We got back from our trip East Thursday evening, and we spent all day yesterday re-acclimating to our lives. I don’t think we’re done with that—may take all weekend. It will certainly take all weekend AT LEAST to unpack the alarming amount of stuff we brought with us.

Our story begins in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where Vibble and I spent a wonderful week visiting old friends and spending great times with my family there. This includes: THE MOST AWESOME COUSINS ON EARTH! This trip was a long one for Violet, but I can tell you on her behalf that she would gladly go another nine rounds if it meant getting to be with Dani and Erica. She just adores being in their presence.

Highlights of this visit included an overnight in Pittsburgh with Cindy and Matt and Bridget and Dave; a day at Idlewild Park; a visit to Keystone Equestrian Center, where my nieces take horseback riding lessons; two cookouts at Cheri and Brian’s house—one of which was attended by Tracey and her husband and kids—and lots of trampoline time! I think Violet is likely dreaming about that trampoline as I type this.

From Latrobe, I borrowed my oldest niece, Erica, as a mother’s helper, and she and Violet and I headed to Penn State for a little reunion weekend. Despite the heat and some toddler moodiness to match, we had the very best time walking around campus and downtown and swimming in the hotel pool. My roommates and I, who have kids around the same age now, were there, and Jen & Pete and Kelly also joined us. It was a great little dynamic, and I so enjoyed being there and being together.

OK, here’s where it gets ambitious: From State College, we drove all the way to Bear Paw, NC, where my grandparents are summering. Yes, that’s a 14-hour drive. With a two-year-old. All I can say is, THANK GOODNESS FOR ERICA. There were so few moments of complaint from Violet on this trip, and in fact, she seemed to enjoy most of it immensely. I would say I gambled and won with this plan, wouldn’t you? The overnight in a hotel in Wytheville was especially memorable. Erica decided while I was in the shower to give Violet half of a chocolate bar. (Note: This is but one example of Erica’s DEVIOUS SIDE.) What followed looked a lot like that first time freshman year when your friend comes home completely drunk, and you and your other friends, being not drunk, enjoy just sort of messing with that person. Erica and I laughed until we cried at Vibble’s nutty high-jinks for an hour while she jumped on the beds singing, whipped off her diaper and danced all over the room, and talked to us in a high-pitched and speedy little voice. Needless to say, she slept like a rock that night. Also needless to say: No more chocolate for you, Little One, YOU ARE CUT OFF.

On to lovely Bear Paw. Lovely and REMOTE. Our cabin was fantastic, and the lake was gorgeous. The company couldn’t have been better: My grandparents, The Kinkers; my dad and Pauline; my mom’s brother, John, and his wife, Lynn, and their two kids, Olivia and Lillian, from Northport, MI, all week … we were also joined late Wednesday night by Stevel, and my mom and Mike and Dani came down for one day of overlap visit as we were heading out. Lots of great fun in the pool, a wonderful day on a rented pontoon boat on the lake with my dad and Pauline, and whitewater rafting with the Northport Kinkers.

FINALLY, we headed to Georgia for some relaxing time at my dad’s and for visits with my Nana and with my dad’s side of the family there. By this point, sadly, I was sort of burned out on taking photos, I guess, because I don’t seem to have a single one. Know, though, that we enjoyed the time together a great deal, and seeing everyone is always a treat. Plus, Vibble got to play with her great-uncle and great-aunt, and I’m not sure if she knows they aren’t some Georgia toddler playgroup.

The kid was good as gold on the flights, such a smooth little traveler! She arrives back here with a mastery of the iPad, a dozen or so mosquito bites, and a LOT of new words (thanks to her cousins). And yes, you can check out the photos—on Facebook and via this link.

This has been a trying week and a half. A lot of events that, taken one by one, alone, I could absorb with not a lot of impact, are adding up to make me feel pretty stressed: Getting rear-ended on the freeway and all of the errand-running that has followed for car repairs, added to Vibble’s trip to the ER. We’re trying not to feel constant stress about taking her back in next Tuesday to have the staple removed, but that’s hard. I don’t want her to have to walk back in that scary place, let alone get held down by orderlies again for another, albeit quick, procedure. It’s just not something I look forward to in life, for either of us.

Then there were cat problems; Mia has always been a “pee cat,” but it’s gotten increasingly worse, and this past week she peed on the living room carpet, on some stuffed animals, and in a giant box of Legos. LEGOS! Just stop a moment and imagine the clean-up involved. It’s about a hundred bucks’ worth of Legos, so I don’t want to pitch it, but EW. SO GROSS. So I took her to the vet, and long story short, she had her teeth cleaned, and we had to rearrange our upstairs to basically create her own country up there and give our master bathroom completely to her, and now she is on some kind of antidepressant that apparently causes her to have the squirts all over the house. You’re right, Vets, this is way better than the peeing. I’m just at the end of my rope with that one, and I’m not the only one; the tension here in the house over her this week has been trying. And so every night now it’s medicate Linus, medicate Mia, clean up after Mia, clean up after Mia some more, and try not to hate this kitty. It’s not her fault, but oh man, she’s hard to love right now. Our house smells embarrassing.

OK, so the list continues: Yesterday I took my car into the shop and picked up a rental car. The wait for the rental car was a real drag, and poor Vibble was really doing her toddler-best to be patient. So we headed from there to the mall to meet up with friends so Violet could play, and this kid—this kid who NEVER PUKES—let go a gallon of gushing vomitousness in the back seat of the rental car. A rental car in which I had NONE of my usual supplies with which to clean her up, reclothe her, etc. Flash forward to naked Vibble, escaping from the store where I am buying her an outfit and streaking into the mall. Yes, she felt fine. But the car seat was ruined. It was that much puke—chunks of it down in the mechanisms, and the padding soaked. Having once before tried to clean the exact same model of car seat (in one of only four other times in her little life she has puked), I know this: I can get the stench out of the fabric, but no amount of cleaning, with any amount of products, gets it out of the plastic. And anyway, I can’t sit her in this car seat, no way, it’s soaked, and I can’t snap the clasp shut. Our other car seat is now in the repair garage. This is going on way too long, this venting, so let me just say thank you to Brooke and to David for watching Vibble at the mall while I ran to Target to get the only car seat they had that fit the bill, so I could get her home and beyond.

Add to all of this that we’re in some kind of long home stretch with Stevel’s app he’s been working on, so he’s spread thin enough to be transparent, working too hard all day and coming home to work too hard all evening on the app a lot of nights. Add to it the unexpected expenses of the ER bill, the vet bills, the new car seat—again, all things we could absorb individually without saying “ouch” too loud, but all at once, well, it’s just been an expensive and draining couple of weeks. A few too many of those moments where I’m standing there going, “OK, I need a plan to deal with this mini-crisis.” I know I shouldn’t even be complaining about ANY of these things. They ALL turned out just fine in the end, none were serious, just minor bumps in the sidewalk, but I just feel so … remember that commercial where the lady goes, “Calgon, take me away!” I wonder if you can still get Calgon.

Thank you for listening. I do feel better now. And we just had a 5.9 earthquake. Shake it up, Cali!

Today has been a rare day without TV. Not that Violet watches a TON of TV, but ideally, for us, she would watch none. It’s just that, sometimes I need to use the stove or something, and I need her distracted and to stay put. And then sometimes, she is just blue, and nothing seems to work, and then I say, “Do you want to watch Madeline?” and she grins and gets all happy. Madeline is a very effective mood-lifter here.

Anyway, no TV today, but let me tell you why sometimes if I need to do something besides watch her every move I have little choice but to put her in front of the TV for a bit. So just now I was trying to get some laundry done. First she played in her room. Then I had to take a break from laundry to clean up the broken light bulb in her room. Then she played downstairs. Then I had to take a break from laundry to vacuum flour off of Violet’s arms and legs and the entire—yes, the ENTIRE—first level floor. It smelled like a bakery in here for the second time this week (earlier in the week, she got into the spices and decided our living room needed a dash of cinnamon—in every square inch).

When I found her with the flour, she knew she had been caught. Immediately, she said, “I sorry!” She said it about four times, shrugging her shoulders, and the tone she used was one you might use if, say, you accidentally stepped on someone’s toe in line at the grocery store. Like, “Oops! Clumsy me! I got into the flour!”

If your answer is no, learn vicariously. Stevel spent some 25-plus hours over the last two weeks retrieving data from my fouled-up hard drive, and then delicately performing a hard-drive transplant on my iMac, and then getting everything restored for me. If you’re not married to Steve, you should find some other way to make sure your photos and documents and videos are safe. (Even if you ARE married to Steve, you have now found some other way, because he didn’t deserve to spend all that time making sure, as he put it, “Yes, you deserve to learn that lesson. But losing the photos of the first two years of your kid’s life is just too hard a way to learn it.”) I’m now using Mozy. Stevel uses Time Capsule.

Two important things happened this week in the way of “getting back on the horse.” Horses.

[1]

We rode our bike again.

I have a great kid-seat on our bike, and I started taking Vibble for rides in bicycle-friendly Santa Monica at about 6 mos. old. When she was a year-ish, we had an accident. It was actually pretty hard to talk about, and I hadn’t been on the bike since, but here’s what happened that day:

I put Vibble in her seat in the garage and mounted the bike. It was very dark in the garage. I rode out into the extremely bright sunlight and was momentarily blinded, and in that moment, I misjudged the location of a pretty high curb in front of our building. We toppled over the curb into the busy street. The first thing to hit the road was my knee (after months of physical therapy, it’s kind of ok now, heh). Second thing was my arm. Third, my precious kid’s helmet. As in, her head, on 26th Street. Cars whooshing by within centimeters.

She was fine within, I would say, 45 seconds. The helmet did its job, and I limped over to the front steps and held her, and she was smiling and laughing in no time.

I was not fine. Aside from my physical injuries, I had just come a little too close to Bad Things. I shook and sobbed, and while the sobbing eventually abated (after hours), the shaking lasted almost three days. And we didn’t ride the bike again, I couldn’t.

The other person who was not fine—perhaps the person least fine—was Stevel. This was a family bike ride, so he was on our other bike behind me, and witnessed the whole thing. I think for him, watching Violet’s tiny helmetted head hit the street was the very thing his anxiety is constantly assuming might happen: Complete horror. He still doesn’t understand how I drove that bike so that it went over sideways into the street.

I don’t need to tell you how awful this all was. We sort of agreed I wouldn’t blog about it, and that wasn’t going to be a problem, since I could barely choke out a one-sentence version of what had happened to tell the doctor when I went in about my knee. But I’ve since told the story to friends and family, and I wanted to record it here and report that we got back on that bike this week. I knew I needed to do it. It was a trembly ride for me, but by the end, I’d hit my stride again, and OH MAN, does this kid love to ride. Holy crap. She chattered the entire way to the library. Twice, drivers got honked at from behind, because a light turned green and they were still talking to Violet: “Look at you! Goin’ for a BIKE RIDE? You like your bike?”

It was all very smooth from her perspective, I think. She was enthusiastic about getting in the seat—she clearly remembered and was eager to ride. She had a new helmet (I was told after any accident you should replace the helmet), which she has since put on in the house a few times and worn around, as if to say, ‘When are we going on that bike again, Mom?’

Soon, Vibble, and often.

[2]

The other horse I will abbreviate, as it is still kind of fresh in my mind (and the bruises are still green).

I had some things mounted in the kitchen, a tiny cabinet up high with our liquor in it being the highest, screwed in as instructed to the thick wood (actually, it’s double-cabinet thickness) side of the cupboard bank over the sink. It was on there good and sound, trust me. BUT then I mounted a Can Crusher on the side of it and proceeded to release all of my frustrations on Diet Pepsi cans, with the force of all of this going into the side of the cabinet and rocking it slightly on its screws. I knew this was a bad idea. KNEW. And yet …

So one day I’m crushin’ some cans, and BA-BOOM!!!!!!!! The cabinet comes OFF the wall, on its way down taking out a nearby wine rack, the medicine cabinet that serves as Vibble’s play kitchen fridge, a piece of the cupboard, some chunks of the floor, and oh, a little bit of my leg.

Fortunate thing of fortunate things: Vibble is not playing in her kitchen, although she is pretty eager to get into the middle of the mess, and Dad has to keep her from trudging through glass and wine and booze and fractured wood and Diet Pepsi cans and laughing-weeping Mom (I felt momentarily insane).

OK, so back on the horse: This week, I had a professional handyman come in to do some things in the house, and I had HIM re-hang all of these things—liquor cabinet, wine rack, kid-fridge, Can Crusher (in a new spot, of course). He put billions of heavy duty screws into everything. I don’t know if you could get these things down with a sledgehammer. He also mounted some other things onto walls where I had been considering hanging them myself. His instructions were: “On there good enough so if she hangs off of it, it’s not coming down.”

The lesson here is, Kristan and her cordless drill: Too ambitious. I wouldn’t say this was a “close call,” since it was clearly the can crushing that caused the disaster, and I never crushed cans while Violet was in the kitchen. It made me RIGHTLY nervous to have her anywhere near that action. But what if … ?

OK, put the helmet back on, Vibb, if you’re going into the rooms where Mom has screwed random cabinetry into the walls herself.

That wasn’t as abbreviated as promised, sorry. And yes, both of these fallen-off-horses were my fault. I blew it. I’m learning from it, still.

[C]

And now I need to try and get myself back to sleep. I’ve got some awesome friends coming into town today, and I want to be ready to PLAY! Bridgey comes in around 3, and Cindy around 10, and with Cindy coming I’m thinking we will likely grocery shop right away, since I don’t know the first thing about buying bacon. Or foie gras.

Stevel [to Violet]: “What’s this book you’re bringing me?”

Me: “She’s bringing it to you because I didn’t want to read it.”

Stevel: “I don’t want to read it, either. I don’t know much about this Strawberry Shortcut.”

Me: “Cake. Strawberry Shortcake.”

Stevel: “I said I didn’t know much about her … OK, here we go … Strawberry Shortcake Plays Soccer … ‘Strawberry! You’re late! You promised you would practice soccer drills with me today,’ Huck said. ‘I’m sorry, Huck,’ said Strawberry Shortcake, ‘But as I was walking through Cookie Corners I met Ginger Snap. And then Angel Cake joined us at Cakewalk. And in Orange Blossom Acres we picked up Orange Blossom—’”

Stevel: “These sound like porn star names.”

Me: “You’re right, they do.”

[From here, Stevel continued on with the story, until page 12, when ...]

Stevel [reading]: “‘Okay, enough jogging,’ Huck decided, coming to a sudden stop. Strawberry Shortcake ran right into him. Huck fell, and Strawberry landed on top of him. Angel Cake landed on Strawberry. Ginger Snap topped off the group. ‘Let’s practice some passes,’ came Huck’s muffled voice—”

Stevel: “Oh my.”

Me: “It is a porno!”

Stevel: “Shh. [continuing to read] “Strawberry practiced a throw-in from the sidelines …”

[And this dedicated dad carried on with the story. But even Stevel had to admit when Honey Pie Pony showed up on page 18 with Custard and Pupcake that this soccer match had gotten TOO WEIRD. So we decided to put the Strawberry Shortcake Storybook Collection away until Violet is a little "older."]

[1]

Steve got a new computer. It is very large, too large for his desk. And so … and so … we traded desks! This has turned our world topsy turvy. EVERYONE is cranky about it. Until the dust settles, cords are stowed, and we all learn to avoid banging our heads on the unexpected sharp corners, there will be tension shrouding all life here. This is not a metaphor. It could be, it would make a lovely one, but it’s not.

[2]

Our bed FINALLY arrived!!!! We purchased this bed in SEPTEMBER. We have been sleeping on a mattress on the floor since then, and it has been actually pretty nice and fun. But ooooooh, the bed feels good. And it looks super nice! And Vibble has decided it’s her newest piece of gym equipment. Rollsies off the bed—whee! Headboard is a horsey—whee! Oh, Two, you are so fun. And neck-breaker-scary.

[3]

Vibble is really into dressing up right now, but let me clarify. Thursday she took to the courtyard carrying a cold/heat-pack like a purse. Wednesday she put a small box on her head and tucked a placemat under her armpits and went a-walking up and down the courtyard for an hour. FANCY. I took a photo on my phone, so I’ll have to get that up for you. It’s very challenging when she’s in the courtyard to keep her from knocking on people’s doors, and a lot of our neighbors work from home or are retired or whatnot.

[4]

I need to just mention she is nearly never—NEVER—still. She dances while she EATS. She spins in circles twice a minute. Pants, ants.

[5]

This week we busted out the kiddie pool. It was hot for a couple of days, and on the first day, Vibble stayed in there for almost two hours and was falling asleep with her head on the side of the pool before she “agreed” to come out. (By “agreed,” I mean “she lost the physical brawl that ensued when I decided she was getting out.”)

[6]

Steve got a treadmill. He has been getting up mornings and walking far, far away. In our basement. He always comes back. There is a fine dust of treadmill rubber on the floor. If you know Steve, you’re not surprised, and you realize this is not a fault of the treadmill. I’ve never seen anyone wear through shoes to the bottom like he does, for example. As Steve says of the treadmill, “We’re probably going to have to buy one of these every year.”

[7]

I painted some walls, just touching up, covering that fingerpaint handprint, stuff like that. It wore me out, took me two days to recover. I am old.

[8]

Violet and I went to Pretend City! With Christopher and Oliver! I already posted photos of that.

[9]

I made Violet a cardboard-box house yesterday. She was less into it after I made a house out of it than she had been when it was a box, but I felt creative, and I was proud of my box-house, so _I_ played in it.

[10]

I’m not sure why food seems to be more appealing after it has been dumped on the floor/ground/cement, but this kid promptly dumps all food and then grazes on it. Usually at her seat at the table, she is satisfied with eating it off the tray. But we STILL don’t trust her with dishware of any kind, really. She’s like, Whee! Dishware! [DUMP]

[11]

She says a lot more words now, but almost never on request. She says her name (sort of). She still does not really ask for what she wants, but she repeats the last couple of syllables of what we say sometimes, says little phrases she has heard (she loves the sneeze-”Bless You”-”Thank you” routine). Mostly she sings incoherently, constantly. It’s sort of like living with a little drunk hobo, especially with the box on her head and the placemat wrapped around her torso.

[12]

I need to mention how much she loves to read. LOVES. TO. READ. “Likes” to be read TO, but loves to hang out with her books. It’s right up there with watching TV, her all-time favorite thing to do. Like when you turn on a TV, before it even makes any sound, just the subtle click of the button depressing on the remote or on the appliance itself, she is like a rabbit who hears a dog two miles away. All activity immediately stops. She sniffs the air. She tenses all over. Teeeeee … Veeeeee … [slurp]

[13]

Our cats are Old.

[14]

Apparently, we had a little earthquake the other day. I didn’t feel it. It was only a 4 or something. Not like these other earthquakes killing half the world right now. What are those, like 20s? Sucky.

[15]

Kelly is coming this weekend! HOORAY!

[1]

The Marietta Edgars—what fun to have them out.

[2]

Aunt Debi and cousin Sam from Corvallis. An overnight to Sea World was awesome.

[3]

Some kind of awful cold. Vibble started coughing and sneezing while her grandparents were here, and her status declined as her aunt and cousin’s visit arrived. Boo. She is a sad little coldling. Not feeling so great myself, so please forgive the short entry. We did get some nice photos, though, so enjoy!

Tuesday I woke to find a feral child crouched in the room. She refused to be bathed, despite several days’ odor and a face caked in day-old ketchup. Any moves toward the bathtub elicited primal shrieking. Piece by piece, I removed her clothes over the length of an hour. Each clothing item required strategic immobilization of the child’s strong, flailing limbs. Finally, she was down to just the diaper. I had filled a bucket with warm bathwater and brought it to the TV. She eyed it suspiciously. She refused to go near it. I turned off the TV and explained that if Caillou was to continue, a certain little bum would have to be sitting in a certain bucket of water. The young primate threw itself to the floor and grabbed and threw nearby objects, all the while eliciting a wail we refer to here in the city as “noise pollution.”

I slowly cornered the creature. The volume of screams increased. As I tore at her diaper, she shifted her screams from primal wails to a repeated shout of the word “STINKY! STINKY!”

“Yes,” I said, “You are stinky.”

“STINKY! STINKY!”

I turned on the TV and stuck her in the bucket, where she stiffened and howled. With one arm around her waist, I quickly soaped and rinsed the feral child. I soaked myself and the carpet, but a scientific curiosity drove me to want to see what was underneath the strata of ketchup. Then, I had an idea. Perhaps the fickle creature was not interested in Caillou today. I stretched an arm to the TV, flipping up the channels as quickly as I could to reach Dora.

My hypothesis was correct. The creature giggled and sank into the bucket, allowing me to wash her hair without protest. As a result, I was able to determine that the animal was in fact a cute little girl who is in a phase of Refusal to Bathe and who, admittedly adorably, now says all kinds of words, like “shoe” and “thank you!” and the ever-popular “STINKY!,” still needs to learn to just let it be known when all she really wants is to change the channel.

What you are witnessing in this photo is this: I was cleaning up the kitchen, and Vibble went and got this empty grocery bag and proceeded to do some “shopping” in the pantry. She filled the bag, and even though she dumped a LOT of spaghetti all over the place, I thought it was SO CUTE, so I went and got my phone to take this photo … and AS I SNAPPED IT, she dumped the cats’ water bowl into the bag, soaking the entire contents. STINKER! Soggy spaghetti, anyone?

Here at No. 6, we are preparing for for the holidays with festive verve. We have decorated the Christmas “tree” and wrapped the gifts, sent out the cards, and invited the friends to play on Friday. You will note our “tree” is actually a lamp. Reason: Vibble cannot be trusted with an actual tree. I learned that at Sizzler.

Stevel is working from home this week and off next week. Awesome!

This year Violet is getting … not a lot. She doesn’t really know what’s going on, so I’m not about to drop a wad on her. There IS a new tricycle in the house (well, new to us—recycled), and I’ve ordered some accessories for it. And when Nana and Papa-Auggie visited for Thanksgiving, she got an early holiday gift in the form of a cute little dollhouse. So the newness is well underway.

Vibble went to speech therapy last week. Overall, she is behind—the speech pathologist says she is about 25% behind—but not for any medical or mental reason. The doc attributed it to “desire,” meaning, Violet doesn’t want to talk more, or doesn’t have incentive to talk more. She didn’t advise speech therapy, just a continuation on our part of things we’ve already been doing and perhaps an increase in the activities we do with other children. She did say Violet is advanced in terms of coordination and physical agility. She thinks she will likely catch up to her peers with encouragement from us to practice talking more.

On an unrelated side note, a holiday shout out to our friends at Table Toppers, one of my favorite products and something I’m thankful for this holiday season. These things have saved us. Everywhere we go (and we eat out a lot, for various reasons), everyone seems so impressed when we whip these things out and attach one to the table. Like we are such great parents for insuring our daughter eats off of a sanitary surface. Little do they know the actual reason: Violet cannot be trusted with dishware. (We learned that at Sizzler, too. Also at Akbar. And Thai Dishes. And …) Oh, and on another unrelated side note: Toddler leg warmers are some of the cutest things ever invented, holy crap.

More recent photos

We have a new pediatrician, who I like better than our original one. Friday we had Vibble’s 19-month check-up. Let me preview by saying that I had to wake her up mid-nap to take her to this appointment, which I had made over a month ago, and so we showed up with her lunch smeared on her face, her face contorted in a horrid endless toddler-shriek, one arm inside her shirt, and her hair plastered to her head with sweat. Please do not call the authorities, new-doctor, she sleeps like a wrecking train sometimes, and no that’s not mucus on her face, it’s avocado—she didn’t get cleaned up from lunch because she was falling asleep at the table.

Let me also preview by saying that ever since we got back from Hawaii, it’s been like Monday every day. You know how on Mondays you can never find your stapler? And every item you put on a counter-top or desk seems to roll right off, especially if it’s a cup of liquid? And things you’re trying to carry fall out of your arms like they’re attached to little strings being yanked by some invisible Monday-devil? Nothing goes right, all minor stuff, but it adds up to make you want to scream. That’s been life in our house since we got back from our trip. One reason for this is the intense degree of sleep-deprivation we’re all three suffering from. Vibble is still not adjusted back to the California time-zone. No. She has decided she prefers Hawaii time, which is three hours behind us. So every night since we got back, she is still up and playing at midnight. No amount of coaxing or soothing on our parts has succeeded in putting her down before 12. 12:30. 1. Shoot me.

We tried skipping nap-time, and she fell asleep (read: passed out) in her dinner. We tried wearing her out, but you know toddlers have this THING, this RECHARGEABLE battery, that just when it seems like they’re winding down, all of a sudden, they feel GREAT and HAPPY and PLAYFUL again. This is all just to say we’ve been trying, we really have, to get her little body back on mainland time. Fail.

So we are sleep-deprived to begin with, and the minor stuff in the universe is conspiring to make little frustrations pile up in a way that gets tough to shrug off, and then I go and sell our bed out from under us, so we are sleeping on the couch and in Vibble’s room for a couple of days. See, we decided a while back we need to move up in bed-size, from queen to king, because we have two cats who sleep with us every night, and they hate each other and need plenty of territory in order to not hiss and brawl on top of us at 3 a.m. And then we have this ever-growing kid who, five nights out of seven, wakes up in her crib and starts shrieking, and for reasons that are personal to us, we don’t leave her there to put herself back to sleep, but instead bring her into bed with us. Where she sleeps horizontally in between our heads—literally, if you turn her in her sleep, she sproings right back. So Steve and I have been sleeping for months balled-up in the top corners of the bed. We are not well rested. Anyway, we finally found a bed we liked a few weeks ago, so I put our bed up on classifieds and waited for it to sell, figuring when it did, I would get the new bed, because who has room for two big beds? Not us. Right. So three weeks of classifieds and no response, and then when someone did buy it, it was gone in 24 hours, and we were left with no bed. We have a mattress now, and the bed is on order, but this is all to explain why on the day of Vibble’s doctor’s appointment, I was not in the best place to cope with the news that we have to get rid of all of this child’s pacifiers.

No, I did not throw a tantrum and shout, “Not today, Lady! Shut up or I will totally cut you!” Not out loud. But in my head, yes.

Stevel and I have noted for a little while now that Violet isn’t saying as many words as the Internet says she should at this age. I’m not talking about, “She doesn’t talk in sentences, she’s not in the top 5 percentile,” I’m saying conservative estimates of how many words a normally developing talker says at this age give a minimum of 20. She says maybe seven. We know this is not because she’s slow—other checklists of things reassure us she’s on par for smarts. We don’t think she has any mouth-muscle problems or anything. We know her personality is a factor; some kids like to show what they can do, and this one prefers to show she can ignore you when you say, “Violet, say ‘Mom.’ Say ‘baby.’” I spend probably four to six hours per day just chanting, “Say ‘bubbles.’ Say ‘hi.’” She CAN say them, and about five to ten percent of the time she does. The rest of the time she raises her eyebrows and looks around, aloof. “Say ‘Fuck you, Mom.’” Anyway, we had been suspecting what the doctor told me at the appointment: Too much pacifier in the mouth = Not enough talking-practice. And then the doc said, “You need to just go home and throw all of the pacifiers in the garbage. If you even have one in your purse, you’ll give it to her when she cries for it. And she’ll cry for a couple of days, but then she’ll forget and be fine.”

And as she is saying this, and I am falling into a black-hole in my brain in response, Violet intensifies the crying she has been consistently producing since we left the house and reaches toward her pacifier that is over on the exam table. SHE KNOWS!

And then the nurse gives her two massive shots in the shoulders, one of which (flu shot, I assume) will make her vomit up her entire dinner a few hours later, and we both walk home bawling all the way.

And when we got home from the doctor’s office, she stood next to me while I unloaded the dryer and rattled off all of the words she knew and was even willing to try new ones: “Baby. Mom. Mia. Dad. Hi. Byebye. Bubbles. Ball. Keychain.” KEYCHAIN? Yes, “keychain,” because hey guys, look, you don’t need to throw away those pacifiers, I’LL TALK ALREADY.

Hawaii was beautiful. We stayed in Waikiki, and we enjoyed the beach and the fun things to do in the city. Three nights was just right for us—since we had the kid along, it was in no way “relaxing.” Fun, yes; a getaway, yes; relaxing, no. What we were aiming for was togetherness, and four days of it was perfect. A little self-spoiling. The photos tell the story … Meanwhile, red-eye flight with no sleep for cramped parents = needing a vacation from our vacation. Nap time.

Photos here.

I rode my bike to the Promenade and returned some things to Old Navy and REI. Then I met up with Stevel and Violet at a street fair/block party the co-op was hosting. If you can imagine a large-scale event that takes up the whole block, and that has been organized by hippies, you can understand why the crowd control and traffic flow were afterthoughts. Non-thoughts. There was a carnival-style popcorn machine IN THE DOORWAY. NARROWEST DOORWAY ON EARTH to begin with, people, and it is both in-door and exit. Not so fun, the co-op block party.

Back at No. 6, Vibble played in her pool. Here are two photos of that. Never mind the captions, unless you were on Noelle and Phil’s Christmas card mailing list, in which case, enjoy the sense of life coming full-circle.

I thought about drinking the tea the acupuncturist/Traditional Medicine doctor gave me yesterday … she said I should “drink it fast in small sips at first until the taste does not bother me.” It remains yet undranken.

Next, Vibble acted like she wanted a nap. But really she just wanted to to watch TV in our room. She did let me trim her fingernails while we watched Sponge Bob, though, and that manicure was three weeks overdue. Eventually she did nap, but it was a struggle to get there.

During the nap time, I took a hot bath, then went to Trader Joe’s and OSH. Yep, I ran errands without a toddler standing up in the shopping-cart seat to scream in my ear. LUXURIOUS. God, I love this kid, but GOD, is she screamy right now. And determined to make our public outings as complicated and potentially toddler-fatal as possible. It can be trying. We really have more fun together here at home.

After her nap, Vibble ate some of her favorite foods: yogurt-covered pretzels, avocado, hard-boiled egg, apple, and DESSERT.

After dinner, and I am not making this up, this happened:

Four people—two long-time friends, and two very new friends—showed up for a little casual hanging out. They had just come from Bed, Bath & Beyond, where they had all purchased toe separators. Three of the friends were raving about their new products. The fourth one did not de-shoe, as he claimed to have some webbed toes he didn’t want to show off, and so planned to try out his new As-Seen-On-TV luxury at a later time, alone.

After the friends left, Stevel spent two hours trying to get Vibble to sleep. We had this thing worked out, before that full moon. Now we have to get anal again about the evening schedule, I think. Food in belly at 7. Butt in bath at 8. Stories and songs at 9. Power down by 10. We get lax, and we miss the good drift-off window. Before the window, she is too awake to sleep. AFTER the window, she is overtired and can’t control herself.

Anyway, now she is asleep. Stevel is submitting iPhone app stuff. I’m thinking about a second round of dessert for myself. And that is the story here.

COURIER

Vibble moves things all over the house. It is both infuriating and amusing. Since Monday I have been trying to find my metal ruler. I just found it, along with my blue pen, in the drawer in the bathroom where I keep extra TP. “Someone” took it and thought to herself, ‘This isn’t where this belongs!’ And so she put it “away.” I find things like this all the time. I feel like I now spend 30 percent of my day shuttling things back to the room/floor they belong on so I can find them again next time I need them.

PERSONAL TRAINER

Yesterday we went to Irvine to hang out in the Woodbridge Lagoon with Megan and Christopher (photos on my phone—will post them later). The Lagoon is awwwweeeesoooommme. Something between a swimming pool and a beach—perfect for a little one. But we wound up positioned between the Lagoon and the lake, and Vibble was determined to motor it into the LAKE. So unpacking our gear went like this:

1. Pick up a bag/item out of the wagon and hurriedly walk it to our chairs.
2. RACE to the steep bank of the lake and grab the kid before she dives in.
3. Pick up next bag/item out of the wagon and hurriedly walk it to our spot.
4. BOLT to the lakeside just in time to prevent a drowning.
Repeat.
Repeat again.
Repeat in reverse to pack back up to leave.

She was determined to get into the deep water of the Lagoon pool. I decided to let her go and slip under quickly, thinking this would deter her from heading that way. We did this no fewer than five times, me fishing out the sputtering, “WTF-is-happening” Vibble each time. And yet … she just kept doing it! I finally got her distracted by her sand toys. The constant need for me to thwart her suicidal maneuvers—standing up in the shopping cart, racing toward the deep lake, rushing to the deep part of the pool, climbing onto the table at the restaurant, eating crayons on the sly, more, more, more … despite my love for cake, I should be as svelte as a supermodel in no time.

LE CHEF

Since her visit with her cousins, Vibble’s play has changed. My nieces are Imaginative. Note the capital “I.” Like, AMAZINGLY imaginative. Since we got home, Violet is playing by herself a bit more, and her play involves a lot more pretending. Steve and I spy on her when we can. ‘Look, she’s scooping things out of the little pot onto the little plate in the little kitchen! AWWW!’ So cute.

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.

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?”

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.

Not saying we DO all of these things, but … OK, we do.

[1]

Let her wear the same outfit for up to 48 hours.

[2]

Make sure she never appears in public with more than one sock on. When every third person urgently alerts you to the missing sock, reply, “Oh. Yeah, she always takes those things off.”

[3]

Play her plenty of Dwight Yoakam, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Trisha Yearwood, George Straight, Pam Tillis and Crystal Gayle. Enough so she learns the lyrics by preschool.

[4]

Give her baths in the two-sided kitchen sink. When she poops, just move her to the other side of the sink. (I know some of you are horrified right now and making a note to never step foot in our kitchen again. Oh ye who have not had children. Poop in the sink = poop I can bleach away, versus poop on things-ruined-by-poop.)

[5]

Feed her plenty of beans. Babies love them some beans.

[6]

When you need to divert her attention away from something dangerous or valuable, grab a different, desirable nearby object and toss it. Say to the kid, “You want it? Fetch-it.”

[7]

If she doesn’t like to have her face wiped off, just don’t wipe it off. If around her mouth and nose and in her hair there is crusty breakfast cereal mush, sticky dried juice from lunch, dinner’s beans, or all three, just leave them there.

[8]

When she crawls by you with a used tea-bag in one hand and an empty yogurt cup in the other, both clearly pilfered from the kitchen trash, do not confiscate these items. Rather, say to her, “I see you got yourself some new toys there.”

[9]

When food falls on the floor, the correct response is this: “Ah, the kid can still eat that. Gotta build up her immune system!”

[10]

Pants are optional.