Will I ever get used to it?

Today I wanted to go to the YMCA, so I took Daisy to the childwatch room. "She likes books," I told the childwatch women, hopefully. Left her there and walked away-- very hard for me. As I transacted some business at the front desk, I soon heard her wailing extremely loudly. I went back to the room, realizing I had not signed in on their clipboard, naming where I would be. The women were not pleased with me for coming back, and I have to say they were probably right. Seeing me again probably made Daisy cry harder.

I left again and hovered a few feet away, where I was out of Daisy's sight but could still hear her. She stopped crying, so I went and did a short workout, only about 20 minutes. I confess that I broke it into two ten-minute sections and in between, went near the door (not so she could see me) and listened to make sure there wasn't any crying.

When I went back to get her, I was feeling positively; after all, she had stopped crying. I figured they were reading to her or playing with her. But to my surprise, when I opened the door, she was standing by herself at a little plastic table with some Cheerios spread out in front of her. The two childwatch women were playing with two little boys at the other end of the room. My heart broke a little, although I suppose nothing was actually wrong, since Daisy had stopped crying. Who knows--maybe they even thought she felt better on her own, with just the Cheerios. But it made me sad.

I apologized to the women for the crying, and one of them told me that it was my coming back that had caused it. But, although I am sure me coming back didn't help, that wasn't strictly true. I had heard her screaming all the way down the hall.

She was very glad to see me, and when I tried to put her down for just a second to gather our belongings, she clung to my leg and whined. I really, really hope this gets easier.

That is gross

1. Today on 19th Avenue I was stopped at a red light and happened to glance at the driver in the car alongside me. He was a distinguished-looking grey-haired man, and he was making passionate love to the wrapper of a candy bar. The candy bar itself was long since gone, but he had the wrapper all flattened out and he was licking it with reckless abandon. Actually, "licking" doesn't even come close to describe how fervently he was attacking this wrapper. That's why I resorted to "making love to it." He was attacking it over and over again with his mouth, licking and snapping it and devouring it. I was GOGGLE eyed, despite myself. I tried hard to see if there was any way it could have been anything other than a candy bar wrapper, like some kind of little paper of drugs or something. I don't know much about what that would look like, or if there is even a kind of drug you take by licking it off a plastic wrapper. But this guy... he looked like a banker. Why would he be licking his drugs while sitting at a red light on 19th Avenue? It was so, so weird, and I can't even do justice to it. I will never again have a problem with people picking their noses while driving.

2. Daisy's farts. She hardly eats anything. What could be causing those smells?

Eat!

Lately, I am so busy that I have to write "eat" on my lists of things to do on a particular day, or I forget to. You'd think I'd be a lot thinner.

A bit odd, really

Daisy does not like going upstairs. She only likes going downstairs, and she wants VERY BADLY to go down them. This becomes problematic when you are already at the bottom of the stairs.

At first, she crawled up stairs contentedly enough. I really don't know where things started to go off the tracks. Now, she'll sit at the bottom of them, whining and kvetching, because she wants you to carry her up them and then help her walk down them. If you insist that she crawl up the stairs herself, she'll crawl up one step, grudgingly, and then insist on going down. And the whole time she's saying, "Down! Down! DOWN!" A very imperious miss. Why did I think I had such an easygoing baby? Why, why, why, will someone remind me?

Blog announcement

Hi, everyone. While I have decided to keep this blog to post pictures and news of Daisy, I am starting another one where I can talk more about other aspects of my life. If you would like the address for the new blog, please let me know. For reasons I will explain in the new blog, I need to have a new one and am unable to post the address for it here... so please do let me know if you think you might want to check it out sometime, and I'll send the address. Thanks! Sarah.

Daisy's day at the playground

Thanks to Dena and Charles for these photographs of Daisy's fun day today with her friends Henry and Elise.

...Daisy drives a car and commands a cable car!

Pictures of Daisy

Motor skills, language

Daisy is thirteen months old. At almost exactly the time of her one-year birthday, she had a bit of a motor skills explosion. She finally crawled (a day or two after her 12-month birthday!), and from there she started pulling up on all sorts of things, cruising, and crawling up stairs. Now she can stand unassisted for a few seconds at a time (not very long), and she's working on sitting down carefully from a standing position. So, after a long lull in the motor skills department, she is doing a lot more stuff now--though I definitely think she'll be a late walker.

She has really amazed us in the language area, though. I would guess there are 40-50 words she tries to say (with varying success) and she understands more. She's been saying words for a long time but she's finally starting to get the end consonants-- so instead of "buh" she says "book" now. She says "milk" and "door," "bird," "hand," "socks," "baba" for her bottle, "mama" and "dada," "up," "down," "box," "bag," "boat," "bus," "dog" (oh yes, and "vroom" for cars and "woof" when she sees a dog), and lots more. Showing that she understands more than she can say, she points out all sorts of things when we ask her-- a picture of an octopus, a baby, a moon; people's noses, eyes, and mouth; and many other things. She will still only point to her own ears--not anyone else's. Her pronunciation is not all that clear but we understand her (for example, when she wants someone to sing the "happy birthday" song--which comes up in a few of her books--she repeats, insistently, "Ha! Ha!" until you sing it.)

Anyway, it's an interesting time. The baby is starting to seem like a little girl. She's also been showing more feistiness and defiance. Meal times are a big struggle. Staring straight into my eyes, knowing full well what she is doing, she ejects all the food from her mouth by sticking her tongue way out. She's also been standing up in her crib and flinging out all the toys and books I put in there in the hopes that she'll play by herself a bit. She says, "Na! Na!" to show a negative attitude toward something.

Well, that's all for now.

I know, I know, I've visited this territory before

But I still disagree. I am a nerd. If this test says otherwise, there is something wrong with the criteria. Humph.