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Monday, May 12th

Rituals

Brat's blog entry from Friday put me in mind of my own patterns with Dessa. Brat writes about bedtime with her daughter, the earliest and easiest to ritualize of the daily routines - and the one with the best payoff, if done correctly.

But I'm thinking about our other patterns too, and wondering how many of them would really count as rituals. Dessa doesn't get a bath everyday yet, since she doesn't get that dirty and living in California I'm sensitive to wasting water. But when she does have a bath it follows a predictable pattern. Fill up the tub, add Mr. Bubbles as the water runs, put the baby in, give her the big boat toy she never plays with in any other circumstance (I like to maintain the mystery). I sit next to the tub on a small step stool and turn the bathroom radio to the classical station (before you call CPS on me, you should know it's one of those shower radios, made for bathrooms. Nobody's getting electrocuted on my watch). I pour warm water over her, wash her hair. Rinsing her off is fun, since she gasps like a fish when water runs over her face. The boat toy came with 3 small plastic cups which have varying holes in the bottom. Dessa loves for me to fill them up and let the water drain out in front of her so she can reach for the strings of liquid she can never quite hold onto. She chews on the plastic fishies, sinks the boat several times to the tune of Mommy relentlessly singing "Go Go Godzilla" and after I soap her up and rinse her off, she gets wrapped in her big girl bath towel and off we go to dress.

Meals follow a bit of a pattern too. I put Dess in her high chair, give her some finger foods, usually Cheerios, sometimes bits of chicken if we have some, or cut up fruit or veggies, occasionally the odd baked good like homemade banana bread. She stuffs the goodies in her mouth as I put together her meal. She loves to feed herself. When I pull the Cheerios box out of the cabinet she wriggles and shrieks with anticipation. She does her thing and then I do mine, spooning whatever's on today's menu mouthward. Then comes the dreaded washcloth, with which I rid my child of smeared... whatever it is... from chin, nose, cheeks, sticky hands and anyplace else untoward. This part she hates with a passion. It's as if I rinsed the washcloth with acid instead of warm water. Weird.

But it's bedtime that really is ritualized. Born a bit from necessity and embellished by me, it does seem to do the trick. Dessa's bedtime is 7 pm, occasionally a little earlier depending on how her naps went (in other words, how much of a pill she's being). By 7 o'clock, though, she's generally pretty tuckered out. Upstairs we go, after saying good night to Daddy, occasionally with a kiss, almost always with a wave of her hand.

Once upstairs, I close her door and we sit in the glider. These days she knows what's coming and, smiling, looks expectantly to our right, where her books are. She will only accept one - I know because I've tried to break the pattern and read others. Sometimes she'll allow me to read something different but then she insists upon "Elmo Loves You". I know the book by heart (which was good for a laugh the other day when I started to recite it to her. She looked shocked because she recognized the words but the book wasn't there). She happily turns the pages for me and at the end, when Elmo asks for a kiss, she obligingly gives the book a little peck. Then she wants to flip through the pages for a minute or two, which I let her do. Story finished, I set the book aside and we go to the window.

"Goodnight, shade. Stay closed until morning," I intone, turning to the wardrobe. "Goodnight, clothes. We'll pick something to wear tomorrow. Goodnight, books. We'll read you soon. Goodnight, stuffed animals. Watch over Dessa while she sleeps." Usually here I pause to pet the head of some random duckie or horsie, adding a deep-voiced, "We will!" Then it's "Goodnight, changing table. Time for bed now," because we're at the crib. I give Dess her blanket, and by this time she's rubbing her eyes obligingly. Down her head goes on my shoulder, she clutches the blanket, and I sing a slow soft "Twinkle, twinkle little star", the end of which generally acts as a signal for Dess to turn and start reaching for her crib. In she goes, with a few pats on the back and... I'm free to leave.

This ritual generally works like a charm. There are exceptional days, of course, when Dess is overtired, or not tired enough and she fusses more than usual. But right now it's fairly predicable and she seems to like it. I'd like to switch up the books from time to time but I can see the appeal of Elmo and someday she'll want something more advanced. Until then, I'm happy for these patterns, these things that ward off bad dreams in the night. I'm happy to be able to give them, down as I was for so many months, unable to put my baby to bed. I know these times for the fleeting things they are. Someday it'll be, "Could you leave the light on Mom? I want to finish this chapter" and she'll be providing her own entertainment.

Relentless reciting of "Elmo loves you" seems a small price to pay. After all, Elmo isn't the only one.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 05/12/2008 at 07:30 PM [No Comments - Be the first!]

Wednesday, May 7th

Missed it by that much

Actual conversation that happened in my kitchen last evening, in which I heroically did not brain my husband:

Me: I have to remember to call my sister tomorrow and find out what she wants to do for Mom for Mother's Day.
Dave: Mmmmhmmmm
Me: I'm sort of surprised she hasn't called me yet. Mother's Day is this Sunday and it's Tuesday already.
Dave: Hmmmmm
Me: Though, actually, she may think we're already doing something...
Dave: What would we be doing?
Me: (Agape) Um... hello?
Dave: Oh that's right! You're a mother now!!

Sadly, he was not joking around.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 05/07/2008 at 01:29 PM [1 Comment - Go read it!]

Tuesday, May 6th

Small Wonder

We're trying to teach Dessa to sing. It's not as odd as it sounds, since she has recently taken up repeating "EEEE-EYEEEE-EEEE-OOO" about a thousand times a day. It sounds suspiciously like the refrain to "Old MacDonald" and thus in response to her we break out in the nursery favorite to make her laugh. So far she's completely off key in her song stylings, but I assume that will change with time. Next stop, American Idol.

She's moving from repetitious "Dadada" to "Daddy" and "Nananana" to a clear "Nana" but very little by way of "Mama" these days. I suspect this has everything to do with the fact that I don't allow her to play with the remote control, an item she covets dearly. She's simply dying to walk and cruises around the furniture like a drunken monkey in quest of the remote. Meanie that I am, I set it on the chair arm furthest from her and she obligingly trudges toward it. Just as she's getting close... I move it to the other side. Gamely she edges toward it again. After a few back and forth trials, she'll often raise her round brown eyes to me and firmly announce, "Daddy" as though certain that her father will hand over the item in question because I clearly will not. When I reassure her that Daddy is upstairs but doesn't fancy her sucking on the remote any more than Mommy does, she thinks for a moment and says, "Nana", certain that my mother would grant her heart's desire if only she were present.

In this she is darling, but wrong.

Dess spends most of her time standing these days, eager to move. She stands unsupported for whole minutes at a time now, and reaches down for items on the floor if she's supported with one hand. It's hilarious to watch her figure out just how far she can reach and how much to spread her legs to support herself. Detective that she is, she knows she can't quite walk on her own yet (though she's a speed demon with the lion walker) so when she's stuck by the couch with a no-man's land between her and her toys, she reaches one hand out demandingly to whatever adult is closest and then drags us behind her as she makes a beeline to wherever she wants to go. There's nothing so entertaining to me as watching her get around these days. I love it, though the marked increase in her falling down puts my heart in my throat most of the time. I'd like to set her up with one of those padded sumo wrestler suits to protect her but alas, no. She has several little bruises on the backs of her legs and butt from falling, ker-splat!, right on an inconveniently discarded plastic farm animal.

She can finally get up to sitting position on her own now. Because she went right to standing and cruising, skipping the crawling stage, she didn't spend much time on her stomach - a position she's always hated except for sleeping. So she wasn't practicing moving from stomach to sitting. She'd just roll onto her back and flail like a turtle. A turtle with a flair for drama. But last week she started pushing herself up to sitting and now when I go in her room to get her in the mornings or after a nap, she's generally sitting up, babbling to her blanket.

And this weekend she started pulling herself up to standing. All this moving around tires her out but, as usual, she's so afraid of missing anything that she often fights her naps. I had put her down and left her room, but she was working up to a whopper of a fit so after about 10 minutes of increasing fussing, I went back into the nursery. And there she was, standing at the foot of her crib, wailing at the door, face red with frustration, real tears on her cheeks, a tiny prisoner in feetie pajamas.

It was almost enough to get her out of her nap. Almost.

It's so strange, how she sort of leveled out for a few weeks, just practicing her skills and then, bang - a bunch of milestones at once. It started when she made the connection to feed herself (broken off bits of popcorn did the trick and now she lurves feeding herself, often to the point of having a mouth absolutely stuffed with Cheerios). Then standing, cruising, pulling up to sitting and standing. Yesterday my mom said she was crawling but I haven't seen it for myself. It's all remarkable. She's becoming this real little person who's so fun to be around. Not that I didn't adore being with her as an infant. This is just such a fun stage. I wish, as I have wished with all stages, that she'd just stop for a while, remain this Dessa for just a little longer than I know she will.

Too fast, too fast.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 05/06/2008 at 10:13 AM [No Comments - Be the first!]

Thursday, April 24th

Lurch

It's weird how suddenly your kid goes from complete confusion about a thing to *BANG* knowing just what to do with it. It's like they read the manual when you weren't looking.

Dessa has two great standup/walking support toys. One I showed pictures of already and is a constant favorite. The joy on Dessa's face when we pull it out is complete. She loves to stand with it and make a lot of noise with its various keys, flipper things and various other moving parts. When she gets a little taller, or possibly when she's just a bit more stable in her walking we'll flip the handy switch that turns it from a non-moving toy to a moving one and she'll be unstoppable.

The other toy is shorter. It's a lion and until lately she was simply fascinated with it's face - and who wouldn't be? The nose lights up, it has big friendly eyes, felt hair and little bug things attached to the side which I assume are supposed to be friends of the lion's but bear a striking resemblance to parasites. No matter. The lion is always good for a laugh. At first we tried setting her up behind it and showing her how to push it along but she wasn't really getting it. She'd walk with it if you were holding her, but on her own she'd push it ahead and keep her feet still so that she was a bridge... until she lost her balance and fell forward (we'd catch her of course, but it wasn't so fun for her to fall and it wasn't good for my blood pressure either).

Then, suddenly, on Tuesday... she got it. She just... went. Dave was behind her but she didn't need him holding her. She could balance, she could compensate for the movement of the toy and her own center of gravity. It was... stunning.

It only took me until today to get decent video of it. I'm sort of slow sometimes. Unlike my kid.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 04/24/2008 at 07:33 PM [No Comments - Be the first!]

Thursday, April 17th

The New Moves

Dessa's becoming a real mover and shaker these days. She's working on her standing skills and can go for up to half a minute or so with no support. Her recovery skills are getting better by the day so she can balance for longer and longer times, and now all she wants to do is stand up. She fights when we try to hold her and she will have nothing to do with sitting and playing with her toys anymore. She'd rather stand and try to bend down to reach them, thanks. You can see in her face that she's dying to walk across the room but she knows she can't quite do it yet. It's frustrating to her.

She figured out clapping last week and now she claps for everything. We go, "Yaaaaaay!" and she grins and claps. Someone on TV claps and she's right there with them.

The cat could not be reached for comment.

She's also working on a new form of peekaboo, which is turning her top half to the side to hide behind stationary objects, or sometimes nothing at all. She'll do it whenever you (or anyone in the room, including on TV), says, "Peekaboo!" She honestly thinks she's hiding when she does this:

The kid is all into kisses now, too. She stays absolutely still for Eskimo kisses - it's hilarious. You say, "Dessa, give me Eskimo kisses" and she stops and concentrates so you can move in and rub noses. She doesn't rub back yet, but she freezes completely and waits. It's too much. And she laughs like anything when I give her butterfly kisses. Thinks it's a riot.

So with all the new interaction, we have a new bedtime routine. For Easter I got her one of those Little Golden books with Elmo and before bed we read it together. At the end of the book Elmo asks for a kiss and at first I leaned the book toward her and sort of tapped her nose with it to indicate a kiss. That lasted about 2 nights. Now every page she sees Elmo on, she leans forward to kiss (mouth wide open). It's too cute. There's also a page where one of the Muppets is playing peekaboo with another and when we reach that one, she turns her whole body as if she's playing peekaboo too. She's totally into it and won't go to bed now unless she's had her story.

I know because I tried and it wasn't pretty. Fortunately it's a short book. I'm no fool.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 04/17/2008 at 10:41 AM [No Comments - Be the first!]