Angelina has reached some major developmental milestone. I'm not sure exactly which category it comes under; cognitive, social, gross motor, fine motor control... I don't know. But she's realized that she can use her sleeves (or bare forearms) to wipe her nose. This monumentous discovery means that now I need to wipe not just her nose, but also the cute little slug trails she's wiped on her arms. Oh the joys of winter, eh?
Doug and I have been sleeping apart because I've been coughing. Angelina's been sick too, so she's been up several more times per night than usual so I've been tired. The other day I got her at 7:00. We cuddled in bed. The boobs are a self-service item now as she does her morning nursing without much involvement from me, and I can catch another five minutes of sleep. I just wanted a few more minutes of sleep, so I let Angelina wander around our baby-proofed house unsupervised. This lasted until she came back and wanted to show me her newest treasure. She gave me a handful of something soft and damp. Even sleepy I knew this couldn't be good and when my eyes could focus I discovered I had been presented with a hand full of cat puke. I should have realized that what Angelina had been saying was "Itty Pooh, Itty Pooh." If that doesn't start your day with a sense of anticipation for what's coming next, I don't know what would!
She's underweight. At 19 months, she's only 21 lbs and hasn't been gaining in ages. Because of this I have food at the ready for her constantly. On a recent trip to the zoo, I had goldfish, chicken nuggets, olives, sliced apples, dried blueberries, flat fruit, Ritz bits, juice, and dinosaur shaped gummy fruits. And what do I find her eating when we're in the middle of the petting zoo? Hay balls. The little hay balls we're supposed to be feeding the goats. A veritable smorgasbord I bring for her, and she's eating hay balls. I guess I don't need to worry about fiber.
I've come to the conclusion that chastity belts weren't actually invented by suspicious husbands who were off on some crusade du jour. No, they were actually invented by some frustrated mom who couldn't keep a diaper on her kid. Angelina has a great future as a nudist. She's actually developing interesting manipulative skills in that she knows if she stands by her potty and says "Pee pee!" that I'll take off her clothes and her diaper and set her on the potty. It's at this point that she makes a break for it and runs around the house buck-assed naked, flapping her little arms and yodeling. I don't know why the yodeling has to go along with most of the running, but even when she's dressed, running = yodeling.
Her favorite thing to do while naked is go play "night night" in our bed. She squirms under the covers giggling, and pats the pillow next to her indicating that Mommy should come play "night night" too. I guess she loves the feeling of the flannel on her naked little body. This lasts until Mommy gets a bit nervous about Angelina's bladder capacity. If it were up to her, she'd be naked 24/7. She's learning a new word an hour, it seems and her latest one is "Nackt" or "naked" in German. She'll tug at her clothes whining "Nackt! Nackt!" And while we're under the covers giggling, she usually starts pulling at my clothes saying "Nackt! Nackt!" There's just something beautiful about skin on skin contact with a giggling toddler. Absolutely unselfconscious other than the sheer joy of nudity. This is what the Garden of Eden must have been like.
Doug and I are trying to conceive (TTC) our second child. We've been trying for about 8 months now. I've been charting, peeing on little white plastic sticks, taking herbs and doing acupuncture. I'm basically doing everything short of praying for immaculate conception. I'm THIS close to sacrificing a chicken to the fertility gods. I hear Oxyclean gets out blood stains.
This procreation focus tends to take a lot of the "recreation" focus away from intimate encounters. I'm sure any of you who spent a bit of time TTC can relate. Of course trying to time intimate/procreative encounters during the holidays while the in-laws were visiting as well as working around Angelina's naps... uh huh, THAT's gonna happen. (Heading into Too Much Information land, fair warning) So over the weekend my darling husband was intent on having a recreation-focused encounter to make up for a distinct lack of intimacy over the holidays and during the visit of his parents. We've always been fairly open-minded, and Doug being the gentleman that he is always wants to ensure my satisfaction, however that may be achieved. In an effort to jump start things as well as give me a hint as to his intentions, he made some selections from our "adult toys and novelties" drawer and laid them on the bed. You know what I'm talking about. We all had one to cope with dry spells in our love life during college. For you it might have been the shower massage -- Whatever, go for it. It was shortly after this, and before anything got started :-( that Angelina woke up from the shortest nap ever.
As soon as she's awake we get into her routine. I prepare lunch while she plays with our large salad bowl full of potatoes on the kitchen floor. We could spend millions on educational toys and she'd probably still prefer her potatoes which, incidentally are always well-tenderized by the time I use them. She gets her chicken nuggets (pronounced "bawk bawk" in toddlerese) and pasta most days. After lunch she decided she simply had to be nude -- no problem, I keep the potty handy. She ran to the bedroom while I cleaned up the lunch dishes. By the time I got to the bedroom, what to my wondering eyes should appear? Holy crap. Angelina (buck assed naked, remember) was wielding a battery-operated simulation of male genitalia designed to inspire an inadequacy complex in your average male*. And WITH this realistically colored item, she was energetically bludgeoning the cat. I decided to put aside my concerns about the inappropriateness of her handling this object and focused on the fact that she should be nice to the cat. So I'm telling her to be nice to the kitty, she's going to give the kitty an owie and so on. Angelina is obviously incredulous at this, and proceeds to bonk herself on the head with the realistically textured phallic object as if to say "Mommy, this CAN'T cause an owie, see?" At this point I came to the conclusion that this was WAY too freakishly surreal, snatched her new toy out of her hand and locked it back in the adult toys and novelties drawer and figured the damn cat could fend for herself.
So how were YOUR holidays?
Evelyn
*can they even be obtained in a "regular" size? All materials herein are subject to copywrite laws, Copywrite held by Evelyn James
