The old girl now has it

That was invigorating.

I'm still tipsy from a get-together I just got back from; a friend of ours is moving to L.A., to try to make it as a stand-up comedienne. She had a goodbye party tonight and Anonyhub and I stopped by with a sleeping Anonybabe.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy it. At all. I worried that a judgmental ex-boyfriend was going to be there; I worried that I'd see people I'd always had trouble making chit-chat with (people I hadn't seen in 8 years).

But it was fun! Anonyhub had to drag me away. I was ready to booze and chat it up far into the night. On the walk home, I told Anonyhub I think I was expecting a party with 20-30 somethings, like the one's I experienced 10 years ago. I didn't count on everyone maturing as much as we had.

Seriously? In almost every way, I love not being in my 20s any more.

So for three days now, Anonybabe has been a freaking blast. I'm glad; I was really starting to worry after 3 odd weeks of just feeling distant and alienated from the chick. I felt guilty. I felt panicky that the alienation was going to last. I obsessively fantasized that we were already that mother/daughter combo - the one that just doesn't get each other. Ever.

Apparently fate is offering us at least a little respite. All of her oddities are now charming to me instead of grating; I'm not sure why. Today we went on a walk and Anonybabe brought Francis her stuffed cat. She kept chanting "Super Fwancis, meow, meow, meow, MEOW!" and on the last meow she would toss him down the sidewalk. If he got particularly good air she would giggle and say "Oh! Fwancis! Dat was good fwy!" and pick him up to do it again. She also freaking delights in walking under or over chains used to separate sidewalks from strips of grass. I know that doesn't sound charming, per se, but somehow Anonybabe makes it work. We both know she couldn't have done that particular trick 2 months ago without doing a faceplant on the sidewalk. She'll straighten up, eyes shining and trumpet "Mama! Mama! I go ober de chain! Can I do it again?"

Anonyhub gave me some food for thought that I haven't quite figured out how to digest yet. I mentioned last night how much more I'm enjoying our daughter and how it helps that she hasn't tried to bite, pinch, hit, or flaunt her disobedience in a fuck-you manner for three whole days.

"Yeah..." he started a line he's tried to start before with me. "Sometimes I think with the biting and hitting, you should just let it go." This is the point where I usually launch into a diatribe about those kinds of things always being unacceptable and how I want firm boundaries around them, and on and on. This time I waited to hear Anonyhub out.

"You get yourself so worked up about disciplining her...I think you work yourself into a corner where you make it impossible to like her very much. You might do more damage to your relationship to her than the good you do trying to teach her to act nice."

Humph. And Hmmmm. How right is he?

Angel in the Corn

As if my daughter heard some of my recent inner angst, she served up a heaping plate of awesome tonight that I enjoyed royally.

We had a nice evening from the get-go: sitting at the table and eating beans and rice (which she managed to eat without upending solids or liquids onto herself or the floor. She smeared just enough on her chin and cheeks to make herself adorable). Reading Sesame Street books in the Laz-E-Boy. Pretending like her puzzle pieces were Thomas the Tank Engine characters. "Mama? Can Naughty Diesel say 'Yes, Thomas, what you say, Thomas"? She was being so charming that it was easy to indulge her entertainment whims. "What do you want to do next?" I would ask. "Read a book? Ok. Read it again? Sure. Eat cinnamon bread with a double pat of butter? Why not?"

So when she asked to put on her chicken costume around bedtime, I rolled with it.

She has the most awesome hand-me-down chicken costume in the history of chicken costumes for two year olds. It's a white, full body affair with Foghorn Leghorn feet that fit over her shoes and a little hood for her head complete with a red crest. The body is a fuzzy white, and in it she looks like a little chicken cherub.

She was so excited to put it on; she started flapping her hands manically when she spied it in the coat closet. "My chicken out-fit! Heee! My chicken out-fit!" Once I snapped it on, she let out a stream of "boks" in time to her footfalls. Then she started speaking her version of chickanese, adding a perfunctory "bok bok" to the end of every sentence. "I am going to the kitchen bok bok." "Mama, can I wide in my gween stwoller bok bok?" I of course answered in kind. "Ok, bok bok". "I'd be happy to push you bok bok".

And then to top things off, she fussed only a very little when it was time to take it off and go to bed, and then sang herself to sleep while Anonyhub and I putzed around in the living room.

Oh, Anonybabe. More, please. I could eat this up with a spoon until the day I die.

I just like to watch you bleed

Anonybabe vacillates between appalling me and making my heart want to break open with love and gratitude.

She's been hitting, biting, pinching to get attention. Once when she pinched me a couple of times as I told her not to, I warned her I was going to pinch her back to let her know how unpleasant it was, then let her have it, hard, on the arm. She gasped, flinched, and moaned for a moment. Then she gathered herself and said brightly, "Mama? Can I pinch you and you will pinch me back?" It's moments like these that steer me away from spanking.

The time-outs in her "little bed" seem to be working somewhat. She followed my script for getting positive attention, asking me "Mama, will you talk to me?" exactly as I'd requested her to do instead of biting me.

I pointed out a little grub wrapped around a blade of grass on Sunday, and carefully scooped it up with a leaf so she could take a closer look. She promptly grabbed it and squished it between her thumb and forefinger, watching its brown juices ooze out onto her hand. I gasped out a "No!" and told Anonybabe that she'd killed the worm. "Oh," she repeated sadly, "I killed it." "You have to be gentle with animals; gentle," I said. "Otherwise you can hurt them." She picked up the grub again and squished it in exactly the same way. She wasn't being willful (for once, there's plenty of that), but she was clinically detached as she crushed the grub. I'm wary of this cool detachment, this lack of empathy.

My faults are legion: I can be breathtakingly self-centered and thoughtless, lethargic, depressive, self-righteous. But inflicting physical pain, on purpose, without regret? Not one of my faults. So I have a hard time seeing this in Anonybabe.

I'm Posting Because I'm Not Sleeping, or, In Which I Regurgitate My Day With Little to No Editing

(Yawn). Oh, this is much better than reading facebook in the pre-dawn living room. At least while I type I can close my eyes.

Good morning. I'm looking forward to a long, no-obligation-to-anyone-but-ourselves day with Anonybabe. Yesterday was awesome; we looked at a couple of apartments in the morning and finally signed up for the one we really like. It's near Lake Michigan, in Evanston. The bedrooms are small, but it does have 2, plus a sunroom, living room, dining room, and mudroom (ah, sweet separate living space!). Plus it has a lovely little deck and yard that stoked my fantasies of entertaining on a regular basis. Come on over from mid-July onward, ya'll. We aren't but a hop skip and a jump from the Metra Evanston Main Street stop.

After putting down a security deposit, Anonybabe and I spent the day playing through all of the parks around the place, and they are legion. A tiny toddler parked tucked between two buildings a half-block away. A larger park complete with basketball courts and large separate play areas for toddlers and big kids 2 blocks away. And then, if you're feeling brave enough to cross treacherous Sheridan road, there's a janky but charming park by Lake Michigan, where Anonybabe swung on the weathered blue baby swing looking out over a seemingly endless expanse of water. We met a mom and 2 year old at the first park that looked freakishly similar to us, and who I easily chatted up. We heard two women talking in what I believe was Italian in the second park, breaking into stilted English only long enough for one to say to the other, "Who suffered more, Prometheus or Job?" (??). We had a nice time at the lake park, where tons of dog-walkers were letting their charges sniff around. A lady who wanted to let her dog off the leash came over to ask our permission first. She let us interact with her dog to assure us he was safe with kids. Max slobbered on us a bit and then took off like a shot. When we were leaving the lake park, Anonybabe said "dat waydee tay 'Goo Bah'; can you tay 'Goo Bah', mama?" I thought she wanted me to say "Good bye", so I kept saying it over and over at her request, until I realized from her intonations she was saying "Good Dog!" Once I said it, Anonybabe grinned to herself and we were able to move on.

Man, Anonybabe is such a little weirdo. I can't seem to help but see her this way. I don't think I'm going to try to change that. I sort of feel like the way we fundamentally perceive each other was written long, long ago. I can and will try to treat her with as much love and respect as possible, and stay conscious of enjoying her in the moment, but my basic perception has a life of its own. As it should. I had a good talk with my (admittedly senile) grandmother while visiting Texas last weekend. The gist of a particularly nice stretch of conversation was that people really are born who they are and there isn't much you can do to change it. Parenthood is the serenity prayer writ large.

So my daughter perplexes me, is what I'm trying to say. She's smart, but does things that I just don't get. Right now she vacillates between being sweet and violent. One minute she's hitting my face and the next she's showering me with kisses. I really do feel like her test subject for the way she can treat the world. She seems to be trying out different behaviors, seeing how I'll react, tinkering with the behavior and then trying it in a slightly different way to see how I'll react. I'm sure she's doing this with everybody to a certain degree - she's new to all human relationships - but sometimes it's weird to see the wheels turning in her head. I don't think of her as a sweet or loving person. She doesn't seem warm to me. It seems she approaches life with her head, although her heart is there, beating strong, behind it.

Enough with the vagaries & inner landscape descriptions. Here are some sweet things she did lately:

In our bedroom now, her bed is close enough to mine that I can reach it when I'm lying down. She likes for me to reach through the bars when we're going to sleep and hold her hand. She held tight to it for several minutes as we tried to quiet her down the other night, then said. "Mama? Mama, I wike it when you hold my hand. I wike it when you hold my hand when I am going to sweep in my wittle bed."

She approached little kids on the playgrounds we went to yesterday and asked them if they wanted to join her! "You want to go down de swide wiff me?" This is a far cry from her usual stony-faced silence or "don't wook at me!" I was stunned and thrilled. She won't be an asocial shrinking violet! Yea, daycare!

She also stopped on the sidewalk yesterday to lay down on her stomach, hands on her chin, looking down. "What do you see?" I asked, looking around to see if our future neighbors were giving us the side-eye. "Mama! Mama, I am watching some ants!" I couldn't help eating that one up with a spoon, even if she was sprawled on the sidewalk like a dirty little street urchin.

I'm Posting Because I'm Not Sleeping, or, In Which I Regurgitate My Day With Little to No Editing

(Yawn). Oh, this is much better than reading facebook in the pre-dawn living room. At least while I type I can close my eyes.

Good morning. I'm looking forward to a long, no-obligation-to-anyone-but-ourselves day with Anonybabe. Yesterday was awesome; we looked at a couple of apartments in the morning and finally signed up for the one we really like. It's near Lake Michigan, in Evanston. The bedrooms are small, but it does have 2, plus a sunroom, living room, dining room, and mudroom (ah, sweet separate living space!). Plus it has a lovely little deck and yard that stoked my fantasies of entertaining on a regular basis. Come on over from mid-July onward, ya'll. We aren't but a hop skip and a jump from the Metra Evanston Main Street stop.

After putting down a security deposit, Anonybabe and I spent the day playing through all of the parks around the place, and they are legion. A tiny toddler parked tucked between two buildings a half-block away. A larger park complete with basketball courts and large separate play areas for toddlers and big kids 2 blocks away. And then, if you're feeling brave enough to cross treacherous Sheridan road, there's a janky but charming park by Lake Michigan, where Anonybabe swung on the weathered blue baby swing looking out over a seemingly endless expanse of water. We met a mom and 2 year old at the first park that looked freakishly similar to us, and who I easily chatted up. We heard two women talking in what I believe was Italian in the second park, breaking into stilted English only long enough for one to say to the other, "Who suffered more, Prometheus or Job?" (??). We had a nice time at the lake park, where tons of dog-walkers were letting their charges sniff around. A lady who wanted to let her dog off the leash came over to ask our permission first. She let us interact with her dog to assure us he was safe with kids. Max slobbered on us a bit and then took off like a shot.

When we were leaving the lake park, Anonybabe said "dat waydee tay 'Goo Bah'; can you tay 'Goo Bah', mama?" I thought she wanted me to say "Good bye", so I kept saying it over and over at her request, until I realized from her intonations she was saying "Good Dog!" Once I said it, Anonybabe grinned to herself and we were able to move on.

Man, Anonybabe is such a little weirdo. I can't seem to help but see her this way. I don't think I'm going to try to change that. I sort of feel like the way we fundamentally perceive each other was written long, long ago. I can and will try to treat her with as much love and respect as possible, and stay conscious of enjoying her in the moment, but my basic perception has a life of its own. As it should. I had a good talk with my (admittedly senile) grandmother while visiting Texas last weekend. The gist of a particularly nice stretch of conversation was that people really are born who they are and there isn't much you can do to change it. Parenthood is the serenity prayer writ large.

So my daughter perplexes me, is what I'm trying to say. She's smart, but does things that I just don't get. Right now she vacillates between being sweet and violent. One minute she's hitting my face and the next she's showering me with kisses. I really do feel like her test subject for the way she can treat the world. She seems to be trying out different behaviors, seeing how I'll react, tinkering with the behavior and then trying it in a slightly different way to see how I'll react. I'm sure she's doing this with everybody to a certain degree - she's new to all human relationships - but sometimes it's weird to see the wheels turning in her head. I don't think of her as a sweet or loving person. She doesn't seem warm to me. It seems she approaches life with her head, although her heart is there, beating strong, behind it.

Enough with the vagaries & inner landscape descriptions. Here are some sweet things she did lately:

In our bedroom now, her bed is close enough to mine that I can reach it when I'm lying down. She likes for me to reach through the bars when we're going to sleep and hold her hand. She held tight to it for several minutes as we tried to quiet her down the other night, then said. "Mama? Mama, I wike it when you hold my hand. I wike it when you hold my hand when I am going to sweep in my wittle bed."

She approached little kids on the playgrounds we went to yesterday and asked them if they wanted to join her! "You want to go down de swide wiff me?" This is a far cry from her usual stony-faced silence or "don't wook at me!" I was stunned and thrilled. She won't be an asocial shrinking violet! Yea, daycare!

She also stopped on the sidewalk yesterday to lay down on her stomach, hands on her chin, looking down. "What do you see?" I asked, looking around to see if our future neighbors were giving us the side-eye. "Mama! Mama, I am watching some ants!" I couldn't help eating that one up with a spoon, even if she was sprawled on the sidewalk like a dirty little street urchin.

Love Bites

"Shut your eyes and your mouth" were the last things Anonybabe heard through my gritted teeth last night.

This at midnight after I'd moved her from my bed to her little bed and she kept babbling and singing.

This after she'd just spent over an an hour babbling and singing and flopping around in my bed while I tried to go to sleep.

This after I'd tried to make nice for a day of neglect by reading to her in the "big bed" and letting her go to sleep there with me - something she'd asked for.

This after she'd bitten me (again) to get my attention. While I was on the computer "uh-huh"ing to her, she slowly leaned over and sunk her teeth into my arm. I whisked her to her little bed (she really seems to hate this punishment), wouldn't let her out no matter how much she cried and begged until she could tell me why I'd put her there and listed nicer ways she could get me to focus on her.

You know, I'm trying. I know why I'm being so shitty to Anonybabe. Why is she being so shitty to me?

Perhaps that's the wrong question. Perhaps the answer to that just leads to a morass of self-pity and woe. Perhaps the only question worth paying attention to is "what can I do to help Anonybabe be herself and a decent human being?"

But my question now is "Why the fuck do you keep biting and pinching me, Anonybabe, when you know it's just going to land you in the pokey?"

P.S. Yes, I'm considering spanking for this, but am trying to take the mildest method that works first. Besides, it seems illogical to tell Anonybabe I'm going to hurt her so she'll stop hurting me. Not that logic seems to have any bearing on this parenting gig sometimes. I'm not above doing whatever works.

Update

Oh yeah. Have I mentioned that daycare has been going well? Really well. So well that my main problem with it now is jealousy over Franky the daycare provider. Anonybabe thinks she hangs the moon. And she does. She pushes Anonybabe in all the ways I'd love her to be pushed. Towards independence, towards kindness, towards empathy, towards responsibility, towards assertiveness. It isn't all butter cookies and rainbow marker sets, but I'm very glad Anonybabe is getting a little something outside of the Anonyfamily household.

Closer to Fine

Bear with me, because this is going to sound more than a little pervy at first.

I am going to miss my daughter's vagina when she is potty trained. Don't get me wrong. I can't wait to put my poop wrangling days far behind me. When Anonybabe can take responsibility for her own bowel movements, I will be dancing in the streets. But it dawned on me yesterday when I was wiping her down and giving her a good spot check to make sure everything looked to be in good working order, the deep level of intimacy we are still swimming in. We left breastfeeding behind almost four months ago, and I'm still amazed at how quickly "our" community property boobs became mine again. In less than a month I became uncomfortable letting her nurse the few sporadic times she would ask for it. It ain't no thang but a chicken wang for me to clear her own feces out of all her crevices, but pretty soon that will be as odd as it is when she asks me if she can help me wipe.

Time is joyfully marching on. Anonybabe learns new and exciting skills every day. Her circle of experience and independence is ever widening. And I'm happy for her. But I'm a little sad to leave some of her baby closeness behind.

I feel like I need a little grieving ceremony each time this happens. Something to help me let go so I can look forward to the next big phase we pass through.

Set up Camp

Anonybabe and I spent Mother's Day doing a 4 hour drive home from Indiana.

We'd "camped" Friday and Saturday nights with friends (read: one night of sleeping in a tent and then waking up and realizing what the fuck are we doing in the mud and cold in Indiana in May, and one night of sweet slumber in the Fort Wayne Holiday Inn). We did this without Anonyhub, as he had to work. Plus he hates camping. I've taken Anonybabe on one camping trip per spring/summer since she was in utero. At two years old, this last trip marked her third where the wind, sun, and rain actually tickled her skin. I'm not a big camper; I'm definitely not an extreme camper, but I love lounging outside for extended periods of time. I love making a fire and then orbiting around it for the next couple of days. I love the cycles of tent staking, firewood gathering, food prepping, drinking and sitting.

And I love the connection I get with Anonybabe. Every time we've gone I get a warm mother/daughter glowy feeling. I don't know if she enjoys camping too, or the extra attention, or she's just basking in the glow of my good mood.

This year the lovefest was a marked departure from the way I've been feeling about her lately. I've been feeling alienated from her. Like something's wrong with her or me. Like we'll always be strangers. I went into the camping trip feeling lonely and panicked about her mental health and my own, about our relationship, her education, her social skills, my parenting, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I don't know what shifted while we were slogging through the Indiana mud, or how long it's going to last, but for the past couple of days I feel like I've been able to accept her more for who she is. I worry that she's weird, that she's eccentric. She is. And right now that's delightful. God give me the grace to think that as much as possible during her lifetime. I really, really want to take pleasure in who she is. Even and especially if she's a crazy bee-yatch. And I really, really want to be myself around her. Messy and chaotic and inspired. Moody and lethargic and manic. I didn't realize how much I was putting on the sanitary mommy act around Anonybabe until I got to drop it for a few days. And that it may have more than a little bit to do with why I've been feeling so distant and blue.

Nothin' but a self-induced heartache

I...don't know what to say. Tonight I want to grieve over a lost vision of my relationship with Anonybabe.

Between work and some househunting and writing assignments and a period that seems to have come back with a hormonal vengeance, I've been tetchy and short-tempered and distant with her. It's been hard to connect with her and I hoped that was a passing phase. She's also been driving me crazy; I don't always enjoy being around her. That has me worried and sad. It's ridiculous to expect to be on the same page as your kid forever, but more and more often I feel like I don't get her. And Instead of the warm, fuzzy idealistic future I've been envisioning, I see a darker, more isolated scenario. One in which I rarely understand where my daughter is coming from. One in which I don't even really want to be around her, and vice versa.

Here's what it boils down to: I think she's weird. The way she's always blabbering on drives me crazy. She catalogues everything that's happening, over and over. All 2 year olds are a little OCD but this...and her intonation is so peculiar. A friend said Anonybabe is like a living, breathing Dick and Jane book, but with a crazy lilt at the end of each word.

I worry there's something wrong, the kind of something wrong that'll keep us from being close. Even if it is only because Anonybabe is a garden variety eccentric.

How many mothers go through this? I suspect a lot, but it is unimaginable that the world can contain that much heartache.

****************************************
Later: Okay, I realize the asshattery involved in worrying so over a functioning, eating, sleeping, talking, and laughing 2 year old. What can I say? Old asshattery dies hard. No matter what her personality, her needs, her challenges, I have to learn the same lesson: enjoy her as she is, Anonyhub for Anonyhub, me for me no matter what. And guess what? It don't come natural. Sorry.