Toddlers Who Talk and a Mama Who Sings

I was singing to Anonybabe at bedtime last night, looking for new tunes to try on her, and pulled out "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.

"Oh, I like this song," said Anonybabe. "This song makes me happy!"

She let me sing a couple more lines, until I got to the part about snowflakes staying on my nose and eyelashes.

"I have eyelashes!" exclaimed Anonybabe, fingering them. "And I have have eyes!"

And then, as chipper as a Barney character, "And I have a nose....with boogers in them!"

Feathered, friend

Anonybabe had her Halloween hoo-ha at daycare today.

She dressed as a chicken.

Here she is with her class, parading down the street to show off their sweet duds.

Halloween rocks.

No, thank you

Anonybabe has learned to say "Yes, please," and "No, thanks," without being prompted.

I'm proud of her, of course I am, and I'm freaking proud of us parents. Do you know how dogged you have to be to insist a 2 year old say that? (We have not been so dogged about other things that would probably serve her better, like combing her hair, but I won't digress on that just now.)

I think she finally figured out that if she's polite, she'll have us wrapped around her little finger. So true. Not to put too dark a spin on it, polite speech is about the most powerful form of manipulation there is. Flattery will get you everywhere and manners are a form of flattery. In a way, you're saying "I value you enough to jump through this arbitrary speech hoop just to show you that I'll go to the trouble to please you." It's a weird, often heartless display of deference. In theory, I don't think the words "please" and "thank you" are as important as empathy, and honesty, and affection. But I needed to hear Anonybabe using those words to me. I couldn't wait for her to be indoctrinated into polite-speak, even though Anonyhub and I agreed that there was nothing so bullying and disheartening as hearing a kid give a rote "thank you" after being prompted by their parent.

Don't get me wrong, I think manners are important. It is important to value other people in everyday conversation, to make them feel appreciated and nice. But polite speech has a way of putting up walls sometimes, a way of keeping us from being forthright.

So now that our little Eliza Doolittle knows the verbal ropes, I should turn my attention to teaching the empathy/honesty/affection stuff I now wish I'd focused on making the behavioral baseline. I hope we haven't shot ourselves in the foot by making it abundantly clear that she should say what we want to hear, and not what she thinks/feels.

Momlicious

Thanks to BUST Magazine, I found this blog devoted to pictures of moms looking their snazzy best.

Got a picture of your mom that you love, love, love her look in? Send it to these folks:

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Dia De Los Muertos

Just loved this post from my friend's newsletter and wanted to pass it on. It got me all excited about coming up with ways to remember my paternal grandmother and maternal great-grandmother to Anonybabe. They were both generally unhappy, crusty, saucy wenches, and I love them both.

xo, Jewel & Martha.

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Boy oh boy, this is our favorite time of year! The Day of the Dead, or Dia De Los Muertos, is a time to remember our Loved Ones who have passed. Celebrated between October 31st and November 2nd, this festival is quite the party for both sides of the Veil! Departed loved ones know this as the time of year when they can very easily revisit and check in on the family they still have here on Earth. Visiting new family members, sharing stories that celebrate life, reminiscing those who've passed, and enjoying favorite foods of the Muertos are some sacred traditions of this culture. Of course, our culture has Americanized this day of celebration which we fondly refer to as Halloween, on October 31st.

We will be honoring our ancestors and thanking them for their gifts and contributions which help us be here today. My grandmother Lois passed when she was just 42 leaving behind her husband and 4 young children. The toll this took on my family was immense, but the strength and love it took for the family stay together is her greatest legacy. She loved peonies, so we will have some around the house to honor her.

This celebration is one we find of great value to every family. Even if this is not a part of your cultural tradition, make it part of your family's story. Share tales of loved ones, make Aunt Toad's famous caramels to keep her memory alive, pull out photos and heirlooms and share the lives of those who loved us.

Even taking a moment during this celebration to remember a dearly departed will let her or him know -- energetically -- they are gone but never forgotten.

Happiness is...

...listening to the Beatles' Revolver with your toddler while you eat your dinner together, watching her bop to it in her seat and hearing her interjections:

"They are singing about sweeping!"

"Hmm, hmm, hmmm, hmmm, goooood day suuuun shine!"

"Dos guys say dey are wivving in a yellow submarine!"


Just try not to let it get you down when she banishes you from the bedroom at lights out. "Mom, I want you to LEAVE now."

Bob, bob, bobbing along

Anonybabe can swim, y'all! I mean, she doggy paddles with a YMCA floaty snapped around her tummy, but whatever. She wiggles free from me in the pool and can make her way from one side to the other, squealing with glee, and doing that odd jerky erect neck posture that people who are trying to keep their heads well above the water use. I can't believe it.

It's odd, Anonybabe is the most cautious toddler you'll ever meet. She waited until 18 months to start walking, and then would put her hands down to balance herself if she so much as crossed a doorjamb. She pauses for every crack in the sidewalk. She asked to be picked up and carried at every stairway. So it was shocking to take her into a swimming pool for the first time and have her struggle to swim alone. She would kick and squirm and flail every appendage in an attempt at freedom. She was going for it. She was annoyed by my hands under her pits, my knee placed under her feet so she'd have a place to stand. Last time we went to the pool I tried letting go. Lo and behold, she didn't much need me around. I still hovered, of freaking course, but didn't really touch.

I suppose this shores up the theory that Anonybabe has some undeveloped muscles somewhere that make it hard for her to run, jump, play, climb...on dry land. She has no such hang-ups in the water. Perhaps this lets her be her uninhibited self a little bit.

Funny, I do like being in water, but didn't get around to it much at all in my adult life. But when I was pregnant with Anonybabe, and especially towards the end of the pregnancy, I was in the pool as much as possible. I had a little parasite inside willing me to go, to get a sweet release from gravity, to employ a wet pillow to muffle the noises of the world, to snatch those breath-long segments of isolation.

It was beautiful, and a little sad, to see her gathering these things for herself.

Pretty Terrific

Well, Anonybabe finally had her first session of physical therapy. A woman named Sam came to our house this morning (while I was away at work), with her therapeutic balls and her clipboard. Anonyhub confirmed my take on her from our phone conversations: late middle-aged, more business than pleasure, a little bland and just-the-facts, but she does have a lot of helpful facts that she readily dispenses. Anonyhub says Anonybabe quickly warmed to her, chattering and zipping around, but that Anonybabe wasn't terribly cooperative about doing things she wasn't interested in doing.

"I am done," Anonybabe would announce, after Sam would ask her to, say, sit on top of a large exercise ball. "I am going to my vewy own room to pway doll house." And she would. Sam would roll with it, coming up with games they could play in her room, suggesting little games to Anonyhub that he could play with her to build up certain muscles, checking out Anonybabe's shoes and feet.

Anonyhub got to talk to her about our concerns, and the fact that they were minimal. He got to talk to her about Anonybabe's daycare, and how they seemed more worried about Anonybabe's development than we were.

"I can talk to them for you," said Sam. "I can let them know let them know what she's capable of when she's in a comfortable setting, and what they can do to encourage her rather than discourage her." If I'd been there, I would have kissed her on the spot. I'm a little embarrassed that it takes a third party go-between to tell my child's teacher that I don't think she's seeing my child's abilities or needs clearly. But since I'm still learning to trust myself and be Anonybabe's advocate, I won't turn down any support along the way.

Yute

Things are changing so quickly. Anonybabe is rapidly losing her babyishness. It's falling away from her like dandelion fluff: one minute it's there in abundance, the next, gone forever. I'm on the cusp of losing my baby.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I'm starting to resent the aging process. Starting to get a little panicky about it. I'm 34, which is a pretty fabulous age to be. But for the past few weeks I feel that any year, any month, any minute now, I'm going to start losing it sexually, physically, mentally. Am I really never going to have sex with another person again? Are those wrinkles around my eyes really going to settle in? Am I really going to continue getting hairier, fatter? Did I just let my youth pass me by?

I just heard a John Updike story where the aging main character had lost his fight. He'd lost all sense of import, of drama. He was watching life, detached. (Of course he was remembering the days when he was about my age as the ones where he was full of spit and vinegar). The story depressed me.

I know I've many years before I really lose all my youth, but certain things have been retrieving that future day and laying it at my feet for me to take a nice long look at. And instead of seeing all of the great things that come with age - stability, wisdom, confidence - all I can see are the things I'll lose forever.

The nightmare fantasy feels real, and ugly.

Sweep Stakes

No nap time has changed everything.

One of the major headaches at Anonybabe's daycare has been their insistence on nap time. Completely reasonable to expect all 2 year olds to take afternoon naps, right? But we'd phased naps out at home months before Anonybabe started daycare, in the hopes she'd go to bed at a decent hour. When we were told the children at the daycare took afternoon naps, we shrugged and said, "OK" to them, figuring Anonybabe wouldn't take a shine to it, but it couldn't hurt.

Well, it didn't hurt her, but it was certainly a pain in the butt for everyone else: Anonybabe would babble loudly while the other children were trying to fall asleep, then drop off just as they were waking up. Since the daycare provider would let the kids sleep until they woke up, Anonybabe would snooze for hours, until we came to pick her up, and then wouldn't go to sleep until past midnight. It was awful. I couldn't imagine that the daycare provider would let Anonybabe skip nap time altogether, but I asked them not to let her sleep too long, then told her insipidly that I didn't mind if Anonybabe didn't sleep. That didn't seem to translate.

Finally, recently, Anonyhub told the owner point blank that nap time was detonating our schedule, and that Anonybabe just couldn't take afternoon naps or we'd have to go somewhere else. I think/hope this was presented as the facts, not a threat. In any case, the owner told us that they'd be happy to bypass nap time, they wanted to be flexible.

Lo and behold, everything has seemed to magically change for the better now that nap time is done. When Anonyhub or I pick Anonybabe up in the afternoons her face isn't stained with dried tear tracks and snot. She gives us a big hug and then insists on staying longer to play. In the morning when we tell her it's a daycare day, she smiles rather than pouts. When we get home from daycare, she eats dinner, she plays with us, she goes dutifully to bed and falls asleep around 8:30-9pm. Then she wakes up on her own, ready to eat breakfast, get dressed, and start a new day. No more prying her, protesting, out of her bed in the morning and at the last minute because she went to bed so late the night before.

And here's the kicker: part of why my feelings were so hurt when the daycare suggested physical therapy for Anonybabe was that it seemed like a another in a long list of suggestions on how to help make our daughter better. I thought her teachers were getting all of Anonybabe's effervescent energy and then choosing to ignore it and focus on the things she wasn't doing. At the same time we were getting alarming reports that sometimes make me think the teachers at the school don't know Anonybabe at all. (Ex: "She finally learned the words to the blessing song yesterday!" ?? She's been singing it non-stop at home for a month. "We learned a letter yesterday!" Anonybabe knew her letters before she started school there, etc, etc).

Now that nap time is over, instead of getting alarming reports that make me think the teachers don't know my daughter at all, I've been getting reports that sound more like our little girl. Igor - Igor who has driven me crazy with her brusqueness - has been spending one-on-one time with Anonybabe while the other children nap and now tells me all the little stories I've been expecting to hear at pick up time all along. "She makes up a story with the crayons at the table" says Igor, and bounces her finger around as if it were the yellow baby crayon, the blue daddy crayon, the red mama crayon. She tells me how smart Anonybabe is. How funny. Igor's eyes have started to light up when Anonybabe comes in in the mornings. These are the good reports that have started to trickle in with the carefully worded bad ones.

They tell me that Anonybabe is engaging and animated while all the children are asleep, and then as soon as they wake up, she becomes silent again. That's a little heartbreaking, but not as heartbreaking as knowing that she was a silent little zombie all the time for six months, that the daycare providers weren't seeing her be herself at all. Ever. Turns out Anonybabe wasn't giving them anything positive to ignore. She'd just been sitting in a corner and watching everyone else dance and play around her. That's unsettling in and of itself, and a major breakdown in communication on our part and the teacher's. But who knew the way to untie the Gordian knot of miscommunication was to take away Anonybabe's nap time?

I'm humbled knowing that this thing I never would have asked for on my own - the abolition of nap time for just my little girl - has made things infinitely better.

Bits and pieces

Although I can never seem to remember them when I sit down to tell someone about it, Anonybabe has taken to saying pretty cute things on a regular basis. Mostly it's just funny to hear our adult phrases and intonations recycled by the munchkin.

Lately, and Anonyhub and I have no idea where this came from, she has taken to murmuring, "I'm the prettiest baby you have ever, ever seen."

Brush it Off

Had a terrible/fascinating run in with Anonybabe the other night.

I was short on patience at bed time and took it badly when Anonybabe wouldn't let me brush her teeth. She insisted that she'd done it herself (she had) and that she was done. I let her know through gritted teeth why she needed to let me brush them as well, gave her a warning, then held her down on my lap and pinched her nose to force her mouth open so I could brush them.

She was incensed, wailing, humiliated, ego badly bruised. Next I tried to get her to pick up her toys, but she flopped down on her floor cushion, baldly refusing.

"No! You pick them up!" she countered. "I'm the Mama and you're the Anonybabe"

Since we were obviously not getting anywhere by my baldly telling her what to do, I played along.

"Wahahaha!" I cried and stomped my feet. "I don't want to pick up!" Anonybabe grinned slyly.

"Well, you just have to," she said. I cried some more and then succumbed. She told me I had to pick up and then go to sleep in our mud room. She was going to sleep in my writing chair and I was to sleep on the floor. I cried and protested some more, she giggled and insisted, and then informed me that she was going to go sleep in the big bed because she was a big mama. I finally followed her into my bedroom, turned out the light, and let her babble herself to sleep in my bed. I figured it was a small price to pay to let her recover her dignity.

Immaculate Feces!

I am newly aware of the number of times per day I say "Holy Crap!" thanks to Anonybabe.

She was standing on my lap the other day, and about to fall. "Ho-wee Cwap!" she crowed. I, of course, laughed and laughed.

It was through another friend's toddler that I learned how often I use the banal "interesting". A lot a lot.

I do wish I had some more poetic turns of phrase for these little copycats to parrot back.

Uh oh, it's magic

Hello, my little Beatle Baileys. How's shakes?

I'm writing to you with the beginnings of a cold. I wish I were nursing some garlic lemonade right now. Home remedy that is freakishly good: steep a couple of cloves of minced garlic in a quart of hot water for 30 minutes to an hour, then add the juice of a couple of lemons and honey to taste. Added bonus: people will smell you coming. I hate taking cold medicine; I have a hard time trusting anything that came from the pharmaceutical industrial complex. There may be a large sticking-it-to-the-man placebo effect going on with this remedy, but I'll take whatever relief I can get. Lemon and honey and garlic are all good for the immune system, so why not?

And I'm writing at the tail end of a short visit from my dad and his wife. I do not have great love for my dad. Maybe I should rephrase, because I can't help loving him even though it drives me crazy to do so. I have zilch respect for him; he's let me down time and time again. I think he's cowardly and selfish and childish. And right when my anger towards him starts simmering over, I realize all the ways that we're alike. There are so many character traits that we share. Hating him is like hating myself, and that gets confusing. This visit is giving me a chance to pick through the twin landmines of a) keeping my boundaries firm around him, and b) being gentle with myself when he does things or I do things that drive me crazy.

Also, had a nice little moment with Anonybabe that I want to turn over in my brain a few times. Anonyhub and I took her to an art walk in our old neighborhood yesterday. Anonyhub had an old college buddy showing his work and I wanted to go too. It was no place for a toddler - people opened up their studios in a big warehouse and you could wander from space to space. There were jewelry artists who had their welding equipment within easy reach, tile makers whose fragile work was hanging within smashing distance. So I ended up holding Anonybabe for a long time while we walked through, probably close to an hour. She loved it. She happily warbled away, played with my necklace, asked me questions. And this feeling awakened in me that I haven't really felt since she was a little baby. I used to get it when we would take weekend trips together, and she would sit in my lap for hours while we flew to friends and family. It was the result of being physically close for a long time, and giving Anonybabe face-to-face attention. It works when we take long trips on public transportation too. What should be a nightmare ends up being kind of magical. I don't get it, but I'm going to respect it, try to work it in.