Sep
28
Okay, so, you guys know I love my daughter, right? I love her more than anything in this world. And I blog about my love for her enough that you would think that this blog, and by extension my life, is a love-filled love-fest coated in love.
However… some days real life just leaps up and smacks you in the face. “Snap out of it!!” says Life.
I hate Life for that some days. Bastard Life. Raining on my blissed-out Woodstock of Mommy Love.
Stinkerbelle is growing and developing at an amazing rate. And it is not all GOOD. Recently she has developed some disturbing new behaviours that are adding some wrinkles to our everyday blissful existence. You know, things like WALKING and INDEPENDENT THOUGHT and stuff.
It’s enough to make you cry in your beer, I tell you.
- She eats HAIR. She won’t eat actual FOOD, but she will eat hair. Some days I think I should just drop bits of food on the floor and let the cats roll all over them, and then let her cruise around and pick stuff up off the floor to eat. Because a fresh, nicely cut up banana or bits of cooked sweet potato I have lovingly placed in front of her at mealtime cause her to hold her lands aloft with a shocked look on her face like I have just placed something radioactive on her tray. But hair? ALWAYS in the mouth. I will look over at That Baby, and she will be engrossed in an Elmo video, absentmindedly flossing her teeth with one of my hairs strung between her hands. Or worse yet, she will have picked up some cat hair and put it in her mouth, and I will look over and her tongue is flitting in and out of her mouth trying to dislodge the hair, looking like some tiny black version of Barty Crouch Jr.
- We used to go in to Stinkerbelle’s room at night, and gaze down upon our beautiful daughter in her crib, watching her tiny sleeping self. Not anymore. Now, if we go in at nighttime, she has some parental intrusion alarm system that goes off. The child could be in a dead sleep, but she flips over lightning fast, up onto her knees, and over to sit on her bum or maybe to stand up, all the while talking. “Da da da da daa…” But not in an excited way or a happy-to-see-you way; more like you were in the middle of a conversation about the weather or what to have for lunch. It’s as if she just started up where falling sleep interrupted her a few hours before. And don’t even THINK about putting her back down to sleep for at LEAST an hour after that.
- She likes throwing things. As gym rats who love sports, both BDH and I are all “woohoo!” on the athletic tendencies, but That Baby heaves ANYTHING. Usually something HARD, like the little plastic mallets from her toy xylophone. And DUDE, taking one of those suckers in the face or off the top of your melon or off a bony part like an ankle or whatever SMARTS. She builds up some momentum, arms flapping madly in front of her like a little bird, mallet clutched in hand… flailflailflailFLAILFLAILFLAIL! FLAIL! FLAIL! FLAIL!… and then ffffwwwwINNNNGGGGG! The mallet flies up and over her head backwards, like a stripper’s underpants. Lord have mercy on whatever that sucker collides with. Here’s hoping it is something inexpensive, or that we have health coverage to repair it.
- Hair battles are another fun part of our day. The novelty of having hair is not lost on her, as she is endlessly fascinated with her hair. Me, I am getting over it pretty fast, and am missing the easy “bald” days. I spend, oh, I dunno, half an hour doing her hair in the morning. She looks GORGEOUS. And within the hour, she had rooted and scratched and pulled it all out into a frizzy mess. Most days I just can’t be bothered styling it because of this, but she still pulls and scratches at it. Usually, she pulls on the sides, fuzzing it out to such incredible lengths that she begins to bear a frightening resemblance to Albert Einstein. Or the Doc from Back to the Future. But that PALES IN COMPARISON to the frustration of doing her hair, keeping her from futzing with it for however long before we go out somewhere, only to have ADULTS come along and, in admiring her hair, PULL HER ENTIRE HAIRSTYLE OUT. It does happen, as unbelievable as it sounds. And I may commit a bodily injury on the next adult who does this, I tell you.
- That Baby goes to bed with a plethora of friends, stuffed animals and loveys and a rattle. There are usually one or two blankets in the crib with her as well. And she sleeps mostly undisturbed from 7 pm until we go in at 7 am and get her out of her crib to start the day. But occasionally, we will hear an ungodly SCREAM at some ungodly hour, and we’ll leap out of bed and rush in to see what has happened. And there we will find our daughter, standing in her crib, shrieking and crying real tears of upset and distress and desperation. Because she held Mr. Ducky or Mr. Bunny or her blankie over the side of the crib and let go. AND IT WAS GONE. One, why the hell is she standing up and playing at this time of the early morning? And two, WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, child? Gravity is a cruel mistress, for ALL OF US.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVELOVELOVE being a mom and she is like the most perfect child I ever could have imagined… most of the time. And I thank my lucky stars to have been blessed with this most wonderful of children. Other times, she does crazy normal nutty baby things. And those are the days where I just throw up my hands and go, “Child, what the HELL are you doing? What PLANET are you FROM? Now be a good girl and pass me my bourbon. Mommy’s going to need a LOT of medication today.”
