Women: Can't live with 'em, can't eat your own string cheese

The world didn't seem all that funny to me this morning... among other things, I hate banks.

So this is the kind of thing I watch on days like this:


Just click play, and enjoy the random sampling of the wonders YouTube has to offer our troubled civilization.

Something else to remind me that the world is funny: thinking of that time M- cornered a younger boy at library storytime "trying to get him to understand" that she wanted to eat his string cheese. She only knows people who share their food with her, so she quickly became desperate as she ran through her whole repertoire hoping something would register with him-- "mah, peez", "biiiiite, bite"... even signing for more.

And when I say signing for more, I mean she was standing over him, repeatedly signing right in his face. Not aggressively, mind you, but more like, "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth??" (funnier if you enjoyed the movie Rush Hour). I'm positive he knew exactly what she wanted, but he of course just wanted to squat in the corner and eat his string cheese in peace.

Even if M- had learned already how to instead use subtle hints and suggestions to get the boy to give her his string cheese and make him think it was his idea, he was nowhere near old enough to be blinded by any accursed motivation to allow this to happen. So she was destined for failure, short of using brute force, and he gained a valuable preview for the long life ahead of him.

And, for the record, this all happened very quickly, across the room, and by the time she was signing in his face I picked her up and explained that it was his string cheese and she had her own food to eat if she was hungry. Still, the bewildered and overwhelmed look on the boy's face was just priceless. If I'd had a stick of string cheese on me, I would have tossed it to him and just said, "Women, huh?"

And he would have stuck to his original plan of running back to his mommy.

I like me a self-serve baby

As M- gets older, I'm taken back to the glorious days before I was able to take for granted how many things D- could do for himself. Each day I was amazed by some new thing he mastered. You see, as a parent, and as a human, my goal in all areas is to be as lazy as legally allowed, and this stretch of self-sufficiency for the kiddos is a big part of that effort.

Of course, I will never take for granted that D- can use the toilet completely by himself (and it is absolutely still the high point of this cycle), but all the other little things just kind of fade into distant memories as you take on new challenges. You can never be fully prepared for all the little things you have to do for a baby (including pre-chewing their food, for some-- thankfully that's not so common in this country...), and when you're hit with all of them at once, they just kind of blur together. Once the kid grows up, those little things all disappear together and you get spoiled. This is how people end up with more than one child.

Granted, that helpless baby phase does not end all at once, but in some children, it certainly seems to. For example, as I discussed yesterday, M- has suddenly burst forward in her speaking abilities, and she seems in it to win it. Similarly, back in December, before she was 1, she just began walking outright all of a sudden after a select few test steps in the week or so before that. There was no middle ground, no real learning phase. And around the same time, she popped out one, two, four, then six teeth total, all in the span of a week or two.

I really can't fully describe all the things she can do and understand versus a month ago, but I think I can pretty much sum it up in one anecdote:

Through much of her first year, M- had to be held while sleeping, or she would wake up and scream, and almost literally never sleep. This was not for lack of trying on J-'s and my part-- I think you all must realize by now that I can be a "terrible father" with the best of them. I mean, God made earplugs for a few reasons, and one of those was to show your children you really, really aren't listening and they just have to deal with whatever they're screaming about.

Now, M-'s a cosmopolitan baby that will sleep anywhere you lay her down (at the right time, of course) and when she wakes up, she merely calls patiently for her entertainment committee (D-) to dance a jig in front of her crib till Daddy comes to get her. But what's more, now that she has harnessed the power of speech, at exactly 10:40 this morning, she put down her toy, looked up at me, and said "nigh-nighhhhh" several times until I picked her up and confirmed the message was received. Nap 1 went down like clockwork, then she did the same thing again about 2 hours later.

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

Developments at our house, Vol. 1

Some developments at our house in the past day or so:

1. Last night, I offered M- a bottle of milk since she was trying to steal D-'s cup. She looked frustrated as she took a step back, shook her head, and then surprised herself by saying "No" in a very thoughtful way. Against my better judgment and future sanity with regards to this particular word, I praised her for speaking her mind.

This goes along with her saying "mo' " several times recently when signing for more, the dozen other words we got her to say later on last night (including "yeah", "car", "kitty", "shiny", "hurt", "sorry", [see #7 below]"dude", and "poopy"), and the ones she has been saying for awhile now (such as "daddy", "momma", the names of most of my family, "hi", "bye-bye", "doggy", "guy", "go", "wow", "uh-oh", and "nigh'-nigh' "). Unsurprisingly, I cannot get her to say any of these this morning.

2. D- has inexplicably taken to speaking in a 3-year-old's approximation of a southern accent. I would place it somewhere around Imaginary Tennessee.

3. Just as J- was finishing up changing M-'s diaper, M- suddenly flipped over, stood up, grabbed the old diaper, and ran across the room while shaking it vigorously. Was there Number 2? Oh yes, of course there was.

I never thought I'd say it, but thank god for constipation...

4. D- has decided that wearing camouflage pajamas requires him to repeatedly march with a mean face towards the TV, point at his reflection, shoot himself with screwdriver, and then fall down dead. I'm not sure where he learned this, but he may soon be joined by 20,000 more 3-year-olds seeking to put a stop to this menacing force.

5. M- discovered that tossing an aptly-named throw pillow on the floor provides her with a portable and comfy seat from which her feet only just touch the floor (if you can believe it). She also found out the painful way that on such an uneven surface, bouncing on one's bottom out of sheer joy at this discovery will cause one's head to hit the floor surprisingly hard almost as many times as one tries it.

6. I learned that a 1-year-old will actually struggle to find her brother hiding under a blanket right where he was sitting for the past half an hour, even when said brother is giggling uncontrollably. (She eventually found him, but only after walking around for several minutes calling him with her hands turned up in a "Where on Earth did he go?!" posture.)

7. J- learned that you never tell a baby she can't have the phone back immediately after hanging up on her aunt, because that baby will be bound by Baby Law to shriek once loudly and then head butt you in the mouth at full force.

Note: Here are the other volumes.

Eeeeeeeeee!!

Building on her success in signing for "more" to get what she wants, M- has moved on into attempts at speech, in a big way. When she's concerned we're not getting her 20-time-daily-feeding message, or when she wants to celebrate that we got her message, she will smile and say "Eeeee! Eeeeeee!!" (for "eat") as she steadily approaches us or the food source:
And in case you were wondering, yes, she does quite resemble a zombie repeating a single syllable as she toddles over, rocking from side to side in that "leave me alone, I'm still learning to walk" way that 1-year-olds do.

Meanwhile, J- and I are stuck watching in horror, feeling an oppressive wave of impending doom, knowing we may be destined to live the next year either in front of a high chair, allowing a child to feed herself from the floor (because that's where all food ends up when M-'s in charge of it), or strapping a feed bag to said baby's face and hoping Child Services isn't making surprise housecalls that day. It's a tough situation to be in, but I know I'll make the right call.

I'm just not sure which call that is at the moment.

Luck favors the prepared parent

You wanna know a great way to torture a suddenly hungry baby? Take her down the baby food aisle at the store and try to explain why you can't just sit down on the floor, manufacture a spoon, and begin feeding her each of the jars she has pointed at (while loudly saying "Num-nummmm!!" and signing for "more").

While you're at it, rush her past rows and rows of various bottled drinks and describe to her (over her protests) what a water fountain is and why it'll have to do at the moment.

Go ahead and try it-- it's a blast!

(Before you think we're complete idiots, we weren't totally empty-handed, M- just quickly exhausted our meager supplies today.)

What's the sign for "God help us all"?

We made the mistake of giving M- the gift of communication, in the form of the baby-sign-language sign for "more", which is made by touching all your fingers together, as pictured above.

Her version usually approximates this, but at its worst it degenerates into her pointing at her palm demandingly, as seen below:
She also has expanded this beyond mealtime, to mean "gimme that toy", "pick me up now", and generally, "give me exactly what I want immediately."

Now we just need to teach her to understand my sign for "I see and understand what you are communicating, but I must deny you what you want for unspecified reasons."

I think I may need more fingers.