16 Months, 1 Week and a Day

Yep, that's how old she is on this very special day when she is WALKING! On her own! Not holding anyone's finger! As you can see from the pictures, she's VERY pleased with herself and so is her mommy! I was truly worried she still wouldn't be walking at her 18 month appointment and that her pediatrician would be trying to break it to me gently that she needed physical therapy. Huge twin sighs of relief and joy!

In case you're wondering why the comforter from our bed is on the living room floor, here's the story. For the past couple of weeks Maria has been enjoying attempting to walk on our bed in the mornings as her tired parents try and get a few more minutes of shut eye. I think the appeal is that it's soft and so falling doesn't hurt. She sits between us, pulls up to standing and then bounces or maybe takes a step or two before collapsing in a giggling heap. Since she frequently falls on Daddy or Mommy, we've been joking that she's perfecting some new wrestling moves like the "Dupa Drop" (If you don't know what a dupa is, go find someone of Polish descent and they'll enlighten you!).

Today she wanted to walk around on the bed in the middle of the day but I figured with just one parent the chance that she'd fall off the bed was just too high. So I brought the pillows and comforter down to the living room floor and make a sort of bed-like environment, supplemented with pillows from the couches. And it worked spectacularly well! Maria must have decided that falling down on the comforter in the living room wouldn't hurt too badly and she just took off walking and walking and walking. She went to bed early tonight!

Missed Milestones & Inoculating Children Against Advertising

Maria will be 16 months old on Sunday and she (STILL!) doesn't walk on her own. I remember when she was just a newborn and it seemed like she'd hit milestones weeks or months early. And now with the whole walking thing I'm finding it difficult to say the least. When I'm not with her, the question I get right after "How old is she?" is the "She must be walking now" one. Sometimes it's not even a question, but a statement! If I were truly a Mom of the Year, my child would not only be walking by now, but she'd have taught all her stuffed animals to walk, too!

Hopefully she will be walking soon, but for now I'm left with the unmet expectations of countless acquaintances and friends, a cranky child who wants to be independently mobile but isn't and a rather sore back from stooping over slightly while Maria holds my finger while she walks! If nothing else this has been a learning experience. (1) Never ask anyone if her or his child is _____ing yet and (2) Leave babies on the floor until they spontaneously get themselves up and start walking or you might be in for months of a back pain! (Note: If you're under 5 feet tall, #2 might not apply.)

On a completely different note, here's another interesting article about children and advertising. The author's not-yet-reading son asked if she was going to buy Chlorox at a grocery store which is a product she rarely buys. This goes to show how insidious advertising really is! I can remember as a child seeing just one ad for a Slip-N-Slide and I absolutely HAD to have one. My parents, as usual, refused to buy it and eventually my sisters and I created a makeshift one out of a sheet of plastic and a sprinkler. This article has some ideas (beyond the simple I'm-not-going-to-waste-my-hard-earned-money-on-that-piece-of-junk! technique) on how to nurture in your children a healthy skepticism for advertising.

Mathematicians, Physicists, Grocery Carts and Liars

I'll bet you're just wondering how these topics can possibly relate! I figure since I haven't blogged in such a long time I'd better come up with a catchy title.

As a mathematician married to a physicist I thought I'd share this comic that shows clearly which field is best!

As for grocery carts, Mark and I decided to run errands WITH Maria yesterday instead of having one person stay home with her supposedly freeing up the other to run errands more efficiently. Thanks to the prevalence of shopping carts at Lowe's, Sam's and Meijer, we all had an amazingly wonderful trip. Maria, who is very close to walking independently, still likes to hold onto a finger or a couch or, as it turns out, a shopping cart! When she discovered that she could push a huge, fully-loaded shopping cart and make it move all by herself, it was a moment of pure joy! She happily pushed the cart through Lowe's and then Sam's and finally Meijer, with a little steering help from mom and dad and lots of amused looks and smiles from fellow shoppers at seeing this 22 pound shortie throwing all of her weight into moving a gigantic cart! I have to say this was probably the funnest errand run I've even been on!

And finally, Mark sent me a link to this interesting article about children and lying. Fascinating stuff! Apparently learning to lie early (age 2) is a sign of intelligence because one needs to construct a plausible alternate reality. Researchers theorize that children learn to lie by watching their parents - ouch! Sometimes we even prompt them to lie such as: "Now tell Aunt Hilda how much you love the bar of soap she got you for your birthday." I think the thing that surprised me most was research showing that in families where there are more arguments between teens and parents, the teens actually respect their parents more! It's a case of attempting to change a parent's mind about a rule versus simply lying to them to avoid detection and punishment.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

February has been a tough month so far. Heavy snowfalls, bitter cold, drenching rains, flooding and lack of sunlight are enough to dampen anyone's spirits. And if that weren't enough, Maria got sick... sicker than she has been to date. Not only did she have a runny nose, cough, high fever and ear infection, but she also managed to have diarrhea, diaper rash and a terrible teething episode concurrent with the nasty cold/ear infection issues. I don't know how she managed it, but it appears our daughter is an over-achiever at the tender age of 10.5 months!

It was the worst of times in many ways. We sweated through sleep deprivation, ear-splitting wails and the dilemma of whether or not to go to the "convenient" care clinic to suffer the inconvenience of sitting in a germ-infested waiting room for more than 2 hours with a hysterical child since the high fever ironically made its first appearance on Friday evening! We decided to hang onto our remaining shreds of sanity and NOT go to convenient care.

Bright and early Monday morning I was able to make an appointment with Maria's regular pediatrician and he diagnosed Miss Cranky with a bad case of the ear-infection fussies! Armed with some liquid Amoxicillin and a medicine dropped I headed home with high hopes for a healthy child in the near future. These hopes were seriously endangered by little Miss Fussy, who does not like Amoxicillin despite the copious amount of sugar mixed into the liquid. With each dose the struggles escalated from head turning to trying to bat the dropper away to all out flailing and spitting. The medicine ended up all over her, the changing table, me, Mark and sometimes the wall. After a few days of this I was starting to worry that she would have an ear infection for the rest of her life because we, the incompetent parents that we are, couldn't get enough medicine in her!

Then along came my knight in shining armor. Since it is Valentine's Day after all, I'd like to say that I have an amazingly creative and talented husband and I am constantly thinking how lucky I am to be married to him! One morning he measured out the medicine as usual and then started to put it drop by drop in the center of some Cheerios, Maria's favorite food. He put the Cheerios on her tray and to my amazement she picked them up and ate them, medicine and all! It took a while, but she got the full dose that morning and every morning after that! Eventually Mark started putting some of the medicine on toast just to speed things up a bit.

Today Maria is finally done with her meds and has returned to her usual happy self. Sometimes she gets a little too happy and starts to scream at the top of her lungs apparently just because she can, but I'd rather have a happy and loud baby than a sick and loud one any day!

My Favorite Baby Carrier

Just two or three months after I discovered we were expecting a baby, I started on a quest for the right baby carrier. I had been told by my mom that babies tend to get fussy in the evening just when you are tired, too, and trying to put together dinner on top of it all. Several women had told me how much they loved their baby slings because they could just put the baby in and nurse while cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the older kids. It sounded the perfect multitasking solution to me, so the hunt for the perfect carrier began!

I had heard from some friends that a baby Bjorn worked great for them, so I promptly found a gently used one on ebay and bought it last summer (my first purchase for the baby!). At first she seemed too small for the baby Bjorn, but when she was about 6 weeks old I started using it. It worked OK, but I wasn't exactly enthralled with it. I found a couple of serious drawbacks. First of all, I didn't like the time it takes to put on and get it adjusted. I had to look at the directions for the first 4 or 5 times I put it on, but eventually got the hang of it. Still, it seemed to take forever to put on and all the while Maria would be crying because she wanted to be held that very instant. The second drawback too me a while to discover, but I discovered the Bjorn becomes more and more uncomfortable the heavier your baby gets. My Bjorn was the kind with lumbar support and everything, but still it was uncomfortable. From many a backpacking trip I've learned that a heavy pack feels much lighter when most of the weight is on your waist and as little as possible on the shoulders. The Bjorn puts all the weight squarely on one's shoulders. With disappointment I continued my quest for the perfect baby carrier.

Determined to make baby wearing work for me, I purchased a used Moby wrap. It's basically a long piece of cloth that one wraps around one's body and the baby can fit in it an number of different ways. I used it some and it made some tasks like cooking or hanging out the laundry a little easier since I could take her with me. I never really got the hang of the wrap. It was time consuming to put on (same problem as the Bjorn), hard to put Maria in so we'd both be comfortable and as the weather heated up, wrap wearing was definitely out in our non-air conditioned home. Also, wraps are NOT manly so I could not realistically entertain the hope that Mark would ever find the wrap useful. Thus, the hunt continued!

After witnessing an acquaintance use her Ergo baby carrier, I was intrigued. I read up on it and watched the demo videos featuring folks who were WAY too happy about their Ergo carrier (check out the one on attachment parenting... I'm somewhat attachment oriented myself, but this is over the top!). Despite the gushing happiness of the videos, I purchased a carrier and have been overwhelmingly pleased with it! Some of my favorite features... it's very easy and intuitive to put on and it's COMFORTABLE! You can hold a child from infancy (with an insert) up to 4 or 5 years old so you need to buy only one carrier, also the carrier works in 3 different positions (front, back and side), it's manly enough for my husband to wear, and it puts most of the weight squarely on one's hips (unlike some other carriers I've mentioned). I could go on and on, but I'll try to contain myself! I use it around the house when Maria is fussy but I need to get things done. I've used it to go for walks on our uneven county roads which are not too good for pushing a stroller. Some of the highlight hikes with the carrier were at the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan and the redwoods in California. In both cases a stroller would not have worked so no baby carrier = no hikes = sad Sue. Ergo baby carrier = nice, long hikes = happy Sue.

In an attempt to be balanced I will say that I'm not sure this carrier would be the best for a longer hike (6 or more miles) with an older (and heavier!) child. It holds the child right next to your body so it could get really hot and sweaty. I think one of the backpack style carriers might be best if you were planning on going to a national park, for example, and doing lots of longer hikes with an older child. Some of the backpack style carriers have sun and rain canopies and even bug netting which could be important in those conditions.

Trash the Dress!

On the flight back from a very fun trip to visit my sis in sunny CA (pictures will be coming soon!), I became aware of a new and intriguing trend in solving the wedding dress dilemma. Whatever are you supposed to do with it after the wedding? I had hoped to rent a dress to avoid this dilemma entirely, but the wedding dress rental shop in town had long gone out of business by the time I got married. The dress is hanging in a closet in the spare bedroom, but that room will eventually be needed when our family grows (just to make sure no rumors are started, we are neither expecting nor expecting to be expecting anytime soon!). Given my feelings about my mother's dress (a homemade mid-thigh number from 1970), I'm under no illusion that Maria will someday want my dress. I'm not particularly sentimental so I tried to sell my dress or give it to a friend, but to no avail. I could always drop it off at Goodwill, but somehow I'm just not happy with that option.

Now a whole new door has opened and I for one am excited! The airline magazine had a short article about a website called "trash the dress" featuring brides relieving the stress of their weddings by destroying their wedding dresses in various ways. The forum has even better pictures in my opinion and you definitely need to check out this video involving paint and an 80s dress with uber-puffy sleeves!

Mark and I were discussing the concept of destroying one's wedding dress in a spectacular way and while attracted to the idea, we both felt somewhat disconcerted by the wastefulness of the act. Why destroy a perfectly good dress? Just today a dear friend (who also happens to be a photographer) were discussing dress trashing and she had an awesome point of view. One can think of this as an act of creating, not destroying. You are creating art, creating pictures, creating memories. Since we aren't the original Creator, we must create out of something, and sometimes the raw materials are a bit costly!

This winter I hope to clean out some closets. And sometime this spring I hope to create some crazy fun memories with my dress, mud, daffodils and Maria! (Or possibly wait a few years and go to Las Vegas with Alicia, Judy, Christy and Marjorie to paint the town red in our white dresses, just like these ladies!)

No "Mom of the Year" Award for me!

It all started several weeks ago on a Wednesday when I couldn't get Maria down for her afternoon nap until 1:30pm. It was a struggle to get her down and so she fell asleep later than usual. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but I really needed (conversation with other adults is not merely a want, but a need some days!) to go to the bible study at the next door neighbor's home at 2pm. And I didn't want a cranky baby.

So at 1:55pm I grabbed my bible and the baby monitor (thankfully a long distance one!) and started slowly walking toward the neighbor's house. Though the static increased, the monitor didn't start making angry out-of-range beeps until I reached Kathy's front porch. I walked inside and the monitor sometimes had contact and sometimes didn't. I was absolutely determined to make this crazy idea of mine work and so eventually located a particular spot on the banister of the stairs in the living room where there was reception. With a little help from some tape, the monitor stayed in contact and I stayed at the study until 3:30 when I heard happy, wakeful noises coming from the monitor. I ran back home, changed Maria's diaper and we both came back for the tail end of the study!

So yes, I left my baby at home, ALONE for over an hour! Thankfully I'm not Brittany Spears because the paparazzi would be all over this, not to mention DCFS. When I told this story to a fellow mom and understanding friend, she said "you won't win any Mom of the Year awards for that one!" She explained that this was a compliment and that her husband used this phrase to describe sanity-saving but unorthodox methods of caring for one's child. I totally love the phrase and have decided to chronicle some of these non-Mom-of-the-Year moments!

To top that episode, this weekend Mark, Maria and I went to Chicago to spend the weekend with a dear friend from Seattle, Alicia. We had a great afternoon walking along the waterfront, enjoying the warm October day. As evening drew near, Maria became fussy so we headed back to the Westin on Michigan Avenue (thank you, Priceline!) to put Maria to sleep.

The plan was for Mark to stay with Maria while Alicia and I went out on the town. As you can imagine, staying in a hotel room with a sleeping baby is far from exciting. Maria needs darkness and silence to sleep and she goes to sleep around 7pm, nixing all hope of TV-watching, book reading and the like. While we were unpacking and getting Maria ready for bed, I noticed that the closet was a fairly good size. Upon closer inspection, I discovered our pack-n-play (Maria's travel bed) did indeed fit in the closet!

To make a long story short, I left my baby in a closet (a 4 star closet, mind you!) while I went out on the town for some serious shopping and a scrumptious dessert with a dear friend! Mark was in the hotel room so we didn't leave her alone, but she did sleep in the closet all night! I have to admit I'd do it again in a heartbeat! And yes, I do know how lucky I am to have such an awesome husband!