Claire woke at 5:40 a.m. this morning, which is unusually early; for the past few months she shifted her wake time to 6-6:30, and sometimes as late as 7:00. I left her be until 6:10. When I went into her bedroom and leaned over the crib, she said, “I could eat an elephant!” (This is what a hungry lion says in one of her current favorite books, The Saggy Baggy Elephant.) As I carried her downstairs, she also told me how Stella (our cat) was mad and angry and kept repeating she could eat an elephant. I suspect that she was telling me she was mad at not being retrieved right when she woke up, because she was hungry.

Then she requested peanut butter toast and ate only four bites. Perplexing child! (Later she ate two yogurts in one sitting.)

One of Claire’s aunts sent a bunch of books I remember well from childhood, and Claire now enjoys them routinely: There’s a Wocket in My Pocket!; Go, Dog. Go! (a tedious book); A Fly Went By; Are You My Mother? (another tedious book to me, but not to her). She also passionately enjoys Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever; Busy, Busy Town; and Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (especially Goldbug). These are her most requested books of late.

And quite recently, out of the blue, Claire has started singing songs, some of which she has not heard for many months (from former Music Together classes). She gets the lyrics correct some of the time, but it doesn’t really matter; she likes to sing little ditties to herself that she makes up too. I marvel at how her brain is blooming.
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On another, less marvelous note, however, is the fact that sometimes I feel the hours of each day weigh on me, and I’m feeling again as though I haven’t got a “me.” Claire is a busy, interactive child. I often find that when I put her down for a nap, I need one too. And by the time she goes to bed at 8:00 p.m., I’m so spent I’ve no energy to write (even email) or do anything recreational; I’m even too tired to go out by myself to get groceries. I’m in bed by 9:30, usually asleep. In addition to this is the fact that my social interaction with other mothers has been cut due to changes in my and my friends’ activities and schedules, so the days feel long. If I deprive myself of the nap, my ass drags through the afternoon, and I usually end up drinking a couple servings of coffee just to stay conscious. It is not an enjoyable way to pass time. Yet this is what I am doing today, because I really need to write and reflect.

What this means, for me, is that I often find myself thinking about the next thing when I’m with Claire. I’m thinking about her next snack, or how many minutes until 8 a.m. when I can get Husband up so I can have my hour to exercise and shower. I’m thinking about how to get through the afternoon until he comes home at 6:30ish. I find myself not enjoying yet another game of “I’m gonna get you!” or the 20th reading of the same story. I feel spent. And I feel sad about this, because Claire is comprehending and communicating ever more, and becoming such an interesting little person. But lately I feel I’m putting in time.

What’s interesting about this is that she is no more demanding, really, than she was a year ago. She could do far less for herself a year ago, and I was physically more constrained by this. She wants to interact more, but in reality her communication skills are so developed that we rarely have skirmishes due to misunderstandings. Her will is getting stronger. She dawdles more, defies requests more frequently. I have to be creative in my responses, pick my battles, decide when to wait and when I’ve had enough and just want to get the task done. Once upon a time I just picked her up and went. Perhaps this is where my exhaustion arises?

I wish I was more energized. I wish I appreciated her more in this time period. I’m unsettled by my internal responses.

But really, I think she’s amazing (she’ll be 20 months old next week). Here’s proof — if the embedded video doesn’t work, click here. (And now it’s time for my nap.)