Annie's Lessons (Part 1)

As it turns out, having a child is a most educational experience for a girl.  Yes, I have learned how to diaper and swaddle and soothe a baby.  Yes, I have learned about bedtime routines and feeding routines and a little about child development.  But the biggest lessons haven't come from any book or expert or pediatrician or other parent.  The biggest lessons have come straight from Annie herself, and I just thought I'd share a few with you.  I'm calling this post "Part 1" because I suspect there will be more lessons passed on from daughter to mother as the months and years roll by.

Lesson 1: Food makes a great styling product.  Annie has alerted me to the fact that nothing really makes her pretty baby hair hold a style like mashed potatoes, pasta sauce, or the cheese part of macaroni and cheese.  Seriously, hair gel needs to take a lesson.  And bows and ribbons?  Please.  Why mess with those pesky things when avocado works just as well? 

Lesson 2: Toddlers are a jealous sort.  Recently, we have noticed that Annie fully believes she is the only one in the family (actually, the only one on the planet) who should get hugs from mommy or daddy. And only one of us can and should hug her at a time, as far as she’s concerned.  If I am holding Annie in the morning, she is sometimes quite obvious in her discontent if David tries to swoop in and make it family bonding time with a group hug.  And whenever Daddy holds another baby – a friend’s child, a niece or nephew – Annie suddenly has never been more interested in sitting in his lap.  Ain’t nobody sitting on Daddy if I’m not sitting on Daddy, says our girl.

Lesson 3: Even though dirt doesn’t taste particularly good, it is still fun to eat.  I don’t know what the deal is lately, but Annie has started to find dirt fascinating.  At first, I thought, “Oh, she’ll put that in her mouth, find out it tastes like, well, dirt, and spit it back out immediately.”  Not so.  While she doesn’t look particularly pleased by the way dirt tastes – or even its texture in her mouth – she still goes back for more.  Looks like we may have to find a different approach to parenting on this one – the learn from your own mistake philosophy doesn’t seem to have worked.

Lesson 4: Baby girls learn to be girly without any intentional help from you.  Before Annie was even born, David and I had discussions about how much princess obsession we were going to be okay with when she got older.  Would we give in and buy the Cinderella tricycle or stand our ground with a good, old fashioned red one?  Well, thankfully, princesses have not entered Annie’s knowledge base yet (at least as far as I know), but other girly things have.  Without a lesson from Mama, I might add.  She knows exactly what to do with a purse.  She walks around with it slung over her arm and her hand in the air like she’s joining her little baby friends for tea and crumpets.  She will throw a string of beads around her neck and look at you with this look that says, “Aren’t you going to tell me how nice this looks?”  Where do they learn these things?  Now, I must add, she will pick up a screwdriver and stick it in her mouth too, but the girl stuff is of special interest to her.  Sorry, David, I don’t like our chances on the whole avoiding the Disney princess enterprise deal.

Lesson 5: Bathwater is a most refreshing beverage.  Give our girl a bathtub and she will find a way to drink the water.  If we put her in the tub while it is still filling, she will put her hand in the stream of water in such a way as to spray it in her mouth.  Once that water source is stopped, she will use an old liquid soap bottle (well cleaned out and thoroughly washed at least) as a cup and drink swig after swig of the water she is sitting in.  There is a lot about this that I don’t like to think about – like the effect the warm bathwater might have had on her undiapered self when she first entered the tub.  But I figure there are bigger things to worry about in parenthood.  And she’s learning to drink from something other than a sippy cup, right?  See, Annie’s always pointing out the positive.

I'm certain I'm not the only one learning these and other equally interesting (and somewhat disgusting, at times) lessons from a kid.  Next time we see each other, maybe we can compare notes.

School

Almost a year ago, I packed a tote bag full of bottles, diapers, wipes, and extra clothes and David and I loaded Annie into her car seat and set off into the unknown…day care.  I worried that she would be unhappy.  I worried that she would get lost in the shuffle of caring for multiple babies at a time.  I worried that she would get sick.  I worried that she would feel abandoned.  And, paradox,ically I worried that none of this would happen and she would love it at “school” so much and grow so attached to the women who cared for her there that she would prefer them to me, that she would cry when I tried to take her home, that she would forget me.

And as is frequently the case, all of my worry – the worry about bad things and the worry about the arguably good thing, that she actually enjoyed it there – was for nothing.  Over the last year, I have marveled at how perfectly she has struck the balance between happiness at school and contendedness at home.  It’s as if Annie understands that school is where she goes during the day to play and learn and be loved on by some really amazing people, and home is where Mama and Daddy are, where she is cozy and comfy and loved on by parents who pretty much think she hung the moon.  And in her spot in this place of balance, baby girl has flourished.
 

David and I took Annie to daycare back in September 2011, viewing it as sort of a necessary evil.  Financially, it wasn’t really an option for me to stay home with her.  And emotionally, I don’t know that I would have been able to handle it all that well.  I needed to work.  Needed that part of my life.  In order to be the best mama to Annie.  So staying home was never really an option we seriously considered.  And when we found out days before I went back to work that a spot had actually opened up for Annie in our #1 choice day care, it was a glorious day.  So after keeping Annie at our house with my mom for a month while we waited for the space to be fully available, we took Annie to her first day of school pretty much hoping for the best.  Hoping she didn’t get hurt.  Hoping she didn’t get a reputation as the problem baby.  Hoping she was reasonably happy there. 

Wow, did we ever underestimate what would happen.  What we didn’t think about was how awesome it would be to watch other people love our little girl.  How gratifying it would feel to see her smile and wave and blow kisses at her teachers and at the other babies.  How comforted I would be by hearing Annie’s sweet voice reply “Yeah!” to my question in the morning of “Do you want to go see Ms. Kim (her teacher)?”  A friend of mine had told me that the people who care for your child at day care will become like family, but I didn’t really know how true that would be.  I didn’t realize how concerned I would be when one of Annie’s teachers had health problems.  I didn’t anticipate that I would feel genuine sadness when two of Annie’s teachers moved on to other things outside her day care (we miss you, Ms. Desarae and Ms. Chrissy!).  I didn’t realize how proud I would be of her school and how fortunate I would feel to be a part of it.  And, above all, I didn’t realize how reassured I would feel that she was being attended to, being cared for, being loved.
 

 

And the other kids?  I had no idea how good it would be for Annie to be with other kids.  I don’t say this to minimize in any way the value of a baby being able to stay home with her mama – because I recognize tremendous value in that – but, as someone who has watched her child develop physically, mentally, and socially alongside other children, I certainly see great benefit to Annie’s circumstances as well.  Yes, she has a runny nose pretty much all the time.  Yes, the potential is there for her to get shoved or pushed or bitten by another kid – or to be the shover, pusher, or biter.  Yes, having her there means she isn’t with me 24-7.  But it also means she learns about sharing with others, she learns about being kind, she learns about being obedient, and she learns that Mama and Daddy will come back for her – always.   

I can not tell you how very blessed I feel with where Annie spends her days during the week.  When she first went to school, David comforted me by reminding me that Annie’s world was just getting a little bigger by spending time away from home, away from us.  And he was so right.  I am excited to see how much bigger it continues to get.

And just to illustrate how much she loves it there, and how much fun she gets to have, here are some pictures taken by Annie's teachers.  These kinds of pictures are so important to me because they show how happy she is while I'm not there.  And unlike what I feared, it gives me great comfort to know that.

Thank you, Desarae, for all of the fantastic pictures!  Serious girls in this one.

Watch it there, Romeo. :-)

Trouble with a capital T.

 

Sweet girl loves her school. Photo credit: Desarae Anderson

Weekend

A belated Happy Labor Day to everyone.  I hope you enjoyed your escape from laboring.  We did.  The Noble family went to Indiana to visit David’s parents.  It was sort of a special trip for us because it was our first visit there since David’s brother and his family have returned to the area after a dozen or so years living in Massachusetts.  Kind of felt like the holidays.  Except it was hot and muggy.

Annie and her cousin, Eliot, relax at Nana and Papa's

 Our trip up there on Friday was punctuated most profoundly by a throwing up attack that Annie had about halfway there (meaning 2 ½ hours from our destination).  They had called us from daycare that day to come get her because she had a fever, but when she got home she was running and laughing and playing like normal.  So we loaded her up in the car as planned Friday afternoon and headed to Hoosier country.  And all was well for a while…then Annie started to whimper and cry in the backseat and the next thing you know, well, the vomit monster attacked and something not-so-pretty happened.  And that not-so-pretty something covered the car seat and the little girl sitting in it.  She was traumatized, I was traumatized, I’m pretty sure the process of cleaning up the seat and car while I cleaned up the daughter was fairly traumatizing for David as well.  It was one of those stressful moments of parenting.  And I felt harried and frazzled by it.  But I also felt strangely invigorated by it – proud that David and I jumped into action (with me literally jumping out of a still rolling car to get in the backseat with Annie).  Proud that we handled it, that we rose above it, that we bought a strawberry air freshener, gave a baby a sponge bath in a gas station sink, and carried on.

But I also realized that this was no big thing.  Parents everywhere deal with much more on a daily – even hourly  – basis.  This not-so-pretty thing?  Yeah, it was really sort of nothing.  And we are so fortunate for that.  It is a blessing I couldn’t take for granted if I tried – and I certainly don’t plan on trying. But it was a test of sorts.  Anytime we are stretched beyond our comfort zones, beyond the normal day-to-day of raising our girl (is there a normal day-to-day with a toddler?), it is a test.  And I guess I was kind of proud of how David and I came out of it, working together instead of venting frustration on each other.  It was a tiny thing, yes.  But it's so good to know the tiny things don't become big things for us, as parents.

The rest of the weekend was full of playing with cousins and running around being a kid.  It’s so fun to watch Annie play alongside other children (because she doesn't quite play with them that much yet).  I know it happens while she is at school, but not physically being present there, I don’t get to see her in action that much.  So it was fun to watch her play and flirt and charm and just be.  I will let the pictures say the rest…

She won't leave a clip in her hair for 5 seconds, but this satin bow?  Yeah, she loved it.

Bohemian baby - channeling Janis Joplin.

What's more fun than a giant cardboard box?  Not much, says Annie.

Returning to her sport of choice - croquet.

And once we returned home Monday (free of not-so-pretty episodes, I'm happy to report), Annie had a little energy to burn.  The kind of energy only being strapped in a car for 5 hours can bring.  So we hit the playground before ending the weekend hanging out with some friends.

Not sure who was having more fun on this fancy, Jetsons version of a teeter-totter.

All in all, Labor Day Weekend 2012 was a success.  Hope yours was too!

These two.  My heart.  Seriously.

14 Months!

Here we are again - at the end of the month and time for another monthly Annie update.  The changes are fast and furious as our little girl grows.  So these are just kind of the highlights, as a really comprehensive post would be a long time in the writing and would probably lose your attention anyway.  But here are the big ones (or at least the most entertaining and sweetest ones)...

Oh this girl.  She's almost too ;precious  for this mama to handle.

She learned the fine art of "taking it easy" from her daddy.

Vocabulary - Not only has Annie added a couple of words to her vocabulary this month, but she has demonstrated how much she understands of what we say to her.  We can ask her to take something into her bedroom and put it back where it belongs and she will do it (I will refrain from making a joke here about how she learned this from her mommy and not her daddy...sorry David!).  If you ask her to pick out a book and bring it to you, she will.  And if you ask her where Mommy or Daddy or Jackson (the dog) are, she will point to the right person (or animal, as the case may be).  She knows Grandma and shouts "Papa!" at the phone when we talk to David's parents.  She has added the word "Up!" to her repetoire and, in a display of profound cuteness, has named her little monkey/blanket combo that she sleeps with.  He is "Bobo."  She named him herself with no help from us - and she calls him by name when she wants to hold him.  Sweetest.  Thing.  Ever.

Kisses - Annie has been blowing kisses for a while now and has, on occassion, attempted to give us kisses.  But now she is much more regular with the kiss giving.  And they are funny, open-mouthed, come at you with a funny look on her face, kind of kisses.  The best kind out there, if you ask me.

Riding a bicycle with Daddy at West Sixth

Running - Annie's walking skills have grown and improved to the point where she is practically running through the house.  And she rarely tolerates being carried when we are in public - especially when I drop her off at school in the mornings.  She now wants to run down the hallway to her classroom and then, in the afternoons, run back down it (and down another hallway, and up some stairs, and basically in any direction other than the exit) before going home.  I am sometimes in the basement at home doing laundry or retrieving something and I hear her upstairs running around, little feet doing that age-old pitter patter while her daddy chases after her.

Wearing a dress that was her mama's.  Vintage, indeed.

Play - I know I've mentioned several times that Annie is a very active child.  She is not, and has not ever been, a sit in your lap contentedly while looking around kind of kid.  And the older she gets, the more playful she gets...and the more adventurous.  Last weekend, Annie discovered the joys of the slide.  And she simply could not get enough of it.  If you aren't on Facebook or somehow missed this video, I'm including it now for your viewing pleasure.  Her gleeful squeal at the top and unhesitant request to go down it again clearly indicate we have a thrill seeker on our hands.

Sponge

A while ago, I wrote a post in which I wondered how exactly it was that Annie was going to learn to talk.  I wondered what our responsibility was, as parents, to educate her about language and how she was going to go from basically just looking at us to full-fledged communication with us.  Well, I wonder no more…

Is anyone else astounded by how much toddlers pick up on without our knowledge of them doing it?  Are David and I the only parents who talk at night about all the ways Annie showed us during the day that she understands far more than we give her credit for?  Because those talks happen more and more often now around the Noble homestead.

My favorites.  And this is Annie's "oh" face.

Once upon a time, I wondered if I needed to go through Annie’s word/picture flashcards or her “100 First Words” books with her more regularly than I had been.  I wondered if it was my job to sit with her with the sole goal of language development in mind, going over pictures and letters.  Boy, did I underestimate her ability to figure that stuff out on her own.

While Annie still doesn’t say very much (maybe 5 or 6 words total) – she prefers a sharp “Uh!” and pointing to communicate her wants and needs at this point in the game – she understands, well, more than I even know.  Just as an example…last night, she grabbed a hairbrush from the bathroom while David was getting her ready for bed and started brushing her hair with it.  Beyond that, when David instructed her to “go show Mommy your hairbrush,” she looked at him as if to say, “Hey!  That’s a good idea.” And then ran into the kitchen where I was, to…you guessed it, show me her hairbrush.  We never showed her a picture of a hairbrush, never explained to her how to use it, never went through the process of explaining how one goes about showing anybody anything, and David didn’t tell her where she could find me in the house.  She just knew all of that on her own.  From watching us.  From hearing us talk to her and to each other.  From being a part of our household. 

This look says, "Seriously, Mom?  You think I don't notice the barrette you stuck in my hair?"

And this wasn’t an isolated incident.  She does stuff like that all the time.  This morning, as I was getting her out of her car seat at school, I asked her if she wanted to go inside and see her teacher, Ms. Kim, and her friends, the other babies.  I no sooner got the question out of my mouth than she sat forward in her seat, ready to be picked up, smiled brightly, and said something that sounded an awful lot to this mama’s ears like “Yeah!”  I am convinced she knew exactly what I said, and got further evidence of her understanding when she insisted on walking all the way down the school hallway by herself and, once she entered her classroom, ran straight to Ms. Kim, arms open, for a hug.  Baby girl understood my question in the car and was excited to do exactly what I had suggested.

A little croquet action with her sweet friend Stella.  And yes, they do match.

I don’t say all this to say my child is a genius – although clearly she is… J - I am just realizing how much a child, any child, gathers from observation and repetition.  It’s really something to see…and the tiniest bit sobering to think about.

A simple truth

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to write this today, but I do.  Maybe it’s divine intervention.  Maybe there is someone out there who will stumble upon this blog and need to read it.  Maybe you are that reader.  Maybe you are a new mom, with a baby a few weeks old.  Maybe you are pregnant and you are anxious (and terrified) to meet your little one.  Or maybe this is just about me writing a truth that a lot of people don’t – or at least a lot of the people I talked to before Annie was born.  Ready for it?

Okay, here’s the thing.  Being a new mom is HARD.  Being any mom is hard – whether your child is 4 days old or 4 years old or 40 years old, there are challenges and concerns and feelings that you just deal with because you have to.  That’s not to say it isn’t wonderful.  But it ain’t easy.  Particularly, in my opinion, in the first few months.

Some of you may be thinking, “Um, yeah.  That’s not such ground-breaking news.”  But for me, it was.  I knew I wouldn’t sleep as much.  I knew life would change.  But I didn’t understand the magnitude of what we were doing by having a child.  No one told me.  Seriously.  Or at least I didn't listen.  And now I know why – because the pros of parenthood far outweigh the cons.  The rewards make the challenges manageable.  The feeling I get when Annie stands in front of me, arms raised, smile on her face, saying, “Up!” make the memories of her screaming herself red all over when she was newborn a little harder to recall.  But make no mistake – that did happen.  And it was hard for me. 

And (this is the real reason I’m writing this right here) I was really hard on myself about it.  I fully expected to seamlessly slip into motherhood.  To handle midnight crying and breastfeeding issues and the constant fear of something happening to my precious, tiny, helpless daughter with ease.  And when I cried when she cried, when I made the difficult choice to give up our attempts at nursing in favor of sanity-saving pumping and then, sooner than I had hoped, formula feeding, and woke up with a start in the night because she hadn’t, I beat myself up over it.  I relished the time my mom spent in our home in those first weeks, helping me care for Annie, doing our laundry, fixing our meals.  But I felt guilty for not being able to pull it together and do it all myself.  (Thank you Mom, you were a life saver.  Truly.)  David tried numerous times to get me to go out with friends or go have a cup of coffee by myself, but I wouldn’t do it.  I felt like I shouldn’t do it – I shouldn’t leave her.  I held myself to a standard of motherhood that was not only unrealistic, but was unhealthy too. 

I sporadically kept a journal during the first several weeks of Annie’s life, and I recently went back and read some of the entries.  In several of them, I basically chastised myself for not enjoying every moment.  Because that’s what people tell you to do, you know.  Every moment.  But you know what?  Some moments are not to be enjoyed.  It’s just not possible.  And yes, I do sometimes miss how it felt when Annie was small enough to curl up on my chest and sleep, her little curled up fist resting on my collarbone.  But I don’t miss the anxiety I felt over whether or not I would mess up her sleep habits by allowing her to sleep that way – on me instead of in a crib.  I was just such a bundle of nerves...and I felt like I was the only woman on Earth who had ever reacted that way to suddenly having a tiny person to be responsible for.

Well, I’m here to tell you new moms and soon-to-be-new moms that if you are like me (and I think if we are honest with ourselves, most of us are), you are not alone.  If you feel overwhelmed, anxious, sad – it’s okay.  You aren’t the only one who is struggling, or has struggled.  If you feel isolated and alone – it’s okay.  You aren’t alone.  Read that again.  You aren’t alone.  If you feel like you are the only woman who is or will someday be called “Mommy” who isn’t able to find joy in every single moment of your child’s existence, who Googles “postpartum depression” more times than you would like to admit to make sure you aren’t showing the signs, who allows the thought to cross your mind, “What have I done?” – you aren’t.

Our Mr. T. in training.

But rest assured, all those people who say it only gets better?  Yeah, they are right.  And now, although we have gone from the challenges of a helpless newborn to the challenges of a toddler embracing independence and testing boundaries, it is really so much more fun.    And I have more confidence now, so I don’t constantly worry that I am screwing her up somehow.  And she responds to that confidence.  And, call me silly, but I think it inspires confidence in her. 

Water table fun.

Even as I have been typing this – this confession, of sorts – I have worried that maybe I am wrong and I am actually the only one who has ever felt like this.  But I don’t think I am.  I think it is normal and natural and real to feel like early motherhood is something less than rainbows and flowers and sunshine.  But it really is worth it.  The labor and the recovery (which I truly have forgotten all about…at least the uncomfortable parts – seeing Annie’s face for the first time is something I will remember forever), the first weeks at home, the 2 am feedings, the inability to find time to take a shower, the guilt I felt for going to Target alone.  It’s all worth it.  Trust me.

Because before you know it, you'll have someone doing this kind of thing in your house...
``

Keeping Time

Every once in a while it occurs to me to look back at pictures from one year ago and just marvel at how much Annie has grown and changed.  I don't do this quite as much as I used to (who has time with a toddler to chase around the house?), but it always amazes me when I look back at how much has changed over the last year.  With all the pictures I've seen on Facebook the last couple of days of my friends' children going to their first day of Kindergarten or First Grade or middle school (eek!) or (gulp) high school (double eek!), I have been inspired yet again to look back at where we were a year ago.  Because I know I will be a picture poster myself before I know it.  And I know there will come a point when I don't do this any more...I mean, I seriously doubt my mom thinks, "Oh, I wonder what Sarah was doing this time last year." and pulls out a picture.  But for now, looking back serves as a constant reminder of how fast time moves, how quickly my little girl is changing, how impossible it is to stop time from moving at such a frenzied pace, and how much I should treasure the now...because it will be "this time last year" before I know it.

So in the spirit of looking back, here are a couple of pictures of our sweet girl back in early August 2011...

August 8, 2011 - Napping on Mommy.

August 10, 2011 - Celebrating her 6 week birthday with a fist pump.

I remember telling myself in those moments when I felt the weight of Annie on my chest, sleeping so peacefully, albeit relatively briefly, that I needed to pack up that feeling and put it in a special part of my brain because there would be a time when I would wish I could have it back.  Well, that time has definitely come.  But what I didn't think about back then was how many other great feelings I would pack away daily for a future time.  The feeling of Annie's hand in mine as she walks down the sidewalk, choosing her steps carefully but increasingly confidently.  The feeling of her body leaned back against me after she crawls into my lap and settles in.  The feeling of her little arms wrapped around my shoulders when I pick her up and ask her to "give Mommy a hug."  My mental storage room gets a new box of good feelings almost every day.

So while I catch myself getting nostalgic for the days of August 2011 (funny how you forget the hard parts after a while), I spend much more time reminding myself to relish the moments of August 2012 and this little sassy pants that tiny baby has become...

Blocks are immensely popular in the Noble house right now.

It's harder and harder to get a clear picture these days, because she is always on the go.

I know this is sort of a recurring theme on this blog - this whole Annie-is-growing-up-and-I-can't-believe-it thing.  And some of you may be wondering what exactly I thought would happen as she got older.  But it's not that I didn't know she would grow up...it's that I didn't know it would happen before I could turn around twice.