Nature walk: Red Rocks

Brian and I recently spent a few days in Colorado. His cousin was getting married in a little town four hours outside of Denver, and it seemed like a good idea to tack a couple of days onto the trip. We spent several days staying with Brian's grandfather outside of Denver and also got a chance to visit an old friend in Boulder.

I am a person who loves the water. I am enamored of the ocean in particular, but rivers and lakes are also fine. I tend to forget that there is also beauty and peace in other landscapes as well. But when I was in Colorado there was no denying the beauty: the scale of things in the Rockies put everything in perspective, especially as we drove west on I-70 to get to Meeker for the wedding, and the light is different--more pale and more intense, in a way I could not capture with my camera. I definitely want to go back to Colorado. I want to spend more time hiking high up in the mountains, and perhaps explore some areas on the western slope--the Glenwood Canyon area especially stood out to me.

The only hike we did on this trip was around the Red Rocks Amphitheater, which is not far from Brian's grandpa. We chose the Trading Post Loop trail, which was described as a challenge 1.5-mile back country trail by the sign at the trailhead. We actually found the trail to be fairly easy, but since we had a four-hour drive ahead of us, it was probably for the best that we did something quick. And in that mile and a half, I did manage to take about 100 pictures, so in awe was I of the geology.

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.

Science lesson: Shattering Pyrex

Yesterday as I was putting away some dishes, two Pyrex measuring cups that I had nested together on a shelf above my head came crashing down and bounced off of my water glass on the counter onto the floor. I put the measuring cups back up on the shelf, stuck the baby in her highchair, and set about cleaning up the shattered water glass. Later in the day, when my friend Adam and I were getting ready to make margaritas, I pulled down the measuring cups and found that they were wedged together. It sometimes happens, since they aren't really meant to be like that, but unlike all previous times, just giving them a little twist didn't do the trick. I assumed the impact from the earlier fall is what made the difference.

Adam and I considered the possiblities as we took turns twisting and prying at the cups. Hot water? Cold water? Which would make the glass expand and which would make it contract? And besides, if they both expanded or contracted, what good would it do? Where was an engineer when the humanities and sociology majors needed one? (Oh, right. He was at work, celebrating his 30th birthday with a singing telegram in the form of a gorilla in a tutu.) We decided that ice would make the glass contract, both of us having some memory of water being an anomaly because it expands as it freezes. But then Adam started to worry about whether the glass would break if exposed to extreme temperatures.

"No, I think Pyrex is meant to survive temperatures like that. That's why you bake with it," I said. "Besides I think it was made for like train lanterns or something initially. I read an article about it once. Maybe in the New Yorker. I mean, doesn't that sound like a New Yorker kind of article? A twenty-page exposition on the history of Pyrex?"

Adam turned to Google, typing in "nested pyrex stuck," or something along those lines. And then began reading articles about an investigation into exploding Pyrex. After a few of those he came to a message board where people had discussed exactly our problem. Drinking glasses would be easier to separate, as Pyrex by design doesn't expand or contract quite as easily with temperature changes, but it could be done. I filled the one-cup measure with ice and poured water of the top of it and then submerged the quart-sized measuring up into a sink of hot water.

Adam went back to browsing articles about Pyrex that had essentially exploded at high heat. I tried wiggling the measuring cups apart after a minute, but stepped away when I discovered they were still wedged together quite firmly. Adam read a paragraph to me, and I stopped him.

"Pyrex isn't supposed to do that. And those were probably at much higher temperatures that just the water from my tap." And then there was the sound of shattering glass, as the outer measuring cup broke. Big pieces came off the top, shards of glass scattered around the sink and onto the floor, and the bottom part sat in the sink full of little cracks.

Incidentally, this is the second time I've managed to do in some Pyrex. At one point I managed to drop a large baking pan on the floor at just the right angle to break it into several large pieces.

Nature walk: Purisima Redwoods

I had intended to save hiking in Purisima Redwoods for a hot summer day, when the elevation and shade would provide respite for Brian from my whining about the weather. But then I started planning to do it Memorial Day weekend and invited Rachel and Lincoln and changes in plans make me a little crazy, so even though it was cool and damp, we went ahead. Which was fantastic because cool + damp + redwoods =



BANANA SLUGS. I still remember a song about banana slugs from sixth-grade camp. If you aren't nice to me, I'll sing it to you. (Right here is where I should totally post a picture of Rachel cowering in fear that I will actually sing said song. But I didn't take any pictures of Rachel because I was too busy aiming my camera at slugs. And poop.)

Also, do you know how much joy it brings me that someone felt compelled to named something "sticky monkey flower"?

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

Noticing a pattern

Last month, Adriana said "dog," her very first word. Yesterday she started in on her second: "woof woof."

No wonder the cat doesn't like her.

16 months

We spent some time in DC this month, visiting with friends from London who have a baby two months older than Adriana. It was funny to see how different they are, even though they are so close in age. Abigail is much more verbal than Adriana, speaking very clearly in her husky little baby voice to ask for what she wants, instead of fussing or signing. But Adriana is the more kinesthetic of the two girls, sliding gleefully down the slide, and running up and down a little hill outside the Hirschorn by herself, even after taking a couple of spills, while Abigail wanted to hold a hand. That difference really made tangible for me who Adriana is right now (and it's amazing that she is somebody right now--a real little person).

She is stubborn and excitable and independent and daring. She likes to try to climb up the slides, and while she will ask for help if she can't do it, if we refuse to help her, she'll keep trying to do it herself. I'm terrified when I see her climbing the play structures at the park, but I take a deep breath and let her go--staying near enough to catch her if she takes a big spill, letting her take occasional little spills in the hope that she'll learn, and applauding her when she goes down the big slide without any help. For a while I assumed that she was a sort of a daredevil because she was just a little kid who didn't have any sense yet, but as I watch other children at the park, I see that other kids her age are more cautious. That worries me and makes me proud. As far as I can remember, I was always an extremely cautious kid, and I think in some cases it held me back., so as much as I worry about the falls she might take, I force myself to let her climb.

With other activities she's less independent, or at least she gets frustrated easily. She struggles with a little puzzle she has. She'll try only once or twice to put a piece in, and then gives it to Brian or me to put in. She doesn't want to try to put the jacket on the toy monkey herself. but brings both things to me so I will do it for her.

She still isn't speaking, but she manages to communicate. She learns signs fairly easily these days, only needing to see them once or twice, so we have been working on signs for different kinds of food, and she now specifies what she wants by signing for cheese, beans, veggies, or grapes. She points out babies, kids, dogs, and birds everywhere we go, signing frantically until we say, "Yes, there's a baby." Or a bird or dog or whatever. Her eyes are sharp, too, so sometimes we think she's just making signs for a moment before we catch sight of the dog she's noticed across the street. And she recognizes the sounds of a dog barking, a baby crying, a bird chirping, and kids shouting, and will make her signs then, too.

I've found this age challenging. Some days I'm back to where I was a few months ago, wondering how on earth I'm going to survive her being two if this is what one is already like. Other days I even wonder how I'm going to make it until that evening when Brian gets home to help me. Last week she had her first real, public meltdown. It was at our mommy-baby yoga class, so there are worse places it could have happened, but it was still no fun. Adriana was still functioning on East Coast time and I wanted to her get back to normal, so instead of letting her nap when she wanted to, I hauled her off to yoga. Part way through class, in the middle of some sort of tantrum, she threw her water bottle, hitting another kid in the head with it. I took her out of the room to calm down for a bit, but it wasn't too much longer before the next tantrum began again, and I packed us up and left. She fell asleep as soon as I strapped her into her car seat. And now I've learned my lesson about not letting the baby sleep when she needs to. Over and over since she was born I've needed to be reminded to take my cues from her, to do what works, to not force things, to pick my battles carefully. It's challenging, and it's hard to remember to do when she's screaming and kicking, but then we get through those hard times and the easy times, the times where we snuggle and read stories, or run up and down a little hill at the park, are more frequent and make me think that this is the best time ever.

Nature walk: Wilder Ranch

Or, My Second Mother's Day!

Because my first Mother's Day went so well, I decided to plan another one just like it--except in California. We would drive down to Santa Cruz, have brunch at the Walnut Avenue Cafe, and then walk at Wilder Ranch. We decided to execute said plan on Saturday rather than Sunday, partly because the weather was supposed to be a little nicer that day, and partly because our Sundays are already so perfect and we've been out of town for the past couple of weekends, and I've missed our routine of yoga, farmer's market, and a picnic at the park. (You know life is good when you get to pick whatever you want to do one day and you want to do exactly what you do every week, Brian said; he's right.)

Brunch was absolutely perfect--hot chocolate with whipped cream, orange juice, and French toast with grilled bananas, walnuts, and vanilla yogurt. I've been considering getting a bicycle, so we stopped at Spokesman for me to ride a couple and to check out their child seats. I can't remember the last time I was actually on a bicycle and I hadn't missed riding, but I don't know why not. I felt a little wobbly as I first climbed on, but you know what? It was just like riding a bicycle. (Why, yes, I do amuse myself.) I felt fast and easy and free as I pedaled and coasted in loops around a nearby parking lot. I still haven't bought a bike yet, but hopefully this weekend I'll be bringing one home.

We finally headed up to Wilder. There are nice walks on the far side of the freeway, but I really just wanted to walk along the cliffs, so that's what we did. There were tons of red-winged blackbirds around, chirping noisily from the bushes, and then darting overhead with their flash of brilliant red. The landscape was bright with flowers, and we saw otters playing and eating in the water below us. It was windy and chilly, so we didn't walk long and instead went back to the ranch where we watched a blacksmith work and Adriana was fascinated by the chickens.












Afterwards we stopped by the Boardwalk so I could take a quick turn on the Giant Dipper, which right there tells you that my day was pretty much perfect. How can one ever complain about a day that involves a trip on a roller coaster? And then we ate dinner at Al Dente before heading home. Perfect.

Kinship

For a while now, I have done this thing when I wake up in the night and have trouble getting back to sleep: I lie in the dark and imagine what my friends are doing in various time zones around the world. Somehow I find it reassuring and relaxing. When Adriana was a newborn, things changed, though. As I groggily nursed the baby and then rocked her back to sleep after she ate, I imagined all the other mothers who were awake with their little ones. It made the middle of the night feedings less lonely.

For the past few nights, Adriana has had a fever and last night she couldn't keep down any medicine that would help. In the wee hours of the morning, I lay in bed with they hot little baby on my chest--it was the only way she would sleep. I worried about when she would start to feel better and about how I would function today with so little sleep. And then I thought of all the other mothers who were up with their feverish children, kissing the hot foreheads, stroking the damp hair back from the little face, worrying about when it would all be okay, and I started to relax.

Peek-a-boo

On our trip to Tilden a couple of weeks ago, Adriana had a great time playing peek-a-boo around a tree with my friend Jeff.










It seems like they are having much more fun than when she first met him a year ago:

I'm guessing any future babies will be super-colicky to make up for this easy one

I don't know how parents of colicky infants manage. Last night, about an hour after I put Adriana to bed, she woke up crying, which is totally normal. I normally snuggle and nurse her for a few minutes and she goes right back to sleep. I don't know what it is about that one-hour mark, but this has been going on for probably six months now--it's probably the most predictable thing about her sleep. But she's had a little bit of a cold since the end of last week, and last night she couldn't nurse for more than a second or two because she was too congested to breathe through her nose. I tried keeping her upright for a while, hoping that would help the congestion so she would get to where she could breathe well enough to nurse, but, angry that she was awake and that I wasn't nursing her, she cried and screamed, making the congestion worse. Brian and I contemplated whether something else could be wrong, came up with nothing, and I finally just sat in the armchair, held her close and waited.

Thirty minutes after she had originally woken up, she was asleep again. Thirty minutes of inconsolable crying left me feeling so helpless. How do parents whose babies cry for hours every night ever manage?

Nature walk: Tilden Regional Park

Who knew there was more to Tilden than the merry-go-round and steam train? On Saturday, Brian, Adriana and I headed up to Berkeley for a walk with Jeff, and did a six-mile loop through Tilden, that didn't take us by either one. Not that I have any objections to the merry-go-round or the train--in fact, I'll be quite happy when Adriana is old enough to appreciate them--but last month we went with friends to Vasona Park, where she was underwhelmed by the train and frightened by the bell that rang at the start of the carousel ride (and thus spent the entire ride nursing), so I was more than happy to let those things wait. We did stop in at the Little Farm. I'm not sure Adriana really appreciated it, but the rest of us did.







We did pretty much exactly the hike suggested by Bay Area Hiker. It was a nice walk, with pretty views of the canyons and then, at the end, wonderful path with a view of the Golden Gate in one direction and Mt. Diablo in the other.

Nature walk: Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

Last month when Brian's family was in town, we took them to the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve for a nature walk and picnic. It was a beautiful, perfect day.





Brian studied the map a bit afterwards and was interested in exploring one of the other trails, so we decided to go back two weeks later. And though dark, drizzly days have their own kind of beauty, Adriana is not a fan of wind in her face, a fact of which she chose to remind us every time there was a gust of wind by screaming and bursting into tears. Half a mile into the walk we opted to turn back.




But this past weekend it was spectacularly sunny and 80 degrees (and not humid!), so we decided to try once more. We did a six-mile walk this time, taking the Ancient Oaks trail to the Mindego trail. The Mindego trail eventually comes out on a fire road, and we opted not to do that last mile as it was not shaded and we were nearly out of water, but Brian's curiosity about the trail was satisfied.

15 months

Last Saturday, Adriana said her first word, declaring "dog" in a loud, staccato voice as she looked at a photo of a dog in a book. We stared at her and glanced at one another. Then she did it again and grinned at us. Now we spend all of our free time trying to get her to say it again. Or to say dad or mama.

"Da da da da da," Adriana babbled on Thursday night, smiling at us.

"Aw, are you saying 'dad?'" Brian asked.

"Um, I think she's just making noises right now, love," I told him. Did I really believe that, or was I just offended that she was saying "dad" instead of "mama?"

"Doesn't matter, I just melted."

"Psssst, kid, now's the time to ask for a pony," I stage whispered to the baby, who started to giggle maniacally, as if she understood.

We're honestly just happy to hear her babbling, as she's never done a great deal of that. Even if she's not talking, she certainly understands a lot. When I say that it's time to feed the cat, she goes into the kitchen and points to the container where the cat's food is kept. She pulls open my dresser drawers and looks to me, waiting for me to ask her to close them, which she then does. If I ask her if she wants to go outside, she runs to the door. A few days ago I misplaced my glasses, and wandered around the house searching for them, repeatedly signing "glasses" and asking Adriana if she knew where mama's glasses were (I was worried that I'd left them within her reach and she'd taken them--not that she would give them back because I was asking). Now whenever she sees me without my glasses (which had fallen behind my dresser), she makes the sign, and then goes to my dresser to point to where they are. I was interested that she learned the sign when I wasn't actually showing her the glasses, since I wasn't sure she would know what I was talking about, but I guess all the times I've requested "Please don't grab mama's glasses" have made an impression. And she manages to communicate fairly well with her sign language. We know when she wants to eat or nurse or get out of her sweater or listen to music. Our favorite new sign is the one she makes now to request a diaper change. Sometimes she doesn't really need a diaper change: she just sees the cat through the baby gate that is on the door to the room where the changing table is and is trying to get us to take her in there. Other times she signs just before she actually needs the change, which we keep thinking holds some sort of promise, although she seems young to be thinking about potty training.

Adriana's favorite thing is to be read to. I am careful not to leave picture books on our nightstands. That's important if I want to eat breakfast and get ready in the morning without constantly reading to her, because as soon as she sees one of her favorite books (these days those are Where the Wild Things Are, The Paper Bag Princess, Pat the Bunny, and some animal books I picked up at the zoo just before she was born) we must sit and read them over and over. And I'm fine with that...after 8 AM. The weather has been beautiful lately, so we've been sitting out on our balcony to read while while we share a sandwich for lunch most days. Any neighbors who are home during the day are probably getting tired of those same books over and over, but I can't think of a nicer way to eat lunch.

She's usually a little shy around strangers, but she can be an incredible ham when she's in a place where she's comfortable. We were doing some dancing around at our yoga class yesterday, and Adriana didn't want to be held as the younger babies were, so she joined in the dancing on her own. She knew everyone was looking at her and laughing, so she danced more, grinning and waving her arms.

She still isn't eating a huge range of foods, but she is eating a fair amount and it's all healthy (well, with the exception of garlic fries at baseball games), so I can't really complain. Most nights she sleeps pretty well. She always wakes up at least once, but I don't mind that--I kind of like bringing her into our bed to nurse and snuggle. Sometimes I expect her to already be in her bed and there is a moment of groggy panic when I hear her cry and can't find her in our bed. The other night I reached for her to my right, found she wasn't there, and turned over to move her from between Brian and me, and discovered she wasn't there, either. I was lifting up the blankets, terrified she was smothering somewhere before I realized that she had just slept for five hours in her own bed and was now standing up in it, looking at me frantically searching for her while she cried to be picked up. And then I lifted her out of her bed and and she rested her head on my shoulder and stopped crying, just like that.

A few months ago, a friend whose baby is less than two months older said of her little girl, "She's not really a baby anymore; she's such a little girl now." And I was surprised by that, because Abigail and Adriana are nearly the same age, and of course Adriana is still a baby. But now as I look at her studying the rosemary on the balcony or looking at a book by herself, I know exactly what Becca meant. It makes me appreciate the time that we spend curled up nursing in the armchair or playing in the bathtub, when Adriana seems very much the baby, even more.



At the ballgame



Picnicking on Russian Ridge


Hiking with dad


Ready for lunch and stories on the balcony


Making the windchimes make music

Recent conversations with Brian

While we listen to the music on this post from Rachel's blog:

Me: I actually like organ music. One time Cyndi and I were at Temple Square, and--

Brian: Let me guess. You didn't get drunk and have sex with anybody?

***

Out of nowhere as he is doing dishes:

Brian: You know, I really love proof by induction.

Me:

***

As I read his cousin's Facebook profile:

Me: Rachael likes your music and my music. She likes Jack Johnson and Simon and Garfunkel, and she likes Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli. Okay, basically she likes everything except country.

Brian: Oh, I'm sure if you asked her, she'd say all kinds of nice things about Shania Twain. California Jews love Shania Twain.

Me: (giggles)

Brian: I should feed you pizza and wine more often. You laugh at more of my jokes.

Me: Feed me pizza and wine? I made the pizza and opened the bottle of wine. And did the dishes afterward.

Brian: Wanna make out?

Travel journal: San Francisco

As we headed out of the city yesterday, I lamented to Brian, "I don't know about today. I mean, the Giants lost and I got peed on."

He pointed out that it had been an awesome day of doing touristy things in San Francisco: after the baseball game (which, yes, the Giants lost, but it was preseason, so it doesn't count, and we got to lounge around in the sun and look out at the bay)(oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention that it's good to be back at a ballpark that understands the importance of garlic fries) (also: baby's first ball game! baby's first garlic fries!), we walked up to Coit Tower (and actually went to the top of the tower, which I'd never done), then climbed up Lombard Street (I cannot believe I'm actually talking about doing a marathon in San Francisco; nice, flat San Diego was totally the way to go before), and then went for a trolley ride. And (and!) we did it all with my friend Mark who I hadn't seen in years. Which, all in all, comes out to more positives than negatives, even if being peed on (at least it was by my own kid) does get count extra on the negative side.

Quiet

I started to write something last Tuesday, but I realized quickly that it was basically going to say, "GAHHHH. THE NOISE. MAKE. IT. STOP." Because the noise of the gigantic fan that had been running in my apartment since Sunday afternoon was making me a little bit insane.

On Sunday, Brian seemed to be taking the flooding in our apartment more seriously than I was. I mean, after we'd discovered it and called maintenance and whatnot. I was stressed out when it was happening, too, but once someone had come to pull up the carpet pad, set a gigantic fan going, and promise to return to check on my washer the next day, I felt that I was doing okay. I contemplated leaving that night with the baby, but with my sister using my dad's spare room and Adriana's "Jewish grandparents" out of town, I decided to just stay put until morning. We left the fan running overnight, and I joked about people who spend a lot of money on white noise machines when we'd gotten this one for free. But even with being out of the house all day on Monday and for a good chunk of Tuesday, by Tuesday afternoon all the "white noise" was giving me a headache. Now I was the one strung up and cranky and Brian seemed relaxed. He turned off the fan when he got home on Tuesday night, and it was amazing what the relative quiet did for my mental health.

My mental health was improved even more on Thursday, when the floor was totally dried out and a man came to put down new a new pad and re-lay the carpet. And Friday when the maintenance guys finally fixed my washer and I no longer was going to have people in and out of the apartment checking on things. And Saturday, when we finally caught up with the laundry (I was wondering how three people could wear so many clothes in one week, and seriously considering a nudist colony), it was good to feel like things were finally back in order.

Now the refrigerator is humming, the washer is spinning, and the baby is dancing to the Dixie Chicks while playing with a beeping kitchen timer. And the house seems quiet.

Am totally psychic

Yesterday I correctly predicted who was at my front door, just moments after I heard knock. Of course, this may have been mostly because on my way to answer it, I saw the huge puddle of water in front of my washer and when you are in an upstairs apartment and your hallway is flooded, the knock on your front door is pretty much certain to be your downstairs neighbor coming to inform you that her ceiling is dripping.

Sometimes I really want to buy a house. But then something like this happens, and it is quite nice to have an emergency maintenance number to call, so that someone else will come pull up the carpet, dispose of the pad underneath, and set a giant fan going. "Nice" because someone else is dealing with it, I mean. Having my hallway and bedroom carpet all pulled up isn't nice. Toddlers and exposed nails? Not a great combo. Adriana was good about staying away last night, but we're abandoning ship today. Grandpa probably needed a baby fix anyhow.

Nursing nursling

Today at yoga, as we mamas began our sun salutations, Adriana picked out a baby doll from the toy box. It was naked, but she found a little t-shirt for it, and, unable to coordinate actually dressing the doll, wrapped the shirt around the doll and carried it around for a while. Finally she sat down next to me, lifted her shirt, and pushed the doll's head against her chest. My little nursling pretending to nurse! She nodded seriously and made the noises she does when she's imitating adult conversation, while we all laughed.

14 months

I just have to say that 14 months is SO MUCH BETTER than 12 or 13 months. I mean, I survived those months. I am here to tell the tale. But I am so much happier now. Of course, I'm not sure that what's changed is Adriana. I think a lot of it is that I really needed to adjust from babyhood to toddlerhood, and I don't adjust very quickly to change. But with some time, I can manage it, and I have. So I am handling my toddler better and because of this, or because Adriana is getting better at expressing herself, or perhaps because of the alignment of the planets, life is seeming pretty good these days. This is not to say that it's all sunshines and rainbows and unicorns around here. But now our daily routine is something along the line of sunshine-tantrum-rainbow-tantrum-unicorn-tantrum-tantrum-chocolate- tantrum, rather than just tantrum-tantrum-tantrum-tantrum-tantrum-tantrum-hey- I-know-what-let's-have-another-tantrum-tantrum-tantrum. See how that's an improvement?

Adriana loves to read books. I had been afraid for a while that she just wasn't going to enjoy reading (because a child's behavior at one year old is surely an exact predictor of her behavior for the rest of her life, right?), but now it seems that it's all we do. Her favorites from last month, Good Dog, Carl and Doggies: A Counting and Barking Book are still at the top of her list, but we also spend a fair amount of time reading The Little Engine That Could and The Paper-Bag Princess. A lot of the time we read only a page or so before Adriana goes wandering off, but other times she will sit quietly through the entire story--and then sit through it two more times in a row. Sometimes I think she could sit here and read books all day, but we're also spending a lot of time at the park. She loves to watch older kids play, and she'll try to hug the other toddlers who are close to her size. She climbs up the play structures and sometimes will climb down carefully, although usually she wants to hold my hand or go down the slide on my lap.

Another favorite thing is music. It was one of Adriana's first signs, and almost whenever the house is quiet she will go to stand by the stereo and request that I put on music. She claps with the audience on life CDs and dances to bouncier songs. She seems to be a big fan of the Dixie Chicks, Erin Mckeown, and the Clash, in particular, but she'll dance to pretty much anything peppy. sometimes when we're reading her a book she'll take a "dance break" when a song catches her attention, and will stand up to bounce to the music for a few seconds before returning to the story.

She still doesn't have any words, although she is babbling a bit more, but she is continuing to sign. She signs "dad" when she hears someone coming up the steps in the evening (and will pitch a mighty fit when she realizes that it was our neighbor and Brian isn't actually home yet), and "mom" when she hears me in another room or sees any female figure in a book. She signs "dog" when she sees a dog in the park (unless it's a really small one, in which case she signs "cat") or when she hears one bark outside. She's starting to put together series of signs, such as "eat" and "ball" when she wants a grape, and she recently threw her sippy cup to the floor, telling me "all done water" with signs before raising her arms to be picked up and signing "milk."

Her sleeping and eating have improved a great deal in the past couple of weeks. One night, after a visit from her grandparents, we sat down to dinner, and Adriana devoured her food. We kept bringing her more because she kept eating. She woke up once that night, and I thought I was in heaven. The next night she repeated her eating and sleeping, and I thought I was living some sort of charmed life. On the third night, Adriana refused to eat much and I didn't worry about it, until that night when she woke up every two hours and I discovered that even after a year and a half of interrupted sleep my body had quickly become enamored of more solid sleep--I could hardly function the next day. So our evenings are now rather tedious as we spend several hours trying to get the baby to eat. I don't do too much coaxing, I hope, and I try not to let myself get too emotional about it (you may think I'm kidding, but this is my ability to sleep we're talking about here), but I do follow the baby around and give her bites of food every time she gives me the chance. I do worry about the habit of not feeding her only at the table, and not making her sit down with us, but putting her in the highchair when she doesn't want to be doesn't seem to make matters any better. Plus, I figure any habits she has this week, good or bad, are likely to change within two weeks, so I just go with whatever works.

She is more willing to eat a variety of foods these days, and she doesn't make horrible faces whenever she tastes something new, but it must be food she can feed herself. She eats a lot of beans, asparagus, carrots, grapes, rice cakes, and cheese. It may not be the best or most varied diet, but at least it's relatively healthy. I haven't noticed her nursing much less, except at night of course, but losing those night nursings did seem to affect even my daytime supply, making nursing painful for a few days last week. The problem seemed to be solved with some fenugreek. So now I smell a bit like pancakes, but there are worse things to smell like, and now nursing Adriana doesn't leave me in pain and her frustrated.

Best of all right now is the way she seeks out cuddles. She leans her face in for a kiss, gives hugs and pats, tugs on my jeans when I'm standing, so I will sit down and make a lap for her to sit in. After her nap, she likes to sit in the armchair with me and snuggle for a bit while she wakes up. We don't read or listen to music or anything. It's one of my favorite times of day.

Nature walk: Monte Bello Open Space Preserve

All week long, Brian talked about wanting to get out for a hike on Saturday. On Friday night we discarded plans for Big Basin in favor of staying a little closer to home, when we read about the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve on Bay Area Hiker. We ended up not following the walk from the website, instead doing a loop comprised of the Canyon, Bella Vista, and Indian Creek trails--which came to about 5.5 miles. It was a perfect, sunny spring day, a perfect day for a hike.

Gloaming

Reading in the car while the baby slept (bringing her into the house usually wakes her up, so I just carry a book around in the diaper bag) recently, I paused when I saw the word "gloaming." Another one for my list, I thought, and my mind began to wander. "Sunset" had made my list, and when I saw "dusk" on Eleeza's, I realized that "twilight" should have been on mine. Considering how so many words for the same thing make me happy, I decided that it must be something about that time of day, some kind of magic to the sinking of the sun, the ending of the day. And I think that magic seems stronger this time of year as it becomes apparent that we are on the other side of Solstice at last. In the winter it becomes dark before I've had much of a chance to notice, but as the days begin to lengthen, I can appreciate sunset, dusk, twilight, the gloaming. I can indulge nostalgia for other times when I've noticed that particular time of day.

I remember drawing with chalk on the back patio and playing on the swingset and picking plums off the tree and eating them in the evenings--a whole series of memories I can't quite place in time, all mashed together in my mind.

I remember playing outside after dinner with our new puppy when I was ten years old, my brother and sister and me, all chasing and being chased.

I remember walking home from the house of a friend who lived up the hill from me, my clothing damp and leaving me just a little too cold because the sprinklers had come on while we were sitting outside and we thought it would be a good idea to run through them, even though we were old enough to be too cool for that kind of thing.

I remember coming up the slope from McHenry, probably sometime in spring of my junior year of college. I was alone and it was quiet, and as I passed the (hardly used) student center I felt light and happy. The sun had mostly set, but color still streaked the sky and the bay.

I remember sitting on my front step in Alexandria, watching neighbors climb off the bus and take their dogs for a walk before dinner, while I read poetry.

I remember holding hands with Brian, while he wore Adriana on his chest and we took a walk when he was returned home after work last spring.

Validation

Sometimes I get frustrated when I'm upset because I just want Brian to listen to what I'm saying and agree with me that whatever it is just sucks. Instead, he listens and then starts coming up with solutions. I thought it was just in his nature to fix things, and didn't necessarily understand his impulse.

But yesterday I got a phone call from a friend. She was angry and upset, to the point that she was unable to sleep and could only lie in the dark fretting. I listened to her talk, and wracked my brain for any relevant advice, some sort of solution to her problem. I came up with very little of any use, and finally I just said, with complete honesty, "That's awful. I don't blame you for being bothered by that. I'd be furious."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone and a deep breath from all those thousands of miles away. Then: "Thank you." I didn't laugh out loud, but I was amused at how just hearing someone say that it was okay to be upset about this problem could help my friend calm down that quickly, as well as my own "fix it" mentality.