adumbration

snowbaby

2006-02-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

We were afraid that Jacqui would plop down in the snow and make the same "Take me inside NOW" face that she made a year ago ... but that's because we forgot who she was a year ago. A year ago, she wasn't walking and she certainly wasn't curious about anything that might potentially cause discomfort.

This morning she played in the 6+ inches of snow with her daddy. They made snowballs and snowfolks, and stomped through the powder and touched the trees and got matching pink cheeks and hands.

She's napping now, with a bellyful of lunch and a head full of stories and ears full of promises of more snow-play this afternoon, while snowflakes dance to a windchime accompanyment and the sun plays peek-a-boo through the clouds.

Jacqui recommends ...

2006-02-06T13:21:00.000-05:00

Jacqui's favorite book for the past few weeks has been Kitten's First Full Moon.

(Note that I don't get an amazon.com subsidy. They're just convenient.)

Eventually we'll have a fruit basket.

2006-01-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Jacqui is 22 months old now, and she is growing up faster than I ever imagined she would, and faster than I really want. She explores and examines everything. She loves to play pretend, she loves to run and play "oh no you caught me!", she loves interacting with the dogs. She pushes buttons and turns knobs and climbs stairs and flips light switches and tonight, as we were leaving the mall, she walked right over to the handicapped entrance and pushed the automated "open" panel. And then she walked halfway through the open door and turned to look back, as proud of herself as she could be. She really wants to interact with other children, but the kids in the rec-center playgroup only interacted with their own parents; the kids in the mall play area are mostly just obnoxious. And she's still not talking, and I know everyone says "don't worry", and I'm NOT worried about her cognitive abilities, but I want her to learn to use WORDS to get what she needs and wants.

So for all of those reasons, Geoff and I have begun investigating nursery schools. She'd start in September, wherever we take her, and so far we've seen three facilities: the Montessori School of Northern Virginia, Providence Nursery School, and Pinecrest School. The three of them are apples, oranges, and bananas, when you put them side-by-side, and that last one isn't even in the running for this year: we arrived 5 minutes and 1 year early to their open house. ;)

The Montessori School was really wonderful, and I wish I could send MYSELF to school there. The 2 year-olds go to a 5-day program, for three hours per day ... which at first was daunting to ME, but I've begun to accept that it might be best for Jacqui. We've already submitted the application, so now we just have to wait until February to see if they call us to schedule interviews. They have classes up to third grade, so if Jacqui got in, we'd seriously consider keeping her there for the duration. The likelihood of acceptance is pretty low: they've got room for 14 students; 10 of those slots are already allocated to siblings of older students, and the remaining four will be in high demand.

Providence Nursery School was much smaller, much more relaxed ... and the 2-year-olds only go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's a definite option, if she isn't accepted into MSNV. Providence accepts students by randomly choosing applications that were submitted before the deadline -- they've got 12 spaces available. If she weren't accepted into the pre-school program, we'd have the option of enrolling her into their "Child's Day Out" program, which is basically an unstructured 3-hour play group that meets Monday and/or Friday.

Pinecrest begins accepting students at 3 years old, which is why we were a year early. They seem to be very committed to over-achievers, and I'm not sure that's what we want for Jacqui. It seems like the sort of school where *I* would have excelled, so I want to sit in on a couple of their classes, to see if my perceptions are right and ... well, just to see. According to the school's director, they accept applications on a first-in, first-accepted basis -- but I find myself skeptical.

There are other schools in the area, and we'll likely visit all of them before we're through. (And then probably I'll decide to keep her home til she's five, anyway. ;)

unanticipated changes in perspective

2005-11-04T23:53:00.000-05:00

This afternoon my mom and I completely ruined all of our wait-til-the-last-minute records: we started our holiday shopping, because I wanted to pick up an Elmo doll for Jacqui. I know, I know, I swore I wouldn't become one of THOSE mothers who has to have the latest bestest toy for her kid and will beat you up if you're holding the last one in the store. If I had to fight crowds of crazed parents, I wouldn't WANT it. But no one does their holiday shopping this early, so there were plenty of "Knows Your Name" Elmo dolls on the shelf. It's so cool! A CD & USB cable are included so that you can download your kid's name, birthday, and other details for Elmo to incorporate into his stories. (Note to mommy-shoppers: This is not the same Elmo you'll find on Amazon/Toys R Us. That one is personalized at the factory, and only with the child's name.)

The thing about Elmo is this: I used to HATE him. But it's hard to hate something your baby loves. There never were any "baby" muppets on Sesame Street when I was a kid, and that's one of the reasons I've never liked Elmo. Grover and Big Bird were the youngest, emotionally, and we loved THEM. Elmo -- well, the complaints about him are many, and his virtues seem few, but when it comes right down to it, he's GENTLE. He's got that third-person speech thing going on, but he's NICE. (And Cookie Monster's always spoken that way, and we love him.) Elmo's voice grates like iron nails on slate, but he holds her attention and makes her laugh. How can I not love him when SHE does?

I tell you what, though -- I will NEVER love Barney. Not even if she marries him.

first words

2005-09-08T21:49:00.000-04:00

At Jacqui's last doctor appointment, I reported with no small amount of worry that she hadn't started talking yet. That was at 15 months, and the doctor told me that as long as she had 3 words by her 18th month, she was on track.

She definitely understands the concept of words relating to objects and actions. She can point to almost anything we name, and if we ask her to get something she generally does. She does not have any symptoms of autism, and we're not even entertaining that as a possibility.

She'll be 18 months in one week.

It feels like I am being tested here. Ever since August 17, I've been counting down the weeks and now days til she's 18 months old. We've even been cramming -- we always read a lot of books together, but now. NOW we've gotten desperate, and for the past couple of weeks I've been doing the unthinkable:

I've been turning on the television.

We don't turn it on every day, and it stays on public television. Mostly we only watch Sesame Street -- she enjoys some other shows too, but they don't hold her attention the way Sesame Street does. She'll sit with me on the sofa or by herself in her little rocking chair, drinking her milk. Sometimes she gets so excited that she rushes up to the television (there's a hassock in front of it so that she can't get too close) and dances!

And today, she spoke her first real word (my personal criteria being that it wasn't "mamamama" or "dadadada", and she was able to repeat it) while we were out in public, in front of witnesses! Jacqui and my mom and I were in Babies -R- Us drooling over all of the tiny baby clothes. We wandered over to the toy section, and because we are who we are, my mom and I had to push all the buttons to make the toys sing and dance. And when Jacqui saw that red furry muppet with the annoying voice -- you know the one -- the one who only has to say his name to make every hearing adult cringe in nails-across-the-blackboard pain, she yelled.

Melllmo!! Melllmo!!

We played with the singing, dancing Elmo dolls for a long time with her, and then she focused on a little soft ball, instead. We bought the ball but not the doll, and that was fortuitous. Because after we left the baby store, we walked into K-Mart (I'm not too proud to admit it) for some toiletries, and there he was again, and she did it AGAIN:

MelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmoMelmo!!!!!!!

So we bought her a talking Elmo doll. He's actually pretty cute -- he's a Going to the Doctor Elmo, and he sneezes and he has a heartbeat and he's got a bandage on his toe.

And I don't mind his voice so much, lately, either.

bedtime has never been easy, really

2005-08-19T22:23:00.000-04:00

Bedtime is daddy-time. He takes her upstairs, reads her Guess How Much I Love You and Goodnight Moon, they say goodnight to all of the Pooh characters on her walls, and they turn out the light.

All of this works very well, once they've achieved upstairs-ness. If Geoff carries her upstairs, she screams for me. If I go upstairs with them, she cries when I leave the room.

Tonight, I kissed her and hugged her, and then said, "Do you want to go upstairs now?" And Geoff said, "Let's go upstairs." And she walked away from me, and she climbed the stairs, and she went into her room.

Just like a big girl.

2005-07-27T09:29:00.000-04:00

Ontario in the summer is just as hot and sticky as Washington, DC. Fortunately, we're staying at a hotel with air-conditioning -- unfortunately, the unit's three cool settings include "teeth-chatteringly cold," "toe-numbingly cold," and "swelter."

We've been here since Sunday and we're scheduled to leave this evening. We'd all like to stay another day, and that's the mark of a good visit.

Jacqui's been having an excellent time. She chases Sharou (my in-laws' schipperke), she plays in the swimming pool, she eats corn-on-the-cob -- holding it banana-like, insistantly without assistance -- and just about everything else she's offered. Last night we ate dinner at a local bistro, and she was so happy that she gave me a big slobbery kiss on the nose. When we left the restaurant, she walked hand-in-hand with her grandma up the sidewalk to the car.

There's more, but now we're running out for our last day with the Ontarioans.

a good day to be a baby

2005-07-22T23:58:00.000-04:00

We do own a television set; we just never turn it on. We rarely even use the room it lives in, because during the winter it's just too cold down there, and then that space becomes a vortex, sucking in laundry, receipts, stuff that we intend to donate when we get around to it, more laundry, and garden gnomes.

When it's hot enough outside to melt your eyeballs, that space is nearly warm enough to not cause frostbite. So it would make sense that we'd clean it up and USE it during the summer, and we would, if we didn't have a baby to focus on and if all of the really important stuff in our house -- the kitchen, the puppies, the laptop -- didn't live on ground-level.

So for the past week or so, mostly because we need clean clothes and only partially because my dad & stepmother planned a visit for today, Jacqui and I have been spending time down there washing and drying and folding (and flinging, if you're Jacqui) clothes, and stacking storage bins (of clothes I haven't quite decided to give away yet) and boxes and bags (of clothes I will give away as soon as I get around to it, unless I decide I really might need to keep them, which is why they are still vagrantly bumping up against each other in my basement) into room-height replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Walking around in there is very exciting.

This morning we rediscovered the television just after I reintroduced Jacqui to her wonderful slightly-bigger-than-Jacqui-sized wooden rocking chair, which was a gift to her from my dad. And I did what has never been done in her tiny life: I turned on the television, and I found Elmo.

She squealed. She rocked in her chair, drinking milk and watching Elmo, for fifteen minutes. Today he was focused on feet; by the end of his time-slot, one baby-hand was tight around the sippy cup while her other hand hung onto her foot. He only scared her once, when he got very excited and talked very fast in his Elmo voice -- and NONE of us enjoy that.

Later, after I'd read There's a Wocket in my Pocket for the 18th time, we decided to go outside and play. She played on the deck with me for over an hour -- there are a couple of pictures up at moblog.co.uk showing her good time. Her daddy came home while we were out there, and he & she played while I ran the bath.

Because oh yes, she NEEDED a bath. Today was not only her first Elmo experience, but also it was the first time I could say to her, "You are filthy!" It felt great.

Bath, then food (macaroni and cheese -- this is how much I love her), and while she was chewing her noodles her head started to teeter a bit, while her eyes rolled up into her head, while I kept feeding her just-one-more-bite(s) of noodles ... and then I picked her up and she was out.

She laid on the floor asleep for over an hour. She woke up shortly before her grandpa arrived, and then we went out to dinner. She ate more noodles. And then? Then ... she had another first: she ate CAKE. Lynn, my dad's wife, makes wedding cakes -- and she's GOOD. She brought a couple of leftover tiny cakes she'd made for a function that happened yesterday, and Jacqui fell in love.

After the sugar-rush had worn off a bit, we left for home. She fell asleep in the car, Geoff took her upstairs, and still she snoozes.

I wonder what exciting thing will happen tomorrow. :)

"that's a funny little dance ... "

2005-07-16T10:56:00.000-04:00

Geoff had just started an mp3 playing that he wanted me to hear, and so when Jacqui started to do a little side-to-side dance, at first I thought she must really like the Gorillaz.

Two factors weighed against this hypothesis: she'd never danced to music on her own before, and her expression suggested the exact opposite of enjoyment.

I thought, that looks a LOT like the dance Boo did in Monsters, Inc, when she had to potty! Except Jacqui's only 15 months old -- maybe she just needs a fresh diaper. After I took off the not-very-wet-at-all diaper, she escaped from the changing pad and crouched on her ankles, looking at me. Then she stood back up -- and I saw the wet spot on the carpet.

And that's when I remembered that yesterday she made that same face and picked at her diaper right before she dirtied it.

So I think this weekend we're going to buy a potty chair. She may not be talking, but she's definitely growing up.

in which a baby and her mommy and her daddy all have a very good day indeed

2005-07-04T23:10:00.000-04:00

For the past fortnight, give or take a moonlit evening, Jacqui has fallen asleep around 9:30pm and slept through until 8am, and that's what happened again last night. She had an entire scrambled egg and one whole pancake for breakfast, along with her giant 10-oz cup of milk, and then we played Let's Walk Up the Stairs and Let's Walk Down the Stairs and Let's Read Every Book in Jacqui's Room and Let's Try Not to Scream Too Loud When We Change the Diaper. It was a good morning.

Geoff slept in a bit, which is fair since he's been letting me sleep every morning for the past ... oh, year or so. When he joined us in the Land of Nearly Awake at 9:30, it was just after Jacqui had dragged me and her diaper bag to the front door for the twelfth time. I love a word that ends in "fth", yes I do.

I had a lovely shower, and then Ms Dapper-in-a-Sunsuit and I drove to Accotink Park. She napped in the car for almost an hour and then we played! What actually happened was this: we went over to the playground, and I hovered over her like some kind of overprotective MOTHER or something because there were so many other kids all running around and climbing all over the equipment, and she kind of clung to me. And then, I backed off. And THEN she had a great time. The other kids loved her -- there were these adorable four-year olds coming up and patting her head, or putting their hands on her cheeks, and I successfully squelched the impulse to pull out my machete, and she had so much fun climbing where she could climb and sliding where she could slide and standing there, grinning as big as she could grin while she watched the other kids run around and yell their kidly yells and play their kidly games.

We stayed for nearly two hours, even though I was melting after only five minutes in that sun. Some people don't perspire, or if they do it's so gently you'd never notice. I don't perspire either -- I sweat, and even though I don't reek of it because I know how to bathe and perfume myself, there is no disguising the fountain that my body becomes in weather over 85F. (Note: Jacqui and I were both coated in #50 sunblock, and only her head sweats. She maintained perfect decorum otherwise. ;)

Then we stood in line for ice cream and water, and that's when I discovered the one place in the entire United States that is not trying to make a profit. The concession stand doesn't sell bottled water -- she sold me a cup of ice water for 10 cents. And I made a tremendous sacrifice -- entirely unappreciated -- for Jacqui by buying an orange-ice instead of ice cream, because all of the ice cream involved chocolate; Jacqui was only interested in the paper wrapper after it was empty, which means that I had to eat all of it by myself. I do not enjoy frozen fruit-flavored water -- there's no CHOCOLATE in that. AND the girl who sold it to me had to laugh because you know, honestly, I was expecting to pay $1.50 for a bottle of water and at least that for ice cream, and all I had was a $20, and my total was 85 cents.

We got home at about 4:30, just after Geoff had finished his shower, and the baby and I changed into fresh clothes and we went out AGAIN, the three of us, to a friend-of-Geoff's house for a July 4 "Backyard Burn-Down" party. And it was FUN! There were two other kids there, both a little older than Jacqui, and they all played and had a great time. Our hosts had set up a kiddie-pool where the three of them splashed (mostly independently of each other), and their other guests were fun to listen to. (We're good at being audience, which lots of people seem to appreciate.)

And around 8pm, before the sun had really set but also before the kids would've needed to go to bed, Dave started setting off the fireworks.

I have never been a true fan of fireworks. Call me crazy, but setting things on fire in your backyard -- or even in your municipal park, if you happen to be a government entity -- and not just fire but noise, BIG NOISE, and noxious fumes and smoke -- none of these things tempt me, regardless of how many hotdogs and bottles of beer you may have ingested to prepare yourself for lighting the fuses.

But this was actually fun! Geoff and Jacqui and I sat in their hammock-on-a-frame a little apart from everyone else. This wasn't intentional; it's just where we happened to be when Dave said "Okay!" and brought out the fireplace lighter. He started lighting fuses, and I made an important discovery: fireworks are like swimming pools.

I have never really enjoyed swimming pools, because I don't swim. I can play in the shallows, if I can trust everyone involved not to splash me, but that's about the end of it. When Jacqui was born, I told Geoff I wanted to take her to swimming lessons as early as possible -- both for her sake AND for mine. Now Jacqui loves the water ... and I -- well, just don't splash me and we'll be fine. But I needed to see HER enjoying the water -- I need to know that she can have fun in it and not be afraid of it. And tonight, she LOVED the fireworks! She didn't like the loud noises, but she'd push my hands away every time the noises stopped so that she could turn her head and see the pretty lights again! By the time Dave lit the last fuse, she was clapping non-stop.

She was so happy. She'd clap, even as she rubbed her eyes -- it was 9pm, and she'd outlasted both of the other children.

We packed her into the car, she fell asleep during the 10-minute drive, and she's upstairs in her crib right now, sound asleep after an absolutely perfect day.

And that's what July 4 means to me.

The Week of Excitement

2005-06-18T11:03:00.000-04:00

The scary part was last weekend, when she had a 102.6+ fever (that's where the thermometer was when she refused to let us finish taking it). We were in Rehoboth, DE, and we took her to the emergency room.

It's a rite of passage, we said to each other. We'll take her in, they'll tell us we're over-reacting, and we'll go home and give her more Tylenol.

Only that's not what they said. What they said was: we'd like to get blood samples and a urine sample and probably we'll put her on an IV, too. Her fever didn't abate while we spent six hours comforting her as she screamed and then holding her as she slept, while they invaded her body.

We left with Amoxicillin even though they couldn't confirm a bacterial infection. That was Sunday. Monday morning, we drove home.

That afternoon, we got a call from the blood-lab, with preliminary results. That doctor faxed us the report which we couldn't read at all, and we took it with us Tuesday morning to the pediatrician, who was intrigued by it. He diagnosed Jacqui with hand-foot-and-mouth disease, which is a virus (and therefore not treatable with antibiotics) -- but the bloodwork suggested streptococcal pneumonae, which is Latin for "can turn into meningitis and kill you". Jacqui HAS had the pneumonia vaccine, and so she's truly not at high risk for this; added to that, the report was self-conflicting, which the pediatrician interpreted as meaning the sample was contaminated.

He prescribed a high dosage of Augmentin, just in case there was something hiding, and asked us to please follow up with the Delaware hospital for a final report. That report was faxed over yesterday morning, and it read as he expected: the sample was contaminated, no results are possible. Since Jacqui is all better -- no fever, no lethargy, no sleeping ;) -- he told us to discontinue the Augmentin and stop worrying.

Hindsight: Nothing they did in the emergency room was necessary. A finger-stick would've told them there was no bacterial infection; the IV was pointless; the urine specimin wasn't useful. All they had to do was look in her mouth and that's the one thing they did NOT do.

And yet ... if some other Sunday she started a high fever with no other symptoms, how could we react any differently? From now on she can only get sick on weekdays.

she knows things.

2005-05-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

Jacqui doesn't really talk yet. She's said a few words in her little life, but only once each, and none for the past month or so. I'm not horribly concerned because she still babbles sometimes, and she definitely understands what we're saying.

Case in point: This morning she was carrying around a small plastic bowl and nibbling Cheerios. I'd put a few in the bowl, she'd wander off with it (mostly without dumping it out) and eat the cereal and then come back for more. At one point she walked over to the back door, dropped the empty bowl, and started back. When she was halfway across the floor I said, "Where's your bowl? Did you drop your bowl?" And she turned around toward the door, so I said, "Will you go get your bowl?" AND SHE DID. She brought it back to me, I gave her more Cheerios, and she walked off again just like nothing important had happened.

About twenty minutes ago she started making sleepy noises and faces, so we went upstairs and rocked a little. I sang "Rainbow Connection" once, laid her in her crib while still singing, and covered her up. She looked up at me, I sang it again, and she fell asleep.

No tears.

She's amazing.

long and chatty

2005-05-10T17:34:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, April 24 -- three weeks ago, give or take -- I ran away from home. I drove to the same hotel that hosted Jacqui's "welcome to earth" party last year, and I spent about 24 hours with them. It was my first whole night away from the baby. We all survived.

On Friday, April 30, I spent my second night away from her, but this one was unintentional. I accepted an invitation to a party in Maryland; rain and uneven sidewalks conspired against me as I tried to leave. I sprained my ankle and then spent the night, but still -- everyone survived. And that Friday afternoon was the last time Jacqui has nursed.

We'd been slowing down on that, trying to avoid afternoon and evening sessions, and after my hotel stay we were down to once or twice per day, before bed and in the early morning. After my second Saturday away, it was much easier to distract Jacqui from it -- she was very happy just to be in my arms and drink milk from a cup. So, given that it's been nearly two weeks now, I think it's safe to say that at thirteen and a half months old, Jacqui is weaned.

On May 6, Jacqui played with crayons. I wasn't convinced this was a good idea; I was pretty sure she'd eat them. We were with my mom at the Macaroni Grill; the table was covered with butcher paper. Jacqui never even considered eating the crayons, but she did spend less time actually coloring than she spent directing me and her grandma in OUR scribbling efforts.

On Saturday, May 8, some friends joined us at our house for dinner, and they brought with them their 16-month old son, Noah. And for the first time, Jacqui PLAYED with another baby! They took turns pushing each other on that toy, and she spent a lot of time just following him around. He accidentally knocked her over a couple of times, but neither of them got upset about it and he hugged her and patted her with little baby-pats on the back while she looked at him in bewilderment. A great time was had by all.

We spent Sunday (mothers' day) in Annapolis visiting with a friend of mine who delivered her baby that morning, and then we spent the balance of the beautiful day playing with my mom.

Then, yesterday Jacqui spent two hours with her grandma -- by themselves, at my mom's house -- while I was visiting my friend in the maternity ward. This is the second time Jacqui's ever been away from both me AND Geoff; the first time didn't go at all well, back when she was 6 or 7 months old. That time was with a close local friend, and there was much screaming and gnashing of baby gums. This time, a baby and a grandma went for a walk and then played with toys and crayons on the living room floor. Jacqui didn't even look for me once. When I did show up, she gave me the "There you are!" grin -- NOT the "OhMyGodWhereHaveYouBeen?!" scream. And there was much rejoicing.

(This means maybe sometime in June Geoff and I could go see a movie.)

In Her Crib, Napping.

2005-04-27T12:45:00.000-04:00

At the very beginning, for the first two or three months, she would eat and scream and eat and scream, sometimes taking a break to nap -- but not often, and she wasn't sleeping through the night. Then she started sleeping through the night. That lasted until she was seven or eight months old -- but she never napped.

Recently, around noon or noon-thirty, she'll look at me with those sleepy eyes, and I'll think, "Okay, self, here comes the fight." And I'll pick her up, and she will exclaim vociferously that she is most definitely NOT TIRED, and we'll walk in circles around the living room and kitchen, and ten minutes later she'll be asleep. (Then comes the "can I get her into her crib without her screaming" challenge.)

A few minutes ago I changed her wet diaper and then I picked her up. She flung her arms around my neck (I LOVE THAT!), and ... she was asleep! Just like that! And now she's In Her Crib, Napping.

If this is what "they grow up too quickly" means, I'll take it. (But only this.)

some plastic bowls have suction cups on the bottom

2005-04-22T14:32:00.000-04:00

... but those are just to get your hopes up.

2005-04-20T23:00:00.000-04:00

She's one year and one month old, and she's amazing. She walks now, albeit tentatively; she eats the same food I eat; she pets the dogs (and feeds them her Cheerios); she is a little person, just waiting to have the vocabulary to tell me off when I won't let her press the keys on my laptop. She wants to be big: she won't eat mushy food -- even applesauce; she eats better when I give her a metal spoon instead of the plastic baby spoons we've used since she first ate bananas -- and speaking of bananas, she eats one every day. I'll stand at the counter slicing round banana-circles, she'll pop one into her mouth and then grab my hands to go for a walk, and we'll be halfway across the kitchen floor when she realizes it's time for another slice: gotta go back! Repeat til the banana skin is a floppy castaway, and then it's time to do laps around the livingroom with her push-toy. She decided two days ago that it IS a handy thing to have about. There's so much more, but the child wears me out like a disposable diaper, and if that image isn't enough to end on, I don't know what is.

and she walks!

2005-04-14T23:26:00.000-04:00

As Jacqui learned to keep herself upright over the past month or so, she'd grip your fingers so tightly that the ends would turn cold and blue within seconds. Desperately you'd squeeeeeze your finger out of her vice-like grasp, only to have her immediately replace it with a fresh one. She'd drag you in laps around the ground-floor of the house: through the kitchen, through the dining room, through the living room, back through the kitchen. Nothing would sway her from her course -- she was the Little Engine that Could, and you were simultaneously cargo and support.

Two days ago, all that changed. Now she will hold on for a few steps, let go, and walk a few steps to take your hands again. Now her hand in yours is more companionable, less like a tourniquet. And yesterday, she walked straight out into the middle of the room with no apparent destination; she traveled about five feet before she had to take an abrupt seat on the carpet.

For her birthday we bought her a dual-purpose ride-on or push popcorn-popper toy that she refused to walk behind. She'll ride on it if you push, but fair warning: if you start pushing her around on it, she'll be Very Upset when you stop. Maybe tomorrow I'll pull it back out into her path, and see if her opinion of pushing it has changed.

Banana Baby!

2005-04-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

Jacqui just asked me for a banana.

She handed me her book of "Mes Premiers Mots" (first words, in French). She wouldn't let me turn past the second page, so I kept pointing and repeating "pomme! banane!" (apple! banana!) She got so excited! She bounced! And then she said "nanananana?" And I said, "Are you really asking me for a banana?" And she didn't say no, so I got her a banana, and at this very moment I'm cutting it into tiny bites for her and she's eating it.

Wheeeeeeee!!!!

lovely weather we're having

2005-04-12T01:43:00.000-04:00

Today's highs were in the low 70's, no clouds were to be seen, and Jacqui and I spent the perfect afternoon meandering through downtown Annapolis with my mom.

We found a fabulous dandelion-colored jacquard tablecloth in April Cornell (and an outfit for a baby), we dined on the deck at Phillip's (I had the portabello mushroom appetiser, which allowed me to save room for the apple dumpling; Jacqui enjoyed a jar of spaghetti-and-cheese, bread, whole milk that she drank through a straw, and a bite or two or three of vanilla ice cream), we sat in front of the used bookstore while Jacqui napped for an hour or so in her stroller, and then she and I spent too long hanging out at my mom's house. Jacqui decided she'd had enough about 15 minutes before we were ready to leave ... which delayed our departure by about two hours.

She slept in the car though, and when we pulled into the driveway at 11pm Geoff came out to collect her. She fell right back asleep as soon as she hit her mattress ... and I'm about to decide she's down for the night. This will guarantee that she'll wake up screaming exactly 35 minutes after I'm actually asleep.

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2005-04-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

I posted recently about my new moblog. Now there's a handy-dandy button over at the bottom of the left-hand column on this page which will take you there directly. It looks like this:
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2005-04-04T11:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was cold, grey, blustery ... the perfect sort of day to go to Ikea for dining room chairs and spoons. My mom came over, we all piled into her SUV, and then we spent four hours wandering around the Kingdom of Pine.

Jacqui spent most of that time riding around in the cart. When we got downstairs to the self-serve areas though, we decided to let her walk around a bit. She was SO EXCITED. She held onto Geoff's hands for a while, and then she had one of us on either side, and she kept looking around with this "Do you see what a Big Girl I am?" expression. It was just priceless. :)

the rundown

2005-04-02T23:12:00.000-05:00

We haven't had a real update since Jacqui's birthday on 17 March. There's been no time to type; too much has been going on in this house.

First, we had a teaparty/birthday party for her on 19 March -- the Saturday following her birthday. About 30 of her honorary aunts/uncles/fairygodparents attended, drank tea, ate cake, and applauded her many accomplishments. These included, for that day: walking with assistance, refusing to eat cake, and pummelling the other children. (Her doctor says that reaction to other children in her space was entirely normal and to be expected.) The weather was lovely and folks spread out onto our back deck, which was nice.

The day before her party, I cleaned and baked (banana bread, devilsfood cake, yellow cake) and ran to the Heidelberg Bakery for her official birthday cake. Jacqui spent the afternoon in Tyson's Corner with her daddy, picking out tea (the peach oolong was a big hit, but my favorite was the jasmine phoenix dragon pearls).

Then the day after her party, Jacqui decided to put something very hard, edged, and unidentified from near the front door into her gaping maw and swallow it. I know what it felt like because I tried without success to pull it out of her mouth while she was choking on it. It went down, and on Tuesday (March 22) after her one-year checkup, she received her first chest x-ray to make sure nothing was caught in her esophagus. (Nothing was.) Since then, she hasn't had any issues, but we also haven't found whatever-it-was on the other end (ahem). I'm certain that it was actually a piece of rubber from the bottom of our screen door ... and from previous experience with a certain DOG who loves to swallow indigestible items, we know that rubber is unlikely to survive stomach acid. So given everything, we've stopped examining her output. It was a very exciting few days, though.

The next Saturday was 26 March, and Jacqui went with her daddy to Potomac Mills (an outlet mall) while I hosted a baby shower for a friend. Everyone had a good time in both places, and for the first time in months, Jacqui slept ALL NIGHT afterward. And at the risk of jinxing it, she's slept at least 7 hours per night since!

On Easter Sunday, her Grandpa, Grandma Lynn, and her great-grandmother (my Mom-mom) came over to see her. Grandpa brought a rocking chair he'd restored for her, and she had the BEST TIME rocking in it! It's still too big, but that didn't stop her! We caught it on video, and one day I'll put it online.

Today, Saturday, April 2, she and I drove over to my grandmother's house to visit with her, my aunt Marie, my cousin Cindy and her family. Jacqui didn't beat anyone up.

2005-04-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

Drama Child.

yet another jacqui-space

2005-03-31T10:38:00.000-05:00

sunnidae's moblog holds photos from my mobile phone camera, most of which are aimed at Jacqui.

I know I haven't updated jacqui-the.com in a very long time, and eventually I will. This is just easier for now. :)

2005-03-27T16:56:00.000-05:00

Jacqui in the city