Quick, again

Sanna wished me a happy birthday this morning and said, “Meli is twenty-nine years old!” Today, I also leave on my first business trip for this job. I leave behind my daughter for the first time since her birth. We will have our first overnights apart; the first time we will sleep in different beds, nights of violent vomiting across the hall excepted.

The year my mother was 29, her second child—that is to say I—was born. The year I am 29, my second child will be born. Sanna is interested in this child. We lift Brooke’s shirt and pat the tightening skin on her belly. We picked out a book at the store just to read to this child, Kid v2.0. We have just now felt this burgeoning person move.

Sanna has offered to share my milk with the baby and has proposed, as we have discussed, that she might try some of Brooke’s milk after the baby is born. She thinks we should use the name Owen, after the new brother of her best friend, Max.

True to form, Brooke’s joy is augmented by knowing that in October, we will be able to use a new infant seat, the Keyfit, and that it will fit in the center in our car. The Keyfit! In orange! In the center! Simple pleasures.

Lucky number 350,000

We had our 350,000th visitor just now. Someone from somewhere that might be Missouri. I hope you enjoyed your stay.

Trucked

The move is over. We’re now in a much larger apartment that meets most of our needs and is enough cheaper than anything else we saw that we were willing to have most of our needs met. It’s very close to work for Brooke, and it’s a 20-30 minute train ride for me, depending which train I take, plus a half mile walk on residential streets between home and the train station. It’s quick and easy and wonderful. Our nitpicky needs are met, like hardwood floors and laundry included, and our biggest need of being within a reasonable commute to both workplaces is fully met.

I hadn’t realized how noisy the city was. Or smelly. Or bright all night long. It is dark outside our bedroom window now with only one streetlight. There is no intercom. Our new upstairs neighbors don’t lock the door to the outside from the shared stairway, but I was assured that they would if I asked them to. They keep their bikes and tools in the garage and don’t lock that, either. We feel extremely safe.

The grocery store has an excellent selection of our favorite produce and dry goods at reasonable prices. The counter has a lot of prepared vegetarian foods, too, which is super cool. When people from the area find out where we now live, they mention the fantastic restaurants here. It’s a very small city, so it’s not known for much else. And since I am obsessed with food, these things are important.

We can let our kid out of the door and not worry about broken glass or unknown substances (or, perhaps worse, known) on the sidewalks. The park is still only a short walk away, and the library is much closer. There is grass. We can hang clothes out to dry. We can garden.

On Saturday, Sanna stood by the door to the porch where we had just put her little table and chairs and a coloring book and said, “Get me some crayons, okay? Meli? Get me some crayons, okay?” She did use her manners after being prompted. Yesterday morning’s drive was so short that she was stunned to be at school already. I arrived home in the evening to find dinner nearly on the table and Sanna running around happy as a clam.

The adjustment here has been extremely smooth. Friday after we picked her up from daycare, Sanna ran in to the “new house” and shrieked with glee, “My bed!” It is home.

Tomorrow, I leave for New York for two days.

P.S. I am never not hiring movers ever again.

Families we love

Sanna had a speech and language evaluation at daycare this week. She did just fine, testing normally for expression and comprehension. The one hold up was when they showed her a picture of a family: two adults of different genders and two kids of different genders.

She identified the “mom” and the “dad” just fine but could not identify the children. Finally, under duress, she said, “Max,” when asked about the little boy.

Highlights of the last week

Learning Sanna is so easy going that she could sleep for 90 minutes on a pile of jackets on a hardwood floor in the middle of an otherwise vacant apartment.

Realizing the new place is what we had thought we would be getting in the old place in terms of style and layout, only much much closer to Brooke’s job.

Painting two rooms in two days. I’m exhausted and sore.

Trying to get Sanna to understand the whole moving process. It’s a lot harder for her this time now that she’s actually able to understand a little. There’s a lot of old-apartment/new-apartment stuff going on, and she’s rightly confused and extra clingy.

Getting fast food (one of those doughnut chains) for the first time in a very long time and having the opportunity to say to Sanna, “If you don’t stop whining, you’re not going to get a doughnut.”

Amazing people with my ability to eat large amounts of food at one sitting.

Witnessing Sanna doing what we normally do first thing every morning: patter out of bed, feed cats, patter back, and wash hands.

Waking up being tackled by Sanna while she chirps, “Good morning!” and makes (attempts) to sign I love you.

Watching Brooke get adjusted by the hippie lesbian chiropractor while Sanna played with a barrel of monkeys.

Two or three

I met someone new this week. She has adult children and learned that I have a two-year-old daughter. “Two is fun,” she told me with a wink, “But three is magical. Imagine everything fun they do at two, and they do it all the time at three. Three is what gets you through two.”

That is certainly an inspiring thing to say, but it leaves me confused. What is it about me that leaves me in constant wonder of my daughter, regardless of her table manners and running away at every turn? Am I some kind of aberration? Is Sanna?

Don’t get me wrong; she’s contrary. She’s pretty easy to get along with, but I never expected her not to act like a toddler. We set up clear boundaries about behavior and language and call each other—all of us—on our missteps. We expect that she will test limits and behave passionately. She’s just so bloody good natured when I work within her needs and my values that I can’t imagine tapping my foot, watching the calendar, and waiting for it to get “better.” It’s really great right now.

I find myself annoyed and rolling my eyes (subtly, of course) whenever I hear of young children, especially mine, described as “advanced” or “gifted.” It’s as though our children aren’t good enough unless they’re better than other people. It is true praise to tell another parent that her child is “advanced” at something. Rather than describing children by what they enjoy, we describe them by how they are better than others.

Children have plenty of time ahead to be measured and compared. A child’s sense of self-worth will soon enough be measured by grades or the number of goals she can kick or dance steps she can execute or songs she can sing.

This doesn’t suit me. I think Sanna is perfect right now. She doesn’t have to be better in order to be great. She just has to be herself. I want her to be happy. I want her to try new things and know it’s okay if she’s not better than other people. I want her to live life to enjoy it, not to get ahead.

Maybe that’s why I feel so content now. Maybe I’ve figured out something I didn’t know at 22. Maybe it’s that I understand that happiness isn’t about measuring up. Happiness is enjoying what you do, and that’s what I want for Sanna. I am happy because I enjoy my time with her, every single second, no matter how frustrating. No matter how “two.”

Pretenders

We had an episode of real live pretending this weekend. It was initiated by Sanna and followed through by Sanna, although we certainly participated. This wasn’t the pretending we’ve had previously: play eating, play cooking, play sleeping with baby. This was different.

We had brought Sanna’s Marathon in to rinse out and vacuum the foam and change the cover, and in its renewed state, Sanna decided to strap her giraffe in. Then she found a plastic bowl and asked for water for Raffe. I pretended to pour water from the pitcher into the bowl, complete with spoken “glug, glug, glug”s, and handed the bowl to Sanna. She took it carefully with both hands and walked slowly and deliberately, as if holding an actual bowl of water, over to Raffe. Sanna tipped the bowl up at Raffe’s mouth, spoke gently to her inanimate friend, and then ran back with the bowl for more water.

Audit

The following words/phrases sound identical when uttered by the resident two-year-old:

• kefir


• cover


• careful


• cat fur

Context only helps a little. Cat fur can come up at virtually any time. Careful comes up with the next greatest frequency. Kefir and cover are usually distinguishable but not always. Brooke, She Who Spends Ten Hours Each Week In A Metal Box Facing Away From Toddler, is very good at interpreting Sanna for me.

In the next three weeks, we will pack, get the keys to the new place, secure someone else's tenancy in this place (getting closer!), move, send me off to NYC for work while Brooke stays alone with Sanna, and celebrate my father's 60th birthday. My father, who was here this weekend, will come out again next weekend. Brooke's mom comes out for several days after that, including the move. Then begins our new normal.

Forgive me if I'm a little distracted.