For Her Next Trick, She'll Need A Volunteer

A little after 4 a.m. today we heard, on the baby monitor, NJ cry. It escalated, then stopped, then started up again with more force. I reached to the floor and grabbed my second pillow to put over my head -- The Wife would either get up and check on her, if it came to that, or poke me in the back to do it -- when the next sound we heard was a thump. A loud thump. As we both shot out of bed like someone threw a Molotov cocktail on it, I felt the silence and knew it was about to break. The calm before the storm -- it's always there when NJ hurts herself, a bit of dead air before the real fun starts. One second as her face screws up in anguish and she builds up a mighty roar. As I reached our bedroom stairs, the roar came. The Wife beat me downstairs by a few steps, so when I got there she was scooping NJ up in her arms.

The kid had climbed out of her crib and landed on the floor. She looked nothing like this photo, which was taken some ten hours earlier.

Apparently, thankfully, luckily, she must have landed on her feet or her butt, because she was fine after a few minutes and had no pains, bruises or marks. By the time I got in the room, she'd stopped crying, too. The Wife rocked her a while and put her back, but NJ was having none of it and eventually they both came upstairs for the rest of the night. None of us really got any more rest, although NJ fell asleep just about the time the alarm went off.

In the past week or so NJ's figured out to pull herself up onto some of our furniture, particularly the low-slung sofa in the basement and a couple of stuffed chairs. Two hands on the cushion, one leg hoisted up (this takes a couple of tries), then she pulls until the rest of her body follows. She has a little trouble with the living room sofa, but is quick with a "Help" and I provide the requested assistance. The crib's mattress was at a height that the outward-facing rail smack at the middle of her torso. We didn't think she'd be able to climb over and out because she still sleeps in a sack and doesn't have a lot of leg mobility. (Or so I thought!)

Today I lowered the mattress floor to a suitable height (or lack of height, I guess) and she's back to being a cute little kid in a wooden cage. Before I screwed it in tight and moved the crib back to its spot against the wall, we put the mattress and the kid in it to make sure it's going to be safe. (She danced to a Clapton track in there.) We're set for a few more months, and there's one more, lower notch on the thing for further adjustments. I guess we just sit back and wait for her to climb out and fall again -- then we'll know it's time to lower the mattress again, right? /I keed, I keed

So, not a great way for the kid to kick off her 1 1/2-year birthday. But all's well now, she's upstairs sawing logs in her newly sunken crib. Hopefully she'll sleep through the night -- she ought to, because last night she, uh, got up early.

How Can I Miss Her If She Won't Go Away?

Well ... now she's really getting the hang of the whole "going away" thing. Por ejemplo:

I'm outta here.

There won't always be a closed gate at the end of the path, as there is here at day care. And there's only going to be a lot more of this to come. Walking away from me for her first day of real school, first date, off to college, to a new city/state/country, down the aisle, etc.

/Dad Solo feels very, very old
/realizes she'll be 1.5 years old next week, and it's already mid-February 2011
/feels even older
/starts missing grown-up NJ pre-emptively
/wipes away single tear, like that Native American chief who hated pollution
/sighs dramatically, wonders where time goes

With Apologies To Papa Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea

The Young Girl and the Lake

Thank You, J.J., For What I Consider Sound Advice

About an hour ago a BabyCenter e-mail landed in our inbox entitled "Your 17-month-old: Week 4." These missives are occasionally helpful, sometimes interesting, often attempting to explain the obvious. This one caught my eye, though, because it starts off like this:

It will be a year or two before your toddler leaves most of his tantrums behind. Until then, expect to deal with outbursts of anger and frustration on a regular basis.

This caught my eye, because NJ has been on a tantrum roller-coaster lately. The apex came a couple of nights ago when I was pulling off her clothes before bath time -- she was in a foul, red-faced mood and stopped crying and wailing long enough to laugh every time I blew a mouth fart on her stomach. Her laughter lasted exactly as long as every raspberry; once it was over, laughter ended on a dime and wailing resumed. (Only the traditional "Ready for your bath?" query ended the tantrum once and for all. She responds to this question with a smile, a head-nodding "Yeah!", a roll-over on the changing table and an attempt to climb down that is clearly her going through the motions, because she knows I won't let her and will pick her up.)

Lots of things trigger tantrums these days -- The Wife's unforgivable failure to hold her indefinitely is a current favorite. (Sadly, my holding her instead doesn't seem to be the answer -- NJ accepts no substitutes.) So you can imagine the mix of relief and anticipation I felt as I clicked on the BabyCenter link to find out what to do about these tantrums. The first thing that caught my eye was the phrase "magic formula," but a closer read ended in disappointment -- these experts were not, in fact, passing on a sure-fire recipe, but rather telling me there was no such thing. Instead, I got this:

A tantrum usually burns itself out faster if you act neutral or even ignore it instead of responding with a sympathetic cluck or rational explanation. Once your child calms down, offer her a lap and a chance to regroup. Try distraction (rather than giving in to something you refused). Don't punish a tantrum. At this age, your child can't help herself.

So this one goes in the "tell me something I don't know" file.

These tantrums wear more on The Wife and I than they do NJ. Once they're over, she's all smiles and sunshine and rainbows. If one lasts long enough, and is loud enough, I don't stop thinking about it for a long time.

I would ask for advice, but 1) I get the feeling that, as bland as BabyCenter's take on tantrums is, it's about all there is to say on the matter, and 2) I doubt anyone can help because, obviously, we are the first couple in the history of parents to go through such a thing. Right?

The Apple Of My Heart*

*Is that right? Seems sort of off.

I sort of fell in love with NJ all over again this week.

The Wife took an overnighter to Portland. It was the first time the kid and I have been alone for a long time (I started to actually look up the last time The Wife had to go out of town, but I'm lazy and semi-hopped up on cold medicine, so let's just say "a long time" and leave it at that). The time frame was short -- The Wife left mid-afternoon Sunday and returned Monday night, after NJ went to bed -- but NJ and I had a lot of fun. Nothing unusual: playing around the house, trip to the supermarket, kitchen dancing, bath and reading time, etc. What made it stand out from past Super Solo events is NJ's bursting-at-the-seams personality. (And the walking. The walking is definitely a difference. Man, is it a difference.) She's become an irrepressible force of nature who takes no prisoners, knows what she wants and how to get it, yadda yadda insert cliche here etc. etc.

NJ's vocabulary, for instance, seems to be expanding exponentially. "Hat," "bubbles," "moon," "Daddy," "Mama," "doggy" -- these are but a few of the words she has mastered. (And, of course: "Elmo.") The list of words that she's got a 75 percent handle on is even longer -- "quack" is "cack," for example, and "coat" is "co." (Actually, "CO!" is coat. I don't know why she gets so excited about putting her coat on, or watching me put mine on, but apparently it's a Big Deal.)

Now, though, my favorite word of hers is "more."

We were playing upstairs and I gently tossed NJ onto the bed to play Earthquaaaaaake, a favorite thing of hers from months ago that she seemed to outgrow. She lays on the bed, I loom over her and put one hand on either side and shake the mattress until she bounces up and down. Hilarity ensues, I stop, and just when she thinks it's over, another earthquake hits. Rinse, repeat, until my arms get tired or something comes up. So we played Earthquaaaaaaake and NJ loved, loved, loved it -- belly laughs louder than I'd ever heard before, and she actually lost her breath a little bit once. After three tremors I turned around and walked to my dresser for a water bottle, and behind me I heard NJ shouting "More! More!" I turned around and she was giggling and making the "more" hand sign she learned at day care.

I'd heard NJ say "more" plenty of times before, and seen the sign language a lot, but only when she was asking for food -- more yogurt, more cheese, more macaroni. But never in the context of playing, or entertainment, or anything I was doing. And since I'm an incredibly easy mark, I smiled big enough to hurt my face and rushed back to the bed for more horseplay. And for the first time ever, a round of Earthquaaaaaaake ended because I got tired of it, not her.

NJ missed her mom, I'm sure, and even called out for her at bath time Sunday evening, but she also had a great time with me. Sure, I might have cut some corners here and there -- I didn't wash her hair in the bath, which she hates, and her toothbrushing exercise before bedtime was probably the shortest on record -- but I don't care. We had a great time, and any worries I had about Super Soloing with a feisty, always-moving toddler vanished pretty quickly.

Which is good, because The Wife is abandoning us again next week for a couple of days. She'll be missing some pretty awesome Earthquaaaaaaakes, I'll wager.

For a day, at least, it was: Dad's up, Elmo's down.