Today is My Favorite Age

I hear all the time from people - mostly with children well into adulthood - about their favorite age. "Oh, my favorite age was when they were 6 months...they just were happy you were in the room!" "Oh, I love one year olds...always something new." "Oh, it was never as good once they hit two."

I...kinda want to hit people when they say this.

I love this age. But, I really can't think of an age I have not liked yet. Of course there have been days that have not been the best. There have been days where I could not wait for bedtime so that the day could start. There have been days when I purposely chose a difficult recipe that required wine so I would have an excuse to open a bottle and "taste it for appropriateness" before it was really happy hour. But for the most part, I have had amazing experiences as a parent every day.

Right now, I love how Penny comes up with her own games. Constantly requesting "Say More!" when we are talking, whether it is just listing her friends' names or pointing out things while we are driving. How she asks Matt to always "Touch ceiling!", meaning to lift her up so she can touch the ceiling, something Mommy can't do. Even how she constantly repeats "No Try It!" while trying new foods, or even things she has nibbled at for years, like carrots.

I hope every age is my favorite age. I have no doubt things will change - and I know, as a former offender, that teenagers can be dicks - but I hope I find something to keep this perspective.

And I hope this continues with Salamander, currently insude my tummy, due to arrive July 31st.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November...

Well, today is the 4th, but tomorrow I have a knitting class then off to get supplies for Christmas presents then get ready for an actually FANCY 40th birthday party, so....light the fireworks, guys!

Side note: not pregnant. At all. Anymore. Or wasn't. I dunno. A lot of fairly invasive tests (and probably a tall stack of medical bills on their way) later, that is the conclusion. Hopefully soon. But, at least, not now. Which I finally feel ok about. It was a rough few weeks - to say the least - but I really can face it now with a positive perspective, which has been lacking.

Otherwise, life is lovely. Penny had a wonderful Halloween, and now every time we go outside wants to go to "one more house. Teet." In fact, every time I mention a treat, she yells, "tick teet! House! Go!" It is confusing to try to explain to a 2 year old what Once A Year means. She is still the best sleeper ever - going to bed almost always without complaint around 7, still napping a good 1-2 hours every day, and generally happy with lots of sleep (just like her daddy). I think bedtime (most days) is my favorite time of day. A little before 7, we head upstairs - earlier if a bath is required. We head to the bathroom for teeth brushing and potty time - a new addition that is going quite well - and then into the bedroom for socks, feetsy pajamas and reading. Daddy reads a few books, always ending with our favorite, "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo", which we can recite and Penny even knows most of now. Then Daddy turns out the light and I sing, "Hush Little Baby" while rocking, and then Penny goes to her bed with a few babies. But I can't express how sweet she is when I rock her. How she gives Daddy big "movie" hugs and says, "Night Daddy" when he is walking out the door. How she tells me "Night Mommy" when I am walking out a few minutes later. How some nights she plays in her bed for 30 minutes or more, just talking to the babies and settling in, before quieting down. How sometimes when I hear her in the morning and go in to get her, I ask if she wants to get up and she says, "No!" I then leave and wait to hear her ask for me - I don't want to interrupt her personal time, her playtime, or whatever she is doing in there!

It took a few weeks - and a few glasses (bottles) of wine - to get perspective, but everything is really good.

Hello to No One!

The best thing about absolutely no one reading this blog (except for the Googlebot saving the internet for posterity - hi Googlebot!) is that I can say things here that I can say nowhere else. So...I'm pregnant! Wheee!

It is super early - between 4 and 5 weeks. But I am so amazingly excited. It's just been a few months, but I was so ready. Penny will be almost exactly 3 years older, which  is as far apart as I wanted them to be. And over the summer and last few weeks, I have drank wine, imbibed beer, gone abroad, eaten lots of stinky cheese and done all those good things I'll be staying away from the next 9 months.

I also want to keep better records - not just of how I feel, but of life.

Here is to another good year.

Fixed.

It took awhile, but I am finally able to use my keyboard again!! YAYAYA>>>

It's been busy summer. Lots of two- or three-day trips to the beach or friends' places. Lots of outings with Penny and her little friends. Lots more actual days of work than I intended when the summer began.

Even so, it has been a great summer. Penny has grown so much - now I look at pictures of her as soon as I take them and can't believe that it is the same girl. She looks so...grown up. I can see the girl - and woman - that she will be sometimes. Even though she is still thin and underweight for her age, her face has lost that baby look and filled out to resemble her Daddy (and maybe me, a bit, if you squint). We are finally getting a broader vocabulary and stringing together three or four words to make sentences which make me forget my own grammar. I DO READ! I DO COOK! I PICK CAT UP DOWN AAAAHHHHHH!

Penny adores swimming, but has gotten out of the swing of swim classes since for most of the summer we have been away or I was working, so she didn't get to go. Yesterday, she screamed through most of the class - making her teacher-mommy flush red with each new pitch. Ah well...we will get back in the swing soon.

As for the fall...we are still holding off on preschool. I know she would benefit from a class setting where she is forced to participate...but I still want her with me. I also don't want to take away from her time with Gigi & Jopop. Those two or even three days a week - and maybe some nights too - are so important. She adores them. They adore her. She treats their new puppy Sadie like a baby, and the puppy even seems to like it. Sitting still in a circle will come - each day she gets to spend with her great-grandparents is something she will treasure for the rest of her life.

Writing

`Why =is =it =that =every =time =I =try =to =type it =looks =like =this....will =write =later...

Why.

I have started writing again - actually about things. The problem when I just let myself write - for example, in the hundreds of posts I have started for this blog then deleted when I realized they are unsuitable for the public, except for maybe in some horrible self-examining book of essays that I will probably someday write and keep hidden anyway - is that I get too deep too fast. Way too deep.

So, I am focusing on things. I am going to start writing about beer on a ladies beer site. I am going to write some stories that have been floating in my head. I am going to spend good, solid time in front of a black screen and see what happens. I am also going to record come of the amazing moments that pass by too quick with my daughter. Like today, when she quietly went "aaaaaa" the whole way along 202, which is again under construction and makes a funny bouncing quality out of that simple vowel, like she was being tickled for 10 minutes straight.

Here goes.

Over. It. Finally.

We have been sick.

I mean down in the dumps, amoxicillin and nebulizer, multiple doctor visits and one chest x-ray sick. And that was just Penny.

I am so happy it is finally over. It was a few three weeks of illness, four if you count her great-grandparents in the beginning and her grandmother at the end. Huzby managed to avoid it - by avoiding us as much as possible and by me washing the sheets, towels and blankets on an almost daily basis. Lucky goose - I succumbed and really only avoided a trip to the doctor by avoiding my worse symptoms and focussing on Penny's.

I am so happy that Penny is able to re-enter society. You don't realize how long three weeks can be until you start visiting friends, attending classes, and generally getting out with a toddler again. All those sharing/no-hitting/DON'T-POKE-THE-BABY skills tend to slide so quickly and need to be re-re-reinforced. We also lost a dear 1.5 pounds, which hopefully won't take too long to put back on since they were really necessary to make the weight limit for sitting forward in the car. We haven't turned her back around, since sitting forward seems to have eliminated the carsickness and made her much happier to take trips. I hope she gets some weight back on before her two-year appointment.

Speaking of...I really need to get on those invites. Craft day today (mostly for Mommy!).