toddlers

Falling Upstairs

Posted on by Beth Hull

The funny thing about toddlers is they fall. All the time. Sometimes it’s tragic, and my daughter’s screams just make me want to weep with pity. Other times it’s freaking hilarious and I stifle laughter while wiping away her tears. I mean, really–running into the doorway? Or listening to her say, “Run, run, run, run….” BOOM! Priceless.

Yesterday, though, I was starting to feel like a toddler myself. Not falling so much as accident prone. Clark the cat, bless her, tried to jump on my lap, missed (okay, I moved at the last second), and scratched/punctured me knee. Ouch.

Then Z thumped into my lap to read a book and crunched my finger. Ouch again, but I recovered quickly and went on to read Baby Bear’s Books (Jane Yolen) through gritted teeth.

Finally, during Five O’Clock Disco Dance Breakdown, I did the electric slide onto a small pink prism for the shape sorter cube. I truly thought my dancing days were over. Husband had to work late, so I limped around for the rest of the evening, giving Z her bath [UPDATE: She now takes her bath in the bathtub proper, and the infant tub is stored in the garage, waiting for Z’s hypothetical sibling] and getting her ready for bed. I thought of using my practically broken foot as an excuse not to exercise today, but I couldn’t even trick myself, so I guess it’s not that bad.

Still hurts, though.

Today has been better. I walked behind Z as she climbed upstairs and watched her take risks. She let go of my hand, then let go of the railing, then twisted sideways, gallumped up two steps, paused on the third. She gave a sort of hop. Fine of course, no falls. Toddlers fall down frequently, but the beauty of it is they have something adults grow out of: resilience and fearlessness.

My foot still hurts, and I’m going to be extra vigilant when “clearing the dance floor” in the future.

[Further UPDATE: The vertical blinds ARE GONE! Husband read my entry “The Land of Dull Knives and Duller Wits” and I think something spoke to him. Next time I’ll complain about the macabre drapes in the front room. It will be magic! I write, and they disappear!]

The Unholy Terror of Screaming Proportions

Posted on by Beth Hull

Just when you think you’ve got a good rhythm going, when the routines are working okay, and there’s an occasional night when she sleeps in her crib until five or six in the morning. Just when you can do some dishes without her affixed to your shins like a Mighty Leech, and you can run outside to water the plants while she watches contentedly from the window. Just when you let your guard down…

The Unholy Terror of Screaming Proportions attacks.

With a vengeance.

It’s teething. Right? I mean, it’s the perfect excuse. Now we’re onto the molars, and yeah, extra painful probably. They’re the perfect scapegoat, as no one is brave enough to stick a finger back there and actually check (the UTSP bites). Teething mysteriously comes and goes, and it gives you a chance to pity the UTSP instead of resenting her (sometimes. Maybe not at 2:55 in the morning).

We’ve always done “the co-sleeping thing.” Not because it’s trendy or cool, or so down-to-earth. But because we’re lazy. L-A-Z-Y. Why rouse ourselves in the middle of the night, spend fifteen to thirty minutes soothing a child to sleep, and then try to get back to sleep? Why not just zombie-walk to the kid’s room, pluck her out of her bed, and snuggle up next to her in our own?

I’ll tell you why not. The two reasons come with five toes apiece. The UTSP has been armed with a Mighty Kick and instructed to fire at will. By employing strategies of random, rapid fire movements she has almost shattered my cheekbone and nearly ensured, via a lucky strike to a certain sensitive area on Husband, that she will be an only child.

So now: not only am I rethinking every single aspect of the beginning of my novel, but I’m currently reevaluating Child Number 2. As well as making decisions on cellular blinds, granite countertops, and paint colors. Because, of course, we couldn’t be content with only 30 pounds of upheaval in our lives. We had to go ahead and add some remodeling to the mix just to see how much we can take.

On the very bright side, our new soon-to-be-installed kitchen faucet comes with a built-in soap dispenser. I am Over The Moon about this soap dispenser. It will solve All Life’s Problems and Bring Me Happiness. As my mother-in-law said, “It’s the little things.”

And Z, our UTSP, is a little thing. She is charming, intelligent, and has a great sense of humor. And when she isn’t demonstrating her finer qualities?

Well, I can just run into the kitchen, squirt some soap from our built-in soap dispenser, and life will seem fine just fine.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

Posted on by Beth Hull

First, two cute toddler things:

1) Z has been dancing and trying out hand motions to songs for awhile now, and I believe this is a result of a couple of different factors: the Music Together program, and the fact that I often sing to Z and recite nursery rhymes and poems instead of suffering through enjoying her scintillating conversations about whether the dogs next door are awake, asleep, eating, wearing diapers, singing, or barking.

Of course I’d like to believe a huge part of her love of music and dancing is due to a) her inherent genius-ness and b) an inheritance of my own unrealized talent for singing and dancing (I can hear family and friends laughing aloud at this. Shut up. I’m totally talented as a singer/dancer. Chicago NEEDS me, and everyone would love Cats if I were cast as Grizabella and warbled out “Memory”).

Whatever the reason for the dancing and accompanying hand movements, it’s pretty cute.

2) Another cute thing is her Entourage. This is the name I’ve given her stuffed animal friends. Not all of them are animals, though. We have Mr. Penguin, Talula (a cat), Noop (a doll), Doggie, Giraffe, Giraffe (again), Bird, and…Necrotizing Fasciitis. Necrotizing Fasciitis is a giant stuffed microbe holding a fork and knife, a joke gift from when Husband did lab work in school.

Z carries her Entourage around the house. Usually she only has three A-listers, since that’s all she can manage to carry, and she switches it up a bit (perhaps Z, too, notices that conversation can get dull when hanging out with the same person day after day after day).

The cute things are totally necessary right now, because life has not been serene or happy in my house lately. I have to steal these cute moments when they come, because at naptimes and most of the night she has been an Unholy Terror of Screaming Proportions (UTSP). The UTSP is not happy, and everyone knows it. Including the neighbors, their dogs, and the people one county over. There has been so little hand-clapping, foot-stomping, shouting-hooray fun here that I even -gasp!- considered getting a job and sending the UTSP to daycare just so I don’t have to deal with her anymore. Last night I was about to give Husband my formal resignation.

But then, she was falling asleep in her enchilada at 6:30, so we (er, Husband, that is, since I was still busy sulking) whisked her off to bed, and she didn’t wake up until 6:30 this morning. Which for Z, and by default, me, is sleeping in.

I don’t know if the sunny disposition will last, for either of us, which is why I’m going to clap my hands, stomp my feet, shout hooray, and let my face show the tiny, stolen happinesses I find.

My Suit of Armor

Posted on by Beth Hull

Cowboys wear tight jeans, boots with loopy embroidery, and giant silver belt buckles. Corporate executives wear suits and ties. James Bond wears a tuxedo and looks mighty fine. Chefs wear white hats and white aprons and wield spatulas. Superheroes sport spandex and capes, doctors don lab coats and stethoscopes, construction workers wear t-shirts and hard hats, and I? The writing mother?

I wear sweats.

Z knows when we’re going out because I finally put on jeans. And for some people, jeans are like, dressing down. Whenever there’s a wedding to go to, or a writer’s conference (like last Saturday and this upcoming Saturday: SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference for Nor Cal!), I’m left with a closet full of question marks. “Does this even fit anymore?” I wonder. For last weekend’s writer’s conference I must have tried on fifteen different outfits. And then, taking the all-inclusive trip into Nerdy Obsessive Land, I even got out my digital camera and took pictures of myself in the mirror. I was thisclose to uploading them on Snapfish and sending an invitation to two close friends for help in deciding what to wear when I finally got over it and figured out, “You know, I’m 29 years old. I think I can choose a professional-ish outfit. Even though none of them make me look 15 pounds lighter.”

I know that looking professional is a good thing. At least, I think it is. I actually had some success experimenting with this idea when I was a grad student at UC Davis. I’d go in for my office hours most days in jeans (sadly not sweats), a tank top, and some flip flops, and I’d do my lesson planning and work on my exam papers, and I’d play a bit of Spider solitaire here, a bit of Spider solitaire there. Towards the second half of my second year, I decided to up my professional-dress factor, and began to wear the occasional skirt. If I wore jeans, I’d top them with a blouse instead of one of my left-over-from-high-school tank tops. My Spider solitaire habit might have declined (luckily, I never kept a log of hours or games so I can’t be embarrassed now). But I noticed the change in dress, and a change in attitude. And other people noticed too. Like one of my advisors. It was a good feeling.

These days, I don’t have much reason to get dressed up (and by “dressed up” I mean something above sweats on the formal-wear continuum). I’ll toy around with some jersey dresses and leggings, just to mix things up a bit. But honestly, it takes so much more effort than grabbing the first pair of yoga pants and natty old sweatshirt I can find (usually these are the pants and sweatshirt I took off to take my shower). If we go somewhere, like the grocery store or library story time, I’ll feel like I’m exceeding expectations by swapping those yoga pants for jeans.

And as soon as we get home? Z has to wait for her milk and snack while I change back into the yoga pants.

It’s a sweet life, comfortable. But even I am starting to feel a little grubby.

The Unsung Clarkie Underfoot

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Wednesday Momming Around Entry

Clarkie

Don’t sit down. Especially with a blanket and a book or notebook. This cat has Couch Radar and she knows when your lap is easy game. Even the dinner table and the desk are fair hunting grounds for her. Your lap is her prey and she is a skilled huntress.

Clarkie (Clark) is my other baby, and she will never allow herself to be forgotten (you’ll feel the prick of her paw on your face in the morning, or trip over her as you prepare breakfast). Since Z made her screaming way into our lives, though, Clarkie has been shuffled off to the side in a classic case of Forgotten Older Sibling. Has anyone read Socks by Beverly Cleary? Because that’s what I think of sometimes with Clark, and it makes me very sad.

We feel bad for her, especially now that Z is on the move. It used to be that we’d drag a toy mouse on a stick over the bed for her to chase, or toss paper balls around the house. Now Z runs after Clark, an old paper ball held in her sticky, outstretched hand. Screaming. And Clarkie just trots in the other direction. Quickly. I can see a martyred expression on Clark’s face. I think she’s grateful that she is unable to have children, and a little resentful that we did.

Everything Zen in the Tibetan Singing Bowl

Now that Z takes one long nap instead of three excruciatingly short ones, Clark has found my lap again. As I type this she’s tucked into  my sweatshirt, twitching her ear occasionally, but I can tell she’s happy. Ah yes, there’s a purr.

And yeah, she’s obnoxious sometimes. When it was especially difficult to get Z down for her nap for awhile, Clark would wander into Z’s room, meowing loudly. It was like she had Spidey (Kitty) Sense that Z’s eyes were closing, and she just had to foil my hard work. Punishment for spawning. I could read the vengeance in Clarkie’s eyes.

Clarkie is infuriating in some ways, and we have to be, you know, responsible for her, and clean up her poop and make sure she’s fed. But she’s soft, and cute, and so full of love and joy, and she makes us laugh. So really, she isn’t that different from Z.

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Writing update:
No longer rushing to finish revisions. These things take time, and I don’t want to ruin chances with this Dream Agent by sending anything less than my very very best.