Five teeth.
Crawling like a madwoman.
Barely 17 pounds.
Pulling up on everything.
Almost standing by herself.
Babbling endlessly.
Tantrums like you wouldn’t believe.
Oh? You want more? Then YOU come live with her!
It seems with every phase that moves forward in happy/cool ways, there are the pieces that make you want to tear your eyes out. Like, it’s so very cute how she speeds across the floor to the other side of the room. But not so cute that you can’t reach the little pieces of god knows what before she’s shoved them in her mouth. How it’s absolutely adorable that she’s found her voice and sings and jabbers and tells all sorts of stories. But absolutely annoying that she shrieks in hatred any time you don’t let her have exactly what she wants exactly when she wants it. So sweet that she cuddles up against you when she feels like it and not at all sweet when she doesn’t and shoves away from you so fiercely that you about drop her on her head.
I took her home to Utah with me for my sister’s baby shower which meant she got to see her dogs. I didn’t think either of them would remember each other. Chances are, they really didn’t. But that doesn’t mean Madeleine wasn’t completely fascinated and in love with them. (Which broke my heart to leave them there all over again.) She loves dogs. My sister has an obnoxious Pomeranian that loved to jump all over Madeleine. I really don’t know which one of them loved it more. There was almost a sense that she really did remember Scully because she really wanted that dog the whole time. And Jordan too but Jordan didn’t want a thing to do with her. Surprise. Surprise.
She also loves baths and being outside. I finally caved and let her graduate from the bath seat to having free reign of the bathtub. She loves it. She can move and chase her toys and play with everything and sit however she wants and climb the sides and do everything that absolutely freaks the holy crap out of her mother. She loves going outside too. She doesn’t care what she does while she’s out there, she just likes being out there. The weather has finally been nice enough to take her out quite a bit. I know at day care they spend a lot of time outside with her and she’d have it that way at home too if her parents were nicer. The nice thing is - we can combine the two! We bought her a little pool for the summer that we can put a little water in and let her sit in. We got it out the other day after we did some yard work. The water was freezing cold but she didn’t care one bit. She sat right down and hung out, playing with her toys until it got too cold to leave her out there. That’s going to save my life this summer, I am sure.
Her favorite thing to do lately is to sit in her room and pull every book, CD and DVD off her shelf and scatter them everywhere. Actually, if it’s in something and she can get hold of it, she’ll pull it out and scatter it. Diapers. Clothes. Toys. Papers. Cords. Pretty much anything she can get her little hands on. And you can’t keep her hands off anything so she’s been all sorts of fun.
While we were in Utah, she started making “fish lips.” It started with her just sucking her cheeks in and pushing her lips out. It has morphed into smacking, kissy noises. And she does it all the time. It’s very cute. Sometimes she’ll do it on her own just for fun. Other times, she’ll do it to you and go back and forth with you doing it to her. Then she grins and giggles because she just loves to play games. That’s been the coolest thing so far I think. That she gets it now. She knows she has control, she knows she can do things and she knows she can be playful and silly. That cognitive realization on her part has been the most fun and probably the best part so far. That she can react and respond has been so great but even better is that she can initiate and start the games now. And she knows that’s cool. Which makes it even cuter. She has this face, this “Yep, I’m the coolest thing around” face that you can’t help but laugh at.
She loves to be put in boxes. A couple of weeks ago, to entertain her and CHILL HER OUT, I put her in an empty Huggies box and pushed her around the house. She thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then, a few nights later, I put her in a storage tub and pushed her around in it. It was also so cool. Then I put her in a little box she barely fit in. She didn’t care, she had a blast. Now if there’s an empty box around, she tries to climb in it. She doesn’t care if it’s moving or not, she just likes sitting in them. Whatever keeps her happy…
She’s also had probably the roughest month this past month. Remember last month when I was all, “teething was a breeze! Woo! Woo!” Slap me. Hard. Those first two were terrible teases. She was getting multiple teeth at once so she was pretty grouchy. On top of that, she managed to get a nasty sinus infection. The two combined about killed us all. She wasn’t sleeping AT ALL. She was hardly eating. She was generally miserable all day long which doesn’t make her parents all that cheerful either. She happened to get the sinus infection the same week that her day care had the plague so I guess it worked out okay. She was having to be at home anyway so it didn’t matter so much that the day care had to have cleaners come in and sanitize everything because they had so many things break out all at once. Those of us who ended up in doctors’ offices for whatever reason got to hear that “things are going around like crazy now,” but it’s still a little crazy hearing that so many kids were sick with so many different things all at once. But now everyone’s all better and everything’s been cleaned and sanitized and they’re all back to normal.
And speaking of day care… Yeah… Let’s talk about day care for a minute. When I drop her off in the mornings you’d think I’d spent the night tormenting and torturing her. She cannot get out of my arms fast enough in the morning. She will actually start pushing off me trying to get down and throw a fit if they don’t get to the door fast enough in the morning. Once they do get to the door, she grins from ear to ear and puts out her arms and practically jumps to them. One day, a couple of weeks ago, she started screaming because Patricia and I were talking for a couple of minutes and she didn’t take Madeleine as soon as she opened the door. So yeah, that’s the morning ritual. The evening – when we go to pick her up? Not much better. She’ll look at us and smile but how DARE we take her away from her toys and her friends?! Who do we think we are trying to get her to come home with us? How dare we interrupt her day!? Sure, it’s a million times better than her being miserable and hating day care, but come on! Are we really that terrible to her? That boring? We’re so screwed if that’s the case already.
Random Things I’ve Learned During the Eleventh Month:
- It doesn’t matter what you do, you cannot keep them clean anymore.
- Dirty baby clothes are nowhere near as cute as clean ones.
- Picky eating habits start too early.
- The only thing that makes you move faster than your baby choking is your baby falling over in the bathtub.
- Baby songs are the best songs ever.
- Baby stories are the best stories ever.
- This child is never going to wean.
- Baby teeth are so teeny and cute.
