Although she can’t really talk yet, Violet manages more and more to find ways to communicate. Recently, she has taken to bringing us objects that symbolize some desire on her part. A bag of unopened Fig Newtons from the cupboard = “Feed me snacks.” A blanket (or, if she can’t find a blanket, a towel or dirty T-shirt or other clothing item) = “Snuggle with me, I’m sleepy.”

This morning I got a new one. She’d just had a bath and was in our room watching cartoons, naked on account of a raw bottom needing some air. I was in her room making the bed when she showed up with a tissue, insisted I take it, and stood there waiting for me to act as expected. Hm. Puzzled, I began to walk toward where she had come from—our room—and she eagerly accompanied me, indicating that yes, this was the action she wanted from me. And there, in front of the TV on the floor, was a perfectly spherical, nearly tennis-ball-sized poop.

What amazes me here is not that the poop got hatched in front of the TV, that it was so huge, or that it “somehow” ended up formed in a ball. I’m impressed by the thought process that followed this poop event: (A) I need to let Mom know this is here, and (B) because this needs to be cleaned up. (With a tissue.) It’s sort of responsible.

In other Vibble news, this kid is officially a whole different kid from the one we knew a few weeks ago. No. 6 is now engaged full-on with Toddlerdom. We have some adjustments to make. First, there was a hurried addendum to baby-proofing, on account of her sudden abilities to (A) climb up on high things, like the chair on our balcony, and attempt to do teetery, dangerous things, and (B) reach drawers we thought were well out of reach and empty them of their contents, like, say, matches.

The next adjustment was to the insane amount of energy she suddenly has. I am caffeine-reliant in a big way here. It’s just not humanly possible to keep up with it unless I have some artificial stimulant on my side.

Finally, there is the issue of her messed-up sleep patterns. She’s a WRECK. And so are we—She hasn’t let us have a full night’s sleep in quite some time. Long (looonnngg) story short, we have realized, thanks to some great advice from friends, the Internet, and observations, that she needs something of a routine now. She’s not getting nearly as much sleep as is recommended, and one result is that she is so overtired and overwrought she has trouble settling down for sleep. Another result is that she doesn’t have the coping ability to handle herself when it comes to the increased energy, emotionality, and determination. A more consistent evening schedule and a specific bedtime will help with her getting enough sleep, as well as allow us to (MAYBE) start testing the waters with training her to put herself to sleep if we put her to bed still awake—but no rush on that one. I know, I know, self-soothing is an important skill a child needs to manage anxiety in the daytime (maybe without attaching herself to my legs all day?) as well as to be able to fall asleep (and fall back asleep if she wakes up in the middle of the night). But my attempts at this here and there—the whole “letting her cry it out” thing—have resulted in her becoming so upset, and for so long, and so LOUDLY, I can’t really picture us doing this right now. Since we haven’t done it from the start, she may need to mature a teeny bit more before we do it in our family, so it can be a collaborative project between us and her.

We have been discussing what happens when. Bedtime is at 2100 hours, and a short list of items that we plan to keep the same for a while lead from dinnertime to that bedtime. This is going to be tough for us. We’ll need to eat at home more to lessen overstimulating her and moving around the eating time. We’ll have to stick to our guns when she objects. We’ll have to wait until after she falls asleep to eat chocolate ice cream.

Wish us luck. Wish us SLEEP. And wish her a more well-adjusted toddlerhood.

Oh God so tired. So much howling and writhing. She was fine. FINE! All day. Then at about ten o’clock … I need a night.

I just want to say that when my mom used to tell me my copycat baby sister only did what I did because she admired me, what she should have said was, “Suck it up. It will be a thousand times worse if you end up having one of those stalker kids who wants to do whatever you’re doing.” Because Violet’s ideal day would be one that started with a third party binding our two bodies together with an entire roll of duct tape. She wants to be doing whatever I am doing. Am I closed in the bathroom? This is unacceptable. From outside the bathroom, she cannot watch my waste swirl down the flushed toilet. Am I taking medicine? HOLY SCREAMING WHY CAN’T SHE HAVE SOME OF THAT TOO?! If there was a rabid monkey eating my face off, she would whine shrilly to indicate her displeasure, as if to say shriek, “WHERE IS MY RABID FACE-EATING MONKEY?!”

Me: “Aw man, Mia peed on this towel.”

Stevel [entering stairwell]: “And she’s pooping right now at the bottom of the stairs.”

Me: “Intervene!”

Stevel: “She already squeezed one out.”

Me: “Well, do something.”

Stevel: “What do you suggest? What’s the best course of action for someone holding a popsicle?”

We went to Irvine yesterday to spend the day with Megan and wee 3.5-month-old Christopher. What a great day. Oh man. Suburban bliss enough to tide me over for … well, I don’t really crave suburban bliss, so it’s more an exotic surprise!

Megan and “Winston,” as Stevel and I still like to call him to ourselves*, were finally over being sick for a while, and Vibble was on her bestest behavior all day (this has NOT been the case so much recently**). We took a gorgeous, breezy sunny walk in the endless Utopia of Woodbridge Resort/Community. We ate a decadent meal at Olive Garden. We shopped at, I swear, the world’s largest Babies R Us until our eyeballs popped out of our heads. And all the while, Violet watched, and often gently petted, her little OC*** friend. In case the very thought alone of V’s being a sweet-tempered little darling with her pal doesn’t gag you, here are, photos of the sap. I mean, holy effing cute, right?

* As a pre-publicly named fetus, Christopher needed a nickname in our household. We decided they (the Hills) should name him Winston, Winston Church Hill. Alas, we did not get our way.

** More on the behavior soon. I think we are getting somewhere with attempts to discipline. It mostly breaks down when she is denied access to computer equipment. Often such access is denied because there is yogurt on her hands or something.

*** OC in this case can stand for either Orange County or abOte half Canadian in citizenship.

And now I am very, very tired, as for some reason Shortie slept barely at all last night, favoring instead a certain combo of whimpering, thrashing, and kicking off covers. Blast.

I am sunburned. My back is KILLING me. And I feel like I haven’t slept in years. Oh, and also? I’m having the time of my life.

A toddler is so much WORK and so much FUN. The imitation quadruples every day. She likes to “clean” things with a sponge or washcloth. These things do not include her face, BUT she will randomly sponge off her feet in the middle of the living room from time to time. When the phone rings, she puts her hand to her ear and announces, “Ha-wah.” Today she distinctly said “bubbles” and “David.” Yesterday she did not go down for her nap until SIX-THIRTY. At the Zimmer yesterday, she refined her methods for stalking and touching other children. Today at the beach, she wanted to play in the water a lot. Without being shown the game of run-away-from-the-water-as-it-comes-in, run-toward-the-water-as-it-goes-out, she began to play it. She wanted to sit in the way of the water. She wanted to put sand in her mouth and then grin up at me as she tried to push it out with her tongue.

I would write more, but I can barely move my fingers. I would say I could count on help from Steve when he gets home from work, but he took one for the team last night when the kid woke up and wanted a snuggle-buddy, and bunked with her in the single bed in her room. He is a wonderful, wonderful man.

And here are some photos!

Number one, Welcome, Ayati! Congratulations to Susan, Bobby, and Asha.

Number two, Thank you for the Milwaukee mini-tour, Kate.

Number three, Congratulations to Liss, who yesterday turned in her final assignment of her undergraduate career, and who graduates from UCLA this Saturday!

Yesterday I took Vibble to the Zimmer Children’s Museum. It’s a great place, and we ended up joining as members. This is a place a lot like Kidspace, where we went the week before last (Or was it last week? What year is it?), but targeted to a bit shorter crowd. It’s got a real airplane inside the kids can play in, a real ambulance … and then kid-scaled versions of various scenes they can play in to their heart’s delight—a hospital ER, a grocery store with cashier stand and produce section and shopping baskets … a bookstore … a bagel shop …. a synagogue … a little indoor park … a newspaper-making place (?) … all of this complete in detail and stationed along an adorable, DETAILED “street,” and all just sitting there with props and “costumes” lying about, waiting for kids and their imaginations to enjoy it. There’s also a small room full of big, thick, gym-mats designated for under-twos. We got there just as it opened, and no one showed up for about 20 minutes. So Vibble was able to walk around and explore without any bigger kids to compete with. She did not want to go in the plane or ambulance. She wanted to pull everything off of every shelf in each of the scenes. Eventually, more kids showed up—but no one older than 4—and then she was really in heaven. MUST. TOUCH. EVERY. KID. She did a lot of what Stevel calls Stalking, too, where she would single out one kid for a while and just trail them all around the place for a long time, until I put an end to it because it became so AWKWARD with the parent. Anyway, we will be going here more. It’s a great place for Vibble to interact with other kids, explore with great freedom (the place is a good size and is in a building more secure than the airport, I kid you not), and develop her imagination. It’s also a fantastic place for us to play TOGETHER, and I love that.

Which brings me to my next topic. You may have noticed that we seem to be “doing” things more and more. All of a sudden, this kid is C R A Z Y. I mentioned a few posts back a certain wildness. It abated some, but came back (Again coinciding with the full moon—coincidence? Have you SEEN the black fur on this child’s back? My furry little were-wee-one). Now the wildness seems permanent. It’s like some kind of backup-rocket-engine has engaged in there, and she has to be interacted with and stimulated constantly, or she acts out. And acting out is not pretty. Meltdowns over nothing, purposeful and violent dismantling of household areas, blatant rule-breaking (Did I not TELL you EIGHT times to stop playing in the pool of cat vomit by the TV? Mom will clean that WHEN IT DRIES!).

In terms of new-parenthood discoveries, I am confused as to why, when you have a kid, everyone warns you about the sleep deprivation of the infant stage. That is amateur-sleep-deprivation stuff. I would gladly trade that feeling for how exhausted I am by dinnertime every day now. And the last few nights? She has woken up and cried in the night repeatedly until she is in bed next to me. Which means I wake up feeling like I slept in the trunk of someone’s subcompact car. For about two hours. And that was my whole night. (Susan, I really don’t know how you’ve survived with Sleepless-Sunshine over there. I hope you have reinforcements coming to stay for a loooong time with the new addition.)

Last night I had a migraine again for most of the night, due to its being cloudy outside. See, my skull has AMBITIONS. It wants to be a famous meteorologist. Thus I would like to make it known on the record that when I die, I would like to have my organs donated, but my SKULL should be sent to UCLA’s School of Atmospheric Sciences, and enrolled as a first-year undergraduate.

I don’t know what today’s failed attempt at toddler exhaustion will involve, but I know it won’t be Gym n’ Swim. Combine the crazy active days with the contorted, cut-short nights and the fact that I’m lifting a 25-pound body every ten minutes (often while also lifting 80 pounds worth of groceries, or a jammed laundry basket, or …), and right now I feel like I got hit by a speeding subcompact car, one with a mom in the trunk. Thud. I just can’t do it today. Can’t swish her around the pool. Can’t spot her on the mats. Can’t lift her up and down during the chorus of the Pirate Song. I’m sorry, Vibble, but we will have to fail at wearing you out today somewhere where I can watch from the sidelines. Playground maybe, or the Creepy Restaurant. Or maybe David will come over and play Hide n’ Seek with you for two hours.

Just in case it comes across that I’m not enjoying my toddler, I have to state for the record that she is the cutest, funnest thing in the whole wide world, and I feel lucky every day to be getting to spend so much time with her.

I don’t want to end this post without updating you on Stevel. His recovery from the surgery continues. Still in pain, but looking less run-down now. It will still be a little while before we know how well the surgery worked in terms of improving his breathing. We will let you know for sure.

Time for Blue’s Clues. “La la la la la la because it’s really FUN!” Thinking Chair, please help me remember what day it is.

At the beach, this chunky-legged, lurchy-walking, smiley, friendly kid is EVEN CUTER. Today we went to Malibu Lagoon State Beach. Packed up the red wagon with all of our gear AND the kid, and trekked to the sand. We ate our packed lunch and played in the sand. Mostly, she wanted to sit in a hole I dug and have water poured over her. Waves at everyone and says, “Ha-aah! Hoh!” Drinks salt-water and, while not a sand-eater directly, repeatedly dips her Nuk in the sand and puts it back in her mouth. Ack. We got kind of a late start on account of my never having taken a toddler to the beach before (read: pack one of every item in the house). Now that I have a better idea of what we need and am organized, we can be up and out of the house, headed for the beach in no time. Looking forward to a LOT more days there this summer. Local friends, let me know if you want me to text you on the mornings we decide to head seaward.

Steve is feeling OK. He had a very tired weekend, and the pain increased. We won’t know how successful the surgery was until the swelling has gone down completely, but he looks good.

A few photos I took in the last couple of days …

… and the REAL treat: Photos Jeremy took yesterday! Enjoy.

DEVIANT NO. 1: A NOSE

Steve had surgery Thursday to correct his deviated septum. He hasn’t been complaining of a lot of pain, but he is tired and uncomfortable. He won’t be able to breathe through his nose for a week or so. The hope is that this surgery will make it so he sleeps better. Well, that is MY hope. Steve is still skeptical. He’s not really a hoper. So I’m adding to my hope the hope he is pleasantly surprised. See how I have to hope for both of us? Isn’t that extra nice of me?

I would write more about Steve’s surgery and recovery, but I’m not sure he would want me telling everyone things like how, when waking up from the anesthesia, he tried very hard to get out of bed, confounding the nurses. He was groggily explaining, “I have to get home to my wife.” Aw. He missed me. Or feared me. Either way, aw.

DEVIANT NO. 2: MIA

Mia. Mia, why did you have to poop on the carpet just minutes after the carpet cleaner had left? Why?

DEVIANT NO. 3: A WOLF PUP

The week before last, Vibble was insane. Moody, impossible to please, hyperactive. Core Reactor Meltdown. I took her to Gym n’ Swim but skipped the Swim, because I kept picturing a toddler-instigated tsunami in the pool. (Take a moment and imagine it yourself—devastating scene.) Last week she eventually returned to her happy natured self again. That’s when Steve noticed the Mastadon molar. When she ate, he said, “Yeah, grind it.”

Tuesday we went to KidSpace in Pasadena with Sarah-Novelist and Megan and Christopher, and Violet had a wonderful time walking all over the place. She likes to hold someone’s hand and lead them around. She’ll come up to one of us and reach out her hand and say, “Mmm? Mmm?” Very cute.

But now I think the other molar must be coming in. Combine that with the Full Moon and the fact she walks now and therefore must walk at all times, and WHERE she WANTS to walk, and you have some challenging little stretches. Yesterday there were many times when she refused to sit in the stroller, and by refusing I mean arching her body and screaming, or slipping the binds of her restraints and standing up. She also refused to be held, and at times it took my total body’s muscle power to keep her in my arms, versus, say, in the street, or on the escalator at the mall. She was restless and hyper yesterday, so I took her to the mall in the morning and the promenade in the afternoon to get her out of the house so Steve could rest and to let her walk around some. Today I will just go straight for the playground, though, because it was too much of a workout to try and conform HER to SOCIETY (e.g. the streets thing, the doors-that-say-”Employees Only” thing, etc.). Not happening. She requires total freedom right now. I require a week in a spa.

Here are some photos from this week. Enjoy!

Friday morning Vibble woke up wanting to cuddle on the couch. I turned on a crime-show, and we sat there snuggling for about 45 minutes. She got restless, tottered around the room some. Then the climactic scene came on, and I got engrossed in it. When the show ended, she wasn’t in the room, so I went looking for her. Turns out she had gone upstairs, closed the safety gate at the top of the stairs … gone into our bedroom and closed the bedroom door … turned on the bedroom TV and CHANGED THE CHANNEL to cartoons. When she saw me in the doorway, she let out a huge giggle, like “Check out what I did!”

The last few days have seen an important change. While she has had the ability to walk a little for, oh, months now, she has only now demonstrated a preference for it. She giddily lurches around the living room, and wants to be held by her hands everywhere we go. Her feet are pretty tiny, judging by the sizes of shoes that are designated for her age, so maybe that’s part of it?

At Gym on Wednesday, Levi turned on the bubble-machine, and Vibb sort of said “bubbles.” Several other moms commented on it. I haven’t been able to make it happen since, but maybe this was a first-word (besides Mom/Bob and Dad)? She only repeats sounds when she feels like it. “Say ‘Mom.’ ‘Mom.” “La-di-la-di-la-di? Buh. Buhbuhbuhbuhbuh.”

Check out Steve’s/our day yesterday (that would be Saturday, the “weekend”): 8 a.m. haircut, 10 a.m. baby shower, hour-drive to Agoura Hills to sign tax documents, drive to Melrose to pick up Steve’s new glasses, dinner on the Promenade. It was all either really fun or really important stuff, but a packed-solid day. Amazingly, Vibble held up well. Her behavior this past week wouldn’t have predicted as much—she’s been a moody wild thing, we think because she broke a new molar the size of a Mastadon-tooth. The baby shower was to congratulate Walter and Dana, whose (big) little guy is expected in a couple of months, if not sooner. Oh, man, the outfits their friends gave them. I love little-guy clothes.

It’s 3:30 a.m. V woke up not long ago and was up crying for a bit. Stomach-ache maybe? Or the teeth? In any case, she took my spot in our bed. She is big enough, and insistent-on-sleeping-sideways-between-our-heads enough, that it really doesn’t work anymore to have her crash with us on the random night here and there. We just don’t all fit comfortably. Since I only got a few hours of sleep LAST night due to a migraine, I really can’t spend the rest of tonight getting kicked in the face as I hang onto the very precipice of the bed. So I came downstairs to put something in my stomach (cereal) and blog a bit, before I head to the twin-bed in her room and go back to sleep.

So, ‘night (again).

Excuse my shameless friend-promotion — but please read Sarah-Novelist’s first review for the National Examiner, especially if you’re a fan of the TV show So You Think You Can Dance! The more you click on the page, and the more you comment, the more money S gets in return!

CLICK HERE!

Sarah-Novelist came to town today, and we did a bunch of fun walking around. Here are a few photos from today.

Before we got married, I told Steve that he would have to teach any child we might have to drive. I think that was our only prenuptial agreement.

And Stevel, it’s time. So far, she is not a “defensive driver.”

Our trip to Oregon was great and included some Nana and Babba time for the kid, as well as an idyllic small-town weekend in Corvallis. Debi, Mike and Sam live on a cul-de-sac in a wonderful house with a lovely lawn. Kids show up and come in and out of the house to play Wii or jump around on the lawn or ride their bikes and scooters in the street. Violet was in HEAVEN. The weather was gorgeous, and to top off the attention from KIDS, she had an endless flow of bubbles, thanks to her Aunt Debi’s embracing of the hyperventilation that can ensue when one wields a bubble wand for too long. I got to do some shopping, and Auggie and Anne took Violet and me to Multnomah Falls.

Coming home, we didn’t have a chance to grocery shop right away. So Vibb got to have peanut butter for lunch, and in case you’re not familiar with the greasy properties of peanut butter, it took a serious cleanup effort, involving TWO BATHS, to combat the haz-mat. Then, yesterday, she pulled a Clif Bar out of the bag of groceries on the floor. She insisted I open it, with the kind of insistence that would make a terrorist divulge all of his secrets and scream PLEASE GOD, WATERBOARD ME BUT NOT THIS, so I opened the package. I was thinking she might take a little bite and move on to more fulfilling destruction, but she ate the WHOLE BAR. For those who don’t know, Clif Bars are energy bars for men. Also, the chocolate ones look enough like poop to cause my neighbor, on his way to the mailboxes, to stop in his tracks and say, “WHAT is she eating?!”

Now it is 4 a.m., and someone is awake. Why, you ask? Well, see, a certain dad who shall remain nameless has a unique ability I call The Magic. He can put Violet to sleep just about any time. I think the chemistry of it has something to do with Steve-Body-Heat PLUS Steveling-Body-Heat EQUALS Nine-Thousand-Degrees. While I took a nice long shower yesterday evening, the kid apparently got grumpy, so the dad used his Magic to put her to sleep for the night at 7:45. Superhero Ethics: Fail.

I’ve been meaning to note on this blog her special little language, as it is the cutest thing I’ve heard in all my life. Her most common “words” right now are “Nn-DIE?”" and “G-zOI?” She seems to have communicative intention, to know what she is saying. We don’t know of course, but when speaking in her own language, her inflections and mannerisms are her own, versus the imitated ones she uses when she sometimes deigns to mirror some word we’ve laboriously suggested she pronounce … although she does say “Hello?” frequently while holding an iPhone up to her ear. She also does this with various other “phones,” like a Wii remote or, yesterday for several aisles in the grocery store, a packaged block of cheddar cheese.

Watchy watchy!

And now Vibb and I are off to Oregon … see you when we get back!

I have for some time realized I need to make changes to my dietary habits. It is not going to work to tell Vibble to eat a healthy diet while I model opposite behavior. This morning it became clear the time to make those changes is now. As Vibble ate bananas and zucchini bread in her doorway jumper, she looked up to the counter and saw my own breakfast—red velvet cake—and, no lie, she narrowed her eyes and turned her lips down in a show of contempt. Telepathically, she said, “I know what that IS, Bob.” This was a threat. If I didn’t cease this classist behavior, she would do what she had done last night in the restaurant where the cake had originally come from: Shriek at a volume that would send her father into such a state of anxiety he would not sleep for the rest of the night, and she would do this without stopping until she too was given cake. Yeah, I stopped eating my “breakfast” mid-bite.

She calls this “Eh-EH? Mmm-MMM?”

Mostly I think she enjoyed living the stereotypical artist’s lifestyle—a chaotic studio with materials, canvas, and crumpled idea sketches scattered everywhere; paint on her skin and clothes; and, of course, a mercurial creative’s temperament.

“Disciples be damned. It’s not interesting. It’s only the masters that matter. Those who create.” —Picasso

The doctor said, “First time parents? Yeah. Babies get fevers. You will learn.”

Fine, I know. Yeah, yeah. A fever of 100 may not be cause for walking your kid to the E.R. at 3:30 in the morning when you are “seasoned,” but the reality was this: I was not going to sleep until some medical professional told me the flaming cheeks of my little one weren’t reason enough to call President Obama and put a halt to all of America until she was happy again.

Besides, including travel time, we spent only an hour and a half getting advice, with some pokes and prods thrown into the bargain. Every time I go to the pediatrician? Much, much longer than that. I figure we saved ourselves all kinds of time, including the hours I would have spent from here until I could get in to see the pediatrician just fretting and nagging Steve about maybe-we-should-do-this and maybe-we-should-do-that, hours I can now use to sleep.

Poor Vibble. She is so sad and hot. At least now she is properly medicated. And confirmed free of any fever-causing terminal illness.

48 hours of no one needing anything from me
A bed to myself
Leaving my shaving razor on the side of the bathtub without worrying about it
Midday cocktails
Spa treatments
48 hours of not only not having to clean constantly, but not having to clean AT ALL
A little roulette, a little slots
Wearing high heels and “pretty clothes”
Breakfast buffet
Hours and hours lounging by the pool
Room service chocolate cake at 11 p.m.
Uninterrupted time to chat with the girls
Getting to read a little, and not “Where’s Nemo” or Dr. Seuss
Long showers, with leg-shaving time and everything
The restaurant in the Bellagio that serves only dessert
Leisurely shopping in uncrowded stores
People expressing their thoughts and desires in words other than “Eh. EH!!!!!”
No litter-boxes
Getting to sit down and eat my food without having to grab bites in between cutting up and serving someone else’s food
Kelly time—it does me good

The weather was gorgeous for us, sunny and breezy, hot in the middle of the day and warm in the evening. Time by myself is such a precious thing, nothing can compare to it … so I bailed on the people we were with both nights around ten or so. They went out, I enjoyed time in a room ALONE.

It would have been perfect had I not had this awful, gut-wrenching feeling in my insides all weekend. Every time I saw a baby or toddler I felt for a second like the wind got knocked out of me. Oh, little ball and chain, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!

A New Video!

(I don’t want my dad’s co-workers to have to hear the same audio over and over for TOO long.)