abc family

Different Cutie This Time

It's no secret that my second favorite of the world's very small persons is my nephew Daniel.  He's eighteen months, which is a great age, and I have so. much. fun. with the kid.

Milla is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but facts are facts, and the fact in this case is that a fourteen-month-old simply does not have as much cunning and humor and sense of comedic timing as an eighteen-month-old has.  Milla delights us by playing peek-a-boo and by responding, "Baa" when we ask her what a sheep says.  Daniel makes us pray for better bladder control when we glance over at him during lunch to discover that he has calmly and deliberately stuck a straw up his nose, and is snorting through it happily.

Milla likes to play with my sunglasses, but Daniel likes to wear them.  He knows that he is a Cool Guy.

Sometimes his sense of humor is problematic, such as when my sister is trying to discipline him when I'm around.  She'll be speaking sternly to him and he'll catch a glimpse of me over her shoulder and shoot me a sneaky little "you and I know what's up, Aunt Arwen" grin, and I'll clap my hand over my mouth but he's not fooled by my attempts to disguise my laughter, and my poor sister's stern words are undermined.

To me, though - since I don't have the job of disciplining him - Daniel is pretty much pure joy.  I love the way he runs, the way he yells, the way he dumps our little toy box so delightedly, the way he generously tries to feed his cousin, even the way he continually unplugs our Christmas tree lights.  I'd feel like something vital was missing if I didn't have this kid around.

I do sometimes remember with nostalgia the days when his tiny eight-pound self would sleep peacefully curled up on my chest, but the fun of eighteen months totally makes up for it.  Besides, come July I'll be able to hold another tiny niece or nephew, while still enjoying toddler Daniel.  Can't beat that.

Resemblative

Here's something funny that happens: everyone who is related to Bryan or knew him as a baby thinks Camilla looks exactly like him.  Everyone who is related to me or knew me as a baby thinks Camilla looks exactly like me.

Has this happened to anyone else?  Your husband's mom says, "Oh, she looks like her daddy!" and your mom says, "She reminds me so much of you!"

When I look at Bryan and Milla together I can definitely see the resemblance.  Not so much when I hold her up in the mirror next to me, but I think it's hard to see one's own features critically.  Heck, my face somehow changed from an eight-year-old face to a twenty-five-year-old face and I didn't notice a difference from day to day, so I am not the go-to expert on what my own face looks like or whether Camilla's resembles it.

However, check this out:

me with my dad, ~12 months old

me, ~16 months old

me, ~18 months old

Yo.  THAT resemblance I can see.

(I made it!  Thirty days of posting daily!  I'll have a follow-up post plus kudos for all the rock-star daily commenters next week.)

Geeks on a Gloomy Afternoon

Too Bad There's Not a Sign for "Mom, check your face"

This is why I love the Internet: because I can get lots of perspectives on an issue without even having to get up off the couch! 

I should have clarified that I don't think signing with your baby is a bad idea.  The conversation we had with Bryan's aunt was interesting, but hers is just one perspective among many, and based strictly on her own experience rather than on data (as far as I know).  She works with preschool- and kindergarten-aged hearing-impaired children, so what she's observed in her field doesn't necessarily have any bearing on our situation as parents of an infant with normal hearing.  Even though she feels strongly that using signs with your baby isn't wise, the large majority of the data I've seen suggests otherwise, and so it seems to me that signing with Camilla would have, at worst, a neutral effect on her verbal development.

However, and with the caveat that I'm not educated enough to analyze the data any more than cursorily, I'm not convinced that using signs (by which I mean ASL signs or the like, not gestures that normally accompany verbal communication) to communicate with our developmentally-normal child would have any positive long-term effect on her verbal development or IQ.  (I'm especially skeptical about the IQ.)  And in the absence of evidence of a strong positive effect, I don't feel it's imperative to teach her signs in order to do the best for her.

Which means that the important question when considering whether to use sign language is: will it make life better or easier for our family?  The answer to that is a complex equation involving many variables, including: (1) the amount of time and effort needed to teach signs and use them consistently, (2) the amount of time between now and when the Billa becomes verbal enough to communicate most of her needs and wants, i.e. the amount of time during which signs would be very useful, (3) the amount of frustration she and we would experience if we didn't use them, and (4) the amount of enjoyment we would get out of using them and seeing her use them.

Considering the relative largeness of (1), the expected smallness of (2) and (3) (based on her personality and her ability to communicate non-verbally without specific signs), and the "ehhhh" feeling I get about (4), I'm thinking we're not going to do it.  If the circumstances change and we think she is getting frustrated with being unable to communicate, we might reconsider.  Meanwhile, I'll lend the sign language book and DVD to anyone who thinks she might want to do it with her baby.  Hey!  Anyone want to borrow it?

On a complete non sequitur, a public service announcement for all co-sleeping parents: Before appearing in public in the morning, be sure to check the mirror.  It is possible for items to exit your baby's nasal passages and bond themselves to your face in the night.  No one looks good with a huge dried green, uh, booger decorating her face.

(This very useful piece of advice may or may not be based on my own (totally gross) experience.)

I am adorable and therefore innocent of all wrongdoing.  Zzzzzz.

Casualties of Renovation

We thought bathroom remodeling was hard on us adults, but it turns out that the ones who really suffer are the babies.

You seriously think I'm going to just sit here?

Suckers.

Daniel may be the victim of gimmicky photo shoots, but Camilla has it even harder.  Without a tub for regular baths, she has been getting dirtier and dirtier.  I tried setting her on the floor of the shower and cleaning her with the showerhead hose, but she was not a fan.  I tried sitting down in the shower with her; that was not a success either.

We had one last resort.

These people are crazy.  Also, there are those knives again.  I'm going to have to call social services my own self.


I'm awfully cute.  They'd probably be sorry to lose me.


And this guy is pretty great... I guess I'll stay.  Could someone talk to them about cleaning the counters occasionally, though?


And one more thing - when I back myself under a chair, the proper procedure is to free me immediately, not to run for the camera.  I'm just saying.

Happy Father's Day to all dads out there!

Two-Thirds of a Year

I love patterns and symmetry, so I found it satisfying when Camilla was born on October 14th, eight months to the day after I'd discovered I was pregnant the previous February.  Yesterday she was eight months old, and I found that pleasing too: she'd been out of the womb exactly as long as I knew she was in there.

I wish I could write more coherently about the way that having Camilla has changed me, about the deep goodness of her presence in my life.  I think it's honestly beyond my capacities as a writer, though.

During those first eight months, I loved my baby viscerally but unknowingly.  I loved her in her role as my child, because she was my child and I her mother.  During these second eight months, I have loved her in a much more immediate way: as Camilla Claire, as the person who looks out at me from behind those bright, curious eyes of hers.  And during the last few of these eight months, loving her has become even better because she wakes up every morning so happy to see me, because she clings to me in the presence of strangers, because she knows me and loves me too.

Don't ever imagine for a second that I am not insanely grateful for this.