I reserve the right to be boring as hell with this post

I have nothing much to "report" (a word my mom uses that drives me crazy. What's wrong with "sharing" or "chit-chatting" or "complaining"? But that's my mom for you - a woman who has already arranged to donate her body to science when she dies. Anyway).

I was feeling pretty low for a few days, and decided to blame it on a one-two-three-four punch of July 4th with my entire family, then a week-long visit with my dad, then reading a novel about a horribly sad and disjointed family, this last part while I got my period. It wasn't that long ago that I was rejoicing in the return to me-hood that my period represented. But for the last few days I've been steeped in a depressive side of me that I'd just as soon leave behind forever. I have at least one friend who talks wistfully about pregnancy as the most emotionally stable, happiest periods of her life. I just thought she was cracked out by motherhood. My mom talks fondly of how productive she was and how great she felt while she was pregnant. I chalked this up to my mom being my mom. But I'm beginning to see what the big deal was. It's hard to match the heady hormone cocktail that pregnancy and birth and round-the-clock breastfeeding bring about. They are all hard as hell, but as biology would have it, the memory of the shitty parts have faded and left me only with a longing for the euphoric, all-seeing highs. Sigh.

So Anonybabe, who has learned to say both "no" and "yes" with her head and occasionally her mouth, took to saying "no" a lot this weekend. She kicked and fought getting dressed, so I pulled out shirts one by one and let her toss them emphatically to the ground until she found one she wanted to wear: an atrocious hand-me-down with neon pink stripes and a kitty cat in a yellow dress, red necklace and strawberry-shaped handbag. "Mmm" Anonybabe nodded gravely as I pulled it out, and allowed me to pull it over her head and arms without a fight. We went through the same thing with pants; she "wah"ed and whined and yelled "no" to her little yellow shorts and red skirt, and pawed through her pants drawer until she found a pair of flanneled khakis that to my chagrin and her delight, have Micky Mouse embroidered on the bottom. She grinned and nodded when I asked if she wanted a bow in her hair like the kitty cats, and she let me put in one of the cute clips I bought at Target last week. Then when we were leaving she started pointing to her head "huh huh huh huh", and when I finally guessed "you want to wear a hat?" she grinned and nodded and eventually pointed to a clashing purple checkered hat near the door. I helped her put it on her head and whistled appreciatively at her ensemble. I gravitate towards cloths that have Anonybabe looking like a mini adult. I tend to hate things with cutesy animals and characters on them, and of course Anonybabe tends to love them. I don't buy them for her, but aunts and uncles and grandparents give them to us. When she falls in love with a neon blue shirt with puffed capped sleeves and a cartoony terrier with a bow on its head, pointing excitedly to the dog on her chest...well...I just can't bring myself to lose the shirt. Nevermind that Anonybabe looks like a poster child for the Wal-Mart shopping grandma set, nevermind that I look longingly at the toddler on the swingset with the chic little leggings and blouse, nevermind that I'm embarrassed to take her into the local coffeeshop in her garish neon ensembles. My desire to show her off is subsumed by her happiness in picking out things that delight her. Sometimes I still manage to dress her up like an Anonymom-approved dolly. Other times, I just have to suck it up and remind myself that she's the captain of her soul. And her wardrobe.

At 16 1/2 months, Anonybabe still isn't walking about. She's taken a few unassisted steps, and is cruising more and more. A couple of times this weekend we took painfully slow walks down the block where she toddled behind her stroller, hanging on to the handles for support. She would stop every few feet to drop to her hands and knees and pick up a leaf or a stick, hoist herself back to a standing position and put her find in the mesh bag attached to the back of the stroller. She would crawl around the vicinity for a bit and then when she was satisfied she'd exhausted that sidewalk square's treasures, she'd go back to pushing, with me holding on to the handles to make sure she didn't veer off into the neighbor's hostas. It was both enchanting and tedious as hell. It wasn't my idea to pick up sticks and leaves; I love that she thought of it. I'm excited that she's walking in any capacity. I wanted to give her the pleasure of her own self-directed half hour, and I'm sad that she doesn't get more. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and it was a child's paradise. Fucking sucks that she has sidewalks and a mom who is destined to corral her for a while.

Anonybabe ate some potting soil last night. I was planting some basil I'd gotten at the grocery store in a big Terra cotta pot, and Anonybabe reached in to scoop out big handfuls of dirt, as is her wont. "No, can you leave that in there please?" I asked. "We want to leave that in because it's food for the plant." As soon as she heard "food she shoved the hand full of dirt in her mouth. It took me a second to make the connection and I laughed and said no, we don't eat the dirt; the dirt is food for the plant and then we eat the plants. At which point she promptly picked a basil leaf and shoved it in her muddy mouth. We washed her mouth out with the garden hose and hoped she hadn't swallowed enough fertilizer to make her sick.

Anonybabe has also gone from silent and somber to chatty cathy, blabbing in a long uninterrupted string when she's comfortable. We went to see E.T. in the park with a friend of mine, and I hope we didn't bother the hell out of everyone around us. I didn't try to shush her or spirit her away; does that make me an ass? Fortunately the movie had subtitles.

Occasionally Anonybabe will copy my cadences: she's been saying "no" for a while, but she heard me say "no" to Anonyhub and it was funny to hear my southern accent parroted back to me by Anonybabe, the "no" drawn out to two or three syllables. Also we were walking by Trader Joe's the other day and she pointed to it in recognition. "Bye Bye" she said. "Bye Bye Trader Joe's" I vamped, which prompted "Bye Bye Da Doe" on her part. She keeps saying "Tito" for no apparent reason, and I keep asking if that's her favorite Jackson. "No-oo" she'll answer, shaking her head. "LaToya?" I ask, "Janet?" So far I haven't pinned her down.