modern day dad

"Cute."

It's official. My little girl is becoming, well, a girl.

My eldest will be four years old in a few months, and she's brought home from pre-school her very first cool-kid's word. You know, the word or phrase that all the kids say at school to describe almost anything. Usually the word will last a few months to a year, and then eventually there will be something else cool to say.

Well, apparently in room seven, everything is "cute."

"Oh, that little doggy is cute."
"That's so cute."
"Mom! Look at what she's doing! Cute!"

Or sometimes it won't make any sense at all.

"That grilled cheese is cute."
"We're going to the mall? Cute!"

It's not like she says it all the time, but all of a sudden she started saying "cute" way more than she normally would. And when you think about it, there is a host of other words (even words she's allowed to say) that would be way worse, so I have to be happy about that at least.

And when I stop and think about it I realize this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I've got years of cool-kid words ahead of me. And ultimately I know someday I'll look back on this and think of it as, for lack of a better word...

cute.

Happy Birthday to my youngest.

I can't believe it's been a year, but my youngest is now a year old, and doing amazingly well. I took her to the doctor's today and she's 105% in height and weight (coming in only about 12 pounds lighter than her (almost) 3 year old sister). She's got eight teeth, she's cruising and pulling up on anything she can get her hands on, and she's pretty much mastered "mama" and "dada."

I just looked back at the post I did for Madame's 12th month developments two years ago, and her sister is doing everything she was, if even a little earlier. I imagine it's because she's got an older sister to follow around so the bar is set higher. Anyway, it's been an incredible and busy (as evidenced by my lack of posts) year, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and happy birthday to my Mom, the modern day grandma, too.

A new addition to the modern day family.

Today I was lucky enough to bring home the most recent member of our family, a new baby girl. After many hours of labor, she was finally born on Wednesday morning. Mom and baby are both doing well, and as for me, well, I can honestly say I totally forgot what it was like to have a newborn in the house. But truth be told she's been a really good baby in the 39 hours since she's been alive - lots of sleeping, eating and more sleeping. And some gas here and there.

Fortunately Madame has been dealing quite nicely with her new sister. She's struck a good balance of healthy interest (especially when "baby crying") and general disinterest after a couple of minutes (newborns are, after all, not particularly interactive). We'll see how it goes in the next few weeks when she'll probably want to take her back to the hospital - but so far so good.

So anyway, that's where I've been the past month, getting ready for this. Now she's arrived hopefully I'll get some more time to check in here. Also, I've got to think of a new name to call her in this blog ("Madame" is taken). Any suggestions?

Sixteen and Seventeenth month developments

So today is Madame's seventeenth month birthday, and I'm officially going to stop counting the freaking months next month. "She's a year and a half" is perfectly acceptable from here on out I think.

As I didn't do one of these posts last month, I'm rolling it all up into one - and in these two months a lot has happened.

• Talking. She's not really speaking yet, but her arsenal of words (or word-like sounds) is growing all the time. Before I had a kid I thought that little kids just started saying words one day, but I'm starting to realize it's much more of a gradual continuum. She can repeat sounds you make, and sometimes she can put certain sounds with certain meanings consistently, but she isn't speaking any perfectly formed words yet. Her baby talk is really developed though, and her inflection and facial expressions really convey that she's saying something, just in a language I can't understand. If I could do this part over with her, I probably would have done some of that baby sign language with her.
• Eating. I, as pretty much anyone who knows me knows, hate cheese. I'll eat pizza and some mozzarella, but other than that it kind of sickens me. My Madame however loves cheese. We're trying to incorporate other food in her diet, but I swear that girl could live on grilled cheese sandwiches, peaches and pretzel rods until she's 18.
• Testing. Even at 17 months, I'm starting to see those terrible twos start to creep in. She constantly tests us, seeing what she can get away with and seeing what the consequences will be. Tell her "no" and she'll try it again. Tell her a second time and she'll either stop doing it, take whatever she was doing somewhere else out of my sight and try it again, or smile at me and then do it again. Getting angry or yelling really doesn't have any effect, so I'm trying to develop an icy stare that will stop her dead in her tracks. But I've been unsuccessful so far.
• Kisses. This one is the best. After months, she's finally started to give kisses. I don't really know why this one was so important to me, but after changing the fourth dirty diaper in as many hours, getting a kiss on the cheek is a nice reward - even if I have to prompt her.

Fifteenth month developments.

My Madame turned 15 months last week, and the older she gets it seems like the fewer big milestones there are for her. She's walking everywhere now, can understand almost everything I say to her, and has developed a real personality completely independent of my wife and I. Eventually I'm going to have to stop measuring her developments in months, but for now I'll try to keep it up.

• Walking. She was walking last month, but now she's really a pro. Up and down hills, uneven surfaces, rocks, you name it - she's walking on it. She's finally got the hang of shoes as well, which is a good thing. Because when we first put them on her we didn't think she'd ever wear them. As it turns out the shoes we were putting her in were a little too small, so we skipped right to size five and we haven't looked back since.
• Eating. We turned a corner the other day at lunch time. She was being kind of finicky with her yogurt (which she normally loves) so I decided to let her take the spoon herself. Now she insists on feeding herself, which is good and everything but it definitely slows things down. So now thanks to a moment of simple (but brilliant nonetheless) insight from modern day mom, we rock two spoons, one for Madame and one for me. Between the two we're having much more success.
• Kisses. No matter what I do, I can't get her to give me a kiss on the cheek. She's great at hugging. If you ask usually she'll give you a squeeze and a pat on the arm, but no kissing yet. She's never been a very cuddly kid so I guess it makes sense, but it's kind of funny how that one thing she just won't do.

Fourteenth month developments.

Like my wife put it the other day, Madame is right on the verge. There were some huge developments this past month, but they aren't complete yet. It seems like every month I'm so amazed at the new stuff she's learning and doing, and I wonder if I'll feel this way until she moves out of the house. Probably.

• Walking.  This is (obviously) the big one. The crazy thing is, she got really good at standing, and then one day she took 4 or 5 steps. Every day after that she's been taking more steps, and now she can walk for fairly long distances. Crawling is still more efficient for her, but that balance is going to tip soon. We've been experimenting with shoes for her too, but she absolutely hates them. They're like cement on her feet, and she'll stand and give you this look like, "what the hell are you doing to me?"
• Teeth, teeth and more teeth.  This past month it seemed like all the rest of her teeth started coming in all at once. Her teething must be painful, but she's been a pretty good sport about it actually. Every now and then she'll grab her cheeks and give me the crinkle (a look like "um, this is really uncomfortable"), but she doesn't freak out. And I've lost count at how many there are.
• Talking.  My little chatterbox is never at a loss for something to say, but she just hasn't quite figured out the words yet. And the older she gets the more frustrated she seems to get at the fact that we can't quite understand her. I thought about doing some of that baby sign language stuff with her (I never saw how useful it would be until recently), but I'm still not convinced. We're getting by fairly well with pointing, which is kind of like sign language, right?
• The pickle lip.  Before this past month there was really only one way for her to show displeasure - crying. But now she saves crying for the really upsetting stuff, and when she's just generally unhappy (like when I take something away from her or tell her not to climb up the stairs) she gives me the pickle lip. Where she learned to stick her lips out and give a sour-puss like that I'll never know. Maybe it's genetic, because my wife says her grandma used to give the exact same expression when she was annoyed. Either way it usually just makes me laugh, which is the wrong reaction when she's doing something I don't want her to.

Thirteenth month developments.

Another month has passed and it's official now. We've stopped calling her "the baby." It just isn't fair to her anymore. She's more active and smarter now than she's ever been, and even though she'll always be my baby, right now she's more my toddler. With all the good and bad that comes with it.

Standing. She's not walking yet, but she's really close. Right now she's not only pulling up on furniture and cruising, but she's started to let go. Usually it seems like she forgets that she's not holding on, and when she realizes it she falls on her bottom. Or we notice what she's doing, make a big fuss which gets her clapping, which causes her to loose her balance and fall. I'm not sure why I want her to walk so badly (things are only going to get tougher running around after her), but I do.

Little Miss Finicky. Madame has always been a good eater. Pretty much everything we've put in front of her she's eaten, but recently she just stopped. Now she makes it through maybe half a jar of baby food before pushing the spoon away, favoring finger foods she can feed herself. This is good I suppose, but it definitely doesn't make things easier. The other day she even told me what she wanted. I was feeding her some pureed vegetables for lunch and she pushed the spoon away, pointing at some bananas behind me. So I fed her a banana, which she loved. It was cool actually, kind of like the first conversation we ever had, except there were no words and I had to clean banana out of her hair afterward.

Blow me a kiss. She still won't give me a smooch on the cheek when I ask, but her Grandma taught her to blow kisses a couple of weeks ago. Ask her for a kiss now and she'll touch her palm to her mouth repeatedly, which is closer. The best though is when she does it to strangers completely out of the blue, like she did to this little boy in a high chair at a restaurant the other day. I think I'm going to be in trouble in a couple of years.

Twelfth month developments.

So here it is. Madame is a year old, and I'm not nearly as freaked out as I thought I'd be. Things are happening so quickly with her that it barely feels like I have time to look back at what she's accomplished in this past month, let alone be freaked out. But for blog's sake, I'll try.

• She's listening. I swear she understands everything I say. If I ask her where her belly is, she'll pull up her shirt. If I ask her to show me the duck she'll point to it in her book, and if I tell her "no" sometimes, sometimes she'll even stop. The downside to this is I've got to really watch my language now, because if I'm not careful her first word will be "douchebag." And this will not please modern day mom, believe me.
• Old toys are new again. Some toys, like her cups and that five rings on a peg toy were great for a while. She'd grab them, pull them apart and eventually chew on them. But now those old chestnuts are showing some new life. A couple of weeks ago I was walking past her pile of toys and I noticed the rings were placed back on the peg (not in the correct order which is how I knew it was her). Now she's stacking the cups and taking things out of boxes and putting them back in like the genius that she is.
• Six choppers and a lot of gumming. We're in full-on food experimentation now, and she's doing pretty well. Aside from the typical finger foods, we're giving her fruit, potatoes, pretzels - anything we're confident she can dissolve and mash up with her gums. She's got six teeth now and even they're all in the front of her mouth they're not slowing her down from chewing. If any thing they're encouraging her.
• Cruising. Pretty much as soon as she started to crawl she was pulling up on stuff (furniture, walls, whatever she could steady herself with), but now she's transferring from one piece of furniture to the next and walking the entire length of the couch all by herself. The other day I even followed her completely up the stairs, which when she finally made it she turned around and looked at me with the biggest smile ever - kind of like, "Did you just see what I did?!?"

Eleventh month developments.

It's been a big month. A really big month actually. Most of the things that I've been waiting for her to do for months, she's now doing - and my job gets harder and harder.

• Crawling. This was the big one we've been waiting for. At the end of last month it she was getting close, but this month she's got it down. She actually started at my parent's house on their hardwood floors. I don't know if it was just that she didn't want to lie down on her belly on the hardwood, but whatever it was she just started crawling. It's great, but now she can get to just about anything and everything she wants to get a hold of - usually the one thing you don't want her to touch.
• Waving. My dad has been trying to get her to do this since she was about 2 months old, and this month she figured she'd finally make him happy. The best thing is she waves at anything - strangers, pictures of people, even her reflection. In the airport she was like a little goodwill ambassador, waving at just about everyone that walked by and getting smiles and waves back from just about everyone. It made me think how funny life would be if adults just indiscriminately waved to each other for no reason.
• Huge naps. Maybe it's because she's really active now, but she starting taking these long 2 hour naps last month. She's still sleeping through the night and going to bed around her usual hour, but she needs more sleep than she did a month a go I guess. It's great if I want to get stuff done around the house obviously, but if I want to go out with her to run an errand, we've got to plan around the Queen of Sheba's beauty rest. I know, I know. I shouldn't complain.
• A fifth tooth and some biting. Like I've mentioned before, she popped her fifth tooth (second upper left incisor) on Father's Day, and now she's figured out that a fun game to play with mom during dinner is bite down on the spoon. Maybe it's the Gerber silicon spoon (I like to use a little bigger spoon), but Madame thinks it's hilarious, much to the annoyance of her mother.
• Who is that? Sometimes I feel dumb making a big deal out of the simplest little things, but this one really blew me away. I had her on my lap a few weeks ago, and we were looking at pictures on the screen of my digital camera. Lots of them are of her, and on one of them I asked her, "Who is that?", not really expecting a response. She looked at me and then pointed to her belly. Woah. Fortunately my dad was a witness and we completely freaked out. I tried it again with some other pictures, and every time there was one of her, she correctly identified herself. I'm sorry, but my daughter is goddamn brilliant.

Tenth month developments.

OK. Here's the part where I say "Holy crap, she's ten months old, which is almost a year." But seriously, she's almost a year old. Here's what she's been up to:

• Monkey. That's what we've been calling her recently. I'm learning that being smarter every day means being more inquisitive which means that she'll try her damnedest to get her hands on whatever she's interested in. The problem is her body hasn't really caught up with what her mind wants to do yet. She isn't crawling forward, but she's figured out to launch herself forward, roll to wherever she wants to go, and spin herself around to get it. She's can push herself backward, and she even pulled herself up to a standing position on a some furniture the other day -  which made us both elated and frightened at the same time.
• Four teeth and a lot of gumming.  At the beginning of her tenth month we started introducing some finger foods - like the Gerber fruit and veggie puffs. After about a week she figured out what she was doing, and I'm happy to report that now most of them end up in her mouth and not on the floor. She's trying all kinds of food now, from french fries to bananas, with varying degrees of success (and mess). She's also started using a sippy cup, and I even got her to drink her morning bottle almost all by herself the other day. It's amazing to watch this completely dependent little creature learn how to do the most basic things all by herself. Sometimes the smallest steps can be the biggest accomplishments.
• No.  Does the baby shake her head back and forth simply to avoid the spoon of food you are trying (unsuccessfully) to put into her mouth, or does she shake her head back and forth to say "No. I'm not hungry anymore"? I'm not sure, but sometimes it sure seems like she knows what it means. Then again, she also knows it will almost always get a reaction from the nearest adult around ("Oh. Isn't she so cute shaking her head "no."). I wonder if shaking your head back and forth means no in all cultures.
• "Mama?" "Dada."  Like I've blogged about already, she's pretty much got "mama" down pat. But no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get a meaningful "dad," "dada," "daddy," or anything close to it out of her. These past few weeks my new favorite phrase has been "No. Not Mama. Dada." If she's not careful someday my new favorite phrase might be, "No. You can't borrow the car tonight. If you had thought back when you were 10 months old to throw me a "dada" every now and then, then maybe. But tonight it's no."