Adventures in mobiles

When Drew picked up Rachel from day care today, he said she was totally uninterested in his presence. In fact, he had to say, "Rachel! Rachel!" before she looked up from the pile of toys, saw him and smiled.

Contrast that with the infants section, where she'd usually be on one of the ladies' laps when I walked in. Her whole face would light up, as if she couldn't wait to leave.

Drew also had no problems dropping her off today -- she just dived right into the toys and didn't give him a second glance. This is probably a good precursor to her first day at school, when she likely will let go of our hands and run into the center of the crowd without looking back, while Drew and I sob quietly as we walk back home.

Rachel's latest stats

We took The Little Girl in for her 9-month-old checkup today, even though she is, technically, 9 1/2 months. No shots, but she still screamed her head off when the doctor scooped earwax out of her hear and listened to her heart with a stethoscope. Totally normal stranger anxiety, Dr. Rappaport said. He was very impressed with her weight and appearance.

She is:
29 inches long (90th percentile)
18 1/2 pounds (50th percentile)

Her head circumference is in the 50th percentile, which Dr. Rappaport assures me has absolutely nothing to do with whether she'll get into an Ivy League college or not.

She also has an ear infection, which we are treating with penicillin. That may be why she doesn't always respond when we call her by name. (Actually, I thought it was because she was ignoring us since she tends to be very involved with what she's doing at any one time). Good thing Dr. Rappaport thought to check her ears. He will also give her a hearing test after the infection clears up, just to make sure she doesn't have any hearing issues.

I have and will be working crazy hours this week, so Drew has spent more time with Rachel than I have lately. He noted three things:

--she is starting to pull up, using the living-room table
--she can stand alone, unassisted except for leaning against something, for several seconds
--we really, really need to baby-proof the house. So, all of you who have given us lovely small gifts over the years that we've displayed on tables and bookcases -- please forgive us when you visit and don't see them. I plan to pack them away until she is, oh, 17 or so.

Just kidding. I think.

Rachel's clapping!

I went for a walk today with a friend of mine who has a 7-month-old. She said her daughter claps her hands together, which Rachel does not. So, naturally, I got worried. I came home and when Rachel was in her high chair, I clapped my hands together, then clapped hers together. She repeated it right after me, which was a huge relief.

The effort to make her eat finger foods continues. When I told Drew I was concerned that she still won't actually swallow things like cheese and cracker bits he said, "Don't go looking for things to worry about." Obviously, he still hasn't realized that I'm a Jewish mother, even after nearly 25 years of knowing me.

She was an unusually delightful dinner companion tonight. She kept waving her right arm around in the air, as if she was trying to say hello, or goodbye, or just waiting for a high-five. So, Drew and I gave her high-fives throughout dinner. She thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world. And so, because we love hearing her laugh, we lightly slapped her palm again and again and again.

Yes, our brains are beginning to turn to Swiss cheese.

On a separate front: She loves dropping things from her high chair: Bits of food, toys, her pacifier. So Drew has re-named her, from Countess von Spitzenburgen (for the copious amounts of spit-up that have dwindled to only occasionally) to: Princess von Droppenstein.

Come to think of it, our brains HAVE turned to Swiss cheese.

Dinner Date

...not for Drew and me -- are you kidding? Do you actually think we go out alone anymore? HAHAHAHAHA.

However, we had a lovely evening with our friends Carrie and Klaus and their adorable daughters Ani, 4, and Elsa, 2. They live five blocks away from us and walked over. Carrie and Klaus were the perfect parents, lugging a bunch of toys to keep their kids amused while I finished up dinner (roast chicken, potatoes, salad, chocolate-chip cake -- I go for easy meals these days, alas) and Drew held Rachel, who has become very fussy when we're not paying attention to her.

Rachel really took to the older girls. Drew says that she seems to like being around older kids, which explains why she does so well in the mobiles section at daycare. Carrie kept remarking what a pretty baby she is and so smart; when Carrie tried to hide a ball under one of Rachel's cups that she loves banging together, Rachel found the ball, even after Carrie mixed up the cup with some others. Drew also said this morning, as he was reading to Rachel, that she has a very intelligent face, as if she was trying hard to understand what he was saying. She LOVES the alphabet book that Grandpa Oliver and Grandma Sylvie gave her; each letter reprensents an animal, and each animal has a fuzzy or furry or scaly surface that Rachel can touch.

Carrie also noticed that Rachel crawls a lot like Ani did as a baby. Which is reassuring, because seeing Rachel stick out her left leg, plant her foot and move forward is a little weird. It's not the kind of crawl I expected to see. And Ani is walking and running like a normal child, so I guess Rachel will, too.

It's odd and a bit unsettling that everyone else, including my husband, seems to notice Rachel's progress except me. ("That's because you're waiting for her to be smart enough to get into Princeton," my snarky husband says). I think that's because I see her every day. Or maybe my senses are becoming dull with age. One day I'll wake up and she'll be walking and talking, and I won't know how she got from here to there.

Last day as an "infant" in daycare

...well, not really. But Monday, Rachel makes the big move to mobiles! This means a more regular feeding schedule (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, cooked by the staff), finger foods (which she has demonstrated no interest in but hopefully will take to, once she sees the other kids) and more complicated toys. It also means she'll be around kids who walk, albeit hesitantly. We hope they don't squash her.

And, finally, it means she'll probably be walking soon, which means the end of (relative) peace and quiet in our home: Baby gates, watching her every minute, babyproofing every corner, etc. Oh, well, I'm hoping it also means I'll be able to take her to daycare on the bus, which will save me the cost of parking downtown.

We recently had an appraiser in our house, who noticed the big pile of toys in the living room. "How many kids do you have?" he asked. "Just one," Drew answered. The guy paused and said, "that's a lot of toys for one kid." That got us thinking that it may be time to retire the pull toys we've hung from the playmat -- the toys she used to bat at, then started grabbing, and now has lost interest in. Perhaps we will finally fold up the playmat and let her just crawl around on the rug.

The toy situation is my fault, I'm afraid -- I am constantly looking for good, gently used educational toys to stimulate her brain and excite her imagination. I look at it as a hedge against the day when she becomes a teenager and decides that everything is BORRRINGGG.....especially her parents.

Sickness in my house

Rachel and I have conjunctivitis, which we really hope won't develop into pinkeye. I am wearing glasses today and no eye makeup, so as not to encourage the infection to spread any further.

I am also fighting a hideously nasty cold that has me coughing up endless tissues full of flem and has left me completely exhausted. I am at work, however, because I don't want to take sick days unless I absolutely, positively need to. I'm saving them all for Rachel.

Plus, my work schedule is being switched to Tuesday-Saturday. As is my chorus rehearsal schedule to a day unknown at this time.

I really, really want this week to end.

Sweet baby

Rachel has developed a sweet trait in the last week or so: She crawls straight to mommy and daddy's laps! (Of course, when she gets there she just stops. It's almost as if she doesn't know what she wants to do next).

I took her to the park recently, set her down on a blanket and attempted to doze beside her. But she wouldn't let mommy sleep -- oh, no! She kept trying to climb Mt. Mommy: crawling up to my chest and trying to pull herself up. It was so cute, I just started laughing. Which got her giggling, too...

I've been very sick with a powerful cold these last two days, and ended up sleeping in our guest bedroom in the basement. When I staggered upstairs into the kitchen this morning, she broke into a big smile and started babbling away. And I SWEAR I heard a "Mommy!" at one point. I'm not crazy, Drew said he heard it too.

Another perspective

Rachel and I spent much of the afternoon today with our almost-relatives, Doug and Linda. (Doug is the brother of my cousin David's wife, Anne). Linda couldn't get over how much more of a person Rachel is -- crawling, making noise, eating baby food, etc. I bring her over so Linda and Doug can get their "girl fix." (They have two rambunctious boys).

Linda's comments about Rachel made me realize that I can't always see how fast she is growing. I feel as if she's stuck on six months -- that she really hasn't developed since then. While I'd love to see more of Doug and Linda, one good thing about seeing them only, say, once every 2 months or so is that they really notice the changes in Rachel!

We have her down to four bottles a day and lots of jarred baby food in between. She likes almost everything except what I call food "with pieces in it," such as pilaf or rice. One distressing thing is that she has no interest in learning how to use a sippy cup, even when I offer it to her instead of a bottle. We've also tried to feed her grown-up food, like small pieces of cheese and crumbled-up bits of meat, or, at Linda's, pretzels and goldfish crackers. She'll either take it in her mouth and let it dribble out, unswallowed, or throw it on the floor.

The other night we thought we had hit on something she liked -- spaghetti and meat sauce. She lifted up a strand of it and seemed genuinely enthusiastic -- until she whipped it around her head, like a lasso, and flung it to the ground.

This is why I'm mopping our kitchen floor at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, waiting for Drew to get home from Seattle.

Rachel gets a shiner

Drew was home with Rachel on Monday, since he is working a weekend shift in Seattle on Saturday and had to take a day off this week.

He called me, slightly frantic, as I was on the bus home. Do we have any Bactine? He asked. Turns out that while he was in the kitchen and Rachel was on the playmat, she hit her face on something, ending up with a cut under her eye and a pale red bruise over her eyebrow and eyelid.

Drew was extremely apologetic when I got home. I think he was terrified I would screech at him for letting our daughter get hurt when she was away from me. I found myself actually sort of impressed by the bruise -- it looked like she had gotten into a fight in day care and won. Tough little cookie!

By this morning, of course, all evidence was almost gone. The cut had shriveled to a tiny nick. Babies heal so fast, it's amazing.

Catching up

...we're back in Oregon and (mostly) recovered from our trip back East, to visit Grandpa Oliver and Grandma Sylvie for Passover. Some of the highlights:

--Rachel met her new cousin, Valerie, who is almost four months old! Rachel spent the time touching Valerie's face, patting her on the head and trying to grab her pacifier. I kept having to say, "gentle, gentle, Rachel!" while Daniella echoed with "suave, suave," (Spanish for gentle, or soft). Daniella sang such a sweet song in Spanish to Valerie and Rachel that I had to ask what the translation was. Turns out it involves plucking off the heads of chickens. Rachel was also deemed a bad influence on Valerie because the day after our Seder, Valerie started practicing Rachel's baby dinosaur shrieks. I'm sure Daniella is dreading the day when Rachel teaches Valerie the phrase, "Mommy is a poopy-head."

--At the Seder, Daniella and I recalled a bunch of sad childhood stories, as well as a tragic musical we had seen together as grownups, and we both started sobbing as we told both to Mom and Dad and Darryl and Drew. It was clear from Dad's expression that he wonders if we are, in fact, related to him.

--We tried to keep the babies quiet during the more solemn parts of the Seder, but Dad reassured us, saying, "better the sound of babies yelling than nothing at all." Which is a good way to think about their presence in our lives, in general.

--Rachel slept in a portable crib in our room and kept waking us with her cries. We had to haul her into bed with us a few times and discovered she's a thrasher. She kept bonking us in the nose and she stirred in her sleep. Drew and I ended up having to nap in shifts during the day. Many thanks to Mom and Dad for their patience.

--Mom and Dad had a whole set of beautiful toys for both grandkids -- soft building blocks, a friendly purple bunny and a green bendable frog that Rachel adored. She was standoffish with both grandparents at first but really warmed up to Mom, even falling asleep on her lap one morning! (Could be because of Grandma's soft blue bathrobe with the big, easy-to-play-with buttons!)

--Rachel made all kind of developmental leaps while in NYC. She learned to unzip the zipper on her diaper bag and on Drew's pullover; pull open a drawer; and crawl all over Grandma and Grandpa's white living-room carpet (although thankfully did not soil it). By next Passover, she'll be walking!

Peekaboo and Dada

Rachel said a discernible "Dada"! today when Drew was putting her hoodie on as we prepared to take her to daycare. I knew it was too much to hope that "mama" would be her first sounds, but, still, I secretly wished she would. Now I just hope that "Dada" is consistent and it wasn't just Rachel making random sounds...

We had fun last night before bedtime. She was scooting around on the floor, when all of a sudden she ended up at the opposite side of the couch from where I was relaxing. She peeked her head around and gave me a mischievous smile, and I couldn't help myself -- I burst out laughing. Then she backed away, peeked her head out again, smiled, and I laughed again.

You know you're a mom when feel you can do this for hours and hours.

It's a good thing Rachel is cheerful when she's awake. Later last night, she woke up shrieking, not once but TWICE. Drew got up and dealt with her, and out of total pity I let him sleep late this morning while I fed her and told her, very seriously, that she really needs to re-learn how to fall asleep and stay there through the night.

She responded by grabbing the bottle and banging it against my chest, looking very pleased with herself the whole time.

Scooting around...

We have finally been given a day that Rachel will join the "mobiles" section of day care -- April 27th! A friend of ours whose child is a month or so younger than Rachel was observing her today and said she was rolling and scooting and crawling around on the playmat. She is clearly ready for more action.

At home, the floor is slippery so she is having trouble crawling forward. So, she kicks out her right leg, plants her foot gracefully on the floor, plunks her butt down and swivels to the side to get places. It feels as if she's trying a yoga pose!

I've had trouble getting her to sleep the past two nights -- she just won't just lie down in her crib; she screams bloody murder until I scoop her up, give her baby Tylenol (teething problems? Loneliness? I can't tell) and then rock her until she falls asleep. I will be glad when Drew gets home tonight, since I could use an extra pair of hands.