To market, to market...

...to buy no fat pigs. Although I could probably get one there if I wanted. We are lucky to have an excellent farmers' market in Mountain View. We started going pretty much every weekend as soon as we moved here five years, and now nearly all our produce comes from there (bananas and mangoes are notable exceptions), along with our eggs, bread, and some cheese. And cookies. The best macaroons in the world are available for purchase every Sunday morning in Mountain View, just in case you were wondering.

This week, Adriana had a birthday party and our cupboards were bare, as we’d just returned from a three week holiday the previous afternoon, so I biked Lyra over to the farmers’ market, where I bought:

• 2 pounds zucchini
• 2 bunches asparagus
• 1 bunch carrots
• one big bag of peas
• 4 artichokes
• 2 bunches asparagus
• 1 pound bag of salad greens
• 6 apples
• 3 baskets of strawberries
• 4 sweet potatoes
• 6 yellow onions
• 4 lemons
• 6 avocados
• 2 cucumbers
• 12 eggs
• 1 loaf of whole wheat sandwich bread
• 1 baguette
• 2 kinds of cheese
• 1 quart sheep's milk yogurt
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1 bunch parsley

As I piled the groceries into my bike trailer I thought I'd bought most of what we needed for the week (along with a few things from the grocery store--cereal and beans, among other things). But I think I forgot how to shop while we were away. Either that, or my kids are just extra hungry this week. It's Wednesday night, and I have left 3 avocados (the ones that were nowhere near ripe, which I picked so they would last through the week), one cucumber, half the salad greens, a lemon, and an onion. I still have most of the eggs and sandwich bread, as well as the yogurt, which I'm using slowly because it's seriously expensive (but it’s awesome and it has a very short season, so I had to buy it this once).

I'm going to have to go to the supermarket tomorrow for fruits and vegetables. And I’m sulking because I know they won’t be as good as what I got over the weekend. I think this might be the very definition of first world problems.

Gymnastics and personalities and anxieties, oh my

Or, a lot of words about a little event.

When Adriana was maybe eight or nine months old, I took her to a class at the Little Gym by our house. It went horribly. They would pass out instruments or toys, sing a little song, and then put the toy away and move onto the next thing. Every other baby in the class seemed to do fine with that, but the pace was too quick for Adriana, who didn’t understand why the bell or scarf she’d been handed was already being taken away. We had just moved to Mountain View, and I had thought it would be a good place to meet other moms, but it just seemed too obviously a bad fit, so we didn’t go back. When she was a little over a year old we began attending a toddler gymnastics class at the rec center in Palo Alto, which was a perfect fit for her personality: it was completely unstructured at that age--just free play on the gym equipment. For 45 minutes once a week, she tried all her crazy stuff in a padded room while I got to talk with the moms and nannies as I followed her around.

We stopped that class when Lyra was a few months old. Adriana was in nursery school and it just didn’t fit well with our schedule. But it’s become apparent lately, that Lyra could use a padded room for her monkey impressions, and Adriana has expressed interest in gymnastics. There are a few places we could try, but the schedule at the Little Gym worked for us and it’s close to home. I did Lyra’s trial class first. There is a huge difference in the girls’ personalities, and I knew she would like whatever class we chose, and going with just her would give me a chance to check it out and talk to them about how the older kids’ class would go.

And Lyra loved it. When we walked in and they asked if she was Lyra, she jumped up and down, and said “I am baby Lyra! I love watermelon and swings and penguins and my mama.” She did fine with the pace of the class, wandering off from the group occasionally, but always having fun. Toward the end of the class time, she managed to somersault off of one mat onto another seemed to make the instructor a little nervous but reinforced why we were there.

After class I talked to the woman working at the desk about Adriana, explaining that she can be slow to warm up to new people and places. She told me the names of the teachers for her class, and suggested that we arrive early to give us some time to check things out. She explained that parents would sit on the other side of the window to watch, but if she needed me close, I could go sit inside, although they would prefer I didn’t follow her around to the different things she would be doing.

During the week, I would occasionally mention the gymnastics class and tell Adriana everything that the people at the gym had told me. I described the place to her, and talked about what Lyra had done during her class. And I promised that if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to go back. She was anxious, though. “I want you to stay right with me the whole time,” she kept insisting. I didn’t talk about how that wouldn’t work out logistically because of Lyra; we have enough sibling rivalry as it is. I promised her she would be able to see me through the window the whole time. “I get nervous about new places, too, but it usually turns out okay,” I told her.

We arrived early, just as another little girl and her mother were going into the building. The teachers at the desk greeted Adriana by name, and the one teaching her class came around to introduce himself to her. Lyra answered all his questions while Adriana remained silent and held my hand. He gave Adriana a quick tour, and then introduced her to the other little girl who was there and suggested they play together.

There’s this wonderful thing about little girls this age: if you introduce them to someone and describe them as a new friend, they can instantly play together. At the California Academy of Sciences I ran into someone I know through La Leche League. We’d never met one another’s older children, but when we introduced the girls to one another, they ran off to play immediately. The same thing happened when Adriana was introduced to a girl at the gym: the other little girl led Adriana over to where the toys were as the teacher had requested, and they sat down to build with blocks together. And then when it was time for class to start, Adriana and her new friend stuck close together as they followed the teacher onto the mat.

I hadn’t realized how nervous I was about her behavior until I watched for a few moments and began to relax. She joined in the activities, did what the teacher asked, and seemed totally comfortable. She looked over to the window and made eye contact with me any time they switched activities, but it was always to throw me a smile and a wave. And I love that smile so much. It was the grin she has when she is having fun and feeling grown up and proud of herself. As I saw the teacher demonstrate some of the exercise, I wondered if she would be able to do them, and some were obviously a bit complicated, but others she managed easily, and she was willing to try everything.

At the end of the class she came running out the door to me. “It was so fun. I did it! I’m going to come back tomorrow, okay?”

So I signed her up for next week.

I think we have a new family handshake

Tonight I didn't want to cook, so we went out to dinner at the Mexican restaurant around the corner. At some point during the meal, Adriana and Brian made some sort of deal (I think about staying in her chair). "Shake hands?" Brian said, extending his.

She looked at him for a moment and then studied her hands, obviously befuddled. Finally, she shook both hands in front of her, as she does after she washes them, to shake off the water. Then she went back to her rice and beans and fish, while Brian and I cracked up. 

"Should I teach her how to shake hands?" he asked.

"Oh, please don't. This way is just too cute."

Tuesday didn't work out quite as planned. I had forgotten to go get my TB skin test read on Monday, so I went by Kaiser on Tuesday before Adriana's gymnastics class. It was too late to have it read, I was told, but they couldn't redo the test yet due to a risk of a false positive. So Adriana and I headed to gymnastics, only to discover that the teacher was sick and class had been canceled--which we would have known in advance if I hadn't been at Kaiser in the morning when they called to tell me. Frustrated, I took Adriana over the park nearby to play for a while. And then I had a brilliant idea: we were very near Ikea, and we could go there to pick out a little table and chairs set for Adriana's room. I didn't have a stroller, a baby carrier, or a sippy cup with me, and it was approaching naptime, but it would be fine, right?

The funny thing is, it was fine. I tried putting Adriana in one of the carts there, but the belts weren't snug at all, so she kept standing up. I let her walk along and help me push the cart through the showroom. We found the kids' stuff, and she sat in all the different chairs while I chose which ones we would buy. She ate lunch with me in the cafe there, gobbling up macaroni and cheese and a plateful of veggies, and drinking carefully from a "big kid cup" into which I poured water just one or two sips at a time. She climbed onto the front of the cart as I pushed it through the "Market Place" downstairs, and then ran gleefully ahead of me through wide aisles of the warehouse area when I went to pick up our tables. And on the way home she fell asleep in the car. 

That night after her bath she helped me put together her new furniture. I keep saying that Adriana is becoming more and more of a kid rather than a baby. And it seemed very true on Tuesday.

My two favorite people

Today I was away from Adriana for perhaps the most I ever have been in one day. In the afternoon, I went to get a facial and pedicure--my treat to myself every year for my birthday. And this evening, after coming home to play a bit and change my clothes, I went to a baby shower for two of the moms in our play group. This afternoon I was fabulously relaxed after the spa treatments, and tonight I came home happy and even more relaxed from a nice time out with friends. But it was weird being away from Adriana. She's cut way back on her nursing in the past week, mostly only asking for milk when she first wakes up and when she's going to sleep, but I was so happy to pick her up and snuggle her and have her ask to nurse in between my outings. And while I was glad that Brian was about to get her down to sleep for the night with cuddles and stories, it also made me (selfishly) sad because it meant she didn't need me as much as she used to.

But it is good for me to get away sometimes, and wonderful for my two favorite people to have some one-on-one time.

Happy Friday

A room of her own

I haven't been particularly eager to stop co-sleeping with Adriana. Once we had a twin bed for her in our room so that we all had a bit more space, the sleeping situation hadn't been too bad. But the room was crowded with two beds, and we weren't able to turn on the heater in there at night because her bed was right against it, so Brian and I spent Saturday cleaning and organizing and moving furniture. Adriana helped (or, "helped") as much as she could and that night (although the room is not quite finished) I made up her bed with new red flannel sheets in what used to be our office (where "office" is used to refer to a room with a desk that has crap piled on top of it, plus anything else we don't have room for, so that the room is basically uninhabitable and used only for changing diapers in because that's where the changing table is).

I was a bit worried about the transition to her own room. I wondered if she was ready, if she would be clingier during the day because she wasn't right beside me all night, if she would want to come back into our room to sleep. But so far it has gone off without a hitch. Saturday night at bedtime, I read her books in her bed and then nursed her to sleep. After a few hours, I nursed her and then went back to my own room. I don't know how much longer it was until she cried out again, but I went back to her and ended up falling asleep in her bed. I moved back into my own bed after the next time she woke up, but I didn't even have a chance to fall asleep before she was up again, so I spent the rest of the night with her. In the morning she woke up and looked around, signing for Brian, so we all got into our bed and snuggled together for a few minutes before starting our day. It wasn't a great night, but she obviously wasn't traumatized by the experience.

Sunday night we got home late from a visit with friends in Berkeley. I got Adriana ready for bed, read her one story, and then nursed and snuggled her to sleep. She woke up once during the night, but nursed back down quickly enough that I stayed awake and made it back to my bed. And then we didn't hear from her again until 6:30. That's a bit early for her to be awake for the day, but she was definitely awake when I went in to her. Maybe if she'd been in our room she wouldn't have had as much of a chance to wake up before I got to her and would have gone back to sleep, but I don't really know. At any rate, we had to be in San Jose by 8:30 this morning, so it's better that she didn't sleep in until 7:45.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it seems to be going so well. Adriana may not be the world's best sleeper, but she is a flexible sleeper--so long as she is able to nurse when she wants to, she'll sleep pretty much anywhere.

I have known autumn just long enough

This morning, I labeled a box "Summer clothes: 18-24 months/80cm," and put away Adriana's warm weather clothes. It's California, so it's not terribly cold yet, but I'm pretty sure we've had our last truly warm weather for a while, and tank tops and sun dresses seem unnecessary. You would think I'd be sad to see summer go: no more strawberries or nectarines at the farmers' market, no more after-work trips to the park for Brian and Adriana. But I'm happy. Halloween kicked off the holiday season for us, the season that starts with Halloween and ends with Adriana's birthday, stopping at my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our anniversary in between. Delicata squash and sweet persimmons have arrived at the market. I no longer think it's too hot to ride my bike instead of driving (although sometimes it is too wet). The weather is perfect for hot chocolate and pumpkiny treats. I do sometimes wonder what Adriana and I are going to do with ourselves when it's been pouring for a week, but I have activities in mind and she seems to have outgrown (for now) the stage where being constantly outdoors and active is a requirement to avoid tantrums.

Plus, this year she was old enough for the pumpkin patch.

Therapeutic

Today was Adriana's first appointment with the speech therapist. I really liked the therapist, and Adriana warmed right up to her. Of course, I sometimes think she will warm up to anyone with books about dogs and some new toys. Mary, the therapist, played with Adriana, asking her about the toys and signing to her. She offered suggestions to encourage Adriana to talk more: repeat the sounds Adriana makes back to her; try to use "mm-hmmm" and "uh-uh" for yes and no, since those sounds seem to be along the lines of what Adriana's present sounds; hold her hand to our throats so she can feel our voice; ask her questions and leave a pause in which she might answer, rather than just answering the question for her; and play with an echo microphone (she loaned us one). We already do a lot of these things, but it's good to have the encouragement.

Mary also recommended that I talk with Kaiser about getting Adriana in for a full hearing screening. Adriana's screening at birth was fine, and they did a limited one at the evaluation which also seemed normal. But different sounds are at different levels and frequencies, and if Adriana's range of hearing is limited, that might explain why she doesn't make too many different sounds. I don't think the screening will show any such limitations, but it certainly couldn't hurt to confirm.

***

Adriana napped early today, falling asleep in the car on the way home from therapy. That left us plenty of time to go to the park after we finished the errands I needed to complete after she woke up. At least, that was my plan. But as we carried groceries up from the car, a few big rain drops began to fall, and by the time everything was put away, it was really raining. I have been dreading the rainy season, fearing being cooped up inside for months on end with an active toddler. As soon as I realized that today wasn't a great day for the park, I began to get tense, but then it dawned on me that Adriana was in a fine mood. We played with the cat, chased each other around the house, and then I cut up some apples (Honeycrisps are in!) and cheese, and we cuddled up on the couch to read Curious George. At some point over the summer I began to worry about my sanity when we couldn't spend all day every day at the park, and I even began to make a list of what activities were available to us each day of the week. I'm a little less worried now. I mean, I think when we have a long rainy stretch in January and February I will be getting antsy, but I'm glad to report that afternoons at home aren't the end of the world.

False cognates

When Adriana started using the sign for eyeglasses to refer to drinking glasses, Brian suggested making an effort to say "cup" instead of "glass," but since she isn't trying to wear drinking glasses or drink from my eyeglasses, I haven't bothered. She seems to understand that the same word works for more than one thing.

I often offer Adriana choices of things to snack on. "Do you want cheese or grapes?" I ask, and she signs her decision. A few days ago I asked her, "Do you want banana or edamame?"

"Mama," she signed.

"Banana or edamame?" I asked again.

"Mama," she signed, and pointed to the freezer.

I thought maybe I was wrong. I thought that she wasn't really saying "mama" for "edamame." But then at the park a couple of days later she pulled the little container of edamame out of the diaper bag and handed it to me to open.

"Mama beans, please," she signed. Oh well.

If we got a TV, maybe she could get herself up and watch cartoons

On more than one occasion during my pregnancy with Adriana, I woke up and immediately panicked because she wasn't there, so real had been my dreams that I already had the baby and she was there in bed with me. "Where's the baby?" I ask, startling Brian awake. Then she was born and there were a couple of times when I opened my eyes, saw the empty cosleeper and felt the panic well in my chest again for the second before I realized that the baby was in my arms.

Shortly after eight on Saturday morning, I opened my eyes and saw that it was already after eight. I'd stayed up too late reading, so after nursing the baby and feeding the cat at 6, I'd gone back to sleep for much longer than usual. Surprised that Adriana hadn't woken me up yet, I rolled to face her bed. It was empty.

"Where's the baby?" Brian sprang out of bed almost instantly. He was only gone a few seconds, but in that time I was able to reassure myself that Adriana hadn't manage to climb up onto the window sill and fall out (which I actually do worry about with this little monkey), nor was it likely that someone had entered our apartment, come into our room, gone around our bed to get to Adriana, and carried her away. For one thing, I probably hadn't been sleeping very deeply for the past couple of hours. And the thought of Adriana not shrieking when picked up by a stranger? She won't even let Brian pick her up out of bed if I'm still there.

Brian came back to report that she was playing around our desk and was fine. As we snuggled back into bed, I thought it was nice that our apartment was safe enough that she could wander around without us paying too much attention. In fact, just last weekend, I dozed off while nursing Adriana when she woke up from her nap, and after she'd finished, she got up and played by herself for a fair amount of time before Brian realized that someone ought to be paying attention, so that she didn't continue to strew Cheerios from her snack trap around the house. Finally, I heard Adriana leave the office and close the baby gate behind her. The house was quiet again. Until she began shrieking. This time I jumped out of bed. She was standing on the kitchen table. She saw me and smiled, and then requested a diaper change.

Fear conquered.

Adriana is no longer afraid of her shadow. My aunt had the brilliant idea of teaching Adriana the sign for shadow. It's a complicated sign, combining the signs for "black" and "shape" (which is sort of creepy, isn't it? I mean, the first thing that brought to mind for me was Echthroi)(see, I told you Madeleine L'Engle's books were embedded in my brain), and it hasn't really taken so far.

But we've been waving at our shadows and making them dance every time she notices them, and this morning at the park, Adriana caught sight of her shadow and waved. Then she moved into the shade and stepped back out again, experimentally. I signed "shadow," and she looked at me and then back at her shadow, and continued on her way toward the swings.

Afraid of her own shadow...literally

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses

Yesterday at the movie, Adriana was playing on the landing near the emergency exit. Just before I picked her up to take her back to our seat, she began pointing at the floor and whining. I looked at where she was pointing, but couldn't see much because of her shadow. I pulled her to the side so I could see if she had dropped something, but then she pointed into the area of her shadow again, and I realized that was going on: she had just noticed her shadow for the first time. I scooped her up and went back to where our friends were sitting, thinking that there was probably no line in her baby book for this particular developmental milestone.

Even though I had mentioned what had happened to Brian, I was surprised as I led Adriana toward the bathroom to brush her teeth before bed last night. As we walked into the bedroom, the light on Brian's bedside table cast our shadows before us onto the ground. Adriana stopped where she was and reached for my hand. She pointed anxiously at her shadow. "It's your shadow," I told her. "It's because of the light. It won't do anything bad." Nevertheless, she ran behind my legs. I called to Brian, who came in and made some shadow puppets on the floor for her. She seemed okay with that, but there was still something about her own shadow that made her uncomfortable.

Homonyms

In a language that is only symbols (although, aren't all languages just systems of symbols?), not sounds, are there homonyms? I suppose if you have always been deaf, it would be hard to imagine words sounding the same, rather like the inhabitants of Ixchel and their inability to understand the concept of vision in their eyeless world. But the sign language in our house happens simultaneously with spoken language, and it turns out homonyms (or homophones?) do come into play.

A few months ago Adriana learned the sign for glasses and now whenever she sees me without mine, sees Brian with his sunglasses on top of his head, or notices my sunglasses sitting out of their case, she makes the sign (well, her version of it). But I was confused last night as she made the sign over and over again (accompanied by the whine she always adds when she thinks we aren't paying proper attention to her signs) while pointing out onto our balcony. I was wearing my glasses, and there were no other glasses in sight. And then I realized what she was really pointing to: water glasses, left over from dinner, sitting on the table outside. It's such a little thing, but it's interesting to me to see how her language, her ability to communicate, and her display of all that she understands are developing.

Hi Mary Ellen!

Look! It's not a sandwich recipe anymore! Aren't you happy?

Instead, here are some pictures of a little girl eating corn:

18 months

For forty-five minutes once a week, things are fantastic. I mean, things are pretty good most of the time, but this month Adriana started a toddler gymnastics class, and for the forty-five minutes we are there, we are essentially in the proverbial padded room. She climbs and slides and bounces and balances, and if she falls she will land on something soft. It is still my instinct when I see her start to fall to reach out to catch her, of course, but the other day I just slowed her fall and let her tumble gentle from the structure she was climbing from to the mat. She rolled over, pushed herself to her feet, caught sight of a tunnel to crawl through, and headed off towards it. I felt a little funny signing her up for gymnastics. I mean, classes? At one and a half? And the last class we tried out didn't go so well. But at this age the class has no structure--it's just free play in a padded room, and the teacher will give individual instruction if we ask--and Adriana is clearly having fun. She runs in circles on the big trampoline, falling and picking herself back up, over and over again. She holds my hand and concentrates as she puts one foot carefully in front of the other on the balance beam. She does her funny, floppy somersaults uphill on the wedge-shaped mats. And she hides behind my legs and peeks out at Teacher Russ if he tries to talk to her (although at the end of class, when he gets out an ink pad to give each kid an animal stamp on their hand, she runs to him and holds out both arms for stamps).

Adriana is a pretty flexible kid when it comes to the schedule and pattern of our days, but I am discovering that she likes other things a certain way. Before she get in her high chair to eat, she likes to have her monkey, panda, and baby all lined up to watch her. If I don't close a drawer or cupboard in the kitchen completely, she'll run to close it for me, or, if she's trapped in her high chair, whine and point until I do it. When she catches me without my glasses on she'll sign for glasses and point to them until I put them on again. If water splashes on the floor while I'm doing dishes, she'll get a towel to wipe it up.

It's fun to notice the things she has figured out. These days she knows all about getting ready. If she joins me in the bathroom after I shower, she points to the deodorant and motions as though she is putting it on, then indicates the lotion bottle, knowing the routine. After I've dried her off after her bath, she spreads out the towel on the floor and lies down for me to put a diaper on her. Her grandma had gotten out a baby silverware set when we visited last week, and Adriana picked up the pusher and immediately pulled it along her cheek, since it looked to her like one of her daddy's razors.

She wants to do everything I do. If I am on the phone, she goes to get hers. When I get out the vacuum, she follows me around with her popper. When I fold laundry, she takes clothes and towels out of the basket and hands them to me, one by one. She follows me around and inspects all the plants that are at her level when I am watering them.

She has become a better eater, but it still surprises me when she eats an entire banana or gobbles up the potato salad I just put on her plate and then demands more. One of her favorite foods is strawberries, which she demands whenever she sees me slicing them up for my cereal. I am more than happy to feed them to her, because although she eats dinner every day and lunch most days, in the mornings she doesn't eat much. I suppose it's because she nurses as she wakes up, or because she is too busy watching Brian get ready for work and checking out all her toys (sometimes it seems as if she is surprised they are still there). This past week, though, she hasn't eaten nearly as much. Instead, she is nursing--often and for long periods of time. I keep blaming the heat, since I often don't want to each much in the 90-degree weather we've been having, even though that seems a bit weird, since warm milk and snuggling don't seem that appealing in the middle of a heat wave either. Whatever it is, it makes me hungry and thirsty to be nursing so much, even if it is hot, which is totally why I need so much ice cream and lemonade.

Signing is definitely Adriana's language of choice. She hasn't added any actual words in the last month, but she has over 50 signs now, and they seem...unconscious: one night when we were in Colorado, Brian and I both woke up and watched Adriana as she squirmed and cried between us, signing "ball" with her eyes closed. This morning as she woke up, she signed "toothbrush please," and then she nursed and fell back to sleep.

Everything seems so adorable. She walks on tiptoe and gives kisses to her reflection in the mirror (also high fives and terrorist fist jabs) and dances to Ozomatli and Dan Zanes and Melissa Ferrick. If you hold her hand and ask her to spin, she'll go around in circles, but if she doesn't have a hand to hold, she just twists her body and shakes her head from side to side.

I still struggle a bit with parenting a toddler, but things are improving and I am starting to love this age. I can tell because when I sit down and think about what to write this month, it's all about gymnastics and funny faces and cute little moments. We're still dealing with early onset two-ness and what to do about the hitting, but those aren't the first things that come to mind.

Four items

1. Adriana does somersaults now. She get into a sort of down-dog position and then I either help her flip over, or she tries to do it herself. Every now and then she really does a proper somersault herself. The rest of the time she just falls over to the side. Whichever way it ends up working out, she giggles a lot.

2. Last night Adriana ate curry so hot it made her nose run. And when she ran out of curry she started dipping all her other food in the leftover sauce on the highchair tray.

3. Early this morning Adriana woke up crying and I pulled her into my bed with me. After she nursed she got up, crawled back into her own bed, and collapsed back into sleep.

4. Approximately 4,956 times each day I ask Adriana for a big smile. Because it makes her make this face:

Wishes

Yesterday I ran some errands at the Stanford Shopping Center. After I'd finished the shopping, Adriana and I played around the Merfrog Fountain for over an hour. She climbed up and down the steps, reached under the rail to splash her hands in the water (and then dried them on my pants), tried to imitate the older kids who ran around in circles, pointed at every dog that walked by, and fell over every now and then.

A mother with two young children stopped for a while. She was giving them pennies from her purse to toss into the fountain, and then she tossed in one herself. Adriana watched the boy and girl with interest, and their mother handed her a penny. With a look of complete glee, Adriana threw the coin overhand into the fountain.

I wondered what the little boy and girl were wishing for as they tossed their coins and what it was their mother had wished for. What will Adriana wish for one day when she is old enough to understand the concept? And then I realized that I cannot recall what sorts of things I used to wish for as a child throwing coins into the fountain outside Martinez City Hall when we went to visit my grandma at work or blew the seeds off of a dandelion. Did I wish for something concrete--a new toy or an ice cream cone? Or was it something more abstract, as my wishes are now when I indulge my childhood superstitions.

And I watched Adriana, realizing that not all my recent wishes have been all that abstract as I remembered all the coins I tossed into fountains and dandelion seeds I'd sent flying not so long ago, wishing for baby.

17 months

Yesterday I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a couple of months. I admired her six-week-old baby, asleep in her stroller, and then my friend turned and saw Adriana coming towards us and exclaimed that Adriana wasn't a baby anymore, that she'd turned into a kid. I looked at Adriana running towards me with a green ball in her hand, grinning, her bangs falling into her face, and I realized that, yes, she is a kid now, not a baby. And instead of feeling melancholy over that, I was happy. Then last night she fell asleep in my arms after dinner, and I sat there for a long time, chatting with my dad and sister, just glad to have this change to hold her and admire her long lashes and flushed cheeks and her little, tired body that fits so perfectly in my arms, no matter how big she is getting.

She has begun babbling constantly it seems. She says "woof woof," "moo," and "baa," when asked what dogs, cows, and sheep say. She says "muh" and shakes her head when she means "no." (She says "muh" an awful lot.) She learns new signs quickly, and has started signing "please" and "thank you" on occasion, which I find sweet. Yesterday she fed me one of her Cheerios while I was getting us ready to leave the house, and then started freaking out. When I turned my attention to her, I realized that she was frantically signing "thank you." So I thanked her, which I usually do when she feeds me but hadn't this time because I was distracted, and she was happy. In general, when she makes a sign--whether it's "ball" when she sees kids playing soccer at the park or "bird" when she hears one chirping outside--she keeps making the sign until we say the word to her.

A couple of weeks ago we got Adriana her own "big girl bed." It's a twin bed pushed up against our bed, and we are slowly making the transition. I played with her in the bed the day it was delivered and she lovede being tucked in and kissed goodnight. Then she would kick off the covers and do it again. When we lie down to nurse she prefers to lie in her bed rather than ours. I think she is glad to have a little more space to sleep in at night, as she seems to be sleeping much better (most nights, anyhow) now that she's in her own bed. I move into her bed to nurse her when she wakes up around 2 or 3, and if I am still awake when she is finished, I move back over into my bed. Sometimes I pull her in with me, and she has even crawled back into her bed a couple of times when I've done that.

Not too long ago, Adriana fell off a slide at the park. Brian had gone up the play structure with her and she was going down the slide by herself. I was sitting on a bench nearby, not near enough to catch her, as she went down the slide as she has done on her own plenty of times before, and shot off the bottom, landing on her back. (I think it was because she was wearing Robeez instead of sandals, and they didn't drag and slow her down.) She was more scared than hurt, and soon was climbing up to go down again. That time she again went too fast, but I was there to catch her. After that, she would climb up but refused to go down the slide, even on a lap or with someone there to catch her. In a way I was relieved. It's kind of nice to know that the child can actually learn from what has happened, and nice that she has a bit of fear. I've been wondering where this kid who climbs everything and goes down the biggest slides at the playground came from, given the fact that I am just about the world's biggest scaredy-cat. But I was also a little sad, because being a scaredy-cat is boring and frustrating. So even though I have been attempting to coax her down toddler-appropriate slides for the past ten days or so, I had mixed feeling yesterday when Adriana finally got over some caution and climbed to the highest point on the play structure at the park (easily 10 or 12 feet up, maybe more--I am a bad at guessing that kind of thing), and started to go down the slide by herself. In the end, I decided not to stop her from climbing, but I made her go down the slide in my lap.

Some days I'm better at this than others. Some days when Adriana shrieks for the 94th time that hour because I didn't respond to her quickly enough, instead of looking at the clock to see how much longer until Brian comes home, I kneel down in front of her and tell her that it's hard being little and hug her, and then offer her a snack or a toy or just tickle her. Some days, instead of just being glad that I managed to get both Adriana and myself dressed and that I had a chance to bake (and eat most of) a pan of brownies while she napped, I manage to plan and shop for meal for the week, wash and put away three loads of laundry, vacuum the house, fix dinner, and put together puzzles, read stories, and play at the park with Adriana. Most days fall somewhere in between. But every single day I know I am lucky.

But Adriana sure loves the cat