Doody Duty

The things they don't tell you about in the parenting books are often the more funnny or interesting or disgusting things. Or maybe I'm just not reading many of them (only 1 actually) Tonight Mariana was being a bit fussy. She didn't want to eat much and she was more impatient than usual but I thought that bath time would perk her up. She always has fun in the tub. I got the bath all ready as usual; soap, got the towel ready, dumped some toys in the water and we're good to go. Only step left is to lose the diaper and get in. It was full of poop. Ah no wonder why she didn't want to eat. A big load in your pants will do that to you. I clean her all up nice nice and we get in the tub. Scarcely a few splashes in and she stands up is making kind of a serious face and she feels kind of hot. I started to think she was coming down with something until I spied over her shoulder the sight of my bare leg with little spots on it. On closer inspection there was what looked like a rotten black banana floating in the water. My first thought was "how the hell did I not see that when I filled up the tub?" It's hard to believe that it took me a full 5 seconds before I realized that my sweet little daughter had made a doody in the water. Hilary!! Help!! We hosed her off then hosed me off then hosed the tub down. Wow, that's nasty. No wonder she was acting weird- she needed to go, a lot. Wasn't it me who just last week was posting pictures of Mariana in the tub and writing about "parent revenge"? HA! Mariana always gets the last laugh. We came downstairs and flipped around youtube to see some funny videos for Mariana to calm down, sit still and drink her nighttime milk. We randomly came upon this video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIQ8lBBHznM&feature=related

Eat, damn it

Our least favorite task at this point is feeding time. We can give her something to eat that she doesn't like and she spits it right out, for instance salmon. Ok, no big deal, she just doesn't like it. Sometimes she eats well, humming along, mmmm, I like this roasted fennel Daddy. Then after 5-6 nice mouthfuls into it she looks at me in disgust and spits it out as if I just tried to poison her. Occasionally we try to play some games; having different things feed her like the eye drops bottle or the lint roller or the remote control. Basically anything that she wants to play with becomes bribe material. You want this saline nose spray bottle? Take 2 bites. How about this crinkly old wipes bag? 3 more bites. Eventually even this game ends with a lot of head shaking no and we're on to the next game. We spend the weekends trying to get each other to feed Mariana. Sometimes we get pissed off and sometimes we can laugh about it -like when she spazzed and flung pea soup all over her face. He he, parent revenge.

Doc

Hilary and I are still feeling our way through this "experience". Mariana freaks out at the doctor, it's true. I wish that was something Hilary could deal with on her own. I have commitments that I'm supposed to keep with work. Do I want to go to work? No, but I have to and I have to do it alone. Do you see where I'm going with this? This is where I get into trouble. To be fair this is something we agreed upon a while ago- that we would both go to her Dr. visits to keep her calm. These thoughts are not too helpful when trying to keep a happy household. Fortunately we can talk it through and get over it. Hopefully it's only temporary- as Mariana grows up she'll get used to doctor visits as a part of life and it won't be so difficult to take her there. But this is one part of parenthood that I won't look back on with nostalgia. Nor will I look back at feeding time and pine for those days when she would throw a spoonful of yogurt onto the carpet. Nope, I won't miss that a bit. This morning was tough. I found myself getting all riled up over stupid stuff. Then Mariana started spazzing when I was changing her. I found myself getting very angry. At what? A baby who doesn't want to sit still? Ok, that's pointless. She's a baby, that's what babies do. Fortunately I was able to realize it in the moment and chill out. 

Mama

Mariana can say Mama as of today, much to the delight of her mother. It takes a little prompting but as we walk up the stairs in the morning to wake up Hilary, I ask Mariana if she wants to go see Mama and she says "Mama... Mama!". It's pretty great. Now we have to work on "Daddy". She refers to all animals at this point as "Da Da"- like the cat, the stuffed dog, the stuffed bear. What are you going to do, huh? I am an animal after all. In fact I'm the "Original Sexy Beast" if you remember what my Chinese students used to call me.

Bonk

How much to baby proof. Some say lots, some say none. Sure we grew up in houses that had all kinds of hazards lurking; toxic cleaners in accessible cabinets, sharp table corners, no stair or window guards, toys with small parts to choke on. So why didn't we all end up dead? This guy at work rails against all things new fangled (ie: liberal) yet tells me that I HAVE to build radiator covers, and move all the Lladros to upper cabinets. Dina, our adoption social worker, says she'll learn not to touch the radiators when they're hot as soon as she tries once. It's a learning curve, she says. So who am I to listen to? And what's the harm in being over protective? She'll grow up not learning how to make painful mistakes? So yet again, I need to chill and trust my own instincts. Just because I never stuck a fork in an outlet or swilled a bottle of Tilex doesn't mean Mariana won't. We'll do all that we can to protect her but expect that sometimes she's going to whack her head and eat something off the floor that she shouldn't (ok, technically it was something that was fresh a few hours ago when she threw it on the floor, right?)

Walk the Walk

Walking, walking. This past weekend Mariana started walking behind a little mini stroller. It was so exciting I was literally jumping up and down. It was like when Melky Cabrera hit the go ahead home run against the hated Boston Red Sox on Thursday night. Like, wow, am I really seeing this?! Ok, to diminish my daughters achievements by comparing them to something as trivial as baseball is pretty lame but that was the last time I jumped up and down with excitement ok? But I digress... The point is that as Mariana chugged along with stiff Frankenstieinian gait I couldn't help but feel a swell of pride and love. Another heart bursting moment. I'm finding Fatherhood to be filled with them. At that moment I'm not thinking about when she throws food on the floor or freaks out when getting changed or how I'm going to pay for her college education. I'm thinking "Holy shit, my daughter is walking!"

this video features some of MJV's first steps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SRRs-gB8oM

photo of MJV with Auntie Morgan in Red Hook-

Birthday Party

Some of you may have seen this already but here is a great video montage that my fabulous sister-in-law put together of Mariana chowing down her first piece of birthday cake and generally enjoying herself at her first ever Birthday party.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3STWNbZXJm0

Mad rush of activity before the party. Paint front door, make new street number sign (we had to make it a little less ghetto) paint Mariana's room, bought new rug, move crap to basement, move other crap from one place to another, finally finish bedbug laundry, clean clean clean some more. Then the party, and now I'm sick, yay! It was worth it though. It was fun to have everyone here on our turf for a change. So thanks to all the family for coming and making it a fantastic 1st Birthday party at home for Mariana. Hopefully we will send proper thank you cards at some point?! Maybe in the fall...