Me and my shadow

I love it when Genevieve and I match. I think it's partly because she looks so much like Andrew and my mom, it's nice to have our outfits say, "Hey, we're together!" (It also cuts down on people asking if she is mine.)

It's one thing to spend all of our time together; it's entirely another thing to do it in style.

Wearing our matching Mondo Cable Cardigans at the wool auction

We may have bought an outfit for Genevieve *because* I have a dress just like it. (Also, my mom has a serious Thing for polka dots.)

Polka dots are the new black, you know.

Genevieve is getting older, and Andrew and I were talking about Stitches, and the possibility of my taking classes this year. She'll be more than a year old by then, and Andrew is nothing if not supportive.

"We need to practice having you away from her," he pointed out, logically. "Now that she's not exclusively breastfeeding, we can do that."

To that end, on Saturday, once she had been nursed and put down for her afternoon nap, Mom and I made plans to go to our knitting group. I took the extra ten minutes to put on makeup, high heels, and my good pearls. I carried a tiny, cute purse. Despite the superficial things that normally make me feel fab-U-lous, I felt sick to my stomach.

I can honestly say that leaving Genevieve at home with her incredibly capable, loving, and involved father was one of the most painful things I have done (to date) as her mother.

I stood on the stoop next to mom, holding my keys. I considered skipping going to knitting altogether and just sitting on the stoop- just in case she needed me. Instead, I pulled myself together, took a giant step for Momkind, and went to knitting at Laura's.

I took a lot of deep breaths, talked through my anxiety and guilt (oh, the guilt!) with Mom. I watched my cell phone like a hawk the whole time, so that I could be in the car and home in 10 minutes if I was needed.

I didn't cry, even if I did tear up a few times because OHMIGOD, I'm a terrible mother for leaving my baby to go have fun with my friends. (See?! THE GUILT.)

My phone didn't ring, chirp, or buzz the whole two-and-a-half hours I was there. When I got home, everyone was as cheerful as could be, and Genevieve was SO happy to see me. The feeling was mutual as I swept her up in my arms and gave her the kiss attack of her life.

Sharing the teething bling

They did *just* fine without me. It turns out, it was only tough for me. This "growing up" thing is hard to do. Especially when it's your baby doing it.

Queen, again

"Another one bites the dust" comes on Pandora
Me:Hey! This song is by Queen!
Andrew:(Pauses)
Andrew: You mean that one-hit-wonder band? laughs
Me: This is NOT how sweaters get finished!

Beauty sleep

We're up to four official teeth, and while they are *completely* adorable, teething remains a miserable process for my sweet, cheerful kid. We can see more teeth cutting through, both on the top and the bottom, which means that the only thing Genevieve *can't* cut is a break from teething.

Talkative, smiley, pensive, and of course, Le Tigre.

 We're back to only napping if she's being held, or snuggled closely. Of course, it's taken me three days of unsuccessfully trying to set her down in the crib, only for her to wake up and REFUSE to nap, no matter what I do.

Without her sleep, DangerMouse loses some of her sparkle and is not usually her charming self. (This she gets from me.)

I am not one to keep trying something that doesn't work over and over and over and OVER again, so we are back to a do-whatever-needs-doing nap policy with her. We play hard, and we nap hard.

Play hard, nap hard

When I'm holding her, yes, I'm a little frustrated that we did a whole week of crib naps, and now we're right back where we were before. On the flip side, I look at her while she sleeps in my arms, all rosy cheeks and long eyelashes, and I remember that these days are few and dwindling.

As it is, the more active and mobile she is, the less she wants to be held and snuggled. She wants to crawl, climb, chew, touch, and give commentary. She wants to be independent, but - thankfully, for my ego - she wants to know that I'm still there.

In truth, I love the snuggles, because when she wakes up, she's all smiles and charm.

Kiss attack!

...and there's nothing better than that.

For Irene

A few weeks ago, one of my friends from high school lost his mother. We attended her service, and we mourned- not for her, necessarily, but for her two kids. Yes, they're adults, but their mother will miss major milestones in their lives. Buying a home, baking the perfect soufflé, promotions at work, getting married, having children, and so many more life events.

She won't be there. She's just... gone.

Justin, her son and my friend, gave a touching, funny, and appropriate eulogy. There were pictures of his mother throughout her life, well before the advent of digital cameras, and her vigor and vitality shone in them. He did remarkably well under devastating circumstances. His mother would have been proud- but would have expected no less of him.

The rest of the day, Mom and I talked through our grief. I wept and wept at the idea of leaving my baby behind, because let's face it, no matter how old you are, you always want to be there for your kids. Forever and ever my baby you'll be, and whatnot.

I've been thinking about Genevieve; sure, if something were to happen to me, she could listen to the podcast and hear my voice. She could read my blog (when she's old enough to read) and see what was important to me, how I relate to my family.

But there aren't very many pictures of me on here, mostly because I'm behind the camera. There are literally *thousands* of pictures of Genevieve on my computer, but very few of us together. I'm not wearing makeup with any sort of frequency anymore and I feel I look like the cryptkeeper.

It bothers me that I'm not bouncing around in my fitted, pre-pregnancy wardrobe and spike heels. Even if it's not practical to wear the heels, I want to *choose* sneakers over pumps. I want Genevieve to look back and see her mom fabulous, put-together, and getting things done. Vain, vain, vain.

Here's the thing: I'd rather dress to comfortably play on the floor with her than to try to impress who? The neighbors? I'd rather do a million other things *with* Genevieve than *for* anybody else.

I want her to look back on the pictures and see who I am; her mom who loves her like crazy.

I love you, so I made you a sweater.

From now on, I'm going to be in the pictures. Just the way I am.

Well-advised

I love snuggling with Genevieve, but she's a kid who gets warm when she naps. I don't need to brag about my bumper crop of tomatoes for you to know it's been a hot summer.

"I'm a monster!" I told Mom. "I want her to nap in her crib during the day."

After assuring me that I am *not* a monster, Mom pointed out that if I want Genevieve to nap in her crib, I need to put her in the crib to nap. Sounds simple enough, right?

A mouse at rest... will wake up sooner than expected.

I had a lot of trouble getting her from sleeping in my arms to staying asleep during the arms-to-crib transfer. This was further complicated by the necessity of lowering her crib ALL the way down, since Genevieve is (a) pulling herself to standing and (b) extra tall.

If you will recall, I am not extra tall, which was part of the problem.

I took my problem to Facebook and Twitter, clarifying that I needed help but wasn't looking for cry-it-out solutions.

My friends, readers, and podcast listeners; you all came to my aid, and for that, I am grateful. What is working for us (about 80% of the time) is nursing to sleep, then CAREFULLY moving her to the crib, shushing the whole time. If she starts to fuss as she goes in, I shush and put my hand on her belly, applying just enough pressure for her to know I'm there.

Once I'm sure she's soundly (and comfortably) asleep, I tiptoe out, close the door, and do a victory dance in the hallway.

Sure, the victory dance startles the dogs, but when Genevieve naps in the crib it's better than winning the lottery.

Foggy with a chance of exhausted

The other night, I dreamt that we had another baby. Not that I was actively *having* it, but that - boom! - we had a second baby.**

I woke up, looked around, saw Genevieve, but not the other baby. I panicked.

"Andrew," I whispered, so as not to wake Genevieve, "Andrew!"

"What? Is she wet?" he asked, only partly awake.

"Where is the baby?" I asked, insistently. When he looked at Genevieve, I hissed, panicking, "The OTHER baby."

Andrew looked around, worried, then got up and started pulling the sheets off of the bed, looking for the missing baby as if it had slithered to the bottom of the bed like an errant sock.

After the bed was thoroughly checked, Andrew looked at me.

"Wait," I said, "I think we have just the one baby. We just have one baby, right?"

Andrew paused for a moment. "Yeah."

"Ok." I sighed, relieved, and we went back to bed.

Just the one baby.

The best part of this? Genevieve stayed asleep through the WHOLE thing.

**KidBrother Sam pointed out that this would be quite a feat, considering that Genevieve just turned eight months old on Monday.

A Literat Mouse

I love to read. I've loved to read as long as I can remember. When I was pregnant, before we bought clothes or furniture for Genevieve, we bought her books.

At the baby shower, she was given a whole pile of board books. I used to think that board books were clumsy and stupid. Now that Genevieve is in full sensory exploration mode all the time, and wants to be involved with the whole process, I think they are completely brilliant.

Reading is FUNdamental!

We have been reading from Sandra Boynton's Greatest Hits (1 and 2, because that's how we roll), and they're a lot of fun. I especially enjoy Genevieve reading them back to me, since she has figured out that we talk at books. (There has been some very enthusiastic babbling.)

I hope she'll love to read, because she comes from a long line of readers.

This reminds me of a dozen years ago, when I was doing a two-week long babysitting stint. The younger daughter, Sarah, was in kindergarten and had been sent home with a sight-word reading assignment. I had done sight-word work before, and I was really looking forward to reading with her.

After a few rough starts, Sarah got frustrated, dramatically flung herself across the couch, and declared, "I'll NEVER learn to read!"

A better person may have done... well, something other than laugh hysterically.

Once I managed to regain some of my composure, I pointed out that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for her NOT to learn to read. After all, both her parents and sisters LOVED to read. Appealing to her six-year-old logic worked, and I'm pleased to say that Sarah is now a high school senior.

A high school senior who loves to read.

Of Mouse and Mess

I continually underestimate how messy children can be. I'm 99.9% okay with the mess, generally speaking, but what I find utterly shocking is how *thoroughly* messy Genevieve can get.

[Genevieve: Good for you. If you're going to do anything, it's good to be thorough.]

DangerMouse has FOUR - count 'em, FOUR - teeth coming in. She's cheerful and pleasant as she can be, but teething is a heartless beast. I picked up teething biscuits for her in hopes that they would (a) be fun to chew on and (b) offer some variety as far as chew-things are concerned.

(As a matter of form, they are teething "biscuits" instead of "cookies" or "chewies" because the "c" words bring the dogs running. While neither Niki nor Elphie care for these, they are extremely disappointed when they hear either word and they don't get one.)

In any case, I popped Genevieve into her Bumbo**, put down a mat under her (preparing for some mess), and handed her a biscuit.

This is what followed:

Teething biscuits: functional and a fashion statement.

Biscuit in her hair. All over her face. Coating her clothes. The Bumbo. Smeared onto the mat under her. EVERYWHERE.

"I just don't understand how she could get SO messy!" I kept repeating to Mom, as I tried to figure out how to deal with a messy baby.

Mom, ever the supportive and loving parent, laughed herself silly.

[In case you were curious, the solution was to take a damp washcloth to her face, and let her run around in a diaper and cover until bathtime. It was a warm day. Also, she smelled DELICIOUS.]

Strange as it may sound, I never thought I would be so utterly charmed to be cleaning crumbs out of anyone's bellybutton.



**There's a recall for the Bumbo, which you can read about here. We watch DangerMouse like hawks, so it hasn't been an issue for us. Your usage and mileage may vary.

Tilting at windmills

Since Genevieve is mobile now (and she plays on the floor) I got questions about dogs, floors, and cleanliness. My life, and living room, are an open book browser page.

Niki and Elphie are double coated Chow Chow mixes. When they're blowing their coats, they shed a LOT of fur. We brush them with the Mars King comb, a rake, and more recently (recommended by our vet) the FURminator. We also trim their tuchuses to keep things tidy.

[No, I don't spin their fur. Not intentionally, anyway.]

We (Andrew) put in carpet tiles. Our living room floor looks like this:

FLOR!

As you've seen from the photos, we have blond dogs. This rug shows Every. Single. Strand. of dog hair. I don't care. I love everything else about it; especially that it gives Genevieve somewhere soft to crawl. (We "crawl tested" the samples for softness. Seriously.)

I sweep the hardwood throughout the house at least twice a week, but Genevieve is on her hands and knees in this room, so I vacuum the rug every day. Sometimes twice, if the dogs are especially shed-dy. This is the windmill I tilt at. (This is my lance- I mean, vacuum.)

"Did you vacuum? Good. Now read to me, please."

Some people might think to limit the dogs' access to the living room. Not me. It's important that Genevieve gets integrated into the family as smoothly as possible, and the dogs are a big part of our family.

For the littlest part of our family? I'm sure this isn't the only windmill I'll be tilting at for her.

Catch and release

Someone started crawling last week. I mean REALLY crawling. And then, about two seconds after she started crawling she started pulling herself up on stuff. The couch, tray tables. She's even tried pulling herself up on my pilates ball, which she has decided (by the way) is also the ULTIMATE toy.

We have hardwood floors throughout the house. And dogs. To that end, we bought some FLOR carpet tiles for our living room, where we spend most of our time. This is Genevieve's play area.

The plan, which is busy paving roads that lead to predictable places, is to do a deep-clean on the floors, do some serious de-cluttering, and repair some of the rough spots before we let our fearless DangerMouse explore. You know, once she's a little more stable, and I'm not all "OHMIGOD! DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH!"

I've been working on teaching her the "lava" game- you know, the one where you have to stay in one place because past the boundaries the floor is LAVA!

(In case you're curious, no, it isn't working. I think you need to have a passing familiarity with what lava is before you know to avoid the lava by staying on the rug. She does seem to think my squealing "You're in the lava!" is pretty funny, though.)

So, for now, we're playing a sort of catch and release game that goes like this:

Genevieve: Crawl to the edge of the rug
Jasmin: Pick up Genevieve. Put her in the middle of the rug.
Genevieve: Pretend to find a toy. Drop toy and dash to the edge of the rug.
Jasmin: Pick up Genevieve. Put her in the middle of the rug.
Repeat until Genevieve gets hungry, tired, or needs to freshen up.

Faster than the speed of the iPhone shutter

One one hand, I'm SO proud of how she's moving. On the other hand, I think to myself, "Remember when she would just snuggle?" (The latter is usually after we've been playing for a good long time.)

I'm pretty sure catch-and-release is how I'm going to lose the baby weight. Or at least, how I'm going to justify all that homemade ice cream I'm eating.