itsy, bitsy spider

We're in the car coming home from the Galleria and Harper starts singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." This is not unusual. It's a favorite. However, it is ONLY sung (and this is important) when she has seen a spider. I assume she must have seen a spider on a billboard and don't pay much attention. When she's singing the 5th refrain I ask, "Where did you see a spider, Harper?" It's on the window, Mommy, by Hudson's head, she explains. This is a little startling, so I turn around for a quick glance. And there it is, right where she said. Only I can't tell if it's inside the car or outside. I'm going 55mph on the highway and it's a trifle difficult to get the appropriate vantage point. I exit to head home, all the while taking quick glances to make sure the spider is staying put. When I stop at a red light I can finally take a good long look. Only the spider is gone. I panic a little.
"Harper, can you still see the spider?"
"Yes, m'am."
"Oh," I say, trying not to sound anxious, "Where is it? Is it on Hudson's carseat?"
"Um, it's on Hudson's face." (she is casual, a little curious maybe)
"Harper, are you telling Mommy the truth? Is there a spider on Hudson's face?"
"It's on Hudson's head."
So.
I careen into a bank parking lot, leap out of the car, run around to Hudson's side and...there is the spider. On the door. OUTSIDE of the car. I check Hudson just to make sure there weren't two of them working in tandem like those European pickpockets. He was spider-free. I get back in the car and put on Stern Voice.
"Harper, Hudson did NOT have a spider on his face. You need to tell Mommy the truth. Do you understand what that means?"
"Yes, m'am."
We talked a little more about The Nature of Truth. I'm pretty sure she didn't get it. Next time I should probably skip the Kierkegaard reference.

To sleep, perchance, part 2

Hudson would like everyone to know that on the eve of his 10 month "birthday" (that's for you, Mr. Bowser) he finally decided that maybe the world would not end if he slept 12 hours at a stretch. After a few disastrous nights at my parents' over Thanksgiving, J. decided we needed to throw a Hail Mary. Here's what that looked like: he blew up an air mattress and we slept on the living room floor. And Hudson had his closet door and our bedroom door between us. He could not hear or smell or otherwise sense that I was just a few feet away. We're hoping that a few nights more and he'll be cured of his night waking habit. And hopefully, we can move back into our bed. Though the air mattress isn't too bad--I just feel like I'm about to roll off most of the night. J. looked at Murphy beds online the other day. They are large and expensive and, I suspect, not very comfortable. It would be sort of European to have the living room double as our bedroom. J. is the Master of maximizing space. We're moving to a new apartment in a couple of weeks. We'll still just have two bedrooms but I have a feeling he's got a Plan.
On Sunday when we got home, I managed to set off the VERY loud smoke alarm while Harper and Hudson were napping. Neither of them woke up. Of course if I have the audacity to rustle the sheet too loudly while turning over in the middle of the night, that's enough to wake him up. Ah, selective hearing.

Wave your banner, part 2

Okay. I just did a Google search for some information about how to do a better job of getting more solid food into Hudson without compromising my breast milk supply. The first link was to an on-line forum of moms who are members that league with the Spanish word for milk. (I don't want this post to be a link--see?) So, these ladies have given me some useful information in the past, and some not so useful. But generally, I have respect for an organization that promotes breastfeeding and I think it's good that so many of our generation are doing it even though our own mothers weren't encouraged to. For the record, I had a REALLY hard time with it the first time, but kept it up until Harper weaned herself at around 10 months (which is when I got pregnant with Hudson). It was lots of work (pumping 4-5 times a day. mooooo) and painful for probably 5 months. I supplemented with formula when even the pumping didn't suffice. Bottles and pump parts to wash all day long. It just wasn't fun. This time, thankfully, it is blissfully easy. So I'm planning to keep doing it. I don't have a cut-off date in mind. I assume we'll figure it out when the time is right to stop. So, back to the triple-L forum. I did get some helpful tips on when I should be giving the sweet potatoes and spinach. What I also got was this quote: "Routines are for dancers, schedules are for trains," and mothers who closed each post with descriptors like this: "co-sleeping, cloth-diapering, baby-wearing, attachment parenting..." and the list went on. There were even cute little icons that showed Mommy putting cloth diapers in the washing machine and wearing her BF toddler in a sling. There was even an icon of a little bed with Mommy and Daddy on each side and a little baby head in the middle. I could figure out what BF meant, but there were lots of other acronyms that I couldn't. So. I was reminded of an interview I saw on the Today show probably 2 years ago. This mother and her baby had been in a car accident in which a huge truck had driven off an overpass and landed on their car and they'd escaped without injury. Pretty miraculous. Matt Lauer asked the mom, "How are you? How is the baby?" and her response, no kidding: "She's great! She's 6 months old and 100% breastfed!" You could tell he didn't know quite how to respond. Sooo...she has superpowers as a result? would've probably been my reaction. Anyway, it's idolatry, plain and simple. We take good things but we base our entire identity around them. We put our faith in them, find our purpose in them, take undue pride in them. It's everywhere, by the way. This is just the place where it was glaring today. Pick a subject--homeschooling, eating organic, theology, patriotism, the environment, politics--and you'll find people worshiping. I do it too. This concludes my most strident post to date. Hudson just woke up. I wish I had an icon that showed me grimacing as I put his disposable diaper in the Diaper Genie.

vanity, vanity...

I knew the weather was changing before I saw the forecast. How, you ask? My thumb told me. That's right. In true octogenarian fashion, I seem to have a little arthritis in my right thumb that acts up when the weather gets cooler. I just turned 37, making me around 10 years older than most of the bloggers I enjoy. Most days I feel younger. I managed to prolong adolescence into my late 20's, got married at 33, had my first child at 34, my second at 36 (which meant there was, no kidding, an "ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE" stamped on the outside of my chart at my OB's office) and here I am: a not-so-young Young Mother. A little arthritis might not be such a big deal when most of your day is spent relaxing in an Easy Boy watching CNN (which is what my arthritic Grandfather tended towards. He got rather fiery and political in his last years), however, it turns out that I use my thumbs approximately once per second. So here's how the day went:

Pick up Hudson from pack-n-play (ouch)
Change his diaper (ouch)
Change his clothes (ouch)
Get Harper out of bed (OUCH!)
Get her dressed (ouch)
Pull top off her yogurt (ouch)
Put 30 pound stroller outside (OUCH! OUCH!)
Help Harper with shoes and socks (ouch)

You get the picture. We really use these opposable thumbs! I finally had to take an Advil. So this, I think to myself, is why people really fear aging. It's partially the loss of one's stunning good looks, (hah) but mostly, we just don't want to be in pain.

Here's something else I was thinking about yesterday when I wasn't distracted by my infirmity. When the weather is this sublime, we are outside. We spend two hours at the park (including the walk) each morning, and another hour and a half in the afternoon. When we're inside, we're either eating, sleeping, or getting ready to go outside. We don't play with play-do, build with blocks, color, paint, or even read very much. I think, after some worrying, that I decided that this is okay. This is probably the only time in Harper's life that the only thing she really has to do each day is eat, sleep and play. Everything we'd be doing inside is really just a simulation of what we can do outside. We talk, we listen, we run, we sing, we swing, we draw with sidewalk chalk, we share, we tell stories. We have school, I suppose. Serendipitously.

Wave your banner

I meant to post on Veteran's Day. I love holidays that help me remember to be thankful. I actually almost started to cry when we were walking to the park last Friday and there were all of these flags billowing in front of houses in our neighborhood. Once in college I started weeping during my 20th century British history class. The professor, a natty, bow-tie wearing, white handlebar mustache sporting fellow named, fantastically, R.J.Q. Adams, was talking about how an entire generation of young British men was lost to World War I. And how all of these young women never married because of it. He then went on to celebrate what winning the war had meant for the world. Powerful stuff, but still a little weird to cry in a British history class.

Harper likes sitting in the Bumbo seat to eat raisins. Hudson has learned how to hoist his small body right out of the Bumbo seat. There is a recall on the Bumbo seat because apparently, the instructions on the back explaining how to use it safely are not big enough for some people. Once babies can hoist, don't leave them in it folks. Until they are almost 2 1/2 and like to sit in it to eat their raisins.

I've been reading some interesting blogs about parenting. Something I need to work on: following direct orders with "Okay?" Example: "Harper, after you finish lunch, we're going to use the potty and take a nap, OKAY?" It's as though I'm asking her permission or giving her a choice in the matter, which I am decidedly not. I remember learning in a linguistics class that in Japanese, there are lots of words used to avoid being direct. Because deference is considered a cultural norm. I think my teacher even said that when someone asks what time it is, you say, "It's about 2:15," even if it is exactly 2:15. I think that's interesting. I tend to be indirect because it seems more polite and I like to avoid all appearance of conflict. But I want Harper to obey me the first time I ask her to do something, and I don't want her to think I am uncertain about what I am telling her to do. So, I'm going to be mindful. Okay?

The Have Nots

This morning at breakfast after I'd put Hudson down for his morning nap, Harper requested a recitation of Things Hudson Is Too Little To Touch. Never too early to start relishing the misfortune of others. Those of you following the Potty Saga might have a passing interest in the fact that she took her big girl superiority into the bathroom soon after and made her second deposit in the Bank of Poo. She has also decided that the suitcase potty can indeed serve her well when she is at the park or Children's Museum. We have tentatively re-entered the world, albeit with lots of conversations about What Our Body Is Telling Us at 15 minute intervals.

**DISCLAIMER** I am not being reimbursed for the following endorsement. (though it would be kind of cool if I were)
Something good happens this time of year and its name is Coffee Mate seasonal creamer. I'm partial to the Pumpkin Spice, though the Peppermint Mocha is also good. (I tried the Gingerbread this morning and it was disappointing). I'm not kidding you, gentle reader, for a mere $1.77 you can get a couple of weeks' worth of almost Starbucks caliber coffee goodness. I'm not pretending it's healthy. Let's face it, it's called cream-er, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what chemistry is involved to necessitate the -er. Coffee is, for me, primarily a drug, but I feel okay about enjoying it.
One more thing. Usually when I put Hudson down for his naps it's a pretty tidy business. I sing for about 30 seconds, put him down, he pops his thumb in, rolls over on his side and we're done. Not so just now. He really didn't think he needed a nap and he expressed this by pushing up into a sitting position, bursting into a most pitiful cry, and, incongruously, clapping his little hands. It was like two fat little starfish smacking together in a rainstorm. I wish I could say I was of stern enough stuff to turn on my heel and march out. Indeed I am not. He and his fat little starfish clapping hands got picked right up. I am NOT Babywise at moments like that.

developmental millstones

Yes, the misspelling is intentional.
Micturition: from the Latin, micturire, to want to urinate. I have not blogged in several days because we have taken up the gauntlet. This picture, taken this weekend, will, barring backsliding, be the last picture of Harper wearing a diaper:

She is also sporting one of J's bowties. Those are sea turtles. So, the reason diapers are easy is because they allow you and your kid to be sort of blissfully unaware of micturition and his good friend defacation for sometimes hours at a time. With the wearing of The Big Girl Panties comes Constant Vigilance, which isn't hugely popular. I'd say it's going pretty well though. I don't think it's premature to say she has some mastery over micturition. The worst part is being confined to home. I got overly optimistic after some early success Monday morning and assumed that meant she was ready to use her portable little suitcase potty at the zoo. Silly me. We then tried the park yesterday morning. Again, not a good idea. She really likes toting around her portable suitcase potty but has yet to actually deposit anything in it. So today we are home. All day. I have a headache. And Harper seems grumpy. I tried to explain to her that unless she's willing to void al fresco, home we will have to stay. So, J. passed the bar, Hudson learned to crawl, Harper learned to use the potty..what impressive thing, you ask, have I learned to do this week? Well, I made up a potty song to the "Hallelujah" chorus of Handel's Messiah. Would it offend Handel, do you think, to know that "stin-ky poo-poo" actually fits quite nicely?