Category: parenting

a small laughing matter

Phoebe is making great strides in her walking skills. Also singing. And tickling. I have a few movies from earlier this week that I can’t help but share.

First, the tickling! Phoebe found a hole in John’s sock:

Second, Phoebe walks forward on cue, retracing her steps of 3 weeks earlier:

Third, my favorite. Phoebe starts off strong with singing (or possibly trying to communicate with dolphins), and showing off her stellar hand-eye coordination. But just look out for the dramatic finish.

(That last bit makes me laugh every time I watch it. As it did the first time I saw the little topple. John says that Phoebe will some day resent me for that little laugh of mine that can be heard at the end of the movie. Perhaps she will resent me, or perhaps she’ll realize that she could have a career in vaudeville.)

Anyhow, we’re down in NY once more for the weekend visiting the in-laws. The drive down was looooonnnnngggg. (So long that I am inspired to use additional non-standard orthographic elements to represent my exaggerated lengthening of the word.) Traffic was slow, leading to a 4 and half hour trip, when it usually takes 3 and a half. One extra hour doesn’t sound toooo bad. But, somebody no longer falls asleep in the car. (Oh, except for the last 5 minutes of the drive, leading her to wake up cranky and howling upon our arrival.) She (it’s Phoebe we’re talking about here, by the way, not me) seemed to need constant entertainment the whole way down. I generally sit in the back seat with her. And I sang, I danced (well, the belted, seated kind of dance), played games, recited stories, soothed, talked, sang, talked in silly voices, sang, counted toes. (Did you know that Phoebe has 5 toes on each foot? I counted them several times to make sure.) When I’d stop, we’d get screaming. (Not me, mind you.) Let me tell you, we had some Quality™ time.

But, we arrived, tired, but generally with some sanity left intact. Though my voice is feeling a bit strained today.

And here we are. John and his mother are out hunting for a new microwave, and Phoebe is napping. Later, we’ll go visit John’s dad in the hospital. (It’s a sub-acute care facility. He’s been in and out of many, many hospitals of various types since he rebroke a hip last summer.) It’s good that we’ve been able to get down here pretty often.

There’s a particularly bright star on the horizon. We are (hopefully, hopefully, hopefully) going to get to go to my favorite restaurant in the universe. It’s a little place about 40 minutes away from John’s parents’ house in a town called Pine Bush. The restaurant is called Pure City, which leads me to regularly call it Sin City. (Not to the proprietors, though.) I keep meaning to write about it. However, it may not make it’s way into this week, since this is Cheese Week. And this restaurant is 100% cheese-free. Aside from some tofu cheesecake. Does that count?

putting baby to work

We just had a breakthrough moment. I’m sitting on one couch in the living room (doing work, believe it or not) and John is sitting across the room on the other couch. Phoebe was over playing with John. John realized he needed a tissue. The tissues were over next to me. What on earth could we do? Certainly, standing up seemed like too much effort, and it’s very hard to throw a single tissue across the room. So I held out a tissue, and asked Phoebe to come get it. She crawled over and then brought the tissue to John. Yes! (Of course, there were moments when it seemed she would opt to shred the tissue, or wander off in another direction. So the whole process was not terribly expedient.) It’s only a matter of time before we can get her to start mowing the lawn and changing the oil in our cars.

something beautiful

Phoebe took her first steps today. (Not counting a few inadvertent ones she’d taken over the past few weeks.) I caught a bit of her first toddling on camera. I’m happy to be able to share this beautiful Phoebe moment.

Phoebe’s a very good sleeper, and rarely wakes up in the night. But she woke up tonight a few hours after going to bed, just a little whle ago. I was actually glad. It was so wonderful to have the opportunity to hold her, comfort her, cuddle with her. I needed some comforting, too. It was hard for me to tear myself away from her, to let her go back to sleep…

teething bites

I repeat, teething bites. I know, I know. I’m far from the first one to realize this. But we just had a bit of a rough day. Phoebe has been working on 3 molars. At the same time. Plus she’s getting over an ear infection. The result: she was clingy today. Needy. And often cranky. Demanding to be picked up. Demanding to be put down. Then picked up. Often just to cry loudly in my ears. Long day. John and Phoebe did, thankfully, spend a good chunk of time together today. She seems a bit less needy with just him. But if I’m around, I must be holding her. Or entertaining her. Or both.

Anyhow, the day finally headed to a close. She was in a good mood for her bath. Which was great. But then, when I got her out of the tub and had her bundled in a towel, she bit me. Hard. On the arm. Left a mark. I’d like to think she didn’t realize it was me that she was biting, as I was wearing sleeves. But. I’ve realized how menacing those little sharp teeth can be.

It makes me fondly remember the days of those big beautifully toothless grins. So very toothless.

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But now, she’s got teeth. Lots of sharp teeth. When the mouth is closed, she looks so docile. But then…

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I mean, just look at them!

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What next? What if she develops a taste for blood?

Hey, you! What’s-yer-face!

I have a sort of strange confession to make. I don’t know what to call my mother-in-law. I’ve actually known her for almost 15 years. And in that time, I’ve deftly (and sometimes not so deftly) avoided calling her by any term of direct address. I’ve been “you-ing” her for over a decade. She’s of a generation and disposition that doesn’t really invite someone of my age calling her by her first name. She’s never suggested that I do. And I’m of a generation and disposition where calling someone I know well “Mrs. X” seems wrong. At some point, maybe shortly after John and I got married (the first time), she started signing cards “Ma & Pa X”. While I appreciate the effort to give me some forms of address, albeit many years after first running into the issue, I just can’t manage Ma or Pa. They sound straight out of Little House on the Prairie. And nobody else calls them that. John calls his mother “Mom.” (I call my own mother “Mom.” I don’t want to call John’s mother “Mom.”)

So I have to say I found it pretty funny to come across this in my class reading:

Knowing how to address your father-in-law (or mother-in-law) has often been a problem for many people: Mr Smith is sometimes felt to be too formal, Bill too familiar, and Dad pre-empted or even ‘unnatural’. The arrival of grandchildren is sometimes seen as a way out, it being easier to call a father-in-law Grandad than Dad. (Wardhaugh, p. 269)*

Tomorrow, we are heading down to NY to visit Grammy and Grampa. Problem solved.

Yes! This is why people have kids!

Brought to you by Great Moments in Family Planning.

*Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Second Edition. Cambridge, USA: Blackwell.

a metaphorical filled pause (and a cute baby)

Ok, so I don’t have time to write tonight. I have lots of work to do, and am seriously sleep-deprived to boot. So I’m using this post to signal an expected delay. Think of it as an um.

But to distract you from my lack of writing, I feel compelled to show off this picture of Phoebe that I took at my sister‘s house, and that John cleaned up for me:

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Also, please note that Phoebe is wearing a hat. I tell you this as an excuse to share with you that Phoebe can now say [hætʰ]. And I finally posted a bit to the Phoebe Blog about her latest verbal accompishments. Ah, the perils she’ll face of having a geeky linguist for a mother. (I’ve already been chasing her around with a microphone. But she tends to clam up when I try to interview her. I may have to resort to bugging her crib. Catch every word she says to her dolly and stuffed puppy dog.)

watching my language

another_banana.jpgIt’s a strange expression for me to use, “watching my language.” Especially since I am a linguist, and study language professionally. And actually spend time looking at visual representations of speech. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

(Warning: this post contains “language.” And by that, I mean l*ng*ag*. You know, %$*#! words. So if you are my mother-in-law, or someone else offended by such words, please read no further. Actually, if you are my mother-in-law, it’s not really me at all who’s writing this. I have no idea how this post got here. In fact, this whole blog must have been written by someone else who coincidentally has my name.)

I was reading a message board message a little while back, and came across a message where someone had written “cr*p”. Yes, c-r-*-p. And all I could think in response was “holy fucking shit, crap is a bad word??”

Crap is a word I use fairly often. As in Oh, crap, I forgot something. Or I have a lot of crap to deal with. I mean, I realize that it more-or-less means shit. But I thought it was way less of a swear-word. Stronger than doodoo, certainly, but really quite mild. I may even have said crap in front of my mother-in-law. And my mother-in-law feels quite strongly about swearing. As in it upsets her. She didn’t like the movie “Titanic” because someone uttered the word shit in it. (There are plenty of reasons not to like that movie, but quite honestly, shit wasn’t even on the radar for me.) And I really don’t want her to find out about this blog of mine, as I’m sure it would upset her. Mostly because of my language. I mean, hell, I write the word ass often enough.

And while, as my sister put it, I am unlikely to be considered the Kevin Smith of the blogosphere, I do want to reserve the right to swear on my blog. Sometimes I just feel the need. I’m not trying to offend (I spend my whole life trying not to offend), but I find it liberating to have this uncensored aspect of writing.

But then there’s this whole parenting business. I caught myself saying to Phoebe, “you are so damn cute!” (She is really damn cute, you know.) And I ask myself, is this appropriate child-directed speech?

Anyhow, at some point, like so many before us, we’re going to have to face this issue. It’s obvious that Phoebe now understands many words, and can even produce a few. And it’s only a matter of time before Phoebe starts demanding her damn lunch when she’s at daycare, exclaiming “crap, my blocks fell over,” or telling another small child to hand over the fucking dolly.

It’s not that we swear a whole lot. I mean, it’s not like every other word that comes out of our mouths would need to be bleeped on prime-time TV. But, well, swearing happens. Shit happens. And other terms. In our speech, and in the movies we watch, and the music we listen to. For example, I may want to reconsider singing along to “Don’t fuck me up (with peace and love)” by Cracker lest Phoebe picks up on the words…

One option we have considered is to go the Battlestar Galactica route. They have cleverly and subtly substituted frak for another term. As in Frak off, frak me, frak you, go frak yourself. No frakking way.

So, please excuse me. It’s time for me to prepare Phoebe’s frakking breakfast.

different

Phoebe turns one tomorrow. Leading me to reflect a lot on the past year. I’ve been asked if having Phoebe has changed my life a lot. The answer, after I stop laughing hysterically, is more than I could have imagined. But while I’d expected my life to be different, I hadn’t realized how much I would be different.

I always knew I wanted kids at some point. (Not many kids. One or two.) But I always thought of myself interacting with older kids. The kind that can walk and talk and feed themselves. Read books. Go to school. Have conversations about reading books and going to school.

I was pretty indifferent to babies and small children. Actually, I had a slight aversion. I’d jokingly, or not entirely jokingly, call them small things. Smelly things. Noisy things. And all these things are true. Babies are small and at times smelly and at times noisy. This has not changed. What’s changed now is how I react to these issues.

I used to work in a bookstore, and spent some time as children’s department manager. Not for love of children, exactly, but for love of children’s books. The kids themselves were part of the scenery. Almost a necessary…well if not a necessary evil exactly…a necessary hazard. I liked (some of) the older kids well enough, and enjoyed doing craft and reading activities with them. But babies? Toddlers? Well, quite honestly I learned to tune them out. I could actually pretty much ignore the the squeals, cries and other miscellaneous noise emissions from the smallest of bookstore customers. I once had an experience where I became aware of this power to turn out the sound of babies crying. I was on a long flight, and shortly after landing, some parents travelling with a small baby in the row behind me more or less apologized for all the crying during the flight. Amazingly, I hadn’t even particularly noticed.

But lately, I’ve developed heightened baby awareness. And I’m not annoyed by them at all. In fact, when I was on the train recently, a young baby around Phoebe’s age was making fairly loud babbling and howling noises. Not crying, but making loud happy noises. And I…enjoyed it. I felt warm and fuzzy. Me, who once would have tuned it out with some annoyance, or even changed seats to get more quiet.

And this isn’t the only way I’ve changed. I’ve developed a new vulnerability. I’ve been devastated for weeks about news stories involving the deaths of young babies, and lost sleep over stories where a parent of a young child died. It’s even been when such stories were from several years ago. Don’t get me wrong. I was never exactly insensitive to such events, such stories. But they never used to make me feel destroyed. And my new sensitivity extends to fiction, too. I got choked up watching “The Incredibles”, for god’s sake, when I saw it a few weeks ago. An animated action movie. And I’d seen the movie before with no such effect. But in many ways I was a different person then.

So, here I am. One year later. Almost one year ago today, the population of our household changed. We added one small new person. And small as she is, the difference she’s made is immeasurable.

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Phoebe Lenore, 1 hour old (left) and almost 1 year later (right).