Status report: Month 14

I've been trying to write this post for a week, but the necessary energy and mood haven't been there. If you haven't yet heard, there's a reason why: the Overlord will, in about seven months, have competition. Let me tell you, dealing with first-trimester fatigue, nausea, and dizziness are not as much fun with a toddler as without. Even when the toddler is as awesome as Chloe has been this month. Why didn't anyone tell me one-year-olds are so much fun? And so much work.


For two days running last week, Chloe ate an entire tomato at dinner. We're not talking small tomatoes, either; these are big, meaty heirloom tomatoes from the garden, thick with sweet, meaty flesh. She eats them like candy (or, I guess, the way she would eat candy if she had ever had any). She asks for them the way she asks for everything--by pointing, and saying "dzuh?" in her best video-game sound-effect voice, and if we're not quick enough, by whining. She's getting very good at the whining. Also the screaming and kicking her feet. She's fourteen months old but she acts like a two-year-old, at least when it comes to tantrums.

She is such a big girl now. We can hardly remember when she couldn't walk, even though it's only been about six weeks. We went out to the community college where Eric teaches a class today Monday, and she and I walked all around, looking at the grass and the trees and tile in the floor and the hawk flying overheard. She hesitated at the steps, then decided she would crawl up them, and then took my hands to step down them afterward. She doesn't run, but she walks awfully darn fast. She loves to walk around in the grocery store now, but it usually takes two of us to let her; she dashes this way, and she darts that, and if we're not constantly keeping track she's likely to end up in the cereal aisle while our cart languishes in produce. Unless she decides to push the cart. It's great when she pushes the cart.


She understands and--mostly--obeys instructions we give her, and she seems to understand things like "I'll be back in a minute." She's very fond of nodding. It's not totally reliable, since she'll nod when I point to Guess How Much I Love You and then push it away when I start reading, or when Eric says "Would you like an alligator for dinner?" But she knows it's a way of communicating. We've just got to get her to figure out how to shake her head as well.

There are still no words, though she does have a special way of saying "Uh" when she's trying to get me to pick her up that I'm thinking may be her attempt to humor me when I tell her, "Say 'up,'" before I'll lift her. I'm not as worried about this as I was. She definitely understands, and she definitely communicates. She's taken to patting her diaper when she needs a change. She points to the TV to watch her show. She pulls at our shoulders to get a piggyback ride. She twists up my shirt when she wants to wear it as an apron.


One of her books is a book on opposites, with little slide panels to show the opposites. One of them is day/night, with a cloud on one half and a partial solar eclipse on the other, which perplexes us, but Chloe's favorite is the happy/sad one, which features a little girl who looks a little like her, smiling on one sad and crying on the other. Today Tuesday I said "Happy girl!" in a bright voice when the smiling girl was showing, and "Sad," in a syrupy sad voice when the crying one was showing. Chloe moved the slider back and forth as fast as she could to hear me do the different voices, and kept switching back and forth until we were both laughing.

She can point to Daddy, and Mama, and Chloe, and her ear, her eyes, her nose (if she has trouble, I say "beep beep" and she knows exactly what we're asking for), her mouth (she stuffs her hand into it), her belly, and her toes. Eric keeps working with her to add on different body parts. She can point to Mama's or Daddy's toes or ears, too, though it's best for us to have our glasses on if we ask her to point to our eyes.

We've started telling her to be "gentle" with things, and whenever we say the word "gentle" she smacks herself on the side of the head. Some things we didn't teach her.

She loves her bead necklace and bracelets, and sometimes she plays, carefully, with the one-year ring that my mom gave me and I gave her. She adores seeing herself on our phones and the camera, and gets upset when we take them away. She's started showing interest in the posters on her walls, too. We need to get her a good big family picture.

Bathtime is still our great tribulation. She won't sit down, even though she does it when we ask her other times (for example, when we need to put her socks and shoes on--she plops right down if she thinks it's time to go for a walk in her shoes). She screams when we hold her down, and if we don't hold her down she walks around, lifting one foot in the air and stomping on it. Sometimes she falls. She hasn't had a bad slip, but it's going to happen. We're going to get a bath chair tomorrow.


Otherwise, ordinary life is going just fine. She loves her Baby Galileo DVD; she likes to play with her blocks--she can stack three sometimes, if her placement is lucky--and her popper and her balls. She still loves being held upside down, and getting raspberries on her belly. Today apparently she kept rubbing her daddy's belly--for the fuzziness, we think.

We're winding down nursing, for the reason mentioned in the first paragraph. We've gotten down to only-when-she's-really-upset, which I'm hoping will ease into never, and I'll have the R.I.N.D.S. to myself for a couple of months at least. She's loving almost all foods, especially tomatoes, fruit of all kinds, cheese, and dried seaweed (the kind you use for sushi). She doesn't like being denied a bite, even if it's something you wouldn't think a girl with only eight teeth could handle. One of her favorite pastimes in the kitchen is gnawing potatoes, and the other day when I was taking apples out of the fridge to make apple pie bars with, I set them down on the floor before moving them to the counter, and that was a mistake--a delicious one, for her.


She uses a spoon, more or less, and has made forays into using a fork, but her hands are still her preferred method of food transfer. Luckily she likes washing her hands. I have this habit of sucking water from my fingers when I wash my hands, and now she's picked it up, to the point where she doesn't always wait for me to rinse the soap off her hands before sticking them in her mouth. Or mine. I'm working hard on teaching her about the rinsing part.


She's a curious girl, a loving girl, a girl fascinated with life. Fourteen months is all about being independent, for short stretches, and then running back to mama or daddy for snuggles or help getting her leg off the play table or yet another read of How Are You Peeling? or Little Cloud. I love that she's learning to entertain herself, and I love that she knows she can rely on us to be there and to help out with her difficulties. It's a beautiful age. Eric got all sentimental the other day and told her firmly, "Stop growing!" But she won't, and I think I'm glad, because she gets better every day.

On the case

We went to Costco last night, and Chloë would have loved it if we weren't constantly deflecting her from other carts' paths, stopping her from running into the lady with the pretty shoes, picking her up when she refused to walk in the direction we wanted her to go, stopping her from taking another baby's blanket, moving her in and out of the cart as she refused to obey or pleaded to get down. Eric still doesn't like the idea of a baby leash, but it's growing on me.

I started feeling awful while we were there, so Eric took charge of her during the last part of the trip. We went home--sharing a nectarine between the three of us because we were all starving--and Eric fed her dinner, and I went and laid on the couch. I could see her, just barely, and she could see me over Eric's shoulder. She ate and drank happily while Eric helped her and talked to her, but she'd peek around him to look at me, with a "why are you over there?" look or a smile.

"I know, Mama's usually here at the table with us," Eric said, when he caught her doing it. "But Mama isn't always going to be here at dinner. Just like I'm not here sometimes at dinner." I lay there and was miserable, because I didn't feel good and I wanted my mommy, but I was the mommy, only I wasn't being it at the moment. I would have if I had to, I know, but I didn't, so Eric fed her dinner and got her cleaned up and put her in bed. I did go up to help with tooth-brushing and to say goodnight. I went to bed early and I feel better today, both physically and mentally. After all, I was there, and if she had needed me I would have done whatever was necessary. It just wasn't necessary. And mommies are allowed to have a break too, especially if daddies are on the case.

Boy-crazy

It's been a bad week at work and I didn't want to think about cooking, so we went to Friendly's for dinner last night. This was one of the first times we'd taken Chloë out to a restaurant by ourselves when she was going to eat table food, and we didn't think to bring her sippy cup or plate or fork. We will next time. But she did great; she took water from my straw, and then learned how to suck from the straw itself. She seemed to like it, though she got a shocked expression whenever she got a mouthful (it was ice water).

She explored the table, and my purse, and then started looking around. There was another child in a high chair down the way, a boy maybe two years old. She pointed. "Dah!" she exclaimed. She struggled to get out of the chair. So I lifted her out, and we walked toward the boy.

"We're here to say hi," I said to the boy's parents when we got there, and they smiled and told their son, "Can you say hi?" He said, "Hi," obediently, and I asked Chloë, "Can you wave?" She did, a bit, but seemed more interested in staring at the boy and trying to touch him. After a minute or two she seemed to have her fill, so I told her to wave again and they told the boy to say goodbye ("Bye," he said, possibly with more enthusiasm), and we walked back to our table.

She was thirsty again and the food was there, so we got her her own little cup with a straw, and the waitress brought us a plate to put food on for her. She got bits of bun and veggie burger and beef burger and mushroom and tomato and mozzarella, and kept stealing fries from Eric's plate. I offered her a taste of fry with ketchup once or twice, but she seemed to like Daddy's better. Eventually he wised up and turned his plate around. She also kept staring at the little boy and pointing in his direction. That stopped momentarily when we gave her little bites of our strawberry-shortcake sundae, but one of the last things she did was point again and say, "Dah," very definitely. That, I take it, settles the matter.

Also, did we mention she's adorable?

So we found the camera. What I didn't find was energy to locate the cable and fire up my laptop to download the pictures. (My desktop only recognizes the camera if it's hooked up before the computer is turned on, and not always then. It didn't used to do this. Eric just shrugs when I complain and says I need a new computer anyway. I trust my IT support will be better in the Overlord's regime.)

But I certainly have energy for bragging. Witness the Overlord's most recent accomplishments:

-She's still fond of slobbering on my shoulder, or belly, or whatever appeals to her at the moment. She did this one morning and I said, "Ew!" and took a fistful of her onesie to wipe it off. Later, she gave me a sloppy kiss, and grabbed the front of her onesie to try to wipe it off. She's still offering her onesie or shirt whenever she slobbers on me.

-We went shopping today. She pushed the cart. (I steered.)

-I cut up strawberries for a snack this morning and brought them into the living room to share. She picked up a few, with difficulty because of their slipperiness, and ate them. I noticed her fingers were red and wet, so I got a Kleenex and blotted them off. She ate another strawberry. Then she took the Kleenex from me, blotted a strawberry, and picked it up with ease. I can't positively say that she did it deliberately, or deliberately to help with her traction, but she did it a number of times and it did, indeed, help.

-After that plate was cleared, we both wanted more, so I started cutting some up. But I got lazy and sat back down with two strawberries cut up and two simply cleaned and de-leaved. She picked up one of the whole ones and took a bite. Then she offered it to me, gravely, for my own bite.

-She may have settled on a first word, "Ba," meaning bottle. Eric says so. I know earlier she was saying "Ha. Ha. Ha," earnestly, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it meant. "Da" is still her favorite sound, but she's started seriously branching out.

-She likes washing her hands now. Actually, she likes getting her hand wet (we do one at a time) and seizing the faucet in a death grip. I haven't yet worked out why.

-At dinner tonight, she indicated she was done, and we wiped her hands and face with a wet paper towel as usual. When she was on the floor, she picked up the paper towel and took it into the kitchen. Eric followed her to find that she was waiting in front of the garbage can. He opened it, and she deposited the paper towel into it.

-She LOVES the book How are You Peeling right now (which we didn't even buy for her). She likes the onions best. She points them out whenever one turns up on a page.

-After a Kroger trip today, I was preparing to put her into her carseat (it's front-facing now). She pointed upward. I looked up, and saw a white seagull circling us. She exclaimed, and watched with rapt eyes as it floated against the blue sky. I watched her, and then the bird. She made a scolding sound at me, and I, chastised, went back to the business of buckling her into the car.

Wrap her up

Chloe went to bed without nursing for the first time last night. (I mean, no bottle either.) She got her bath and dried and dressed, and we settled down in the chair, but she resisted being laid down on my lap and pointed at the bookshelf instead. So we read a few stories. Then she pointed at her crib, so we brushed her teeth and I set her down to sleep.

She didn't lay right down, but that seemed to be because I didn't offer her the correct blanket at first. She's gotten more particular about her bedding lately. She went right to sleep, and when I checked on her later she had her arms wrapped around one blanket, her pillow under her torso, and a second blanket wedged under her legs. She's definitely her daddy's daughter. This is why there are three blankets in the crib.

Does a body good

Extreme nursing is getting ridiculous. Recently Chloë wanted to nurse, so we went up to the glider and I settled her on the Boppy. She stayed in place for about 1.3 microseconds, then started wriggling and pushing her butt up into the air, head digging down into the chair, feet scrabbling against the Boppy and my arm. I sighed and read my book.

In a few minutes she came up for air. I helped her get upright, and watched as milk ran out both her nostrils toward her mouth. One of my lactation consultants called the stuff "liquid gold." I don't think Chloë values the stuff as much as some.

Status report: Month 13

Well, this month's status report is just going to have to be mostly pictureless. We can't find the camera. I know we had it a couple of weeks ago, when we went to Eric's dad's pool party and took pictures of Chloe swimming, but it's disappeared.

So this month was all about alternative modes of travel. Swimming! Riding! Walking! Tumbling off the couch onto mama's soft unprotected belly! I guess "swimming" is misleading. Eric's dad has a big pool, five feet deep or so, and I got in and held Chloe in the water. At first we had a swimsuit-with-built-in-life-vest on her, but it was a little too big and she sank through it (and got her face dunked when I tried to see if it would support her), so after that she wore her blue leopard-print bikini and I held her while we sloshed around or played ring-around-the-rosy with her three-year-old cousin. She loved it. I want to take her to the beach, but it's getting cooler so it probably won't be for actual swimming this year.

She's learned about the joys of piggy-back rides and shoulder rides--the former when she was climbing on my back anyway and I took her for a ride, the latter when she saw her cousin on my shoulders and wanted to try. She gets the biggest grin on her face. I can't wait to take her on a roller coaster.

And in just the last few days she's turned the corner from just trying out this "walking" thing as a novelty to using it to get around. She tumbles more now than she did when she was first trying to walk, but she doesn't mind, just switches to crawling or gets up and tries again. We're going to have to go shoe shopping soon. She has wide feet, as apparently Eric did as a baby, so it's going to be a little complicated, but Eric's mom has plenty of good information for us.

Her constant "da da da da" has been slightly adulterated by the occasional "na" and "ba" and "uh," but she still doesn’t have any words. She's going to have to come up with some soon, though. We're still doing well on her gestures--pointing, patting, grabbing, nodding--but there are times when she points and says "da da da!" and we don't know what she wants. And I'm doing better on the "what do you want?" and "say 'up'," even though I know perfectly well she wants me to pick her up.

She goes to the door or the windows sometimes and gestures outside, meaning she wants to go out. She's loving her raspberries, and the pears that are ripening and just her size (because I didn't prune them enough). She likes sitting in the grass while I'm getting herbs from the garden. She loves walks, and will point at the stroller to say, "Take me somewhere in the fresh air!" Now that it's cooling down we're more willing to accede, since we're the ones who do the actual walking. If she's got the hang of it, maybe she can push me next time.

She's in 18-month clothes, mainly because the 12-month shirts ride up over her belly and the sleeves and legs are too tight. She likes rubbing her belly. Then, when we're changing her diaper, she likes rubbing further down. We're okay with this as long as she waits until we've cleaned her up.

Meals continue to be great. She's pretty good with a spoon, and loves spearing things with her fork, though she's not terribly patient about it; sooner or later--usually sooner--she gives up and just uses her fingers. Relatedly, she's learnd about real hand-washing, too.


Weaning is going okay. She still points and pants when she wants milk, and yanks at my neckline, but I'm working on giving her bottles and Eric says she now prefers the whole cow's milk to the frozen breastmilk during the day. There are still a few packages left in the freezer that we might as well use up, but I've given up pumping finally (hallelujah!) and this should all be coming to an end pretty quickly. Half the time when she pulls my shirt up it's to blow raspberries on my stomach anyway.

Discipline is not going so great, mainly because she's into everything and there are so many "no"s in her day. We're trying to figure out what kind of discipline works. My particular problem is the toilet paper. She only messes with it when I'm using the toilet, so I can't pick her up and put her in another room, which I've done with other things, and my hands aren't big enough simply to cover it.

She learned about piggy banks earlier in the month. She has two gold piggy banks on the top of her bookshelf, and one had ten gold dollars in it. I had taken to calling them "Loud Pig" and "Silent Pig" and gave them voices to suit. One day she got curious about what was inside Loud Pig, so we opened her up and looked, and I showed her how to put money into the slot. She thought that was pretty cool, so we got some more coins from Eric's change jar and practiced. I shout "No!" and take everything away whenever she starts a coin toward her mouth, and so far she hasn't swallowed one. Putting Money In now rivals Turning Pages Fast as her favorite in-her-room activity.

She likes brushing her teeth now. At night, after nursing and pajamas, I sit with her on the toilet seat and Eric hands her one toothbrush and uses another. He brushes her teeth, and she--sort of--brushes his. In the mornings she points at the toothbrush longingly, but I've been saving it as a treat for the evenings. The dentist recommended we use floss between her bottom middle teeth, and we got some of those plastic holders with about an inch of floss, and those turn out to work really well.

Bathtime has gotten slightly stressful again. Now that she's confident about being on her feet, she loves to stand during her bath. This would be okay if she weren't likely to fall over and hurt herself (she did this a few weeks ago and had a dark bruise on her cheek, and I felt awful). So we're trying to get her to sit down. After a couple of attempts to forcibly sit her down, which didn't work, we've started being very active and playing when she's sitting, and removing the toys and being silent and still when she's standing. This would work better if the bathtub itself weren't such a great toy. She pulls on the knob that turns on the shower, and tries to gnaw on the frog-covered plastic spigot cover, and stomps, and splashes, and draws her fingers along the smooth tile. Last night she was stomping, which I admit did make a neat noise, and puffed out her cheeks and said "Da! Da! Da!" impressively. She looked like a very fat Asian policeman puffed up with her own importance, and I put my head down so she wouldn't see me laughing.

She's doing well in Daddy Daycare. She regularly goes into Eric's arms for a bedtime hug, which she didn't before. Now when I leave in the morning she's usually okay--she just waves--and when he leaves she cries. I have mixed feelings about this, but it's good for her to be attached to her daddy too. She responds better to him than to me when it comes to settling her down for sleep, but that's always been the case.

She seems older than she did a month ago, but in ways less easy to define. I'm guessing that's going to be the case from here on in--except for things like learning to talk. She's more confident, more sure of us, attempting to communicate more, attempting to control us more. She's still fascinated by every little thing, still enjoying motion and new places and new faces--she came with me to a doctor's appointment yesterday and charmed the nurse and an elderly patient with her grins. She's still adorable, still wonderful. And still growing.