I had a nice little string of regular blogging there, didn’t I?  Yeah.  And then crawling (and standing and cruising and grabbing and licking the floors… all in a house that is virtually 70% open all day and into which dry season dust and every-season oily highway soot blow into) started.  I’m no clean freak, but when it looks like your baby dipped her hands in shoe polish after ten minutes on the floor, you can definitely become your mother.  And you do.

So, this is what it feels like I’ve been doing all day, every day:

While that is partly true–and trust me, I could write a full dissertation on the use of a Swiffer vs. a mop, the superiority of Lysol lemon cleaner over Fabuloso mountain scent liquid, and a soot quantity analysis comparing gunk swept up with a hard bristle broom and gunk swept up with a soft bristle broom–other good things have been happening.  I’ve been working more (not as much as I was pre-baby, but still a good amount), cooking more, running and Zumba-ing regularly, and watching movies again (oh, how I missed that).

And the best part?  We actually finally made it to the beach!  She had a brand new pail and shovel set and learned that the water is actually a really great thing–so much that we sat at the edge of the water getting lapped by waves half the afternoon, with squeals of delight and hand-clapping every time the water came (and protests when the waves took too long for her baby patience to bear).

So while these images don’t happen all day, every day like sweeping and mopping the house for S the Explorer…

… They’re awesome enough to make me forget about the damn mop and bucket.  Almost, anyway.

________

I hope to be back later in the week, but we all know how that can go…  In any case, you’re sure to see me back to it again next week.  Now excuse me while I go and spend the week waxing nostalgic and snotful over the last year–Miss Baby turns ONE on Sunday!  If you thought I was in denial about my age, you should see how very NOT turning one she is, if I have anything to do with it.  Just kidding–I’m thrilled, there will be cake for her, and I will get over it eventually… I think.

Yeah, I remember that time.  So does everyone else, as they should.

I also remember the one day in the shower when I realized that I know myself best now, after Miss Baby, because I know that I WON’T always know how I’ll react to a given situation–and that I’m actually very OK with that.

Last night, after a week of re-opening the Booby Bar for Miss Madam past the months-long last-call time of 9:45 p.m. and faced with the prospect of seeing the clock sweep past the 11 p.m. line with her attached to me, asserting her Baby Boss boots, I decided to stick with “enough is enough.”  I had bought two “get your baby to sleep” books last week–when this whole late-closing Booby Bar time first reared its ugly head after one particularly rough bedtime–and I knew that she had cottoned on to cause and effect enough that this wasn’t a hunger issue.  She was asserting her new “I Run Tings, Tings Don’t Run Me” power.  Yay for cognitive development, but not so yay for me.

This had to stop.  And here I was, the softie mother who said she’d never let her baby cry it out. Crying it out at the age of three is actually one of my earliest memories (don’t worry, there are very happy ones too) and I just didn’t want to go there.

But last night, that’s exactly where we went.   Armed with the pages pertaining to the wahfulness at hand bookmarked and the baby monitor fully charged, I left her in her crib when she woke up  at 10:45 for the 10:20 nightcap that she’s decided she’s entitled to have later and later each evening.  We checked on her at the set intervals that the book suggested and that we’d agreed upon, using the handy timer on my watch to keep tabs on the wailing.

Two minutes seemed like an eternity before we could look in on her, as did four, as did six.  I kept telling myself that this was for her own good, that she needs to learn how to get to sleep on her own, that I was helping her learn even if I didn’t like doing this, and that this is what our parents did and we turned out just fine.  I thanked my lucky stars that there were three hours of The Office on TBS and told Mr. Man that, if I showed the slightest sign of giving in and offering up what she was after, he was to pour a bottle of rum down my throat so I couldn’t do it.

We checked on her a few times and reassured her as needed, we gave her a pacifier to chomp all her aggression out on, and after about a half hour of intermittent wailing (in which I hoped karma wouldn’t get me and I’d hear her throwing up, as I had done to my mom in this situation many, many, many times–yep, I was a manipulative puker), we heard quiet, the sounds of thumb-sucking.  And ten minutes after that, total and utter quiet.

Forty minutes of Wail Symphony (in the Key of Fury) and it was over.   The coast was clear for us to check on her, holding our breath and crossing our fingers, again.  She was out COLD.  Her blankets were rolled up at her feet, her head was up against the edge of her crib, her arms were thrown out in a pretty crazy-looking way, but she was fine.  She’d gotten herself to sleep.

Knowing her to be as stubborn as, ahem, me, I thought this screamfest was going to last hours.  I mean, I might have been known, in my baby days, to pitch hours-long battles of wailing with repeating choruses of vomit.  So it would appear that my child is already more sensible than me.

Of course, I only say this after the crying incident happened just once and passed pretty quickly, but I truly expected it to be a lot worse for all of us.  She’s never really cried unless something was wrong (dirty diaper, hungry for real) and only ever cried HARD two or three times in her life; each mega-wah incident before this reduced me to a weepy, shaky mess each time.  However,  knowing it was for her own good (and trusting in the good book that said “after a few nights, your child will be sleeping quite well”) made all the difference last night.  I knew the crying was something that I had to get past more than SHE needed to get past, that she would be A-OK in the morning and so I needed to be OK (and stick with it) in the moment, too.

And this morning, when I woke up at 8:15 a.m., baby smiling in her sleep (really, she does), I felt the proudest I have ever felt as her mama.  I knew I did something incredibly tough, something I really didn’t want to do, for her own good. I stuck it out.  I was consistent and decisive.  I didn’t need to have rum poured down my throat to keep me from giving in to her.  I had–to be as vulgar as I just can’t help myself from being–grown a full set of balls, finally.

I can hear the chorus of “I told you so” already, and it’s fine.  I don’t mind; I prefer it to the Wail Symphony and I’m prepared to hear it many, many times.  I just hope I can preempt the need for it by admitting that I’m going to do LOTS of things I said I’d never do.

(Like wearing the baby in her baby carrier facing outward, projecting my child to the world just like I said I’d never do, this morning to get celebratory breakfast pastries.  She loves facing out and where’s the harm in wearing it as it was intended, but ew… I projected my child to the world in the worst way.  I still can’t believe I did that).

It’s not hard to talk about Miss Baby.  I can chat a statue’s ear off.

But it is so, so hard to write about the baby.

Yeah, I know.  I can’t believe it, either.  It turns out there’s one subject on this green earth that I can’t just ramble endlessly about on the internets, and that subject is my Baby Madam.  It’s not that I have nothing to say (though, honestly, sometimes all I can say is “whew”); it’s just that there are too many issues that get in the way.

To write about my precious mouse, I have to get past the fact that every single parent thinks (and rightfully so, right?) that their baby is the single most unique and precious snowflake out there.  (Of course, I know that mine actually is, but that’s beside the point).  So I could go on and on about what makes her so wonderful and how she makes my day every day.  Or how sometimes she gets a bee in her bonnet and it’s funny at 5 p.m. but no longer funny at 10 p.m. when she’s still up.  Or how her grins are great, but her slobbery grins are even better. Or how she babbles so much she has to hold a conversation with me at all times, even while nursing.

Right.  I was saying…

The thing is,  I can’t bring myself to feel 100% OK to share a lot of these things because they’re remarkable to ME, and to those that know and love her.  Somehow, the thought that some internet troll may read these things, snort in derision, and grumble about how entitled/head-in-the-clouds I am about my daughter makes my skin crawl and my blood boil.  So I’d rather not provide THAT much fuel for possible troll fire.

Another issue is immediacy.  I’ll think about sharing a baby anecdote or she’ll do something that merits a good post, but I’ll promptly realize that I’m not ready to post about it until I’ve told my mom/sisters/grandmother/friends first.  Or I’ll get that feeling that I’ve always had about this blog:  that it’s a place for me to share stuff about ME, and not a place to share stuff about others.  She’s my little girl but she’s very much a real person, an OTHER person, and to put her stuff out there feels akin to spilling all my husband’s (or mom’s, or friends’) business all over the interwebz.

And then there’s that moral thing…. I struggle to post because I don’t want to seem like I mine her for content.  Don’t get me wrong:  I think there are some great bloggers out there who share about their children in a tasteful, interesting, and ethical way, and I love reading their stories.  But I’m also keenly aware that it can be too easy to post a cute picture of a baby and settle in for the oohs and aaahs that baby pictures invariably bring.  I just don’t want to fall into that trap.  I’d rather write, and write a good piece, than post a picture (of which trust me, there are a million).  It’s tough to find the time to write the posts I want to write in the way I want to write them, so I just don’t write as many posts, hence so few pictures.

And speaking of pictures, there’s my final post-killer:  I’m not 100% comfortable with posting pictures of her online in a format where I don’t control who sees her face.  When I do post a picture, I hem and haw about it forever, and my impulse is post pictures that are a few weeks old, or pictures where she’s making a face that is not totally recognizable as her–which is, well, impossible because she always looks like her.  I may be unnecessarily paranoid, but I’d rather be careful.  She deserves her privacy.  And I live in a small country.  And there are weird people out there.

This is not to say you won’t see me writing about her, or that there will never be a picture of her on here.  Plus, there’s a difference between writing about my baby as Miss Young Money, Baby Madam of my life, and writing about my experience of being a parent, which is a separate matter to me as far as writing goes, and I am definitely OK with writing about parenting because that’s as much an aspect of my life as the eating and the Trini tales and the exercising, duh.

This is also how I feel four months into this parent thing; who knows how I’ll feel two month from now, or two days from now? If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself since having her, it’s that I really don’t know how I’ll react to anything anymore, and that it’s actually OK to be that way.  So you may not be spared picturefest forever, or even for long.

And, just to prove my point about NOT sparing you forever, here’s my favorite face on this whole wide world, doing my favorite thing (except for every other favorite thing of hers) that she does:

Now that Miss Young Money is one month old, I have gained some insight into the behavior of a special kind of baby, which she may or may not be (wink wink):  The Highly-Discerning Gourmand Baby Diner.

The Highly-Discerning Gourmand Baby Diner (let’s call her “Miss Young Money,” for example) eats under the influence of three guiding principles, which are informed by a knowledge of historical and cultural contexts:

1. Like the Spanish, she approaches eating as an all-night, tapas-fetching event, and is prepared to eat for hours on end (and she DOES).
2. Like the ancient Romans, she approaches eating as a bacchanalian endeavor in which she must gorge herself to the point of ridiculousness (and she DOES).
3. Like the eager Y2K food hoarder, she approaches her food like a natural disaster is coming–she absolutely MUST chomp up before food somehow disappears (which it DOESN’T).

Now that her precedents have been established, we can outline her behavior, step by step, using the name “Miss Young Money” and “breastfeeding” to stand in for the average highly-discerning gourmand baby diner.

• “Miss Young Money” smacks her lips, sticks her hands in her mouth, flails her arms, and stares down her food sources when hunger (or the desire to eat, unrelated to hunger) strikes.

• When presented with her food source, face to face, “Miss Young Money” will make an angry face, scrunch one eye like a pirate, and attack the food source.  She may also pinch the carrier of the food source.

• Exactly 3.9 seconds after attaching herself to her food source, “Miss Young Money” will then push herself away from her food source with her fists.  She may or may not clamp down on it before she does.  She will most definitely push her face around and get “milk” all over it.

• “Miss Young Money” will then emit an angry cry, which is muffled by the gurgling of “milk” (or food) in her mouth, leading the “mother” (or waiter/chef) perplexed about why the food is being rejected (and sometimes in considerable pain, too).

• The highly-discerning gourmand baby diner will then allow herself to be coaxed back to her food source.  She may or may not allow her mouth (and now “milky” face) to be wiped first.

• The above behavior will be repeated two to six times before “Miss Young Money” (the highly-discerning gourmand baby diner) will approach her food source calmly and settle down to eat.

• The eating will proceed for 30-45 minutes, during which time “Miss Young Money” will pause, look at her surroundings, stare down her “mother” (or waiter/chef), alternating with periods of comical (to the onlooker) and rather senseless (because she WILL get all the “milk” she wants) gorging.

• When the dining appears to be finished, “Miss Young Money” will throw her head back with her eyes closed and mouth pursed and clamped shut, with “milk” (food) all over her face (often before releasing the source of her food).  She may look asleep.  She may very well be.  She will look like a drunk old lady; this is actually a good sign and evidence of a meal well enjoyed.

• After dining, “Miss Young Money” will need to have her mouth wiped (like the ancient Romans whose extravagant eating rituals necessitated bathing during and after their meals).  She may or may not allow this.  She will also need a warm cotton ball swiped across her face.  Again, she may or may not allow this.

• Once the wiping has occcurred (or been attempted), the task of “burping” (or clearing the table and paying the bill) will begin.  “Miss Young Money” may not take well to this kind of ending to the eating proceedings and may not submit to “burping.”  This resistance often takes the form of lifting her head off the “mother” and her shoulder like a tiny turtle, bucking her whole body back, and pushing against the “mother” (or food provider)–sometimes, nay usually, all at once.  Other times, she may not even notice that she’s “being burped” (clearing the table and paying the bill).

• The meal ends when the highly discerning gourmand baby diner is taken to her bed… or not.   Fifteen minutes to a half hour after “Miss Young Money” has passed out in a “milk-drunk” (full) state, she will wake up and want to “eat again” (or visit another nearby eating establishment–right or left of the last one, depending on where she last ate.  She only eats from two places and all on the same block/person, that person being her “mother”, after all).

• The highly-discerning gourmand baby diner will repeat ALL the above steps for two to three hours nightly during “normal adult eating hours.”  YES, that’s right.  She also reserves the right to eat in such a fashion between the hours of 6 AM and 12 PM for the same amount of time.

And THAT, my friends, is how you identify a highly discerning gourmand baby diner.

In other words, my child cluster-feeds and, sometimes, it makes me lose my mind.