The Green Room

Ryan: Why is the barn in the teacup?
Me: Because it needs to steep?
Hanna: Giggles.

Meltdown du Jour: Hanna is flipping out because I told her she couldn’t have her milk unless she sat down. Milk is apparently only good when you’re standing up. Who knew?

Good things that happened today:

-I weighed 110.3 pounds at my doctor’s appointment today!
-I had a really excellent conversation with my doctor. I love that we both became mothers right around the same time. My appointments always end with talking about parenting tricks.
-Hanna and I shared a nice relaxing bath, and I taught her how to make her rubber duckie squirt water. Bathtime with baby is really pretty awesome. Even when she’s sick, she still loves her bath, and she was absolutely fascinated by the fact that we both have belly buttons.

I took Hanna for a walk this afternoon, in between rainstorms, so she could run off some energy and Ryan could take a nap. This was really our first real walk, usually when I take her out I take her in the stroller and let her run around once we get to the park. Today though she walked all by herself. Do you know how long it takes a toddler to go just one block? A very long time. She had to stop and look at everything and pick up every wet leaf on the way. She also got to learn that we do not get to run around in other people’s yards or climb other people’s stairs and that she always has to hold Mama’s hand when we’re crossing the street. We only made it about three blocks from the house before we turned back, because it took us half an hour to get just that far. She walked almost the whole way back by herself, and only gave up and let me carry her in the last half block.

Hanna and I read “Night-Night Little Pookie” for our bedtime story today. We read through the whole thing once, and then, as is her wont, Hanna started flipping to her favorite places in the book for me to read them again. In this book, her favorite page is the one where Pookie’s Mama kisses him goodnight. She opened the book and then held up her face to me expectantly. It made me want to cry, and of course I obliged her with far more than the three kisses the story requires. She is such a sweet, amazing, wonderful little girl.

I think my mother is finally starting to get her revenge. Hanna is turning into a whiny, grabby, temper-tantrum-throwing little bundle of awesomeness. I know this is a normal stage of her development, but oh my goodness. Bedtime takes an hour and a half of screaming now before she quiets down. Her biggest joy when she’s awake is throwing her heavy wooden toys around the room, especially after you’ve just told her not to. Followed, of course, by her howling after you take her toys away. But just when I’m about to tear my hair out, she does something amazing, like putting her animal puzzle together correctly, or signing “dirty” when she needs her diaper changed. And the way she laughs when you tickle her belly…I get teary just thinking about her smile. She’s such a wonderful, and exhausting, little person.

I think this is probably as close as I’m going to get to an actual New Year’s Resolution. I’ve been using Goodreads much more this past year to keep track of my reading, and I did one of the book challenge things last year. I’m trying to get my brain back into shape after being non-academic for a few years and then the whole having a baby thing, which totally alters everything about you including, and especially, your mind, so I set myself what I figured would be an easy goal of reading 50 books in a year. I set the goal partway through the year, so I’m sure I actually met it much earlier than the computer says I did, but I found myself towards the end of the year reading lots of, not exactly fluff, but books I’d read before that I knew I could finish quickly, so that I’d hit my target. Sure, it made my numbers look good, but it’s not exactly satisfying in the way I want it to be. I want to be reading challenging things. There’ve been a few books from the past year that fit that description (The Life of Samuel Johnson and Lady Chatterly’s Lover are two that stand out for me) but for the most part I’ve been rereading Terry Pratchett and Dorothy Sayers. I don’t think there’s a widget out there I can use that would accurately keep track of all the new or challenging books I’m reading without also tracking the fluff, so I think I’m going to turn to book blogging again. If I can read 10-15 books this year that are worth talking about, I think I’ll be doing well. And then maybe I’ll stop feeling like such a fraud when I’m looking at grad school.

My mother, in her role as one of Santa’s favorite helpers, got us a copy of Carcassone for Christmas. We finally got the plastic off of it tonight and played a couple rounds. My sister has a copy that she’s brought to several family gatherings, but I’ve never played it as a two player game before, and ohmygoodness can it get cutthroat, but so much fun. I love that Ryan will play board games and do puzzles with me. I mean, I know he loves computer games, but it doesn’t necessary follow that he’ll like real games as well, so it makes me very happy that he does.

In other news, since I had the day off today for the holiday and Monday is my mother’s regular day off, we went out for coffee this afternoon, with Hanna in tow. I always get so nervous taking Hanna out to a restaurant or anything like that. Will the staff be understanding of children? Will the patrons? Will there be something there she can eat? Will she make a total mess of everything and start screaming? But this went pretty ok. One couple sitting with their laptops gave us some dirty looks, but everybody else was very friendly, and Hanna was on her most charming behavior. She loves it when she gets to meet new people. She did throw the crumbs of her blueberry muffin all over the floor, but Mom and I were able to clean most of it up, so hopefully the staff don’t hate us. It always feels so good to get out of the house, even if it’s just for an hour or so. It seems like I never go anywhere but to work anymore, and while I do think I keep a pretty charming and comfortable house, I do get tired of the same four walls. It can just be so much work to take Hanna places that I get overwhelmed sometimes just thinking about it. (Especially if we want to go somewhere on the bus. I haven’t met a bus driver yet that didn’t get mad about having a baby on board.) But it won’t get any better for thinking about it, we just have to take the plunge and go do it. I think Hanna and I will both be better off for getting out more. Maybe next weekend I’ll be brave and take her to the downtown library. They have a fabulous children’s section.

Ryan has gone to bed early but has set his alarm for 11:30 so that we can have champagne at midnight. If he wasn’t looking forward to it so much I’d just go to bed myself and say to hell with New Year’s Eve, but I don’t want to disappoint him. I don’t think I’ve ever really bought New Year’s as a holiday. The general concept, yes, but not our specific version of it. For one thing, the timing always feels off. The new sun is born on the Solstice, so why have your party two weeks later? And the idea of the party is supposed to be so glitzy, so cosmopolitan, and I’m just not very good at that scene, especially these days. My preference in clothing since being pregnant is for things that are comfy and easy to clean. I’ve always tried to do stuff on New Year’s because I feel like you’re supposed to, but I’ve given up on ’should’ and ’supposed to.’ I could call it a New Year’s Resolution, to be honest with myself about what I want and what I need and not to feel guilty about either, but I came to that conclusion about a month or so ago, independent of any holiday. Sigh. I’d probably feel less crabby right now if I got myself a snack and picked up some of these alphabet blocks so I’ll stop tripping every time I try to move around the living room. And maybe I’ll put on some Jeeves and Wooster. I think I have just enough time to finish an episode before Ryan gets up.

I think my brain has finally decided to be nice to me again. I dreamed last night I met Neil Gaiman and didn’t have a book for him to sign, so he gave me his copy of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Terry Pratchett and Ursula LeGuin were also there, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to them, because then Heath Ledger showed up and whisked me off to a romantic dinner.