It's My Potty and I'll Try If I Want To . . .

You probably don't want to read this, but it is so much of what passes for excitement at our house these days. You know what, don't read it. Unless you actually like gratuitous mommyblogging. And then you can read it, but don't judge me. Or go ahead--I've given in, so what do I care?

Deep breath, here goes: Allison Clare successfully used the potty . . . twice.

We are not crazy potty-train-before-one-year people, but I'd bought a potty seat because I thought it might be more comfortable for AC to sit on when she is rather obviously, uncomfortably, and unselfconsciously (read: loudly) attempting to do what one does not normally do while sitting on a flat surface. I put her on the potty during one of these . . . episodes, and to my surprise, while she did not do what I expected (#2--apparently a false alarm), she seemed to know the purpose of the apparatus (#1). I tried again this morning when she woke up, and she did it again.

My grandmother used to tell with some pride a story about my mother, called On Her First Birthday, She Wore Silk Panties. I had my doubts about whether it could be true, but now I suspect that my grandmother must have just put her baby on the potty frequently enough that she considered her "potty trained." Will AC follow in her grandmother's footsteps? I don't think so, largely because I don't think we're committed enough to get her on the potty every hour. But it would, after all, bring new meaning to the words "granny panties."

Why I Can't Get to Bed Earlier

It's 10:18. The dinner dishes have been washed and the kitchen is clean; the last load of laundry is finishing in the basement while the others have been folded and sorted. Allison Clare is sleeping soundly upstairs; Sam is entertaining himself with World of Warcraft and his high school friends and their, um, guild; and I've finished one syllabus for the start of spring classes on Wednesday.  It's just me, the cat, my chocolate sundae, and a pile of magazines/my laptop/unilateral control of the TiVo remote. I should go to bed right this minute so that when Allison Clare wakes up, I won't want to plead and bargain for it to be untrue that it's time to get up . . . but I just can't manage to give up this time.

I think it's because since we've had AC, our lives have been quite boring and routinized ("Hey guys, we can go out to dinner, but we'll have to slip out by 6:00 so we can put AC down to bed by 6:30 . . .), yet simultaneously fraught with constant risk and vacillation between disappointment and triumph ("What are the chances we'll make it through dinner before she starts shrieking joyfully?").  It constantly feels like we're just managing to pull something off, which has had the effect of making me more of a planner (more eventualities to accommodate all the time) and more adaptable ("Oh well, maybe next time") at the same time.  It's made me grateful for moments like this, whenever they come; when the house is settled for the night, I appreciate its quietude all the more.

Bits and Pieces

1.  It's been super-cold here, at least for this area, and more specifically for me because my tolerance for winter weather seems to have permanently set itself on "Chapel Hill."  When I woke up on Friday, the thermometer read fifteen below, and the highs have been in the single digits.  Nonetheless, our house is toasty (set on "Sam"), so I'm just avoiding thinking about how our heating bill could exceed a mortgage payment.  Moving on . . .

2.  My baby is showing very little initiative where crawling is concerned.  She has, however, started shifting around in a seated position with the effect of a very slow, small-radius scoot.  I just get the sense that she thinks moving along the floor is somehow undignified.

3.  Every time I read an article about another peanut product that has been recalled, I crave peanut butter even more.  They keep listing peanut butter crackers, peanut butter cookies, peanutty cakes, andonandonandon.

4.  Last night AC had her first real table-food meal (that wasn't just a tasting menu, or fruit and Cheerios).  Lasagna.  She liked it a lot.  Then this morning, we shared a bowl of blueberries and two pieces of toast with butter and jam, which she also enjoyed.  My big girl!

5.  Her first nickname, Munchkin, or Munch, gave way to Miss Munchkinson, then Miss Pumpkinson (for fall), then Plumpkin, a name she has outgrown as she's gotten longer and leggier.  Occasionally, mostly when putting her down for a nap, I give her a little "goodnight love bug, my buggy girl" but perhaps we'll soon start calling her by her actual name.  Someone recently asked if calling her just "Allison" (no Clare) was a faux pas, and we quickly answered that it was fine, but when I think about it, she really doesn't seem like Allison to me.  She's definitely Allison Clare.

Grocery Shopping

I have always loved grocery shopping.  Even when I was a kid, I'd eagerly spend every other Thursday of my summers accompanying my mom and my grandmother in their grocery shopping.  Maybe it was that they made a whole day of it; they'd go to the butcher and the bakery, and they'd go out for lunch, and then they'd head over to the main grocery store.  I liked seeing all the food and thinking about what we were going to eat, and getting to have a say in it.

When I first lived in Philadelphia after graduating from college, I went to the grocery store after work way more often than was necessitated by my food consumption.  In retrospect, I think I was lonely in the way that many people are when they first graduate and begin living on their own.  I worked in a small office with just one other (horrible) woman most of the time, so I didn't have friends from work, and my church was half an hour away, so I didn't have church friends at first.  Some people start trawling happy hours; others join sports teams or health clubs; I just went to the grocery store to make friends with the food.  It was strangely comforting.

Now, happily married and with a baby for a constant companion, I still love grocery shopping.  I read the grocery circulars like the news or a horoscope, planning my week (our meals and my shopping excursions) around what they contain.  This all drives Sam crazy because I go to one grocery store, but I am not finished and must go the next day as well because different stores = different products x different specials.  

I even love grocery shopping in spite of the incredibly complex choreography now entailed in simply getting into the store, which is this: I pull into the parking lot and search for a spot near a cart return.  Parking there, I climb out of the car, hurry over to grab a cart, back the cart in alongside the car (out of the way of traffic, but not so far back as to block the door), and open the backdoor.  I toss into the cart my purse and a bag of reusable grocery bags, and then I place a cloth cover over the cart seat (because, as I have stated before, I am a germophobe, and my daughter has an disconcerting habit of leaning forward to run her tongue along the cart handle).  Then I lean/climb into the middle of the backseat, unbuckle Allison Clare from her carseat, ease her out, check that both of her shoes have managed to stay on, and place her into the cart.  I push her inside, take off her hat and coat and put them into the cart, and at last, we begin our shopping.  

In the meantime, other men and women have completed their weekly shopping and are departing the lot all around us, but AC and I are undeterred by our impossibly slow start, and wend our way through the aisles, happily matching up food with recipe plans (me) and accepting compliments (her). 

Babe in Toyland

Is it too late to post Christmas pictures?  I hope not.  Allison Clare thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas.  We had a big breakfast with my parents and then dove into the pond of toys spreading out from beneath the Christmas tree.  

Prior to the Christmas season, Allison Clare had had only two toys per se, a little wooden teether rattle and a wooden clicking fish.  Of course, she also had books and stuffed animals and other things she liked to play with, like the birds and plastic objects from her Baby Einstein gym. But about a month before Christmas, we realized that she was really ready for toys, and we started feeling a little sorry for her with her poor toy supply.  I unpacked a ring stacker that I had bought and set aside, and the Phonics Bus arrived as an early present courtesy of the two Js' characteristically ahead-of-the-game-even-with-a-newborn Christmas shopping. She embraced the Phonics bus with such zest that we were excited for what Santa would bring her.  She's been delighting in the toys ever since!

 

A Little Light Reading

I just received four exam copies of books that I ordered from a catalog of popular texts for first-year students.  Although the catalog contained many general interest titles, I've realized with a bit of horror that there seems to be a theme, or at least a shared tone to my selections:

1) Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality

2) The Exception, a thriller about four coworkers who have escaped genocide but fear they are still being hunted, perhaps by one another

3) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an autobiography of a man trapped in his own body, able to move only one eyelid

4) Copenhagen, a play about the relationships among scientists who developed nuclear capabilities during the Nazi regime

When I saw the package had arrived, I opened it eagerly to see if there was something I could read before bed tonight.  I may need another plan.