I had planned to write another Poppy update when she turned 1, but as I am sure every other parent can attest the time just gets away from you, and the older they get the faster the time seems to go. I would love to wax lyrical, but have decided to revert to the something that may seem a little more clinical....and if in parts it sounds whiney I apologize, but I bet every mummy has had similar feelings.....
Mobility - AKA - appreciating the days of always knowing where she was
It is hard now to remember the pre-mobility days, but I do remember worrying that she would never progress from commando crawling to "real crawling." I can't exactly remember when she was suddenly up, and suddenly very very fast, but I know we were both really glad that we had pre-emptively childproofed. Stairs came next, she mastered going up those before she could actually walk independently. Walking happened at the best possible time. We had gone to the UK for Christmas and on December 23rd with much urging and cheering from my Uncle Stephen she walked to my mum, just 2 or 3 steps, but that was it took - she has never stopped since. She hates to be restrained, although we have made sure that she still likes to be in her stroller - we want to delay the refusal to use that for as long as possible. We have the baby reins in the closet and no doubt by the summer we will be using them. Rob was never very keen on the idea of "putting Poppy on a leash" until after daycare one day when he was unlocking the car she took off for the woods shouting "Bur...bur...bur" and signing bird!
Mouthy just like mummy and daddy
Poppy found her voice quite early - but then for a long time she did nothing. She knew mama, dada, baba, gaga but the seemed to choose not to talk, preferring that caveman communication of pointing and grunting. Robert and I are both very chatty (just in case any of you had missed this...) so it was a little disconcerting, but just like walking once she started she never stopped. It is fun trying to guess what she is saying - we know what some of her linguistic inventions mean but it was trial and error. She ate lots of cheese for a while - until we worked out that cheese just meant "I'm hungry", she also drank lots of OJ until we realized that "juice" just meant thirsty. Now she knows "shuz" (shoes), "ban" (banana), "ca" (cat), "ba' (bath), "bur' (bird), "che" (cheerios), "fush" (fish) "bye", "mama", "daddy" and "gadad" (grandad - my dad). The most embarrassing linguistic development has been "bub" which means boob and is accompanied by trying to pull up my shirt (or when we left her with my parents for a couple of days my mum's - that caused some chuckles) She has also shown quite a natural aptitude for signs and signs banana, cereal, cat, dog, change, more, eat, drink, bath, toothbrush, blanket (which I think is funny since she really never really uses a blanket), hat (something else she refuses to use), fish. She has this odd little "lubbly, lub, jubbly" thing she does when she is frustrated which is really hysterically funny.
Becoming a big girl
We finally got her off the bottle and on to a cup, but we just cannot get this kid off the boob. As I have said before I have was a reluctant breast feeder to say the least and here I am 16 months later still nursing at least twice a day. It has been hard because she has never really used a dummy (pacifier) and only sucked her thumb for a short time so she tends to use mummy as a dummy - which is proving a hard habit to break. I know she will get there, but I think we may be waiting for the time she can understand that "You are a big girl and big girls don't do this' (In the interim anyone reading this who has suggestions - please please share). She has started just in the last couple of weeks to be very selective over her clothes, which is adorable. She has become interesting in helping - she loves loading and unloading the dishwasher and actually knows where things go; she also loves the broom and the swiffer (she even has her own kiddy broom that I have found so handy for getting toys out from under the sofa)
Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom
As for solid food she is a good little eater, and an adventurous one at that. One of the best books I read after I had her was "Hungry Monkey" (http://hungrymonkeybook.com/)
and we purposely have tried to make Poppy an adventurous eater. She is sometimes picky though - her favorite foods are cheese, any kind of noodle, curry, palak tiki, rice, meatballs, fish, ham, grapes, oranges, raisins, bananas, bread and butter and of course jelly babies. She certainly likes spicy food, and strong cheeses! I am probably having way too much fun making her lunches when she is at daycare - complete with molds to turn hard boiled eggs into bunnies, fish, teddy bears - although perhaps this would be more fun if she actually liked eggs....
Daycare - AKA We know it's the right thing to do but wow it is a license to print $$$
After seeing how well Poppy did when we had her going tot he back up daycare at work while Rob finished his thesis, and how much she loved being around my (huge) family at Christmas we decided to bite the bullet and put her in part-time daycare. We finally found a school we both loved and were thrilled it actually had a space. It is bilingual French/English and Montessori to boot! It is crazy expensive, but an expense we don't care about because as we watch her learn to play with other kids, watch her language develop along with all her other skills. A lesser reason for daycare was that Poppy was becoming a little too much like the dog - she would pant, she would try to drink and eat like him - it was really funny but at the same time...well you know what I mean!
On being a parent - AKA - guilt, neurosis, guilt, neurosis
Being a nurse is challenging at the best of times, but having a background in pediatric oncology makes you especially vulnerable to neurosis. When Poppy was tiny she had two rubbery lymph nodes at the base of her skull and I monitored them obsessively. Our pediatrician dutifully checked them out, and even acknowledged that she understood why I was so hyper aware of them. The lymph nodes went away; I breathed a sigh of relief. I still feel guilty over every bump and bruise, and have to squash the "what if that snotty nose is really ___________________ (insert your own terrible childhood disease here) thoughts.
Mommy guilt however has become a constant, and this is never helped by those few people who actually reinforce it. (I am particularly sensitive about this, so I admit I may be overreacting). Guilt about work is the hardest especially when I have to explain that we have no family in MA, so there are no grandparents or aunts and uncles to step in to help. We do have great friends who will babysit for us so we do get the odd night out, but I feel the absence of family very acutely.
Apart from the guilt of working (or the guilt I get because I am not willing to work beyond my 40 hours any more and believe me there are a few people - all women - who have issue with this) there is the guilt of raising Poppy away from her grandparents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles. Having one set grandparents on the other side of the US and the others on another continent is tough. Skype is a great thing and as she has gotten older Poppy has become more interactive with her grandparents
Love
I am still overwhelmed at times by the love I feel for this small person who pretty much runs the house. I didn't know it was possible to be so completely in love. At 2 in the morning if she is awake and just wants to chat to me, then so be it - I am exhausted the next morning but I would not swap that precious conversation for anything (the last one had something to do with a bird and a dog and she thought is was hysterically funny). She has her own sign for love, and she will suddenly stop what she is doing and look at us and smile that smile and make her sign for love. (She does this to the cats and the dog too). I have eased off on the endless spoiling - in retrospect I think some of that stemmed from an unspoken fear that we would not get to keep her (see neurosis/guilt etc). I am fascinated by her, fascinated by her little quirks, endlessly entertained by her developing sense of humor, amused by the way she will stop whatever she is doing if she hears Chris Matthews's voice (yes - he of MSNBC's Hardball) she is his youngest fan. It is a wild ride, and I know it has hardly started on the greatest adventure of our lives
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