Comma Dot Comma

photo by Marie to go with previous post…

Abigail and Chloe

We’re several days into a visit with the Oregon grandparents, and this evening Abi was in the mood her dad dubbed “chaos on the move.” Grandma’s house is not the best place for chaos on the move, full as it is with things that Abi could break or that could break Abi. It was too late to go outside, so we decided to take her to her aunt’s house. Auntie Marie had been wanting Abigail to come over and meet her cat, Chloe. Abigail, catching sight of Chloe for the first time on this trip, thought this was a FANTASTIC idea. As soon as her feet hit the ground she was after the cat, full speed ahead, around corners and under tables, diving onto Chloe headfirst when she got in range.

Chloe was torn. On the one hand, she was scared out of her mind by the zooming, shrieking toddler. On the other, Abigail was the most interesting thing she’d seen in awhile. The cat compromised by staying as close to Abigail as she could get and still be able to get away most of the time. She did get pinned by an empty wrapping paper tube at one point. At another, she tried to retreat into her special box cave only to have Abi wiggle in after her. Marie rushed to extract the baby before the cat could freak out, so no harm done. Whew. Then Abi thought it would be awesome to dump out the water dish. “That’s the cat’s water bowl,” said her dad, as water pooled on the kitchen floor. So she helpfully raced over and dropped the empty dish in front of Chloe. Later, she found the refilled dish in its new secret hiding place and dumped it again.

We tried to teach Abigail how to act around a cat. We explained how she should stay very quiet and calm, and hold out her hand and gently call, “Here, Kitty kitty!” She listened quite carefully to instruction. She held out her hand and ran full tilt at the cat, yelling “KITTY KITTY KITTY!” Progress, of a sort.

Since being pregnant with Abigail, my whole nausea/vomiting reflex has been a little…. trigger happy. I’m not surprised, given the daily workout it got for 8 months. All those reps have the peristaltic system in tip-top shape. I throw up now every three weeks or so, usually from headaches or multivitamins. Abigail is generally standing by (VERY close by) to witness these brief but oh-so-interesting events. She is no stranger to the sound of my heaving. I recently had three days of intense nausea that caused a few barfs a day, which Abi found fascinating. It is something to be waiting for the next wave and simultaneously trying to keep one’s daughter from picking the more interesting bits out of the toilet (“Hmm! Hey!” Point-point-point). I fervently wished I had thought to plop her in the Pack-n-play on my rush to the bathroom.

I tell you all this because of her and her dad’s behavior this evening at bedtime. I had pulled out the white trashcan from its place under the table as a reminder to take it out later. My partially-clad girl was seized with a sudden idea. She leaned carefully over it, shouting “Blah! Blah! Blah!” After the second time, Dr. G asked, “Is she pretending to throw up?” We examined the pantomime. She had the lean, the gasps, and the blahs all figured out. Yup. He decided to join in, though not personally. He held her baby doll over the trashcan and made it say, “Blah, blah, blah!” Abigail had to stop her own play to laugh, her deep burbly chuckle getting Dr. G. going too. Soon the two of them were alternating belly laughs and blah-blah-blahs, the real baby and the pretend baby fake-barfing their little guts out into the trashcan while I sat by. “This is a little embarrassing,” I said, to no one. But the three of them had fun, and how can I not enjoy a room full of laughter and imaginary barf?

Abigail, leaning from the shopping cart to bury her head in my torso when a woman stopped to say hi: “I’m shy!” Her second sentence ever. A version of what I say to passerby when she refuses to interact with them. Her first was a cheerful greeting to me, holding up her arms to be taken out of the crib the other morning: “I slept!” Again, a version of what I say to her fairly often (You slept/didn’t sleep well!). Tonight when her dad asked her if she wanted water, she said, “Ess, I do!” I’m probably reading into things (can she possibly have her “I” pronoun figured out?) but they sounded so clear.

One surprising part of being a mom is how much I love my daughter’s little body. I love watching her do her crusher move where she raises her legs above her head and slams them down as hard as she can. I love the whorl pattern of fine, almost invisible body hair on her back. The way her head smells. Her double jointed pointer fingers. The tiny remaining bit of baby cellulite on her tiny baby butt. The weight of her arms clinging to my neck. Her soft skin when we hug cheek-to-cheek. How she sticks out her pink tongue for me to brush with her toothbrush every morning. Her ever-expanding repertoire of dance moves, especially her tap-dance shuffle. I love it all. And it’s a good thing, too, considering how much time and effort goes in to keeping that little body safe, warm, clean, well-rested, well-fed, and well-hugged. Getting through the daily round of meals and diaper changes and sleep routines would be much more challenging without that love to back it up.

It occurs to me that Abigail is her body. It is not a thing; it is her. Years ago, such a thought would have seemed painfully, disrespectfully reductionist to me– surely we are more than just a collection of cells! And we are. Eternal souls and all that. But more and more, I feel that the real disrespect is thinking of the body as a discardable thing and not really US. My Abi would still be mine without her knuckle dimples and constant drool, but she would be a different girl.