Almost 10 months, and why I’m in trouble
Dear Lil C:
On Friday you will be 10 months old. Double digits. It’s hard for me to believe it. The time has gone so fast, too fast. Over the last month in particular, you have been showing your true colors and really letting your personality shine through. You are a gal who can appreciate relaxation. You are always propping your little feet up: on the table, in the stroller, and even on Mommy sometimes when you’ve forced your way into my bed.
You also devour books, literally. Your Baby Faces book had to be replaced after you completely chewed the binding off and then attempted to eat gummy pieces of paper (see below as you are working on maneuvering yet another piece of gummed up paper out of your hand and into your mouth.) Mommy especially enjoyed holding you upside down as I attempted to sweep the dissolving paper out of your little cheeks.
You also love "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" and squeal with delight whenever we read it (15 million times a day). When we get to the final page, you always throw a fit and want to start over again. Mommy always obliges. This month you have said so many new words in addition to "mama" which is said almost non-stop: "bear" "duck" "quack", your sister’s nickname which is so hysterical and adorable, Daddy’s real name which is even more hysterical, what sounds like an early "is it?" as in "Where is it?" etc. etc. After listening to your jabber-jaws sister for all these months, I knew it was only a matter of time before you’d realize your own gift for gab.
You have been trying lots of new foods this month (in addition to book bindings). Because Mommy and Daddy are not nearly as by-the-books with you as we were with your sister, you have already sampled Daddy’s ice cream cone and loved it, after you got used to the cold. Brrr.
You have also tried to feed yourself when Mommy went to get the phone. . . with what we’ll call mixed results.
You have become quite the night owl as of late. I think I’ve finally figured out why. Once Big I goes to bed, it is so much fun to get into all of the things that she "guards" during the course of the day. DVD’s and CD’s are now easily accessible without a big sister to ruin your fun and tell you you’re being a "Bad Baby."
And you’ve even figured out how to open up jewel cases. Cheetah Girls is your favorite CD as of late. You’re becoming quite the little dancer too. Kim Possible music really gets your engine running and your little head bopping. Although you love dancing with Mommy and Daddy, you’re getting quite good at dancing all on your own. You know just when to clap for yourself and others too, and do so with a beautiful toothy grin.
When Mommy needs a break (or needs to clean up 40 DVD’s off the floor), you enjoy walking around your port-a-crib. But if there is something better going on outside of the crib, you will attempt any and every way to get out. Usually this face works just fine though.
When you were born with a head full of hair, I had no idea how much fun it would be to have a baby who has hair. After a little mist from the hose on a hot day, your hair is quite pliable and your sister and I have a blast "styling" it and taking pictures.
Look out, Mr. T! You’re always such a good sport too. I think you enjoy the new do’s. You certainly do enjoy seeing yourself in the mirror.
You took your first unassisted steps weeks ago, but this past week in particular you are getting especially brave. You love to stand up in the middle of the room by yourself and clap and giggle. Somehow Mommy just isn’t ready to let you stand on your own though. (You’ve had enough accidental bumps on the head with your increased mobility). This weekend you upped your usual two steps before falling to three steps. We think it’s only a brief matter of time before you’re running to the entertainment center, steps, and any other dangerous thing in the house. Snap kicks can’t be far behind.
Lately, if you are not standing or climbing the stairs at warp speed, you are not happy. So mostly Mommy is a human shadow who follows you around with my arms stuck out constantly, just waiting in case I have to catch you. I must say though, the need for my intervention over the past two weeks has dwindled.
You’re not always into trouble. Sometimes you just stand around looking cute. Infrequently you will actually keep a hat on your head and shoes on your feet. Those are rare moments that must be photographed immediately.
You have been an absolute joy, but I fear that the ornery side of you is starting to take over. Your sister fears this as well, as do all of her toys, books, crayons, etc. The next few months will be interesting for sure.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Mommy is going to be looking more like this once night falls. . .
Love,
(BB) Mama
Exciting News!!!
There are a lot of exciting announcements in the blogging world right now. There’s a pregnancy or two, engagements, etc. But I am here to tell you something so exciting, so Earth-shatteringly good, that it just may blow your mind. My announcement is not something as common as a pregnancy or an engagement. It isn’t an announcement about one of my girls; it’s not a new job, new house, or a new wardrobe (although that would be very exciting.) No, my news is so fantastic that it has the ability to lift my mood and instantly make me feel giddy with happiness. Are you ready for it? Do you think you can handle it? Are you sitting down?
He’s NOT moving! I repeat, NOT MOVING!
Did you hear that? He has changed his mind and will not be leaving the area. I am so ecstatic that each one of the hairs on my head is currently doing a little jig. O.k. maybe that’s just the humidity, but I am so thrilled that I don’t think anything could ruin this moment. . .
Not even the fact that Zayra is still on Rockstar. Seriously guys, why? Did the producers make you keep her in hopes of having another encounter with the spaceship that brought her?
It’s messed up.
And while we’re on the subject of messed up. . .
Jump! Jump!
Tommy Lee will make you
Jump! Jump!
Supernova will make you
Jump! Jump!
uh huh, uh huh
Or more like "Huh? Who is picking your wardrobe? Tuesday night Tommy Lee shows up looking like he’s going to a drag queen show.
Wednesday night, he’s suddenly joining Kris Kross???
Later he traded in his sideways hat for horns.
I know he wants to start a new band and all, but the Kris Kross meets gas station attendant get-up is taking it a bit far. If Zayra doesn’t have a singing career ahead of her, maybe she can be his new stylist. Now that would make things interesting.
Speaking of interesting, the latest birth story is up. You can read it here. "J" wrote this story up recently and her daughter is 10 years old now. I think I’ll be lucky if I even remember what my name is when my daughter is 10. Keep the submissions coming! I know several readers are working on their stories to submit, and many of you have been kind enough to plug the site. I think it’s catching on, so thank you!
Now me and my hair are going to go party in celebration of my stylist staying put!
And please go visit my renter if you haven’t already. Her thumbnail isn’t working but her site is too cute to miss.
There’s a New Landlord In Town
I have a tenant. Yes, I have entered the world of rental properties and I am determined to be a good landlord, not a slumlord. If you click on that little box over on the right side you can go visit my new tenant who is being a stellar tenant already, what with paying her rent on time, etc. Her thumbnail is not currently showing up, but she’s there. Her blog’s name is: Ramblings from the not-so-typical Stay at Home Mom.
I spent some time reading through her blog this morning and have found myself scratching my head wondering why I didn’t know about her blog before (and then quickly stopping that scratching because my arms are so sore from karate.) She’s got two little girls, close in age to mine actually; and she’s funny. Her Thursday Thirteen this week is hysterical because it is so true. You find yourself saying some crazy things when you’re a mama. Because you can always stand to find a new blog you like, go and check her out!
No Pain, No Gain
There is not enough ice in the state of Alaska to help with the pain I’m having right now. I attended my regular intermediate class and then decided to stay for the advanced class this week. I’m going to start doing this every week; but between now and next week I am going to eat about four tons of ice cream, french fries, and probably some straight lard in an effort to gain some damn weight in my forearms already. I have NO padding there. None. Zilch. Zippo.
I have always had skinny, spaghetti-like arms. My upper arms actually have some muscle. You can’t carry around a 9-month old 14 hours a day without getting some muscle development, but the forearms. . . oh, my poor pathetic skinny forearms. The great thing about this is that the pain in my knee from standing in nai hanchi for what felt like an eternity while our instructor "froze" us and went around correcting stances and arm placement, is barely noticeable in relation to the pain in my arms. In fact, typing this now is sort of painful.
Tonight the advanced class was me and a new black belt. He’s a tall thin teenager, and he’s very good. We were working on the waza (small series of moves) I need for 3rd kyu. It goes something like this: step back and augment block. With the other arm, you do this block where you bring your arm up so that your hand goes back to your ear. It’s sort of like the old time models would stand, with one bent arm up behind your head. It’s a block that works equally well on straight punches and hook punches. Then the arm that blocked in the first move does a four-knuckle punch to the neck and then you step back and clear. So, the black belt and I stood facing each other and took turns throwing punches at each other and working out the moves of the waza. My arms endured the impact from at least 40 blocks.
I am going to wake up tomorrow with black and blue forearms. They hurt so badly from the impact of his arms blocking my punches. Pain, I tell you. Pain.
(In one of the kata’s I have to learn for brown belt, there is what we call a "clear and spear". Your left arm clears the area, and your right hand juts straight forward in a spearing motion. For purposes of the kata, the spear is aimed at the solar plexus. In reality, you would aim it somewhere a little more vulnerable, but it wasn’t always like that. Our instructor told us about how a long time ago, those training in the martial arts would line up jars. One would contain sand, another pebbles, another larger pebbles. Martial artists would do this spearing move directly into the jars to toughen up their hands. When their spear hit you after they had advanced to the bigger pebbles, solar plexus or wherever, it did some serious damage. Of course, our instructor said, when they reached older ages, they had claws for hands so we don’t do this anymore. Maybe they had the right idea though. Maybe continued impact on those skinny forearms of mine would do some good. I’m hoping something good comes out of the discomfort I’m feeling now.)
Before we started this drill, our instructor was demonstrating the rotation that needs to be on the blocks and had me throw some punches at him. He blocked and my whole hand went sort of numb and got all tingly. "See that," he said, as I felt like my whole arm was vibrating. Oh yeah, I felt it. Trust me. I’m still feeling it now, hours later. He went on to say how quickly a street fight could be ended if you block like that. Your attacker isn’t going to be able to feel his hands, and the pain from getting hit in the forearm like that is mind-numbing. Your attacker might just sit down on the sidewalk and start sucking his thumb. If I were a thumb-sucker, I think I might have tonight. I may have made a pathetic whiny "ow" sound. . . O.k. I admit it. I did.
Despite the pain, the wonderful thing is that I know my waza like I have never known a waza before. I’ve got one of the 8,000 things I need for black belt down. That feels good even if my arms don’t.
During the intermediate class, I asked my instructor if we could work on some self-defense. In particular, the self-defense that went so very wrong last week during at home practice with my husband. Our instructor happily agreed (This is a different instructor than I had last week for the original lesson.). He asked me what the problem was and I demonstrated what had happened.
So, I acted as the attacker. He took everything very slow, until the part where I screwed up at home. One second I was vertical. The next? I had hit the ground on the side of my arm. I never saw it coming. There was an audible gasp in the dojo as the other students and myself were in awe. I quickly scrambled to my feet, (once I had figured out what happened) and implored him to "TEACH ME HOW TO DO THAT."
My instructor paired Big I with another Mom tonight, and I got to work with a teenager who is about my height. I put her down; she put me down. It was awesome.
Tonight, after the girls went to bed. . . I practiced my new moves on my husband. With his arm twisted behind his back he said, "But what if I started to do this," and he tried to twist out of having his arm held behind his back with his little spinning move from last week. I already had the joint lock, but I lifted it up and instead of continuing with the spin, his head bowed. There was some creaking and cracking and the good news is that it wasn’t me for a change. He remained contained.
I learned something very important tonight in class. If I’m going to put someone on the ground after getting out of a rear double wrist grab, then I might as well make it as unpleasant for them as possible. You don’t need to wrap your arm around their neck and pull them back. You can grab hair, ears, collars, or even eye sockets if you really want to do some damage. Of course, you don’t practice these nasty things for real. You could hurt someone; but if someone is a true attacker, then all bets are off.
While working on the self defense, I watched Big I with her partner. She did so much better working with someone other than her Mommy. She was grinning ear to ear as she grabbed the collar of the other woman and kicked out her leg and put her on the ground. She did so well. I am so proud of how she worked at it tonight.
Every night when we put her to bed we read a bedtime story and then we "talk." This talking usually consists of three questions. The three questions are usually things like: How do they make light bulbs? How do they make shoes? Why does the moon move? etc. Tonight? She asked me how to do a move in her kata. I could hardly contain my excitement! So, lying in her bed beside her I told her we were going to do some horizontal kata. It was actually really fun. Our bow was a crunch, and it was obvious if we were doing side blocks right or not because they would hit the bed if they were right. We got to the move she wanted to know and went over it several times. Then she sat up and demonstrated how it would look vertically. She even made a mean face when she did it. The pride, the pride. I’m swelling with it. . .
Or maybe that’s just my arms.
Rockstar Recap: Week 3 or WE HAVE TUNES!
Let me preface this by saying that I am very tired. Lil C is popping a new and apparently very painful tooth which means there is lots of drool, crying, fussing, hold-me-mommy constantly, fussing. . . oh, I already said that. . . well, it warrants being said again, and again. . . fussy. Oh, and did I mention her our lack of sleep?
Anyway, tack onto that the fact that I tried to play tennis on my messed up knee for exactly 10 minutes last night before I called it quits and I am paying for those 10 minutes dearly. Somehow I don’t think it’s going to magically heal by the time I need to get my tired behind to karate class this week. This Rockstar Recap will be an accomplishment if I can even spell their names right. So here goes. . .
First of all, WE HAVE TUNES! Gilby, Jason, and Tommy must be reading my blog. There really is no other explanation. They showed up at the potential rockstars’ mansion with actual recorded music that they had made, and recently. And. . . it didn’t suck. I’m actually encouraged. I may start to like this show more and pine for INXS a bit less. A bit, I said. Let’s not get carried away.
So, now that the potential rock stars actually know what kind of music they might be singing to, they have some idea of what songs to pick each week. Well, at least everyone but Zayra does. She’s just out in left field, or actually more like the planet Mars, what with her galactic get-up this week. Without further delay, the rock stars and my professional (lazy) opinion (me so tired. . . yawn). Where was I? Oh yeah:
Lukas: If I don’t look at him, I can sort of like him. The arrangement he did tonight was really cool. He took Cold Play and made it harder. It was interesting to say the least. Go Lukas. Two thumbs up (and then falling down quickly because I’m falling asleep.)
Zayra: Planet Earth to Starship Cluebag, do you read? I must say, the blue sparkly spandex was almost enough to distract me from how lousy her voice was tonight. Zayra, you can sing "Call me" all you want, but I can guarantee Supernova will not be calling you to front their band. That outfit was like Wonder Woman gone wrong, so very terribly wrong.
Patrice: Dave was rude! RUDE, I tell you. Maybe it’s the divorce. Maybe all the black nail polish, eyeliner and hair dye is seeping into his pores and numbing his brain filter. You know the filter that stops you from saying all the rude things you want to say but don’t because they’re, well. . . rude. I don’t think she did poorly at all. Hey, at least she’s consistent even if she doesn’t change it up every week.
Toby: He made me like Billy Idol tonight, and that is a hard thing to do. Every week he shows up with that awesome voice and a killer performance. The only thing scary about his performance this week was the girl in the audience who had her tongue sticking out the entire performance. Her tongue was so insane that when she danced, I think it bounced off of her neck. Put it away girl. Scary.
Jill: I’m not a fan. Even though she sang o.k. tonight, I’m with Gilby on the whole "pelvic thrusting is wrong" thing. I can’t stand when women resort to sex; and I gained brand new respect for Gilby for pointing it out to her.
Magni: I look at him and think Bono from U2. He sounds more like him every week. He just doesn’t jive in my head with the band SuperNova.
Ryan: He brought it. You go boy! He went from vanilla last week to a step up this week. I’ll give him french vanilla.
Dana: I eat my words from last week. Ooh, yummy. Nice job tonight.
Phil: He has entirely too many ticks. He reminds me of one time when I was talking to a boss I had in college. She was showing me how someone talked to her, and she started sort of convulsing. I didn’t realize that she was doing the imitation and I almost started searching for a tongue depressor and reaching for a phone to call an ambulance. He makes me want to call for help. Not a good quality in a rock star.
Dilana: I had so many hits land on my site this week from searching for "Dilana". I got scared. "My GOD! She knows about me," I thought. "She’s coming for me, and no karate can fend off Dilana when she’s angry. . ." or so I imagined. I think she reads my site too. Seriously! Because she sang Cyndi Lauper this week. "Time after Time," is a tame song. She did it so well. It was very sweet, very sincere, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that she’s growing on me. Yep, I said it. "Spawn of Satan" is growing on me.
Josh: He did o.k. I like the bluesy thing Josh brought to the Blind Melon song. I just can’t look at him without thinking that my sister’s boyfriend has suddenly turned into a wanna-be rock star. Weird.
Storm: With all the facial contortions, I can’t watch her. But while I was shielding my face (and probably starting to doze off) Mr. BBM hit the nail on the head. "She’s a skinny Wynonna Judd!"
He’s so right. I like listening; I just can’t watch.
I think I remembered everyone. I think I might have even spelled their names right. If not, you get the idea. Oh, and one more thing. . . Tommy Lee, this is on during prime time. Children might be watching this show. Please, DO NOT wear those jeans and then stand up and raise your arms to the sky. Talk about scary. Don’t you know that ultra low rise jeans are reserved for teenagers with pot bellies? Come on already!
Edited to add: In my complete and utter exhaustion, I forgot to make my predictions. Encore to Dana; bye-bye for the space cadet, Zayra.
And if you made it this far (all two of you who read my blog AND watch Rockstar) go on over to Birth Stories. There are two new stories up. One is by Lydia who is so hysterically funny that whether you are into reading about childbirth or not, you won’t want to miss it. She also sent along pictures of herself. . . DURING THE LABOR. There is one picture that just shows the pain of childbirth so perfectly. If you’re a teenager and you’re thinking how wonderful and romantic it would be to have a baby. . . GO LOOK AT HER FACE IN THAT PICTURE. . . and then wait ten years. The other story is by Kailani and is a short, sweet letter to her baby. Short and sweet because that’s how her labor was-HEY, NOT FAIR! Now, go, get, check them out. I’m going to bed.
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