Comma Dot Comma

Abigail and I share a favorite song: “All Around the Kitchen” by Dan Zanes and Friends. When she wants to get her dance on, that’s her go-to song, and it is so catchy that I get my dance on too. We have some really energetic 30-second to two-minute-long dance parties, me and my girl.

She started getting interested in music about a month ago, so I’ve been looking for some appropriate music for her. After years of hearing friends and family complain about going crazy listening to the same Barney or Wiggles or Wee Sing CD over and over, I wanted to find Abigail some good music that we could all like. Dr. G is of the opinion that we’ve got plenty of good stuff in our own music collection, and has made her a mix CD of fun music, some of which is kids (Macho Duck, All Around the Kitchen) and some of which is technically adult (Buddy Holly, some gospel). I’ve also been visiting Zooglobble’s blog quite a bit. He’s a fellow Phoenician who is apparently the last word in reviews of kid music that parents will like. He posts many a cute video, links to free downloads, and giveaways.

Anyway, Dan Zanes is one of our favorites; we even listened to a little of his stuff before we had any kids at all, and his track is the first one on Abi’s CD. She doesn’t know how to work her CD player, but she figured out that if it is turned on, she can open and close the lid and get it to start playing. Thus she loves “All Around the Kitchen,” because it is the one she keeps hearing each time she lifts the lid. She stomps in place, shakes her diaper-clad bootie, claps, and swings her arms around. She loves that it is also an interactive song: each verse gives instructions on some new silly way to dance. When Dan sings, “Stop right there!” she freezes and waits for instruction. She has learned by watching me what she is supposed to do for some of them, and she listens for keywords in the song (hair, nose, ears) for where to put her hands. It is a riot and a half to watch her stick her hands in her hair and start stomping or wiggling.

The Lipstick Incident

Originally uploaded by Sweeten

Well, I can’t let Abigail help me with my makeup any longer. Usually I do it sitting on the floor in front of the closet mirror while she scrabbles around in the makeup container and pretends to put blush on her cheeks and mine with the blush brush. She has fun with the shiny objects and I get a few minutes to get myself a little more put together. I only wear make-up a few days a week, so Abi hasn’t had much opportunity to progress in her ability to access the makeup inside the containers. Lately she’s been obsessed with removing and replacing lids on containers of all types, but her favorites are ball point pens and lipstick cylinders. She’ll sit there indefinitely with a shiny green tube of mocha shimmer: on, off. on, off. on, off. I thought I’d take advantage of this obsession when her discovery of a stray tube of red lipstick coincided with my need to sort some laundry.

O! Regrettable Decision! How I Regret Thee! Abi was literally right next to me, being watched out of the corner of my eye, and yet she managed to take her love of lipstick to the next level. She somehow turned the lipstick up just enough that she could reach it by jamming her finger down inside the cylinder. She decided it was a great chance to practice her coloring skills on her shirt. And her face. And her arms. That girl works quickly! When she has an artistic vision, she EXECUTES, with neither a dilly nor a dally.

I gasped when the activities of the moment finally sunk into my slow-on-the-uptake-brain and internally rejoiced that she hadn’t yet touched the pile of just-sorted whites at her feet. Then I grabbed her by the wrists and carried her at arm’s length to the tub, where I stripped her down and started scrubbing. Abigail was completely offended that I didn’t praise her handiwork or hug her or carry her to the tub like a normal human being. The crying brought in a sleepy Dr. G (yes this occurred practically before full daylight), who fished this shirt out of the trash to document the deed. Count it fully documented. We have an artist in the family.

I’ve been thinking about the ways motherhood has changed me. One thing I noticed the other day is that as soon as I open the dishwasher, I immediately remove everything sharp and breakable from the bottom rack. I used to do the top rack first. I never leave the house without a sippy cup, a diaper, and a snack. Before, I often used to go with just a driver’s license and some keys in my pocket. I’ve fallen naturally into a 2- to- 3 hour rhythm around Abigail’s eating and sleeping, when before I had to force myself into the 8-hr rhythm of the workday. I spend more time just enjoying life, because Abigail enjoys it so. She has inspired a new appreciation for soft blankets, good illustrations, steamed broccoli, tiny hiding spots, and living creatures.

Some of the common predictions that came my way before Abigail’s arrival– that parenting turns you into a Real Grown-Up, that you will have to serve someone more than you ever have before– turned out not to be true for me. I was pretty solidly in grown-up territory before she got here, having waited so long for her (in some times and places I would have been considered over the hill already); and there have been a handful of other periods in my life where I sacrificed as much (lack of sleep, weird restricted diets, long hours and never being really sure I was doing it right or making any impact, spending days without talking to anyone who speaks my language fluently but never being alone, craving just an hour or two by myself with a pizza and a good book). The longest period like that was two years though, so maybe I will feel differently when the two-year mark comes and goes and I am still in the trenches of tiny-child raising. And of course the stakes are more personal and therefore higher with child-rearing, so there is that.

The one common prediction that was true for me was that a mother’s love is special. I love a lot of people– family, friends, husband, God– but in every case I have chosen to love them. There is in even my deepest and longest lasting relationships an element of conscious decision-making: I pick you, still. I pick you, once again. I choose to belong to you as I did yesterday and will tomorrow. Loving Abigail feels totally different. I didn’t pick her so much as get picked for her. Being her mother has meant an immersion in some deep, elemental pool of biological and historical mother-to-child care. I’ve been swept into this ancient love that has kept us alive for generations. I don’t have to think about it, or try to drum up feelings of it, or vocalize it. It’s just there, tethering me to Abigail all the time, day and night. I wonder if this will still be true if I have other, less easy to love children, or as Abigail grows and becomes more separate from me, or if my situation or personality changes somehow. We’ll see. Right now it feels inevitable, the kind of gift I could take for granted if I’m not careful. I thank God for mother love. I thank Him for Abigail.

Abi ditched her high chair this weekend

Originally uploaded by Sweeten

I keep looking at this picture and shaking my head. I can’t believe Abi is such a big girl already! I told Dr. G that I get to call her a baby until she can talk, use a fork, and is potty trained. Over the past few days Abi kept begging us to let her sit in a big person chair at the table. Then she would pretend that she was eating. I decided that it was a sign she was ready to join us officially at the table for meals. She protested greatly when I took her booster seat out of her play area to attach it to a chair. In fact, she tried to pull it down the entire time I was messing with it. I need to find her some other little chair for that area now– she loved to chill there with books and dolls and pretend food. But she is so happy to be at the big table!

Unrelated things that have made me laugh this weekend:

Abi confuses the word “no” with the horse sound “neigh.” She sometimes sounds like a little 18th century baby: “Abi, want me to change your diaper?” “Nay! Nay!”

Abi said “tickle, tickle” while her dad was caressing her feet this morning. When he laughed, she followed it up by tickling her own ribs and repeating “tickle tickle.”

Prairie home companion was playing in the car. It was a bit with lots of squirting sounds as they described making a taco sandwich (rice, refried beans, guacamole, ground beef, and, of course, ketchup). “TTTHHPPPT!” added Abi. “THHHPPPPTTTTT!”