Time to go home pregnant.

Do you people HAVE to talk about this stuff? The smell of reheated fish is bad enough, now you're talking about cooking eggs in the microwave at work and eating chili with pickles?

The good stuff

We put Chloë to bed together these days--it takes two of us to brush her teeth, and that's the last step before bed. Last night I carried her from the bathroom into the bedroom while Eric turned on her ladybug planetarium nightlight and put her stuffed puppy back in her crib (she likes to throw things out of her crib if we're not quick enough to get her after naps).

"Good night," I told her, and hugged her. She hugged me back and gave me a kiss, and then leaned over to kiss her daddy, too.

He held his arms out, and she went to him for a hug and a last snuggle before he set her down and turned on her aquarium and I spread her blanket over her. She is the sweetest girl in the world.

Breathless

First, Chloë sends a shout-out to her new cousin Aubrey, born yesterday. Welcome, Aubrey! You may have been born even bigger than Chloë at birth, but you've still got a lot of growing to do to catch up, so get to it!

Second, Chloë's potential new sibling is still smaller than a thumb but already causing trouble. I spent most of yesterday either sitting down or lying down, panting. This out-of-breath-ness is a new thing; it didn't happen when I was pregnant with Chloë. Of course I wasn't toting around or chasing down a toddler when I was pregnant with Chloë, either (except for a couple of times we were with our nieces and nephew Addie, Cindy, and Steve Jr.). For some reason yesterday was especially bad; I had to lie down after my shower, wasn't up for taking Chloe outside, couldn't stand terribly long. It's a good thing Chloë has started wanting to be changed on the floor rather than the changing table.

In the meantime, she's really taken to "up." I'm wondering if she's generalized it from "pick me up" to "Mom, do something for me." It's seemed like it a couple of times. We'll have to pick a new word to work on. "Drink" would be a good one. She mainly indicates she's thirsty by pulling up my shirt. I don't think she's serious about nursing half the time; that's just the only time I know to ask "Do you want something to drink?" And "drink" starts with D, which means she's halfway there already. Eric is still trying, with more hope than success, to get her to say "Mama." She persists in calling me Dada, just like him. We're wondering if she figures "Dada" just means "parent." I mean, as well as "book" and "tree" and "outside" and "deoxyribonucleic acid" and such.

Warm and cozy, if restrained

Lately I've been more aware of whenever Chloë wakes up in the night. Generally this means I stumble out of bed toward the door, lean against the doorway while I wait for the dizziness to clear up, and then realize that I'm not actually supposed to be responding to her right away anymore. But often I go in, and usually the problem is she's cold. Wednesday night she woke me up at 12, and 1, and 3, and 4, and 5. Thursday, I decided I'd had enough, and got out her Sleep Sack.

We used these last winter to great effect, and the last one I had bought was enormous, good for up to 28 pounds and 18 months. I wasn't sure how she'd react, since she can stand now and likes having her legs free, but I wanted a good night's sleep and we don't have any footie pajamas. So I put her into it just before we laid her down for bed. She yelled a little, but then she settled down. She whimpered a little bit an hour or two later. Then I went to bed, and heard nothing until morning. I may go get a couple of fleece pajamas, so she can move her legs around, but I think I know how we're dressing her for bed until she learns how to pull her blankets up.

Up

We have achieved words! Chloë's first words appear to be "dog" and "up." We asked her Aunt Michelle to watch her for an hour or so a few days ago, and by report she walked into Michelle's house, pointed at the beagle, Maggie, and said, "Dog!" We weren't sure we believed that, since she says "Da" all day long and probably in her dreams, and maybe it just sounded like "dog." But the other day, Eric says, they heard the neighbor's dog barking, and she pointed out the window and said "Dog!" So that's that. So much for "Mama" and "Dada." I mean, she does say "Dada," but she says it for everything, so it's hard to be sure she actually means her daddy. We think she's trying to say "duck" sometimes, too (when referring to her rubber ducks and the ones in her books), but it comes out "dun" and "dut" so I guess we just need to be creative listeners.

And "up" is definitively Chloë's first word to me. I've been encouraging her to say it for a while now, and gotten attempts in the form of "uh" with outstretched arms. But she's gotten better at it, and more consistent. Yesterday she decided to climb the stairs twice after I got home. Each time she decided in the middle she'd had enough and reached out to me, saying a distinctive "up!"

The second time I told her "Oh, no. You're the one who decided to climb up. You can finish." She glared at me and said "Upupup!" So I had to carry her the rest of the way. I'm already wondering why we were so eager to teach her the power of words.

Overlords are not like cakes

Yesterday was a beautiful fall day, and while Eric went grocery shopping, Chloë and I went outside. I intended that we'd take a walk; but after we crossed the street a few times (she's getting better about having her hand held in the street) what she really wanted to do was crawl up and then be helped down the porch stairs. Over and over. Occasionally she'd vary it by walking to the front door and walking back, or walking down the front path to the driveway and back, but mostly it was up and down, up and down, up and down.

Eventually she grew tired of that game--momentarily; we wandered to the backyard and then it was the same with the back porch. Then she spied the container of drying onions and elecampane roots I had on one corner of the porch. She examined them with great interest. She picked up an onion--these were all baby onions, smaller than a golf ball--and bit into it.

"Ugh!" I exclaimed, as she got this unhappy look on her face. I pried the bits of onion peel out of her mouth and wiped the dirt off her chin. "Now aren't you sorry you tried that?"

She looked at me, and looked at the onion, and bit into it again with a crunch. Then she picked up another one and did the same thing.

I let her do it. Who am I to argue with a girl who likes to eat raw onions?

Bare

Chloe was uncooperative at bedtime last night, probably due to a long walk tiring her out early. She didn't cry much when I put her down for bed, but she didn't go to sleep immediately. After a while I went in to put her blanket back over her, since she always tosses it off and it's not like she doesn't need it; there have been times when I've woken to her cry at four AM and found her lying there, uncovered; I shake out her blanket and spread it over her and the crying stops at once. When do toddlers learn to pull up their own blankets?

At any rate, a few months ago I wouldn't have dared go in until she was asleep, but she's been better about accepting that my presence in the room after bedtime doesn't mean it's time to stand up and beg to be lifted out. So I went in. She was lying on her back, uncovered, as I thought. She rolled her head a little to see me, and handed me her pants.

I took them, noticed her bare legs as I hadn't before, and then I left the room so I wouldn't startle her with my laughter. When I was recovered, I went back in and put the pants back on her. She didn't protest, so presumably that was what she wanted. I covered her up with the blanket, whispered a good-night, and left the room. As a friend of ours once said about his son: the nekkid years have begun.