A Mindful Life

For posterity…

Scene: Dinnertime, 6:30 p.m. I am standing at the kitchen counter, Husband is leaning against the sink.

Me: I swear, Claire seems hungry every hour lately. I’m chopping up some vegetables for her. [Claire is clinging to my butt, whining in hunger.]

Him: What did you make for dinner?

Me: I made chicken ratatou–ee-yOUCH!

Him: Did you cut yourself? What’s wrong? [He immediately steps over to check on me.]

Me: Claire bit me! The little rascal just bit the back of my thigh!

Him: Oh, I thought you’d cut yourself.

Me: She bit me! She bit me! What an impatient little stinker.

Him: Well, she takes after her mother. [wink]

It was great fun, and we’ll miss you.

Guess who took steps without assistance today?

Claire took her first two when I was at our friends’ home. Then after her afternoon nap, Claire got to work again with Uncle T nearby for support. After many tries, she took three steps. They weren’t graceful, and they weren’t actually one in front of the other. But that’s why we call them toddlers!

She was thrilled. We cheered and clapped, she shrieked, laughed, and clapped. I didn’t get it on video this time. I’m sure we’ll soon have lots of movies of her tearing up the carpet on two feet.

I’ve been sick and am recovering slowly (I caught Claire’s cold). Uncle T is having a good time with us. Claire is doing her darndest to walk unassisted and today took two teeny tiny steps in succession. Does that count? We were visiting a friend at the time, so I have witnesses. Claire’s sleep and naps are all whacky in part, I suspect, because she’s very busy integrating the walking. She isn’t drinking as much milk anymore since she got sick (I’m a little concerned), and I think she lost a little weight from being sick too. A mother’s job is worry. But she looks pretty healthy here! This was taken yesterday. There are a bunch of new photos and videos uploaded on Flickr for users who are friends and family on Flickr. In one of them she is saying the word “baby.” That seems to be her first distinct word.

Oh, and I keep forgetting to mention a few more tidbits. Claire really seems to favor the color blue. She always grabs for whatever blue toy (block, ball, bead); she will even grab it out of our hands. She now puts balls in her Tiny Love sorter without using the funnel. And she loves making the S sound; she often sounds like a leaky balloon. Ssssssssssss!

Uncle T arrived this morning via an early flight from Austin. He and Claire have become chums right away. Right now they are both napping, so I hope to get a few winks in too.

Claire is better; her fever broke yesterday. Now I have a sore throat and a low grade fever, and I hope this passes just as quickly.

My morning started with feeling punky and then turned odious. (Warning: somewhat gross details follow.) I was eating my toast at the table and Claire was playing on the floor. I had not done a visual sweep of the room as I have learned, having a cat, to get in the habit of doing. For some reason I happen to look over at Claire, who was sitting by the sliding glass door playing with ochre-colored chunks of something. It took me a couple seconds that it was not Cheerios. Yep, Stella had regurgitated right there, and for a couple of minutes Claire had a ball playing with all the squishy stuff. Ugh. I caught her just before she put the hair ball in her mouth. I whisked her away, washed her off, and then proceeded to work on the mess. Thank goodness for the Spotbot. It took me about a half an hour because the mess covered about four square feet. Thus began the day.

Right now she is napping and I am stealing a few moments to get this post written. So, what is Claire doing at 11 months?

• She has a habit of swinging and banging her right foot and only her right foot. When she goes down for sleep, she rolls to her stomach and starts banging her right foot on the mattress. Sitting in the high chair, she’ll kick the tray rhythmically.
• The last few times I have taken her to the baby story hour at the library, Claire has ambled off on her hands and knees right up to the front of the room to be near the librarian. It’s a large room, and all the mothers and babies sit on the floor. Claire rarely looks back to check if I’m still there. So, on the one hand I am happy she is so confident, and on the other hand, I’m aware that this extroverted child who likes everyone she meets is quite independent, and I’m going to need to keep both eyes on her so she doesn’t walk off with the nearest friendly hand. I also felt a little twinge while I sat there among the mothers who were all playing with and singing to their babies, while I had no one — a reminder for me that all is in transition and to embrace what emerges rather than cling to what is passing.
• She is becoming aware of funny situations. Recently was in my arms having her bottle and she passed gas. Then she laughed about it! Claire has this habit of wrinkling her nose a little when she is being silly and funny. It’s really beguiling.
• The words “kiss kiss” will often garner a kiss from her, though she hasn’t learned to plant them on a cheek. She also often makes a kiss sound in response to one made to her, and often, she will make a kiss at me (or her father) just because.
• There’s a section in a book we read that says, “These are the things that babies hear: songs, whispers, claps, cheers,” and Claire will clap her hands every time.
• Claire understands the sentence, “Do you want to read books?” She will crawl at top speed over to her bookcase and sit in front of it, ready to pull off her choices one by one and be read to.
• Claire is beginning to self-feed more adeptly. Chunks of banana, cut up beans, carrots, and broccoli, bits of pasta or chicken all make their way into her maw. And she has also started feeding me bits of her food. She has great fun trying to get a Cheerio or bite of peach into my mouth, laughing throughout the attempt.
• Claire has a standard way of sitting on the floor in a position that enables her to take off into a crawl any second. The photo below will show this. It’s the hurdler’s stretch position and she’s very cute in her consistency. (It’s not an ideal photographic back-drop with the vacuum cord and chair nearby, but it’s candid!)

I’m in the process of coordinating her first birthday party. I’ve decided to keep things simple: serve appetizers and cake, do only a little decorating, and skip the party favors until next year. The party will begin at 2:00, and the singing and cake serving will happen at 3:00. My mother-in-law will be here to assist, and I surely will need it!

Eleven months. Wow.

No, not a radio station, and not the current heat index. That was Claire’s temperature at bedtime, and having had Tylenol. She cuddled me and her teddy bear all day, and I wore her in the Moby wrap as much as my back could stand it. I feel for her.

Earlier in the day, she even tried to be cheerful. Look at that little red nose!

My intuition was correct. Claire woke this morning sneezing, snotty, coughing, and with a fever of 101. Poor kiddo.

Not to worry, Uncle T. By the time you arrive she will be mostly over it, at least the contagious stage.

I’ve never participated in this meme before, but Gerry does so I thought I’d do a quick brain dump. Reader beware: the quality of what comes next might be less than intelligent. I should also mention that the meme focuses on 10 things one is thankful for; I wrote it more generally, though it could be said that everything on this list is something for which I’m grateful.

1. Gas Prices: they are lower here. The cheapest I’ve seen is $4.11 per gallon. I was certain they’d keep climbing, so it’s a relief to see them drop a bit.
2. Nature: I was out this evening searching fruitlessly for something and ended up at Target. When I emerged from my car I happened to look up and saw an enormous double rainbow! It was a complete arc; one of them was vivid and bright, and the other was muted and soft. I leaned against my car and stared for several minutes. I didn’t find what I wanted to buy but got something better for free!
3. Oreos: I don’t often do it, but I bought a package of double-stuff Oreos tonight. As I drove home I passed a drugstore and the thought occurred to me: They sell Oreos too, and they are the exact same quality as what I bought elsewhere. Just think about this. You can find the same comforting, fattening, sugar-laden cookie at any retail outlet that sells food, and you can be sure it will be the same all over the U.S. Perhaps individuality is sacrificed, but there is something to be said for consistency. Am I weird, or what?
4. Music: on this gorgeous 70-degree day I drove home from Claire’s music class and hit the classic rock station. I happened to tune in just as Peter Frampton’s classic “Do You Feel Like We Do?” was on. OMG, I was transported back into the 1970s to when I was about 13. I had a huge crush on Frampton. That song was seven minutes long, and I was in a reverie. I didn’t know until I searched on Google, but that song was recorded live at SUNY Plattsburgh in 1975. (This is relevant to me because I attended a SUNY college, grew up in New York State, and my father is from Plattsburgh.)
5. More Music: Claire’s got rhythm! At class she loves to stand and rock back and forth to the music. She does this holding on to my hands, and we dance together.
6. Reading: I’m currently reading a novel that barely holds my attention. It’s supposedly set in the 1780s, but I’m finding the style affected and over-wrought, and I’m skimming much of the book now. Why don’t I quit? Because I want to find out what happens to the heroine, though all along I’ve been able to predict this. Please recommend some good novels to me.
7. Reading Again: (Is this cheating, using the same topic over?) Claire and I finished the summer reading program at our local library. Claire’s book reward was How Do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors?, and the family-oriented book I chose was I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature. It seems like a good companion to the book Last Child In the Woods, which I started a few months ago. The activity book is slim and the ideas are simple and obvious, but it was free and is bound to provide a jumping off point for exploration in the future.
8. Intuition: late this afternoon, Claire sneezed frequently. By the end of the day, she was more tired than usual and clingy and verged on cranky, despite the fact she got the usual solid sleep she gets. Perhaps a cold is coming? I feel it might be. We’ll see if my mother’s intuition is correctly tuned.
9. Social Networks: I recently joined Facebook because a friend is on it, and that’s where she puts up photos of her child. I’m not sure that being on yet another network is of much, if any, use. But I’m there, and if you’re a member too, find me and be my friend.
10. Sleep: the magic number of hours for me to feel actually rested and vital is… eleven. Yes, 11 hours of sleep daily seems to be what I need. It isn’t what I always get, in part because I spend about 12 hours a day mothering Claire and would be totally depressed if all I ever did outside of that is sleep. However, speaking of sleep, I should go get some.