share, wouldja?...

I'm incredibly excited to hear that there are folks reading this blog from far and wide - many of whom heard about it from someone that heard about it that got it from someone I know (and facebook doesn't hurt either).

I'd love to have some commenting action going on in response to the posts. I know that plenty of moms out there have the same experiences or have things they could share that others could benefit from hearing. And for those that aren't moms out there, comment too. The more the merrier!! : )

Thanks all for tuning in. It warms my heart and makes me enjoy writing this more then I already did!

we lost her...

Children cry - that's all there is to it. Sometimes it seems that the most random things can set them off and before you know it the world has come to an end over the most mundane things. Within moments, said tragedy is forgotten and life goes on.

There are those occasions, however, when the recovery time does not happen that quickly. It may start off small, but suddenly a point is reached where there seems to be no return. I typically begin with a warning to Jamie of, "we're losing her." If nothing changes, then inevitably it becomes, "we've lost her."

Case in point? The other day I was preparing dinner for us three. Chicken and broccoli were on the menu. I had plopped Alexis in her chair (an attachable number that connects to the table versus being a stand-alone highchair). "Fine," she must have initially thought. "I'll wait." But as I begin the painstaking process of chopping broccoli and chicken into bite-sized pieces, she begins to whine. "I'm working on it sweetpea." The whining gets louder and angrier. "Alexis...is that doing any good?" Of course, now that it's chopped up, we still need to wait for it to cool a tad lest we burn the child's mouth. Now we're beyond whining...it's crying.

Finally, food is cool enough and ready for her. At this point she's red-faced and boogery. When I put the plate of broccoli in front of her and she swipes it with her hand, throwing back her head, I knew we'd lost her. Jamie had come into the kitchen to get his plate and says, "just put it to bed." It's 6:00 - that's not going to happen. And what he didn't seem to understand is that when they're gone, it takes a while to bring them back, and putting her down on the floor or in bed is just going to put her much farther over the edge.

I pull her out of her chair and begin the annoying but necessary process of trying to talk her down off the ledge. There comes that moment when you think you've done it. All that remains is that little quick intakes of breath where she seems to be considering whether she's done or not. You wait, holding your breath, hoping it's done, but then suddenly the head tosses back again and it starts over. It's like post-traumatic stress disorder...whatever was upsetting before is upsetting still.

Finally, I make a big huge show out of Rambo licking her hand, "look look look it's Rambo he's so sweet look look look." Then, I make another big show of munching on her cold chunks of broccoli. "Mmmm." I'm walking on egg-shells. If I put her back in her chair too soon, would it start over? But at the same time I'm not going to hold her through her entire meal. Finally, when the horror seems to have left her mind, I plop her back in her seat and all is well again in the world. Face stained with tears, cheeks beet red, boogies everywhere, she munches away as if nothing happened.

The mood swings of children are amazing. I assume it's because she can't yell at me yet so this is the only way she knows how to express her emotions. She's like a PMSing woman on crack. Good practice for some day being married and driving her husband nuts, I'd say. (We've all been there, haven't we ladies?)

Thank God for our pain in the ass Rambo in this situation. We'll keep him close. He seems to be a good negotiator when she's about to jump off the ledge.

was inevitable...

There are certain things you know are going to happen at some point along the road of parenting. You know they're coming, you just don't know exactly when.

Alexis LOVES bathtime. Plop her in the tub, give her some bubbles and her bath books, and she's set. Sometimes she decides she wants to show me the water by scooping it up in her hands and flinging it toward my face. Yes dear, I know what water looks like. She also enjoys pretending like she's going to eat the bubbles. She'll get a handful of them and hold them right in front of her mouth, staring at me for approval/disapproval. Have at it little girl - they're baby bubbles...I have to assume that they're non-toxic.

Last night she's hanging out, trying her damnest to keep her floaty bath book submerged. After she was nice and prune-y, I popped open the drain and called for Jamie. Jamie's role in the night time ritual is picking her up out of the tub, securely wrapped in her hooded monster towel complete with horns, and taking her to her room to get dressed in her PJs. He hollers, "Be right there!" "Ok," I respond, peaking my head around the half open door.

I look back and Alexis and realize there are lots of things floating around her. "Oh my good lord," I say to myself. "JAMIE!!!!!" You guessed it...there was poo swirling around. He snatched her out of the tub while I quickly shut the drain (can't let that stuff clog it up). I pulled down the shower head to spray the poor child down. She seemed completely oblivious to the situation.

Jamie, having the more easy role in this situation, takes the double cleaned child into her bedroom for PJ time. I'm left with the chore of figuring out how in the world to get this out of the tub. Hmmmm. After some brainstorming, I ventured into the kitchen and got a large straining spoon. If you can use it to lift veggies out of boiling water, you can use it to lift "stuff" out of the tub. I proceeded to go back and forth from tub to toilet, trying my best to not let it make me nauseous.

After my fishing trip was done, it was time to spray the entire bathtub down with Kitchen Disinfecting spray. Figured that'd be nice and tough.

All in all, it was an...interesting experience. As I said, it's one of those things that I knew was going to happen in time. I'll check that one off the list. Let's see which one comes next...

dental hygiene...

Initially, our little one sprouted the typical top two and bottom two front teeth, all pretty much at the same time. And that's all she had. There was no sign of other ones cropping up. Sure, less teeth means less potential for cavities, but no boys in high school are going to want to date a semi-toothless girl.

But then suddenly, more are showing themselves. It's a shame because the best time to see teeth on a child is when they're crying, especially on the changing table. The ones that are coming in are on either side of the top two teeth. They all seem so far apart, but I think that's typical toddler style. Upon closer inspection, I noticed two more. They are these random two teeth halfway between the front teeth and where the molars will be. Very strange.

Along with having teeth comes the need to care for them. I had asked the dentist a while back and was told that, while they usually say to wait until there are 3 or more teeth, some recent studies show that a child should be seen once they have one tooth. One? What are they going to do - wrap a piece of floss around it? Silly dentist researchers. Someone else said that you can wait until they're two years old...now that's a more reasonable answer.

We have an itty bitty pink toothbrush for her. You might be able to brush one adult tooth at a time with this miniature brush. We've done our best to get her to open up and let us get at her grill, but apparently the bristles on a toothbrush tickle quiet a bit on baby gums. She'll giggle for a second then turn her head. We've gotten nowhere. It was recommended that we give her the toothbrush and let her chew on it (much like having Ripley and Rambo chew on a bone to keep their teeth clean, I suppose). But unfortunately, she prefers chewing on the handle much more then the bristles. Toothpaste is out of the question too, so we can't flavor it to appeal to her insatiable love for food.

So, we'll simply need to keep at it and hope that the split second of brush on tooth contact that we can manage does something. At least we can take solace in the fact that these are not her permanent teeth. Does that mean we should ignore them? No. But it sure as hell makes me feel better about what I can only imagine are some funky chompers.

how silly do you look?...

In the morning, when I drop off Alexis at school, there is what seems like a choreographed dance of cars swirling (slowly) around the parking lot, parents pulling children into the building then running back out on a mission to get to work, etc. This morning, as I hurried back to my orange beast, I saw Jada's dad standing by the window of the pre-toddler room. In a little baby voice, he was saying, "bye...bye...bye." He was waving at the window (I'm assuming Jada was on the other side of the window...), bent down and doing a bit of a jig.

It hit me - children are adorable, but in turn make their parents look like absolute fools. This especially applies to fathers. It's one thing for a mom to pull out her cooing babble to entertain a child, but when a dad ups his voice a few octaves and singsongs his way through a nonsense conversation with his kid, it's that much funnier. Example? A few days prior, I'm parked next to a sensible Subaru with a white collar corporate gentleman playing peekaboo with his 6 month old. Just peekaboo with his hands? Oh no - this was a whole body affair. She was in the car in her seat while he popped up and down from outside the car door. He was "boo"-ing and practically giggling away (though I saw no real response from the little one).

While we feel like ridiculous clowns sometimes when we take a step back and realize what exactly we're doing in public around our children (purely for their amusement) I believe it's also a nice, fun release. I highly doubt that the guy in his white shirt and tie plays peekaboo with the folks in the car as he meets them for a business luncheon. I imagine that Jada's dad doesn't stand in his cubicle, poking his head over to the person next to him saying, "bye...bye...bye".

When we're with our children, not only do we get to experience the joy of them being silly or the exuberance of them making us laugh, but we're also given the opportunity to join in. It becomes permissible to make random noises, roll around, laugh at random things, etc. Being a young child looks like fun, and as a parent, you are given a permission slip to join in whenever you please. So even if she looks at you and in her mind says, "Daddy, you're weird" (or if that person in the car next to you thinks, "Daddy, you're weird"), bask in the knowledge that that means you're having honest fun.

nose...

A while back, we'd gotten Alexis to show us where her belly is. We'd ask her, "where's your belly?" to which she'd respond by lifting up her shirt as high as possible and patting her Buddha belly. Sometimes she'd even look down at it, smacking away at something that's so cute on a child but would be so ugly on an adult.

Seeing as we'd conquered the belly, we saw it fit to move along to other things parts. Little did I know that Jamie was already working on the nose. The first few attempts at "where's your nose?" caused her to point her finger toward her face and make a feeble attempt at locating her nose (it must not have been clear where exactly on the face it was). A few tries later the nose was firmly planted in the center of her face. What else? I moved on to the ear. The ear is a toughie. It's hidden under her hair, is on the side of the head, and there's two of them to boot. But lo and behold, she found it!

What I realized was that, when she pointed at her nose or at her ear, she was making obvious sounds resembling the name for the part in question. An audible "no" came out when she touched her nose and now an "eea" for the ear. Add on words like "baby" which they taught her at school (and was validated when she was looking in a mirror in the tub yesterday), and I'd say she's starting to talk. And, wouldn't you know, she's learning things without us having to consciously point it out. Yesterday, in the tub, Jamie said, "where's your piggies?" She bends forward and reaches for her toes. Oh my god! She knew that one? We didn't even teach that one (and were just asking for asking sake).

I absolutely love to talk. Ask Jamie and he'll surely tell you that I do it far too much. I sense that Alexis is venturing down the same road. As she sits with her pile of books in the morning on the living room floor as I get ready, she turns the pages and jibbers away. I dropped her off at school this morning and she stood, hanging on to the side of the ball pit, and chatted to the children around her. Commenting on this, Miss Bethany told me that she's doing very well with her verbal skills.

While she's still not opting to walk (she can do a few steps in a row, but crawling seems to be the preferred method of transportation), the fact that she's showing signs of being smart in the communication department means that much more to me. I was far from athletic but had an easy time excelling in school. So, in my mind, she's doing just like mommy. Forget the soccer...pass me a book.