Mom of the Year

It has been entirely too long since I’ve last written on here … so I appreciate all one or two of you who are still checking in. Busy, busy, busy!!! Elise has certainly kept us on our toes and with her help most of my emails and papers make no sense anymore. It just so happens that she’s asleep and I’m procrastinating on schoolwork… so here I am blissfully blogging and not worrying about little fingers “helping”. Unbelievable as it is Elise will be one year old at the end of this month. Her personality is really starting to come out - turns out we’ve made ourselves one helluva head strong and stubborn child! Single minded comes to mind too… once she has set her mind on what she wants to do, nothing you say or do is going to deter her. She can be aiming for my coffee cup and I’ll tell her “no”, I’ll distract her, I’ll put a toy in her hands… and she’ll let me, all the while eyes glued to the coffee cup. Just waiting me out. Within the last two weeks she has finally realized that she is mobile and that she can mobilize whether I’m there with her or not. This has made for some interesting discoveries! Came out of the laundry room the other day to find her on the stairs looking down at me and laughing… my little daredevil has discovered stairs. She’s also discovered hanging upside down off of the bed/chair/table… my little adrenaline junky. She loves to sit in the middle of our bed and bounce on her knees which is her way of asking to be bounced on the bed. She also loves to stand up on the headboard and throw herself backwards onto the pillows. All the while giggling and squealing. She’s started saying Mama and every once in a while Dada. And last week she finally (finally after 7 or 8 months of teaching!!) mimicked the sign for “milk”. We’re working on “mommy”, “daddy”, “no”, “yes”, “sit”, “ball”, “eat” and “more” right now.

So, back to the subject line… mom of the year. I’ve told you that Elise is getting more and more independent and mobile. You can just see the look on her face “Mommy, I DO IT!”. This attitude and her super fast baby speed has made for a stressful week and left more than a few of us wondering if indeed little miss was actually going to make it to one. She and I were sharing some watermelon the other day. I’d eat a chunk, she’d eat a bit, I’d eat a chunk, she’d eat a bit. Well, apparently I was going too slow because out of nowhere and with lightening fast speed her little hands flew into the bowl, got a hunk of melon, and shoved the entire piece into her mouth. Little chipmunk!! I could see her working it around a bit and she was handling it better than I would have thought… then all of a sudden every parents’ worse nightmare. Little arms start flailing, she’s gurgling, mouth is turning blue. I have never felt such a sick feeling in my stomach. Looking back on it, I find it interesting that in the midst of all of this I actually thought to myself “Ok, I’ve had this training. I know what to do”. Even more interesting was the fact that with a sum total of seven years worth of advanced education I still thought “But oh shit!! That’s my baby and I don’t care what my training has taught me”. So, rule numero uno anymore in basic life support is “no blind sweeps of the mouth”. Yeah, screw that… first thing I did was shove my finger into her mouth and try to scoop out as much of that blasted melon as I could. When that didn’t work I had to flip her over onto her stomach and start pounding on her back trying to dislodge it. After several blind sweeps and several thunks on her back I finally got the damn thing out… I think what finally worked was me shoving my finger so far into her throat that I made her throw up, so in the end I’m covered in watermelon puke, she’s screaming, and I’m crying. Ben is standing there with that deer-in-the-headlights look going “Good job, Mama”. Ugh… what an awful feeling!! They say kids get over stuff pretty fast, and true enough. Soon as Elise saw the watermelon again she was aiming for more. THEN… the next day…

The only way I can get ready in the mornings anymore is to distract her long enough so that I can do hair, make-up, and clothes. Maybe 20mins tops. I mean, c’mon… I’m not asking for too much I don’t think. So, whether good or bad I don’t know (and really don’t care) but the way I buy myself these 20mins is by opening my bathroom cabinet and letting Elise play in it - she loves playing with my make-up brushes, and throwing my lotion bottles on the floor, and of course rolling whatever she can pull out along the tile floor. So, I don’t know why I was surprised when I lost track of her for a few seconds and heard the distinctive sound of my cabinet goods being tossed aside… then I heard another, not so distinctive sound like someone trying to spit something out. Cut to Elise, in my cabinet. Except now she has somehow learned how to open my make-up jars. Not only that, but she has figured out how much fun it is to smear my make-up EVERYWHERE. Make-up in the grout, on the carpet, across her white shirt, and most impressively in and around her little mouth. On the other hand, the color she choose was exceptionally becoming on her.

As if that wasn’t enough… and I do promise you that I’m not nearly as negligent as I must sound in this post, it’s just that it seems that everything has culminated this week. And before I tell you this last (and worst) story I will let you know that yes, baby gates and cabinet locks have been purchased and put in place now. Whew!! So, the day after the mak-up fiasco (I know, it was a really rough 3 days for all of us!) I’m again getting ready for work… I run out of Elise’s room (where she is quietly playing on the padded floor) into my room. For maybe 20seconds. I come running out when I hear “THUD” followed immediately by a screeching that I don’t think I’ve ever heard come from Elise. =( Found her lying on her back, on the second stair. So, sadly I don’t even know how far up she went or how far down she came. But I ran over to her, scooped her up and she settled down pretty quickly. I hold her out to take a look at her… and that’s when I see it. Her first injury. Baby’s got a goose egg the size of a golf ball right there on her noggin. Oh man, how awful did I feel!! Then of course Nurse mode kicks in again… so I check her pupils (ok), assess her behavior (within normal), and notice that she doesn’t seem to be vomiting. All good signs. I knew she was going to be ok though when daddy Ben brought out her super favorite toy ever, his work badge, and she lit up like it was Christmas. That was 3 or 4 days ago and her goose egg is gone and she’s left now with just the faintest of yellow bruises. And like I said, she’s thwarted at every turn now. Our house is not nearly as exciting anymore, but it’s safe and with just less than a month to go I think she’s gonna make it to one in one piece!

This one is just because I love the picture. Taken yesterday after Daddy made her some milk and whole wheat pancakes for breakfast.