There’s this big joke that when I women gets pregnant and has kids her mind disintegrates. I heard it a lot when I was pregnant, coworkers chortling at the frequently confused expression on my face as I stumbled my way through normal tasks. And then after I had Kate I found myself using it as an excuse all the time. “Oh sorry, I have lost my mind. The baby and all.” With your first you don’t know any better. Everyone says it, so it must be true.

I have come to realize that the truth is that we don’t become dumber as parents. Kids don’t sap our brains. In fact, I feel ten times smarter some days. I’m certainly better at multitasking. (Try tapping out a text message on your phone while your 1 year old sits on your lap, failing around as she tries desperately to grab said phone, and failing that tries her best to work her toddler magic on my poor abused computer that is hopefully just out of reach. Not only good at multi-tasking, I have also apparently grown extra arms.) (I won’t mention how one time she did fall off my lap doing that.)

The problem is that I am ten times smarter and more organized about baby stuff. I can list off ten different car seats, their weight limits, price points, and pros and cons. I know what medicines I can use, in what dosages, when the last time I gave it and what time the next dose is. I know when her next appointment is and what vaccines she is and is not slated to get. I have a mental list of what foods she likes, what foods she loves and what foods she’s currently, for some unknown reason, decided she no longer will eat. I know exactly how to get her to sleep with a very delicate routine and perfect timing that I can’t quite adequately explain to Denis. I can memorized several of her books so that I can “read” to her with my eyes closed (a trick that is totally necessary first thing in the morning).

But it still doesn’t change the fact that I frequently stop in the middle of something and totally forget what I was doing.

Which is how I totally forgot the hose was on, overfilled my quick-set inflatable-ring pool, which caused it to roll a bit downslope (it’s a TINY SLOPE and it was FINE….. until I overfilled it and water spilled everywhere.). And the only way to fix it was to totally drain it, which took a full day. And then when we re-filled it one side somehow got folded under and now has 2000 gallons of water sitting on it so we can’t fix it… except by draining it. Again.

So, yeah, it’s 95+ degrees out this week and I have no pool. But those kids toys? Totally organized awesomely.

Yesterday Kate and I were out and about for quite a long time in the afternoon and into the evening. We didn’t get home to eat dinner until 7, and by then Kate was hungry and cranky – though it was really nice to see her hungry again, after she barely ate anything last week. She ate some of my chicken, hard boiled egg, and some canned peaches, all of which are foods that she’d been shunning. (The chicken-refusal was a new development, but she has never been fond of hard boiled eggs or canned peaches.)

It was a later evening and at 9:30 she was still running around shrieking with laughter. By that point Den and I were eying her warily, wanting to go to bed ourselves and wondering how the hell we were going to convince her it was bedtime. Finally at 10 I scooped her up and said, “It’s bedtime!” Den snorted, “Yeah, good luck with that. She isn’t going to sleep.” So off I went to her bedroom.

I came out 5 minutes later doing a jiggy dance and said, “I have magic boobs!” She nursed into a trance, I put her in her crib and she rolled right over sleepily. Yet again the boobies save the day.

Can you see why I’m scared about weaning her? They are so handy!

In college I lived at home and drove 45 minutes each way every day. I took night classes and my drive home in the dark was always so peaceful and quiet on the road. It was a time for reflection and introspection.

Before I started college I had a deal with my dad, he was going to buy me a car. It wasn’t going to be a new car, or an expensive car, or a fancy car, just something small with four doors that I could get to school and back. He ended up getting a free car from a friend of his that had been sitting unused. It was free because it was an ’83 Plymouth Reliant K-Car and no one in their right minds would buy such a thing. I was at the same time excited to actually have my very own car – it was even blue, and had four doors! – and somewhat put off that it was kind of a piece of shit. I mean, you could almost see the ground through the passenger side floor. The windshield wipers had two modes: fully on, and “random,” during which the intervals varied from half a second to 30 seconds between swishes. On one memorable occassion, while driving down the freeway on my way to school, the muffler fell out of the bottom of the car. One strap still tethered it to the car so it dragged along behind me, sparks flying.

My dad insisted k-cars got great gas mileage and didn’t believe me when I told him how much I was spending on gas. (Until I moved away and he started driving it. He told me one day, with much shock, that there was something terribly wrong with the car, it was eating gas like crazy. Yeah, thanks!) It had only 4 cylinders, and they must have been a very small 4 because, despite being a very light car, it accelerated like a loaded semi-truck. The freeway entrance by my college had a notoriously short merge distance. I can’t tell you the number of times I came around the bend, put my foot all the way to the floor, and then yelled at the other vehicles to please not plow into my trunk. Extra fun when it is in fact a semi-truck barreling up behind you.

Despite all its shortcomings I was sad when I left it behind. I went from a piece of crap car to no car at all, spending several years here sharing one vehicle with Den. Now we have two vehicles and what I drive is a very respectable 2002 SUV, but I do still remember fondly that Reliant. It’s funny how time changes things. I think back at how angry I was then to be stuck with that vehicle, but now I laugh fondly and think of it as a kind of right of passage, just like my dad told me all those years ago. I definitely have much appreciation now for windshield wipers that work properly and vehicle parts that don’t randomly fall off.

::

I like driving my car. It’s not so much the driving or even the car as it is the music and sunshine and lack of other demands.

I try to get out with Kate somewhere once a day. She’s a great little passenger now, which I appreciate even more having lived through her very rocky first few months where she was either sleeping or screaming in the car. Every time I look in the rearview mirror (and the mirror on the headrest of the backseat) to catch sight of her just hanging out in her carseat, looking out the window and playing with her sandals, I get all kinds of proud. I turn up my music and sing along. Now there’s two in the car, like there is supposed to be.

It feels like such an iconic thing to me, the car seat in the back. Many years I drove around looking at where the car seat should be – and wasn’t. Now it’s always there, large and lively, announcing my parenthood to the world. And every time I open up the back door to get Kate and am greeted with a big toothy smile all I want to do is pull her out of the seat and cover her with kisses. And you know, sometimes I do.

This has been another week of teething hell. She was a little off on Wednesday and I happened to peek in her mouth and see big bulging molars below the gumline on the bottom. The next few days were nothing short of a child possessed. She did not want to sleep, or eat, or nurse, or play. Well, she wanted to do all of these things, however within seconds of attempting them she’d throw herself towards me, howling in pain and confusion. She drooled copiously and stuck her fingers in her mouth. She had a fever for a couple of days, I was p

Saturday was our wedding anniversary and we nearly called off the idea of going to the movies, she was in such a terrible mood that morning. We did get her to take a nap so we went, figuring that her spending time at her friend’s house was probably a good distraction – she is always better when we are out. She was clearly not feeling well, she napped on our friend’s lap and needed to be held a lot, but she did actually eat some dinner and play a little bit. As soon as the movie was over I was checking my texts to see how she was doing – if she was horrible and crying we were just going to go get her, but she was okay so we had dinner, too – how crazy.

One of the major problems we have had with teething is her not sleeping. Not sleeping leads to a very overtired, very upset child. But when her teeth are hurting she just throws such a fit. She’s been doing excellent with sleep lately, before this teething thing – still getting up once a night to nurse, but she goes down so quickly and easily and without any help at all. I lay down with her and nurse her, then pick her up, kiss her, turn on her Violet to lullabies, put her in her crib and I turn and leave. Violet has been the key to me being able to walk out while she’s awake, she grabs the bear, plays music for a few minutes, then falls peacefully asleep. All of this got chucked out the window, however, when the teeth started up again. I spent hours the other night trying to get her to sleep. She was falling-down tired. She cried pitifully. I gave her motrin and anbesol, I attempted to nurse her (not a huge success), then tried to rock, sing, jiggle, cuddle and cajole her to sleep. She’d put her head down and go limp, then suddenly she’d be pushing me away and yelling, chucking her paci on the floor and then freaking out because she didn’t have a paci. It put me in a bit of a bad mood. It basically came down to two options: either let her stay up for hours until she literally passed out, or put her in her crib and leave. Considering we’d already done one night of option #1 and she was terribly short on sleep, I ended up putting her in her crib and going to bed. I went back in to soothe her after a few minutes had gone by and realized something: she got way worse when I was in there. Whereas when she was alone in her crib she was complaining and crying because her teeth hurt, when I was right there with her it was the freakin’ apocalypse. Immediately the paci-throwing re-commenced, along with shoving me away (then screaming when I put her down). I put her back in the crib and left. This time I turned off the baby monitor so I could sleep. I felt like a horrible mother in the morning for doing that, but at least she got some friggin sleep – and so did I! (And it was Den who woke up in the morning when she did, I was still out cold – it’s very rare that those tables are turned.)

The thing is, my whole idea about sleep and sleep training has changed as time has passed; I’m decidedly in the grey murky area. Once in a while there is the occasion when I feel like it is best for me to leave her in her crib to cry a few minutes to fall asleep – there are definitely days now when my being present is actually making the situation worse. On those days she’s asleep within minutes, and her crying is just complaining, not hysterics. It’s weird, too, because on other days if I try that routine she freaks out completely. She has to be in just the right mood, and it’s usually after I’ve tried the normal routine and she’s resisting but really tired. But the thing is, we don’t really do the “sleep training” thing either. Everything I do is based on Kate and the cues she gives me. They vary week to week, even day to day. Some days she’s feeling off and needs some extra cuddles to get sleepy. Some days she just wants to be put down so she can roll over and fall asleep. And some days, like this past weekend, she needs to cry a little bit and just suck it up and go to sleep, even though her teeth are bugging her.

The only thing I know that is for sure is that parenting is really freaking hard.

::

I think being sensitive, while really hurting with teething, is really amazing in other ways.

Kate loves her drum set and pretty much right from the start seemed to understand that drum sticks were used on the drum. I never really had a problem with her going around the house hitting things. Which is why it was such a surprise last week when, while I was sitting on the floor watching TV, Kate came up behind me and slammed me on the head with them. “Owwww!” I said and grabbed my head, then turned to stare at her in shock. She stood there grinning at me with her toothy grin, proud as punch. I reacted instinctively and let out a pathetic-sounding wail of dramatized pain, the kind of sound that she makes when she’s hurt. “Oooowwwwww ooo-ooo-ooo! That hurt mommy!” I wailed as I pouted. In slow motion Kate’s grin froze, then sank, her lower lip sticking out and trembling. Tears welled up in her eyes. It was the saddest face ever. After a quick moment of shared hurt I reached out and gave her a hug to let her know it was okay, and off she went playing with her toys. I have no idea how much she really connected the ideas that hitting hurts mommy, but she did not try hitting anyone with her drum sticks again.

Kate loves our cats and of course started out with crawling over to them and grabbing fur. She’s always been a dainty girl, preferring to practice her pincer grasp on their whiskers and fur than hitting, but she does get over-excited at times and grabs fistfuls. I’ve always interrupted her at those times saying, “No, no Kate, be gentle,” and showing her how to pet the kitty. She now is generally very good with the animals and knows how to pet gently – and does so 99% of the time. Unfortunately her new “fun” thing to do is to hold the cat’s tail and walk along behind them. She thinks it’s hilarious; them, not so much. (Thankfully she doesn’t PULL the tail, just holds it and marches along behind them, shrieking with joy.)

She does seem very sensitive to the moods of people around her. She gets upset at raised voices, and a few times she’s cried when I snapped at the dog. But she also feeds off of good emotions. So far she’s very easy to direct, requiring little more than a “No-no,” to get her to stop doing something… except with the few things in the house that she can’t help but mess with, like the baby monitor receiver in our bedroom, which I need to remove her from the room to get her to stop touching (which results in tears every single time). I do have to be careful with her that when I get frustrated I don’t raise my voice at all or she gets quite upset. This doesn’t surprise me… I remember as a kid being extremely sensitive to getting in trouble, crying at being reprimanded and really melting down if someone was angry. I guess she’s following in my footsteps. I’ll just always need to be mindful of her sensitivity, and hope that other people are too.

I’m really hoping that soon she’ll be back to normal. I miss my constantly happy little girl. We’re seeing more of her, but oh the drama pops up at any given moment. My child is not normally given to such dramatic displays. It’s very sad to watch.

Due to the obnoxious heat I have been spending my free time during Kate’s naps either in my new pool or taking a nap myself in the air-conditioned bedroom. Neither leaves much time for getting anything done, much less blog reading or writing.

(Summer is still my favorite season, however. You just can’t argue with pools. They always win. Swimming is joy.)

Kate is doing much better with swimming. She now seems to be enjoying the water, rather than clinging to my neck like a small, drowning monkey. I get so excited to see the big smile on her face as I spin and swoosh her around. She even likes hanging out in her baby float, if only for a limited amount of time. She likes to “jump” into my arms, and she really shines when she gets to combine her love of stairs with the fun of water. Sadly all our pool has to offer is a ladder, but other friends’ pools have steps.

I’m thinking I need to stock up on sunscreen. Kate doesn’t need much for her petite little arms and legs, but I feel like I use half the bottle on my own pasty (but not as pasty as before) Canadian skin.

::

I don’t know what you call the limbo before IVF. TTC, I suppose, but without the getting pregnant part. It’s been three months now, and it still feels bizarre.

I decided to try soy. For those who haven’t heard of it, there is a supplement called soy isoflavones that is sold to treat menopause. It effects the body’s estrogen levels and apparently can have an effect on developing eggs much like clomid does. So I figured, why the hell not. I never wanted to mess with my natural cycle before, as I was always gearing up for another round of something. I never had an extended break of twiddling my thumbs. So who cares if it messes with my damn eggs, they’re already messed up. Maybe something will give them a kick in the pants.

So I shrug and take the pills and yet again feel my ovaries doing their thing and know that in the end it won’t make one damn bit of difference. But that’s okay, December will be here soon enough. I have more important things to do this summer.

How not to spend a saturday evening: 5 hours in an 24-hour emergency vet’s waiting room with a toddler.

Merlin, one of our cats, had a urinary tract blockage about 2 years ago. That time it was during normal business hours so I took him to the vet who quickly diagnosed the problem. He ended up being hospitalized overnight, getting flushed out and hydrated by IV. It was not a cheap bill.

Yesterday it was right around 5pm when he was being irritating – moreso than usual – and wouldn’t get out of Kate’s room. I was getting really ticked off until I noticed the red urine he’d just deposited in a basket. That’s not good. But I hoped maybe it was just a UTI. The vets offices were closed, of course, so I located our carrier and packed him and Kate into the car and off we went. (Den was out yesterday.)

And so began my 6 hour ordeal. It took me half an hour to get there, and about halfway through the drive a stench hit me. I rolled down the windows and gagged a little. That was definitely not Kate-poop. They took a stinky poo-covered Merlin in the back and I settled into the waiting room. There were clearly a couple of large emergencies ahead of me.

The first 2 hours were fine. Kate was entertaining herself by walking around, babbling, flirting with other people, and just being silly. It got harder when someone arrived with a dog, because then I couldn’t let her just walk around. Hour three I was feeling frustrated and Kate was getting bored. My phone had a crappy signal so I couldn’t even occupy her with videos on my phone (which made her yell, she was not impressed that it wasn’t working and I had to take it back!). The other pet emergencies were still being dealt with, the owner in and out crying that she couldn’t afford surgery, yelling at her sister… it was quite a drama. A part of me wanted to stand up and say, “Yes okay, I realize this is bad and all, but could someone please look at my cat?”

I contemplated calling Den and telling him to come pick up Kate since it was getting close to her bedtime and she needed to go to bed, but finally we got put in an exam room… I figured it wasn’t worth the 30 minute drive for him if we’re almost done. I look back and laugh. I spent 2 hours in that waiting room. Poor Kate. She was so so good, given the circumstances. She played with the doorstopper, some megablocks from the waiting room, she found cords to pull on (I put them up), she found paper towel under the exam table (I let her pull off about 5 squares and shred it – it kept her busy for a good 20 minutes). She wanted up, then down, then up, then down. She nursed a bunch. At one point she spent a good stretch of time sitting in the corner thumping her head against the door (she does that when she’s tired), then laying down and rolling around on the floor. She staggered around drunk-tired. But every time I’d pick her up and cuddle her and rock her and tell her to go to sleep she’d point at something, babble loudly, then struggle out of my arms. Repeat.

My phone was almost dead so I had to turn it off. There was no clock in the room. It was a form of torture, locked in a room with a tired toddler, not knowing what the hell was going on or how long I’d even been there. I wanted to go get the mei tai from my truck but I didn’t want to leave, I knew that would be the moment that the dr popped in. Finally I did run out to get it, tied Kate in, bounced her for a while and she finally gave in to sleep. It was like 10 or 10:30 by that point. We’d been there since 5:45.

Finally I got to talk to the vet. And we waited 5 hours to find out that…. his bladder is not distended so if he does have a blockage it’s just started, but he does have a temp. They could do a catheter and draw urine to send for labs, at the tune of $270+ and it would take 3-7 days to get the results. OMGWTF. I asked for antibiotics on the chance it’s a UTI. I took my cat home and told him to please wait until Monday to get worse. (But it does actually help to know that his bladder isn’t distended – that’s the danger of a blockage. At least I know he’s not in immediate danger.) $140 for that.

In the truck I took Kate out of the mei tai and gently put her in the carseat in the dark; she fussed for a minute then fell back asleep. Merlin meowed loudly the whole way home. I rolled down the windows for fresh air to help with the still-lingering smell of diarrhea. My head throbbed from the jaw-clenching I’d been doing for the past 5 hours. It was midnight when I got home.

When I got home I brought my bag and cat in, then went back to get Kate. She looked around then put her head on my chest. I walked her straight into her room to lay her in her crib – screw getting her changed – and she simply rolled onto her belly and fell back asleep. She’s never done a transfer from car to crib that easily before. Poor baby.

The good news is that Merlin actually seems a bit better today. He’s relaxed, not pacing, not licking. He still doesn’t look well, but he doesn’t look worse, and right now that’s the main thing. I do have to pill him twice a day, and of course he is the worst animal of all four to get a pill into, but I have skills. I’ll still have to take him to our vet on Monday to get him checked out, but I am hopeful that it actually is a UTI and the antibiotics will be all the treatment he needs.

Next time I have nothing to do on a Saturday night I will not be posting that I am bored.

Since Kate is now waking up around 6am we’re back to two naps a day, a shorter one in the morning an hour after she wakes up, since she’s clearly not ready to face the day yet, and then 2 hours awake and her normal 11am-ish nap. I’m getting 3-4 hours between the two naps… usually. And she’s started going to bed a little earlier too, at around 7pm – which is fine for me since I’ve been alone many evenings lately and by 7 without help I am just exhausted and happily put her down to sleep! You’d think I’d be getting good sleep in there, but I’m not really. She wakes once a night usually, around 2am (last night it was midnight). But it doesn’t matter, I’m just not sleeping much at all. I toss and turn and am awake for hours in the middle of the night. And it’s always as soon as I finally fall asleep that she wakes me up. Gah. I’m fine half the time, but then mid-day it hits me like a brick.

Kate is showing so much more understanding of things around her now, it catches us off-guard all the time.

We’ve been playing in the yard almost every day now, and she has mastered her slide. She knows to climb up the steps, sit at the top, scoot forward with her feet down, then go down the slide on her bum. She even figured out how to get down the steps by turning onto her belly and feeling for the footholds with her feet. Yesterday – just to experiment, I guess – she was going down the slide on her belly, feet-first. She’s also figured out how to get off our bed that way, feet-first on her belly. Thank goodness. Now it’s not quite as scary when she tries getting down! (Not that she’s there very often at all, because all she does when I bring her onto our bed for cuddles and play is crawl right over to my nightstand and pull everything off. And grabs my phone charger, too.)

Since we’ve been going outside often I’ve been putting her sandals on frequently. It never was too much of a chore, I would just sit her on my lap to get them on while she looked on with interest. If she was sitting and playing I would just sit in front of her and put them on. Well she quickly put two and two together and now me picking up her sandals has her running over to me excitedly. Two days ago she marched over to me, sat down, and lifted her foot! No ambiguity there. I think she also is understanding what the words “shoes” and “outside” mean, too.

Same with getting her dressed, at least with shirts. When I put the shirt over her head she tries sticking her arm through the armhole. It doesn’t always work right, though, and she gets mad if her hand gets stuck, she’ll just start yelling until I get her un-stuck.

Her current favorite sound to make is a yodel. “Leedle-leedle-leedle-leedle!” she’ll holler. She’s fascinated by the sounds her tongue can make. The other day I thought she was chewing on her fingers like she does when her teeth bother her, but upon closer inspection I realized she was grabbing her tongue with her fingers and playing with it as she made noises. And when I laughed at her she grinned and tried to grab my tongue!

She says “Buh-bye” all the time now. Every time we’re in a store and we leave the cashier, “buh-buh!” and an open-and-close-fist wave. If she hears anyone say “bye” she is right there with it.

She’s trying to say “dog” but hasn’t managed to put the d and the g sound together, so it’s either “dah” or “og” or “gah”. But she sure loves those dogs. She doesn’t like to be licked by them, but whenever I go downstairs and let them out of their crates she leans down pointing and laughing. Outside they just like to hang out with her while she’s playing. They drink from her water table while she’s playing. (She tries to drink from it too, with the pouring strainers and cups. Gross!)

The cats are her pals, and she pretty much leaves them alone since they’re around her all day upstairs. Once in a while she’ll walk over and pat one of them – and she’s very good at that, she lightly pats them on the head or back with an open hand, not much fur-pulling anymore – and then continue on with her toys. Oftentimes Merlin gets in her face trying to get attention and she pushes him out of her way, clearly irritated. LOL She doesn’t say kitty much, even though it was her first word. Once in a while she’ll point and say “Keh,” but she’s moved on.

We’re starting to see toddler behavior in a couple of areas. One are the random fits she throws during the day. It still catches me off-guard because it’s so similar to the screaming cries she gives when she’s really frustrated or upset. But it happens when, say, I gently take my phone back from her. Or my keys. (She lost them the other day. I was not so thrilled the next day when I realized they were missing.) Or, frequently, when I gently steer her out of a room that we’re in. Our bedroom is the least safe room in the house right now so while I’ll go in to get changed she can’t stay in there for any length of time so soon as I’m done I have to herd her and the cats all out of the room (since they always manage to dart in). She has started trying to tug her hand out of mine and melts down when she can’t. If she does and she turns to go back in she’s suddenly happy again. I take her hand and say, “No Kate, we have to go this way, let’s go!” she’s melting down sobbing again. I get her out, close the door, she stands there sobbing. Then she sees a toy and she’s walking off, fine once more. I’m really trying to limit the number of times I go in and out of the bedroom (and bathroom, for that matter), but it’s hard some days. And me stepping in there for a second and shutting the door so she can’t get in, in order to prevent the meltdown when we leave? Causes a meltdown because I shut the door on her and locked her out. I can’t win. I just distract if possible. Putting laundry away is out of the question unless she’s asleep. (And then who wants to do laundry??)

The other major change is that she suddenly doesn’t like certain foods. She’s always had some likes and dislikes, but her likes were very numerous. Now suddenly she’s not eating some of her previous favorites: grapes, strawberries, cheese, chicken or ham. Grapes used to be THE thing, she’d flap her arms and pant in excitement when I gave her some. Now she drops them off the side of her tray. Cheese and chicken? Loved them! Now if she does accidentally put a piece in her mouth she spits it out and pushes it to the side. Ugh. I’m scrambling to find other things to keep on hand, since those were always my go-to foods. At least she still likes yogurt. Watermelon remains her favorite of the month. She’s also starting to try eating things with a fork – and I realized she’s more likely to put things in her mouth if it has the bonus novelty of being on a fork, even if I’m the one who spears it. She can already spear things, though it takes her a little while and it often falls back off again. So eating is a two-step process for her: stab the food with the fork in her right hand, then pick up a piece and put it in her mouth with her left. LOL

Well I am in some serious pool-love. We got our Intex quick-set pool (15′ diameter) finally set up and filled with water, I have done research on what I need to do to maintain it (holy chemicals, batman!!), I’ve added some bleach so I could swim today and tomorrow I’ll add some more stuff. But oh my!! I was so giddy when I got in my pool… I just kept thinking, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?!” Yes, I know pools take upkeep. Yes I know it’s only for 2 or 3 months of the year. But it was HEAVENLY. I love love LOVE pools. I love water. If I could spend my entire day floating and swimming, I totally would (and have before, when we were camping as a kid). There is something about the way the water looks and feels that just makes me feel like I am at home. I have always wanted a pool and the best I ever got was one of those little kid pools that tended to break frequently. Now that I have an actual pool I can’t imagine my dad fiddling with the chemicals, though, not unless it was something he was really interested in and swimming just wasn’t one of those things.

It took me a while during Kate’s nap to test the PH, add the bleach, put the ladder together, inflate my float chair, and carefully get in. The water isn’t high, coming up to just below my belly button, but it’s perfect for floating and playing. Of course I didn’t get a chance to float because, as predicted, as soon as I got in I heard the cry of my waking child through the monitor. (It was a nearly 3 hour nap, though, so I couldn’t complain!) It wasn’t warm by any stretch, but it didn’t give me that freezing cold feeling that I had expected.

I changed Kate into a swim diaper and rash guard shirt and took her straight outside to try out the pool. Now Kate’s feelings about pools seem a little mixed, and the only clear thing is that she hates cold water. Doesn’t mind splashing in it in the water table, but dip her feet into cold water and she yells. The pool has only been filled for a day and a half, though the thermometer read over 70 degrees, so I wasn’t expecting a good reception from her. I carried her in carefully. (Side note: Getting in an above-ground pool on a ladder while holding a toddler? Not as easy as it sounds.) I swished her feet in and then gingerly sat on my floatie and held her on my lap, sitting in the water. No negative reaction. She immediately flipped around and started crawling all over me and the floatie, sticking her hand in the water, grabbing the handles. Unlike previous excursions to the pool she seemed to have no issue with the expanse of water, and in fact I had to keep a good arm around her so she wouldn’t launch herself off my lap.

I helped her “swim” to the ladder (she doesn’t understand feet kicking yet, so I just swish her through the water on her belly, careful to keep her face above). She loves steps and ladders and things! She grabbed on and attempted to climb, but sadly adult rungs are way too big for little toddlers, though she did try. I stood her on the top rung, facing me, and counted, “1, 2, 3!” and then pulled her into the water as if she jumped in. Giggles and fun. She splashed a little, laughed, then turned and reached for the ladder again. That game is a hit. She likes to sit on the top rung then lean forward to fall into the water, my arms holding her. I spun her in circles and swished her feet in the water. She reached for the floatie and the themometer and the inflatable edge, just wanting to grab and climb and play. She would try to launch herself out of my arms towards the ladder.

I’m the one who finally ended our swim because I was tired. It is a lot of fun swimming with a toddler, but definitely not relaxing! I really hope tomorrow is nice enough that I can sneak in some quiet time in the pool while she naps. But boy was it exciting to play with her in the pool. I feel giddy like a kid myself and can’t wait to get more use of it.

She is coughing at night, sometimes waking, sometimes not. At 10pm we pause the show and I go in assuming I’ll be replacing a pacifier, but it’s still in her mouth, yet she’s just standing there crying and won’t lay down. I lean over the crib, put my cheek against hers, and rub her back. She immediately calms down. After a minute she sits down, then lays down with her head on my hand and falls back asleep.

At 3am she’s crying again. I’m not sleeping well, myself – too humid and sticky, even with the a/c on in the bedrooms – and I go in to see her. I pick her up and she rests her head on my shoulder, but she’s still crying. I lay down to nurse her and she sleepily drains one side, then pulls at my shoulder to make me turn so she can get the other side.

When she’s done eating I give her the paci and she sticks it in and drifts off to sleep there beside me. I should put her back in the crib but I delay for a minute or two, just rubbing her back and cuddling her close. I am thankful she lets me do this again, if only in the middle of the night. Her legs no longer fit in the space next to me, now draped over my legs when once they barely touched my thighs. Her hair tickles my nose as I kiss her forehead.

Finally the need to go to the bathroom overcomes my desire to stay there with her and I gently scoop her up and lay her in the crib. She rolls onto her side and sighs, asleep. She’s grown so much, in more ways than one.

The annual fourth of July party was for the most part a good time. I took Kate swimming, we ate very yummy food, we chatted with friends and Kate marched all over and danced to the music.

Unfortunately in the middle of the party, while we were eating, Kate managed to do one of those lightning-fast toddler movements that catch you completely off-guard, snagged a cup of hot water (steamers were being served), and dumped it down her front. There was screaming (from her). There was panicking (from us). There was a crowd and us jumping in the pool with her and stripping her naked in said pool and holding her there while she fought and sobbed. Thankfully it was just her belly, not her face or hands or diaper area…. but said belly was red. It was so frightening to just sit there in the pool, holding my crying child, and not only be unable to fix it but not even know how bad it was going to be.

Very very luckily Kate is just fine. Once we deemed the redness faded enough we took her out of the pool and carefully dried her off, which immediately fixed most of her upset. Once we put a new diaper and sandals on her and let her walk around she rubbed away her tears and started pointing and babbling softly, just like normal. An hour later the redness was gone and we were feeling like we just narrowly escaped disaster.

Swimming with Kate is fun, but a little frustrating for me. With how much she loves baths I really thought she’d love swimming more than she does, but she’s quite overwhelmed by the concept – and is NOT a fan of any form of cool water. As soon as I go in the water with her she grabs tightly to my arm and whimpers. She does relax a bit after being in for a little while, but it’s far from the “ooohhh, water!!” reaction I was hoping for. She doesn’t like being swished around in the water, she wants to be firmly attached to my body. She hates being splashed, other kids jumping in and splashing around make her panic. She will lunge for the edge if I get close enough, and will pull herself out. She tries to run off on me, but will turn around and pretend to “jump” back in (she squats at the edge so I can grab her and swoosh her into the water). That game she actually does find fun, which is a good start. We put her in a baby float in the pool and she actually seemed more relaxed in that than when she was just in the pool with me – I think she feels more “safe” and enclosed. She was kicking her feet a little bit, sticking her hands in the water, even leaning forward to slurp at the water.

After she was done with swimming I changed her into a dry diaper and let her walk around. Which she did, for a little bit, until she went right back to the pool and started climbing down the steps into the water. I was so torn – I was so happy she was voluntarily getting in the water so I wanted to encourage her to keep doing it, but dude I just put a dry diaper on her! If I put a swim diaper on her then I know she would just pee all over me. (Apparently swimming with toddlers is an all-or-nothing deal, given the diaper situation.) So she had a soggy butt for a while. She would sit at the edge, scoot forward, put her feet in the water, stand up on the first step, sit down on the first step, stick her feet into the deeper water of the second step… then she’d move as if to stand on the second step, then change course, turn around, and climb back up the stairs and out of the pool. Then she’d walk another lap around the yard and return to do it again.

Kate loves music and loves to dance. It was just one of those things that she randomly started doing, bouncing her little butt to music. At the party there was a DJ and music blasting out through speakers. Every time she walked in front of his table she’d stop and boogie for a little bit before moving on. I’d egg her on, saying, “Dance, Kate! Dance, dance!” and she’d bob some more, then clap her hands. The DJ thought it was hilarious. (So did I!) Later in the evening when she was sleepy and I was wearing her in the mei tai, as I was standing chatting with my SIL listening to the music, Kate started bouncing up and down in the mei tai. Guess even babywearing doesn’t stop the rhythm!

The fourth of July party always runs late into the night, most people dropping their kids off at a sitter’s for the night and returning for the evening. We didn’t have that option, we had Kate with us the entire time, so we just took it one step at a time; if she freaked out and needed to go to bed then we’d leave. Right around her bedtime she started getting really sleepy, but was content to cuddle with Den or I. I passed her off to him because she’s getting heavy. Very soon she was asleep on his chest and he was giving me a look that said, What do we do now?! We were flummoxed for a bit until Den told me to go get the carseat. At first I looked at him like he was crazy – we don’t use an infant seat anymore, we have the big MyRide in the truck. But I unlatched it from the truck and lugged it into the pool house where we were all gathered and put it in a darker corner. Den carefully tipped her back to sit in the seat; she wiggled around to get comfortable and stayed asleep for half an hour, right there in the middle of the party. It was such a brilliant idea – the carseat is a familiar place to her, and a place that she frequently sleeps. We didn’t disturb her to buckle her in, I just sat beside her the whole time and chit-chatted with friends until she woke up.

After she woke we hung around for another two hours, Kate calm and quiet in the mei tai, just chilling and watching. We finally left at 10pm and Kate went straight down in her crib. She did wake up at 2am and 6am, but then she slept in until 10am! She was a little bit whiny-tired the next day, but we just put her to bed early. It’s definitely times like that when I am thankful we have such a flexible child!