Shave and a haircut

Two bits of awesomeness I got to witness today:

1. Green bean theatre:
Scene - Kitchen, lunchtime. Anonybabe is in her highchair after a leisurely lunch while I putter around the stove, back turned.
Thump, thump, thump of a green been being walked across her tray
Anonybabe: Oh! Gween bean! You o-tay?
Anonybabe-as-greenbean: (In a high falsetto) Oh! No! I pall down!
Anonybabe: Oh no! Apple toss! You o-tay?
Anonybabe-as-apple sauce: (In a gruff low voice) Oh! Yes! I o-tay.
Thump, thump, thump of green bean walking towards blue spoon, who embraces green been and then proceeds to eat her.
Anonybabe-as-blue-spoon: Nom, nom, nom!

2. Unclear on the concept bee:
Since Anonybabe seemed to dig on learning her letters, we got her some alphabet magnets to put on the fridge and will occasionally spell out her name, or ours, or simple words.
Scene - kitchen, standing at the refrigerator
Anonybabe: May wore!
Me: May wore?
Anonybabe: May wer oh pidge!
Me: ???
Anonybabe (lining letters up backwards on the fridge): Eeeeck, Teeee, Seeeee, Eyeeeee, Beeeee, Deeee!
Me: Oh! Make words on the fridge?
Anonybabe (pointing to each letter as she says it): Eck, Tee, See, Eye, Bee, Dee pell (and here she draws her finger backwards along the line of letters she made "I hab idea!"
Me (swoon)

Aw, girl

I just kept Anonybabe transfixed on the changing table for a good 5 minutes with a Keith Sweat-esque song I called "Poop in your boodie, girl"

That is all

I hab idea

Anonybabe has been cracking me up and charming me with all her new thangs.

Two faves:
1. She has been announcing lately that she "hab idea" before toddling off to do something.

2. She fed pretend food to her Micky Mouse doll when we were waiting in the car for Anonyhub's train. She wanted to feed Micky some of the banana we'd just finished, and I told her we didn't have any more. So she said "Anonybabe...gib...Micky...ba..na..NAAAA" and made a motion like she was scooping something out of her hand. Then "Anonybabe...gib...Micky....tawbewwies!" and made another hand-scoop motion.

This is a pretty literal-minded child and this is the first time I've seen her imagine like that without any props. I felt like I did when she got her teeth. Over the moon elated and surprised by my own delight.

Climb every mountain? Nah, just this one.

Today's revelation is a little weightier (for me) than yesterday's; I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it. Here's some simplified exposition:

The hubby wants to change professions - from record store manager with an eye on starting his own store to landscape architect - a move that I fully support. The change will land us in the poor house for the foreseeable future since it will likely involve unpaid internships and lots of additional schooling, but it really suits his dreams and his temperament.

But! I more or less ixnayed his plans to go to school this fall because his first (and almost only) pick was a college that is an hour away from his parents. Even though the school's program is relatively cheap and nearly perfectly suited for his goals. I felt certain if we lived that close to the in-laws, our marriage would be in jeopardy. It was a touchy touchy subject to broach with him, one that kicked off many a horrible fight.

My revelation is this: my problem isn't with my in-laws. It's with Anonyhub and the way he relates to them. The way he sees them. I could happily live next door to them if Anonyhub weren't so fixated on them. Okay next door is a stretch, but it's damn near true. He doesn't realize how emotionally dependent on them he is. When we are away from them, this rarely comes up...it makes me think it's a non-issue. When we are around them, I am reminded of how much I hate how Anonyhub relates to them. How he goes on and on and on about them.

The friends I've talked to about this will say..."what do you mean this is a new revelation? You said the very same thing to me 3 months ago; 8 months ago; 2 years ago!" Yes, but I thought it was a peripheral problem. One we could keep avoiding. Not a deal breaker. Now that it's the big old mountain standing smack dab between us and our next destination, I'm thinking it might be time to tackle this.

So I think I need to bring this up to him. Sit him down, look him in the eye, and admit it. This is a big deal to me. What can we do about it?

Anonybabe and Big Bird and Mama and Anonybabe and Sid and Super Why**

My revelation-of-the-day (My fortune cookie revelations. Just as easily consumed, just as easily forgotten):

I'm taking myself waaaaay too seriously with this parenting business. I feel responsible for my child's education, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Although I won't be providing her with her personality, I'm going to be providing her with her starter self-image. I gave her her mother flippin' name.

These are just some of the reasons I walked around with a look of abject terror on my face for the first year of her existence.

It is all a heavy burden. But to quote my grandmother, who, when 21 year-old me told her I didn't think I would have kids for the above reasons: "You aren't supposed to know that ahead of time! You're supposed to figure it out after it's too late!" I laughed. She didn't. She wasn't kidding.

There's something to be said for taking a la-de-da attitude with parenting. Whistle while you work. Thrill with the sheer adrenaline of it, like that tightwalk roper guy who walked between the twin towers. Don't look at yourself splattered on the sidewalk, look at yourself thousands of feet in the air, defying gravity.




**I told Anonybabe I was writing a story about her and asked her what I should title it. :-)

The wind in his Mangina

Truly beautiful post about loving your kids the way they are:

http://windinyourvagina.blogspot.com/2009/01/parenting.html

Rise, Sir Mom!

This morning I had a moment of clarity, in which I felt my mom status through and through.

We were all up with the sun (a rarity) since Anonybabe woke early and giggled and cuddled and requested that "Mama...Daddy...Anonybabe...Eat!"

I stripped so I could take a shower while Anonyhub fixed breakfast. I wanted to clean and reinsert my diva cup first and sat down on the toilet to do so. Anonybabe toddled over and announced "Anonybabe...weed...Ernie...Bert!" and decided my knee was as good a place as any to set her book.

I was on the john, naked and knuckle deep in my own bloody twat, trying not to elbow my daughter in the face or upset her Sesame Street book into the toilet when it hit me:

I am so a mom.

Fruits and Veggies losing their mojo

Grand.

http://www.kottke.org/09/02/fruits-and-vegetables-getting-less-healthy

Tears and cheers

"Anonybabe sad. Mama make Anonybabe sad."
- Anonybabe, last night, to Anonyhub.

A statement like this should not have made me so happy, especially when it was tearfully confessed/tattled to my husband, especially especially when it was prompted because I played the heavy for Anonyhub and took something away from Anonybabe at his behest.

But hearing Anonybabe say that while wiping tears away from her cheeks made me grin ear to ear. At the very least, that's one less shrieking tantrum we have to endure. And I get the feeling it's way more.

Dude, my daughter is capable of labeling herself and her feelings.

Wow, wow, wowwy-wow.

Good source of riboflavin

God bless Robert Dinero. Elmo, since you obviously have connections, we'll let you live to see another day, despite the bullshit you pull at the end of this clip. You are, as ever, treading on thin ice, my red, furry, and annoying friend:

Bittersweet

All accounts to the contrary, I do love my husband.

We had a particularly good time the other night at a friend's house. A couple of us decided at some previous get-together that it would be fun to try to make furniture out of cardboard. So four of us gathered boxes, box cutters, "Liquid Nails" adhesive, and ourselves and met. I came up with a half-assed cumbersome design for a chair. Anonyhub came up with a design that was not only functional but damn good looking. Watching him sketch it out made me feel all lovey. I love that mah boo has an eye for the aesthetically pleasing. We were all drinking beer and quipping while we sat on the floor and sliced up boxes and not once, but twice (!) I made Anonyhub laugh out loud.

We have a trip to Hawaii scheduled for March (my brother's getting married there) and Anonyhub and I are going to go it alone. Being away from Anonybabe for 5 days is going to be incredibly hard, but I think being alone with Anonyhub for 5 days is going to be such a boon to our relationship that everybody wins.

(Note: not our chair design above; I'll post a picture if/when we actually finish it).

Practice makes perfect

Even before we decided to move her bed, Anonybabe was playing at sleep time a lot. For the past couple of weeks she'll take great care in, say, making discarded wrapping paper into a pretend bed, announcing "Anonybabe go teep", and then giggling her fool head off while we lay her and her dolls down on it and cover them one by one with a make-shift "bay-kets".

The separation of snore and late

Anonybabe crying about bedtime is nothing new. She hates it. "No!" she cries. "No turn out wight! No bed! No ho ho hoooooo!"

I know this is typical bedtime behavior, but it makes me think, fuck it. Why not let her sleep when she gets sleepy and wake when she feels...wakey?

Within reason - we all have to live together.

But when she's older? I'm going to be raising my hand in a good night greeting as I pass her watching tv at 2 am.

Bad mommy.

Could not, would not, in a bed

Anonyhub and I haven't had sex in a while. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it's been 6 weeks or so (?!?)

And yet, when Anonyhub tried to put the moves on me last night, I just couldn't. Didn't want to at all. Sigh.

Sex drive, come home!

Not So Secret

I am wearing an eco-friendly, non-toxic deodorant today. When I put it on, it smelled like Fruit Loops.

Now I smell like funk and Fruit Loops.

Yummy.

I vant to cheel

The first night Anonybabe slept in her separate bed, I had a nightmare that the world had been overrun by vampires. In it our family decided to take a big chance by attending a rather large party. That sort of thing wasn't done so much any more, not because you were afraid of vampires secretly infiltrating your ranks, but because they were on the look out for places that exuded light and sound -- good hunting grounds.

At one point, the doorbell rang and a brave volunteer went to answer it. A group of us crouched in the sewing room, peeking out a tinted picture window through a large overgrown courtyard at the front door. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when nothing untoward happened and turned to watch a mom taking her four-year old daughter outside to punish her. Mom had daughter bend over and face the window we were all peeking out of so she could give her a spanking. I had a terrible sense of foreboding as we watched the blue-eyed girl cry at the first smack from her mother, then the tall grass beside them rustled and the girl screamed in pain and horror as some unseen vampire animal bit her on the back of her neck.

I woke up. Felt horrible. Checked Anonybabe, and tried to go back to sleep.

I've had one more nightmare where I'm being chased (this time by some organized crime lord) and countless forgettable dreams. I'm up and down during the night, checking Anonybabe's breathing, wondering if I'll ever be able to stop fixating on her, stop worrying about her. Wondering if I want to.

Bed

Until two days ago, Anonybabe's toddler bed (a full-on crib on three sides with a half-guard rail on the other) was pushed up against mine and Anonyhub's. She'd fall asleep next to me, nursing and climbing and and rolling and fussing, until she finally crawled to her bed in an exhausted heap to sleep for the night. Anonyhub and I have talked about pushing her bed away from ours for months and months. Anonyhub has been ready to make our bed more of marriage bed and I thought we should do whatever seemed to bring the most contentment all around. But I kept finding reasons - some practical, some emotional - to forgo even trying to push the bed away. She needed to be able to climb in and out by herself, say, or the extended family bed thing isn't absolutely positively broke so why fix it? She was used to crawling from one bed to another in the middle of the night, wouldn't she just crawl over the edge from force of habit?

I also had a huge Greek chorus of imaginary co-sleeping advocates buzzing in my inner ear that co-sleeping is natural, separate beds are not, fears that it'll be harder to sleep because I wouldn't be able to reassure myself with a touch that she was breathing, all right. Fears that we'd lose an important connection too soon, that she'd be lonely, feel abandoned. Every couple of months we'd revisit the topic and it would ultimately end in a huffy "well, I'm not ready yet!" from me.

This past time, something I'd read and recognized about the joy of independence in children gave me pause. I think that as well the job of comforter and nurturer, it's also my job to introduce Anonybabe to a certain amount of risk and independence. Make sure she has every opportunity to develop a taste for it if that's what she so desires. And that as she gets older - at least for a while - my role as comforter will keep diminishing while my role as midwife to her independent being will keep growing.

So I sighed and acknowledged that nobody knows what's going to work for my family, including me, until I try it. If pushing the bed away went horribly, I figured, we could put it back. (I know, I know, we were just pushing the bed 2 feet away, not to China, but this was a huge symbolic leap for me.)


So we cleared away the toys from the East wall and swung the bed in an arc out and against it. Anonybabe thought this was great fun and instantly delighted in climbing up, and (once we'd spotted her a couple of times so she knew where the floor was) down. She was proud and delighted with her bed, loved it when Anonyhub sat by it and read stories to her. She leaned back on her Miss Piggy pillow, positioned her stuffed cat Francis beside her, gave contented sighs and when Anonyhub would finish a book, ask "weed moh?"

She was, however, quick to cry when we turned the light out "No..turn off...wight!" in her signature stilted cadence, and I was quick to offer her the option of lying in bed with us. Which is where she ended up falling asleep, and then we transfered her to her bed. After we'd moved her, Anonyhub gave my ass and tits a playful squeeze and said "now I can do that in my own bed without feeling weird!" rolled over, and promptly went to sleep. We haven't even cuddled since.

The next morning, Anonybabe woke up, rubbed her eyes, and announced "Annonybabe teep Anonybabe's bed!" and seemed pleased.

Ummmm...success?