.

Oh She's Lucky She's So Cute...

Man, I know my kid is growing and learning new things each and every day, but sometimes being right there with her makes it hard to see. But we've hit some benchmarks recently that have really made me realize how quickly she is growing up.

First, I finally was able to turn her carseat around so that she is now front-facing. This is a wonderful thing for oh so many reasons. Then this past weekend I made the executive decision to take down the baby gates in the house. Up until now Baby Girl has pretty much been corralled up in our living room when we've been at home during the day. There are still a few areas that are no-go (such as the laundry room and our bedroom, where there are kitty boxes, and the bathroom and office, where there is stuff we'd prefer she not get into). She doesn't seem bothered that she can't go everywhere yet though. Indeed, if I leave a door open to one of the no-go areas (or even to her bedroom, where she is totally allowed), she will happily close it for me. Sometimes she closes the door with herself or both of us in the room. Sometimes, when I am in the office and leave the door open so I can keep an ear on her, she will come and shut the door with just me in the room and then wander off.

Yeah, she knows she is adorable.

So, she has pretty much taken to this new freedom like a duck to water. Basically, her new accessible areas are the front room (which serves as the dining room/sitting room/library area), the hallway, and the kitchen. And her room, but like I said, she usually just closes the door to that room and leaves it alone. Mostly I am okay with this choice. She truly does seem happier being able to explore and play in more of the house. Plus, I really like not needing to step over baby gates on a regular basis any more. My toes and knees are quite thankful for this development. My aging kitty is also appreciative (mostly--one of the kitty boxes is still blocked off by a gate).

However, my darling daughter has managed to find several new ways to drive me absolutely batty with her newly found freedom. Some examples include (but are certainly not limited to):

• Taking every book off of the shelf she can reach, one at a time,  and bringing it into the living room, usually piling it all in my lap.
• Taking her alphabet letters off of the fridge and rinsing or just piling them up in the kitties' water dish. (My husband has suggested this may be because she has some of those foam letters for the bathtub that have to be wet to stick to the wall and maybe she thinks these are the same thing. It makes sense, but this makes it no less frustrating to me or to the kitties.)
• Pulling everything out of the Tupperware cabinet and arranging it in various places in the house (her favorites are the kitchen floor and the living room floor). 
• Taking the basket of kitty toys and pulling out each toy, arranging them in the middle of the floor, and then carrying the basket around and seeing how it looks in different places.
• Opening the dishwasher when it needs to stay closed and alternatively, repeatedly shutting it (often without pushing the basket back in) while I am trying to unload it. Also, playing with the knobs and buttons on said dishwasher.

Isn't parenthood such a joy and wonder? Sigh. She also is quite fond of playing the piano in the kitchen nook, but this actually doesn't annoy me at all. She's better at it than I am, after all.

I like this toy a lot.

I am not really complaining, per se, but it is taking some adjusting to get used to her getting used to what she is now able to do. She realized she could reach my stuffed cardinals that live on the bookshelves, and I keep finding them in various places now. I am not worried for her getting into them, but I am slightly concerned a cat will find one and decide it looks like it could use some killing. Also, that bookshelf is never going to be in the proper order again (I guess it is a good thing that shelf mostly has my husband's books and not mine).

So, it is has kind of been a long and crazy week, and I have to say, I am utterly exhausted. If she is inclined to let me, I will definitely be trying to take it easy this weekend.

In other news, I have gotten my butt a little bit back in gear with working on my second draft, huzzah! I have typed up all of the notes and separated the general story and research notes from the notes that pertain to specific chapters. I have also put each chapter into its own file, to hopefully make it easier for me to get others to read and give feedback when I get going full-steam with the rewrite. I am also halfway through fixing all of the typos and errors I noted in my readthrough. I am sure it is not all of them by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a start.

I think we might head to the Botanic Gardens after lunch today. She can run around and explore and wear herself out well and good for naptime. 

Go swing by and check out this week's Gronk. Journey into the imaginations of monsters and kitties. It's super cute. Also, completely 100% accurate.

Take care and have a fantastic weekend!