This Is Your Brain on Toddlerhood

There have been a couple of times in Amelia's life that I have felt I could almost see her brain developing. The past week or two has been one of those times. From the moment she wakes up, she goes a mile a minute, talking, playing, reading, singing, moving toys and pens and buttons and who knows what all to the places they clearly need to be, and generally directing things around the house.

Her language development has been the most obvious--when she isn't cruise directing, she has been stating or describing what she is doing or what is happening around her in alarmingly complex sentences. I have been calling her "the narrator." When you go in her bedroom to get her when she wakes up, she will inform you "Mia sanding in her cib." In fact, now she might also say "I sanding in my cib"--she is getting more and more pronouns right. She says things like "Mia go with Daddy to pick tomatoes," or last night at dinner when she happened to glance up and out the window, "I'm looking out the window." Sometimes when she speaks she falls into a kind of "uh, uh, uh" noise and you can tell the wheels are turning in her mind as she looks for the right word or maybe the sentence structure, but more and more she just talks. She talks all day long. And she still prefers that you repeat back what she says. I don't miss not the quiet, exactly, but our days our... full.

Another reason our days are full, and this is perhaps related to the brain development spurt, is that Amelia's naps have suddenly and substantially shortened themselves. She was napping from around 12-2, and now she doesn't seem ready to go down for a nap till 1 or 1:30, if then. Then, she naps for about 45 minutes. She has a hard time settling down, and when she wakes up, after a period of initial fussiness, she is ready to go for the afternoon. She has been sleeping at night, though, for 11-12 hour stretches, from 7:30 or 8 to around 7 in the morning, so I am thinking since she is sleeping so long at night she just doesn't need a long nap. It's not the best news for me, break-wise, but it's not terrible. I am trying to take advantage of being able to have longer morning outings, and drastically decrease the number of things I try to do during her nap. (In fact, one of the things I have been doing during her nap is sitting down and watching "Friends," which conveniently reruns every day at 2:00.) Since I have less time during the day and more time during the mornings, I have been trying to get up a little earlier and enjoy the quiet. The early mornings have always been the best poem-writing times for me anyway, so maybe this is a good development for me, writing-wise.

Another note about toddlerhood--Amelia has had some real live tantrums lately. These are sometimes times when she is tired or maybe related to not feeling well, with the cold, for example, or last week she also tested positive for strep--one of the best tips I got about toddler behavior is that when they are acting SUPER terrible, they are probably sick. But there have been a couple of tantrums that seem mostly just about Amelia not getting what she wants, which I suppose is normal for almost two. Last week, we stopped by the "dinosaur bone museum" to play for awhile, and when we were leaving, not feeling well myself, I forgot to do my usual "in a few minutes, we have to say bye-bye to the museum" thing to prep Amelia for our departure (which usually works really well). We were walking toward the door, and Amelia seemed to realize we were leaving, and she just lost it. She was crouching and clenching her fists and screaming "dinosaur bones!" She was in fact standing directly underneath dinosaur bones, but no attempt of mine to point that out to her, or to calm her down in any way other way, worked, so I finally had to pick her up and carry her screaming to the car. She cried most of the 20-minute drive home, and what finally made her stop was a tip I read in The Happiest Toddler on the Block: "gossip." The author recommends that you "gossip" with your toddler's stuffed animals (or other family members, if they are around), both to discuss bad behavior and praise good behavior. The idea is that toddlers like to overhear stuff and sometimes you can get more across if they think you are not talking to them. So I talked to Elmo, who Amelia had carried around the museum all morning. "Hey Elmo! Listen! Amelia had a tantrum at the museum, and Amelia is so angry! Amelia wanted to stay at the dinosaur bones! But Momma doesn't understand tantrums. Momma understands big girl words! And Amelia is so good at big girl words!" And etc. Every time Amelia would start crying again I would say "Hey, Elmo! Listen!" And she would listen. By the time we got home, she was calm. I had asked Elmo if he thought Amelia would rather play with buttons or bracelets when she got home, and as we pulled into the garage, I heard a tiny, tired voice: "buttons."

We played with buttons, then had lunch. Toddlers are tiring. Lovable, but tiring.

The interesting thing is that Amelia still remembers this vividly. "Mia cied at the dinosaur bones. Elmo had to listen! Momma doesn't unersand tanums."

On a side note, with all these sicknesses and tantrums, sometimes I really miss breastfeeding. I just know it would calm her down so easily. I can pick Amelia up and snuggle her, and carry her around, and goodness knows I do, but it's not the same. Just saying, for the record: I don't regret weaning when we did, but I do miss the closeness, the calming nature of breastfeeding.

What else? We went to the zoo, and it was one of the first times Amelia was actually excited about the animals. She liked the elephants and hippos the best



and enjoyed peering over the wall at "Monkey Island."



She also fed some lorakeets



and rode the train with her friend Pigit,



and on another visit to the zoo with (L)u(l)i, she rode the merry-go-round.





We canceled a camping trip we had planned for this weekend because we all got colds, but we did go to a baseball game Sunday afternoon. The Rockies have a section called "The Rockpile" that features $4.50 bleacher seats, a good price for people who might only last a few innings. This was our view from our seats



and Amelia and Dean watching the game.



We had a good time--the day worked out well, since Amelia napped early and the sun went behind the clouds just time for the game. Amelia liked watching the people and even some of the game ("That man running!") She danced when music played and clapped when the other fans clapped, and the enjoyed her first experience with Dippin' Dots (which cost the same price as our seats). We lasted until about the 6th inning.

Our garden is thriving in the summer heat. We have piles of tomatoes, squash and zucchini, so much that I have just been planning our meals about what could include those things. We have a good amount of peppers, tomatillos, and cucumbers, too, and just picked some very pretty tri-color corn. This is our garden a couple of weeks ago; things are even taller and bushier now.





Finally, we are battling out an attempt to grow out Amelia's bangs. I really want to grow them out, since they grow fast and they are hard to trim, and our favorite hairdresser lives really far away. But Amelia is not a fan of hairclips ("Cips out!) so she looks pretty shaggy a lot of the time. Here is a picture of her with cips, just to prove she doesn't always look like a sheep dog.



We had some success with using a rubber band for a "ponytail" yesterday, and I made a big deal about how "now you can see!" So we'll see.

22 Months and counting

Whenever I have a birthday, Dean always tells me what I am divisible by. (This is someone who was "doing takeaways" when he was 3 years old, maybe earlier.) Today is Amelia's 22-month "birthday." At 22 months, Amelia is divisible by 1, 2, 11, and 22.

So...

here is Amelia at one month



and two months,



at 11 months,



and today, 22 months old.



The 22 month picture is blurry because Amelia at 22 months is rarely still. And I only had a cell phone camera. She is holding a Rice Krispie Treat-covered spoon.

As an added bonus, even though it doesn't fit mathematically, here is Amelia almost exactly 2 years ago today:



And this is what she looked like a few weeks later when she wasn't hidden by shower presents. Yikes.



Happy 22 months, Amelia! It's hard to believe our month-counting days will soon be coming to an end.

Lists, lists, oh lists

If the title of this post seems oddly familiar to you, you may be, or may have been in the past, a high school English teacher.*

Time for the final update on my July list: I didn't get everything done.

But, here are the items on the list I did accomplish:
cleaned out and organized my closet
cleaned off my upstairs writing desk
started running 3 times a week (for the past 3 weeks only, but hey)
learned all about potty training (really--ask me anything)
redesigned, multiple times, this blog
went to yoga 2-3 times a week

And, I did a ton of stuff not on the list, such as:
research preschools and Parents Day Out programs
put up an ad for a babysitter
reorganize the pantry and kitchen cabinets
start a book club
brainstorm ideas for a cookbook

The main things I did not do, however, might be the most important ones for any sort of academic career I might eventually ever have (although that idea seems less plausible the longer I am away from the academic world). I did NOT do any kind of work for the two baby ideas I had for non-poetry writing projects, something having to do with Southern Lit and something having to do with what I am calling "Motherhood Lit." I just don't have the gumption, the energy, or the motivation for these projects. I know a lot of writing opportunities come out of simply having written something, but I have a hard time starting big projects without some kind of outside pressure for doing so. Like a job. Or being in school. Amelia is a tough boss, but she doesn't require much in the way of written material. So I am slacking there.

I have been feeling kind of bad about it. I didn't even want to blog about it, and I have in fact been sitting in front of the computer for an hour NOT blogging about it, but this seems to be one of Amelia's longer nap days. I keep arguing with myself about the situation--see below.


Kim 1: Of course I am not writing much or working on anything all that serious. I am a Stay At Home Mom. My job is to raise Amelia. By the end of a day of playing, coloring, singing, talking about colors, repeating things one million times, getting in and out of the car seat, running errands, preparing wholesome meals and snacks, cleaning up bits and pieces of said meals and snacks from all corners of the house, patiently waiting for a toddler to put on her shoes "self," strap herself into her carseat "self", go up and down stairs "self," and who knows what all else, how could I even expect myself to create serious and insightful work on a realm of the world (i.e. literature) that truly has nothing to do with my life right now.

Kim 2: But you are a writer. And you want to be a writer. And writers read stuff. And also write.

Kim 1: (asleep by 8:30 pm)

So I am really not getting anywhere.

On the one hand, I love Amelia and Amelia is wonderful, and I really do love spending the days with her now. Although I have been so grateful since I stopped working that I am able to be with her so much, "I really do love spending the days with her" is not something I would have written a year ago. I found the baby months--sleepless nights, unpredictable days-- really hard. And now, things are still challenging, and I am certainly tired at the end of the day, but overall I am having a lot of fun. That's why I stopped looking for teaching jobs for the fall, and chose to stay with Amelia for another year.

On the other hand, part of me feels very isolated. When I think about it, which isn't often, I miss school, both taking classes and teaching them, very much. Long term, I would like to be part of the larger writing world again, but I have a lot of fears and worries about ever getting there. I am afraid of being lazy now and missing my chance. I am afraid I can no longer write a good poem. I am afraid I will never have the discipline to read all the stuff I need to read to be a good poet. I am afraid I will never find a teaching job.

And I am afraid no one is all that interested in what I have to say. Awhile ago, I mentioned the fact that I wanted my blog to be more than a "mommy blog." I had come across a piece of academic writing on "mommy blogs" that really annoyed me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. It wasn't particularly insulting, just a kind of study and description of "mommy blogs," but it really not on my nerves. Then I came across this article on the words "mom" and "mommy", and two and two came together. As the Orlean article points out, "mommy" as an adjective comes across as infantile, silly, even trivial. It annoys me to have a whole segment of writing women, most if not all of whom provide each other (and the whole cyberworld) not only with a mothering community but also with invaluable insights on both parenting and writing, labeled as "mommy bloggers." And it both offends and scares me to have most of my writing labeled as such. Offends me because I don't think most of what I write is trivial, even if much of what I write is primarily about Amelia. And scares me because maybe, in the eyes of the larger writing world, it is.

Of course if I really believed that, I'd shut down the whole operation, and here we are. I know these feelings are not new to women or to mothers or to artists in general. And I know how lucky I am, how hugely lucky, that my challenge is balancing mothering and writing, and not working and spending time with my child, or trying to put food on my table, or dealing with war or poverty or fear for my family's physical safety or innumerable other terrible things. I try to remember to be grateful for my life daily, even hourly. And I am very grateful.

Still, I know that part of me is meant to write, wants to write, and it waiting to do so. In the ongoing brave new world of motherhood, a different world every day, I think my upcoming lists are going to look for ways to be more of a writer too.

*It's from Hamlet, a play I read too many times with a great deal of teenagers who were uninterested in, if not downright hostile toward, Shakespeare. The ghost says it (or rather, "list, list, o list!") to get Hamlet to listen. I'd say it to get my students to listen. I was such a cool teacher.

B-I-N-G-O

On a recent and very long car trip, Luli, Dean and I sang "Bingo" to Amelia approximately 10,000 times. Amelia loves to hear songs, and sometimes she will watch whoever is singing very carefully and try to mouth the words with the song. On Monday, I sang "Bingo" to Amelia while we were driving to the grocery store, and she said, "Mia sing it!" And she did.

These are my attempts to catch her on tape.