School Daze

The Hatchling is starting preschool next week; this week she visited her class and met her teacher on Tuesday, and today there was a 1-hour "practice" session so the kids could get used to getting dropped off and the whole class routine. There were lots of nervous/excited parents and a couple of freaked out kids, but mostly it was a festival of cute. The Hatchling was very excited to get there and seemed OK when I left; I took the Sprout on a little grocery trip, and then headed back to the school to pick the Hatchling up. Got there and the classroom doors were still closed, lots of parents milling about in the halls. The doors open, and the teacher (Miss Jenny) comes out and says, "normally we'll just send them out to you, but they're pretty overwhelmed today, so if you want to come in and get them, you can." There's a surge of anxious kids out the door looking for their parental units ... No Hatchling. The Sprout and I make our way into the class, and way over in the corner farthest from the door sits the Hatchling and a little boy in earnest conversation.

"Hi, Boo!" I say. "Whatcha doing?"

"Um, I'm just talkin' about dinosaurs wif my friend, Mama."

Well, OK then. After showing me the entire classroom and reluctantly agreeing to leave the dinosaurs and the magnifying glasses and the toy trucks at school, the Hatchling was persuaded to leave the room. On our way out, I asked Miss Jenny how the Hatchling had done. Miss Jenny rolled her eyes and laughed. "Oh, she's going to be FINE. Totally made herself at home."

That's my girl.

Funny. Gross, but Funny.

So the Hatchling is, for all intents and purposes, potty trained. Which: THANK GOD, because if I'd had to keep her home from preschool for still being in diapers, we both would have lost it. But I must say, it's engendered some interesting conversations. For one thing, poop is now, like, the funniest word/concept/joke EVAR. Asked what her baby doll's name was this morning, she responded "Poo-poo!" and laughed like a maniac. Oh, the hilarity.

And then there was this gem: she'd gone #2 in the downstairs porta-potty, so after we wiped and pulled up her underwear, I went to grab the potty so I could go upstairs and empty it in the toilet. The Hatchling, however, was not having any of it. SHE would carry the poop. Only SHE could do it. So, okay, we go to the stairs and I have several heart attacks as she precariously makes her way up, but she does it, and then she goes over to the toilet, dumps the poop in, leans over, looks down, and says, "THERE! Now you can swim!"

I don't even want to KNOW the mental process, y'all. I don't even want to know.

Survivor: 2nd Birthday edition

This past Sunday, we celebrated the Hatchling's birthday with several of her friends. And by several, I mean we had nine - NINE - children between 1-3 at our house, along with twenty-some parent/adult types. That's a lot of people, yo. But it was all good - the kids were remarkably well-behaved (no meltdowns!), we had enough food (and beer!) for everyone, we got to see all of our favorite people at the same time, and the Hatchling got - well, to say she got the mother lode would be an understatement. She also hit pay dirt, won the lottery, and found gold in them thar hills. We partied like it was 1999, and then we all went to bed early. An auspicious start to the twos, indeed.

Maturations

The Hatchling is now officially word-crazy, having added such words and phrases as "Go, Car, Go!" (a favorite book), "feet" (sounds like 'phweet!'), shoe, nose, Oma, down, outside, all done and cookie to her ever-burgeoning vocabulary. Two cute things about that: one, she's developed a pattern of asking what a thing is, and then once you tell her, she waves at it and says "hi." It goes like this:

Hatchling: 'Sat? 'sat? 'sat? (what's that?)
Squab: That's your baby-doll.
Hatchling (face lighting up): Hiiiiiiii, beee! ("Bee" is how she says "baby.")

Two, she's lately started calling Mr. Squab "D." She's perfectly capable of saying "Daddy" - it's one of her few two syllable words - but apparently she's now too hip and cool for that. So when Mr. Squab gets home, she's all, "Hiiiiiii, D! Hiiiiiii, D! Hiiiiiii, D!" Which is, you know. Pretty cute.

But. Proud as we are of her increasing linguistic abilities, she's recently manifested a skill that eclipses even speech in her father's eyes. To wit: yesterday, her cousin, E, was spending the day with her and my mom. E, like Mr. Squab, likey the video games, and usually when he comes over he spends a good chunk of time on the Wii or the PS3. In the afternoon he took a break for lunch or something and after a while he and Oma heard odd noises from the TV in the living room. The TV itself was off, but the Hatchling had gotten hold of the PS3 controller, turned on the game system, and - blind - started "playing" a race-car game that Mr. Squab recently downloaded. "When we turned the TV on, she was on level 4," reported E. "I haven't even hit level 4 yet!"

I admit that I'm not quite sure whether to be impressed or slightly horrified by this, but Mr. Squab has no such dilemma. "That's my girl," he responded when we came home last evening from ECFE and the Hatchling plopped herself down in her toddler-sized chair, demanded the controller, and turned on the PS3 again.

"That's my girl."

One for the grandparents

Apparently I did something wrong in a previous life, because we are still cold-ridden (though sleeping better, thank goddess), I think I'm coming down with something, and I have developed a gross, ugly sty in my right eye. WTF, karma?

So in lieu of a more substantive post, here's a clip of the Hatchling showing off some of her new vocabulary. I should note that this was filmed completely "blind," as the Hatchling will only let you tape her if she can watch the video monitor the whole time. So that's why there are some focus problems. But it's still pretty cute.

Semantic Tally

The Hatchling must've recently cleared some developmental hurdle, because for the last 3-4 days she's been coming out with at least one new word per day. Also she's reverted back to the sunny, happy, chatty baby we'd come to know and love, which is a nice change from the Cranktastic Wonder of the last month or so. Anyway, I know this is kind of boring as a post, but one of the reasons for this blog is keeping track of baby milestones, so here's a list of what the Hatchling can say as of today:

Mama, Dada, Wawa (Laura, her aunt), Fi (Fiona, her best friend - new today!) kitty, yeah, no, OK, car, go, slide, cereal, bottle, ball, baby, please, cookie, bye, night-night, hi, wow/wowie, peas, stop, beep-beep

She can also make animal noises for: kitty ("mao! mao!"), cow ("mmMMMMMoo"), snake ("ssss"), angry sheep ("BAAAAAAAH"), and, with prompting, a bear ("grr-grrr")

So: she finally has more words than she is months old. WHOO!

Quick Take

OK, it's the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, yo, and we're hosting this year, so there is NO TIME for blogging, but I had to drop in and post this, because: PIGTAILS!

Three-quarter view:


Rear view:

You have noooooo idea how long I've waited for the Hatchling to have enough hair for pigtails. Well, ok, actually, you do. THIS long.

Too good not to share

We think the Hatchling may, finally, be hitting her verbal stage. For the longest time she's had the same few words (kitty, hi, no, dada, ok, yeah) and relied on her (surprisingly effective) baby babble for everthing else. But then on Sunday she spontaneously came out with two very clear new words, each with an attendant gesture. The first one is "Bye" which she says while waving. Only she says it more like "BY-eeee," all long and drawn out and hilarious. All Sunday morning she was telling us "bye" and walking out of the room, only to come back in with a grin and do it all over again.

The second word she added to her vocab was "tickle," which she does, not surprisingly, while tickling you. She started this out of the blue while we were out with her best friend Fi, and at first we thought it was just an anomaly, but no - first she tickled Fi and then she tickled the rest of us. She goes "ticka-ticka-ticka" while she scrunches her fingers on you and looks mischievous. It's pretty awesome, I tell you what.

So anyway, on Sunday night, Mr. Squab is putting the Hatchling to bed, as per usual, and over the monitor I hear the usual sounds, followed by a second of baby-wailing, followed by a good two minutes of mega-giggles. The giggles subsided and Mr. Squab came downstairs. "Man," he said, "I just had a total Daddy meltdown up there."

"What happened?" I asked.

Turns out, after Mr. Squab had finished rocking the Hatchling and was going to put her in her crib, she started pitching a fit, and locked her arms around his neck like her crib was a bed of red hot coals or something. This is unusual, so Mr. Squab pulled her back out and asked her if she wanted to rock some more. She said yeah and he sat back down with her, her arms still around his neck and her head nestled in in his shoulder. For a few moments they just rocked in silence, enjoying the snuggle time. Then Mr. Squab felt the Hatchling's hand move up towards his neck. "Ticka-ticka-ticka," she whispered, and then giggled. Mr. Squab happens to actually be ticklish on his neck, so he started giggling, too, which of course made her "ticka" him some more. After a minute or two, Mr. Squab asked the Hatchling if she was ready to go to bed now. "OK," she said, so he laid her in her crib and she went down without a peep.

"Wow. That's the good stuff," I told him.

"Yeah," he said. "It doesn't get any better than that."

Two Small Things

First: I totally love you guys for being so supportive as I put up post after post bitching about my progress. You have no idea how much it helps.

Second: (Drumroll please ...)

I.

AM.

DONE.


Okay, I'm not really *completely* done: my conclusion is all of about 5 pages now, so that will need massive expansion, and I have a ton of revisions to do on every chapter. But I'm officially done with a solid draft of THE ENTIRE THING. Jesus fucking CHRIST it took me a long time to get here. It would be embarrassing if I weren't so damn happy to be at this point.

Right. I'm going home, where I will get Mr. Squab to make me a strong beverage of the alcoholic type. Later, bitchez.

Foolish Parental Bragging Post

As a rule, I try to avoid posts along the lines of "my kid is such a GENIUS" because, a) they're flipping annoying, and b) they're oh so rarely true. I adore the Hatchling, but her talents and skills, precious though they are to my eyes, are really about the same as any other toddler her age. This I know. This is good.

Now having said that, OMG I have to tell you what she just did this morning. She's wandering around the living room, checking out her favorite spots and toys, and she comes over for a brief snuggle. I notice that her diaper is sagging off her butt in a manner that indicates it's reached its capacity for fluid absorption. I give the Hatchling a squeeze and say, "Should we change your diaper, honey? It looks like it's about time." And before I can make any moves in that direction, the Hatchling matter-of-factly toddles over to the coffee table, pulls out the basket where we keep her changing supplies, reaches in for the changing pad, and hands it to me.

FOURTEEN MONTHS OLD, YO.

Ooooooh, what a smart baby.

A Whole New World

So I mentioned that I have a "nanny" this week, meaning that for the first time I'm spending entire days away from the Hatchling. But did I also mention that we're having our roof re-shingled this week? Cos we are. It was loooooong overdue - we knew when we bought the place a year ago that it would need re-roofing PDQ - but the coincidence of the roofing happening at the same time as the mamala being away had made me somewhat fearful about the Hatchling's naps this week. I mean, not only would she be put down and got up by a completely different (if beloved) person, but also: the POUNDING. And the walking on the roof. And the pneumatic nail gun. And did I mention the POUNDING? The fact that when I asked the contractor what the loudest part would be he looked at me like I was speaking Esperanto and said "it's all loud, ma'am; maybe you should have the baby sleep downstairs" did nothing to restore my confidence.

I had nothing to worry about, of course. The Hatchling, who in the past has been known to wake up if I sneeze two floors down and three rooms over from her*, has slept like ... well, like a baby! through all of the roofing madness. Thumps and bangs that make me jump - and I'm awake, mind you - she has snoozed through with great aplomb. Not only that, but the other night we misplaced the phone handset and hit the pager button twice and called it from our mobile phones three times before realizing that it had been left in the nursery. The pager beeping is LOUD, peeps, and we have the ringer set fairly high. But the baby, she no hear nothing. It's pretty awesome, I tell you what. Sniff. Our little light sleeper is growing up!

*Admittedly, my sneezes are legendarily loud. But still.

Milestones?

I'm not what you would call a hugely competitive person; I don't like being the last person chosen for the team, but I don't have to be the first person, either. Somewhere in the upper 25% is usually OK with me.

So it's been a bit of a surprise to me how crochety I can get when I feel like the Hatchling isn't hitting her milestones when she's "supposed" to. It's sooooooooo dumb, right? I mean, a) the range of when you're "supposed" to hit milestones is so wide as to be near meaningless, and b) you only have to be in the Hatchling's presence for about a nanosecond to know that she's completely fine, developmentally speaking. But it doesn't matter. I just take one look at a BabyCenter.com chart on 12-month old skills and I'm off into paranoid-mommyland. 12-month-olds are supposed to have two or three words?!?! Crap! The Hatchling talks all the time, but is any of that words? Sometimes she says mama or dada, but it rarely seems to be directed at me or Mr. Squab ... She's started saying "hi" in a way that occasionally makes sense - does that count? WHO CARES? God knows I shouldn't, but I occasionally have to get someone else to talk me down and remind me that in ten years I'll have a happy 11-year-old daughter with a full head of hair, a full vocabulary, and actual underpants. Oy.

Having said all that, I must report that we hit a definite, for-real milestone this weekend: the Hatchline took her first official unassisted steps. Like six of them, from her aunt to her daddy. Of course, she's resolutely declined to repeat the episode since then, but we all witnessed it: she can do it if she wants to. Suck on THAT, BabyCenter.com.

That Than Which There Can be Nothing Cuter

Unlike some other prodigy babies, the Hatchling didn't figure out how to clap until last Friday, when she somehow learned it literally overnight. Thursday, nothing doing; Friday morning, I got her up and brought her into bed with us and when Mr. Squab got up to get dressed, she started clapping and laughing like she'd been doing it her whole life. Now she does it every morning, and I'll tell you: if you've got to get up at what I once considered the ungodly hour of 7:00 am, there's no better way to do it than with a small person who is so delighted to see you, so delighted to start the day in your company, that she just can't help but clap and laugh out loud.

Another Parenting Milestone

Today's achievement: Projectile vomiting. Oh, yeah. Started at 1 in the afternoon. Continued until we put her to bed at 6:30, since which time she's been waking up about every 1/2 hour and moaning piteously. Is there anything more heartbreaking than a baby who is so tired she can't even hold her head up, but feels so yucky and gross that she just can't sleep? And there's nothing you can do about it except nurse her and rock her and even that doesn't help? And Mr. Squab gets so wound up and anxious about it that he can't even eat his dinner?

No. No, there is not. It's gonna be a long night.

Milestones I'd be totally OK not reaching

The Hatchling is going a little berserk with the tooth eruptions. Not only did she pop her top two teeth just before Christmas, she now also showing the tip-top of one of her bottom canines. This morning, in a bout of nursing related peevishness, she bit me (not the first time by any means) and drew blood (the first time for that, god help me).

Perhaps we'll be weaning a little earlier than I had previously planned. Oy.

Oof.

OK. So since I last posted, I've been whiling away the Thanksgiving holiday, sleeping in, reading novels, stuffing myself on leftovers, and - oh yes! - finishing up the last of my Christmas shopping. No time for blogging! Too much fun!

Yeah, that's a good one. What actually happened is that I woke up Thanksgiving morning with a raging cold, which at 12:30 am Thursday night morphed into virulent stomach flu. The purging from various bodily orifices lasted all that night and into the morning; the rest of the weekend was spent either lying in bed, whimpering, or on the sofa, taking baby sips of gatorade. On the one hand, it's a blessing that this happened while Mr. Squab was home anyway, so he could watch the Hatchling non-stop while I recovered. On the other hand, WTF? This was supposed to be a fucking fun family weekend! Rip. Off.

But whatever, at least it's over now except for the mucous-that-never-dies which has taken up permanent residence in my respiratory system. What I REALLY wanted to say was: Today, for the very first time, the Hatchling fed herself an entire bottle, all by herself. She grabbed hold, sucked it down, and then handed it to me as if to say, no biggie, mom, ready for my nap!

So, you know. At least one of us has been making progress.

Stats

The Hatchling's 6-month checkup was this afternoon, and it appears that we've given birth to a small sumo wrestler.

Head circumference: 43.5 cm (90th percentile)

Weight: 18 lbs, 6 oz (90th percentile)

Height: 28 inches (97th percentile)

OK, make that a small WNBA player. Either way, we look forward to living on the endorsement royalties in our golden years.

It all balances out in the end

How to Charm Me:
Sleep for 11.5 hours straight through the night. Oh, sweet sleep. Oh, good baby.

How to Irritate the Crap Out of Me:
Sleep an unprecedented 11.5 hours straight through the night, causing me to waken numerous times in absolute certainty that you had died in your sleep and we'd never get to try on all those cute toddler outfits we got, not to mention that I leaked QUARTS of breastmilk all over my pajamas, my side of the bed, and the cat. Oh, engorged boobs. Oh, painful ta-tas.

Teeth!

We have teeth, people. Well, specifically, the Hatchling has teeth. Two of them. In her typical overachiever fashion, she decided to cut both of her center bottom teeth at the same time. Now that they're out, she is much more talkative, and is spending a lot of time making very funny faces as she feels her teeth with her tongue, apparently trying to push them out of her mouth, because what the hell are these sharp objects doing attached to her lower gums? We'll post some pictures as soon as she lets us take one. TEEEEEEEEETH!

Solid. Solid as a Rock.

Or at least a rice grain. Yes, after several comically failed attempts, the Hatchling is eating solids. Our pediatrician had suggested that we start her on fruits or vegetables rather than rice cereal, which sounded kind of bizarre to me. But we gamely tried it, and you should have SEEN the faces she made. Not a fan. We switched to rice cereal, and she was all like, hells, yeah! She totally got the hang of opening her mouth as the spoon approached, and had soon developed what I can only call a Michael Jordan approach to eating:

Her mouth would open, and the tongue would come out, too, just to make sure she got every last bit. Of course, fingers make the perfect post dinner snack.

Today, rice cereal; tomorrow: the WORLD!