Peaceful

Five seconds later, I woke her up. She had slept the whole night without interruption. I didn't praise her in the conventional sense. ("Good job" and "You're so smart" are platitudes best used with dogs. Sorry, relatives.)

But I did say, "You didn't wake up or cry last night!"

"Yeah."

"You slept in the big-girl bed!"

"Yeah."

She looked puzzled at my enthusiasm, as though she had already internalized the implications of big-girlhood after only ten days as a two-year-old.

Thirteen hours later, defying fashion norms by wearing last night's pajamas, Lyla delivered an impassioned monologue titled "No bed! Books! Don't take picture!"


Alas, I shut the door and the webcam malfunctioned, so for all I know she's sleeping peacefully atop the sweaters in her bottom dresser drawer.

But at least she's peaceful.

To sleep

Last night Lyla woke up half a dozen times in the big-girl bed. Each time, Julie or I went in there and tried to convince her that a move to the crib carried no shame. It just made her cry harder, as if we were telling her in 1st grade to abandon underwear and return to diapers.

She only fell out of bed once. I entered the room and decided to make light of it.

"You fell out of bed and plopped on the floor!" I hauled her up like a giant Pepperidge Farm Christmas meat log and laid her back down. "Goodnight!" Quick pivot and out the door.

I expected outraged sobs, but instead she went right back to sleep.

And now as I type this, she's back in there again. She rolled around and muttered to herself for 20 minutes or so, but now she appears to be asleep. Hopefully the stretches of sleep lengthen tonight so I'm not so exhausted tomorrow.

I downloaded an application that streams the webcam to the iPhone and iPad, so now we can video-stalk her from anywhere in the house--technically anywhere period. Don't worry: it's password protected to foil burglars and perverts.

In other news, Lyla's two-year checkup was today.


Previously we would dip a binky in sugar water and then shove it her mouth during shots. Since she's binky-free now, a Dum-Dum stood in. It worked just as well.


Lyla whimpered but got over the shots fast. I still think it's a bit psycho how well she reacts to needles; it reminds me of when I was in 8th grade and a kid in my class pierced his own ear with a safety pin. The irony of it being a safety pin was lost on him, as most things were.

But speaking of safety, my assistant principal offered an excellent suggestion to prevent toddlers from falling out of bed. Stick a rolled-up towel along the bed's edge, under the fitted sheet.

Okay, she's definitely asleep now, head at the foot of the bed, on her stomach, butt in the air. I think I'm going to go to sleep, too.

In there

Okay, those two pictures are cute and all, but check this out:


That's Lyla sleeping in her big-girl bed. I put a webcam right inside the door and ran two 10-foot USB extension cords to my laptop in our bedroom, which is where I'm typing this. I have Apple's Photo Booth application open, so it's acting as a live feed.

So basically I'm stalking my own kid.

Julie often asks Lyla at bedtime where she wants to sleep, the big-girl room or the baby room, and Lyla always chooses her baby room with the crib. The only thing she's ever done in the big-girl bed is read books. For unknown reasons, tonight was different.

"The big-girl bed? Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

So Julie left her sitting up in the bed with a big smile on her face, as though it was a game. And now she's asleep.

We have planned. We have plotted, schemed, and debated. We have hemmed and hawed. How do we transition her? What's the best way? When's the best time? On and on. And here we are.

I wonder how long she'll last in there.

Manners

Julie and Lyla went to the zoo this morning while I stayed back and graded papers. This time Lyla did not leap off any ledges.

"No big dump."

"Good. Now say it one more time so you don't forget."

"No big dump, peez. Fank you."

We've been doing a lot with manners lately.

Lyla's two-year checkup is Monday. She'll get shots, and I have a feeling it'll get ugly. When she was littler, you could use her ignorance to your advantage. You'd console her without acknowledging what exactly had hurt her. Now Lyla will certainly associate the pain with the big pokey things held by the lady dressed in white. She'll talk about it for months.

"Bad pokey lady."

"Lyla--"

"No bad pokey lady, peez. Fank you."

Not puzzled

Not long ago, everything was a chew toy to Lyla.

"Let's look at the pretty pictures in this book."

Chew toy. Wet pages.

"Here, hold this marker and color on this paper."

Chew toy. Crayola cigar.

"See Dada's nose?"

You get the idea.

At some point babies start to use toys for their intended purpose, but I don't remember when it was for Lyla. I guess we'll experience it all again when the new kid comes.

In the meantime:

Validation

This afternoon at Jen and Jason's house for Thanksgiving, Lyla turned to Jodie and said something like, "I need bite, Jodie." It was regarding pumpkin cheesecake. Besides Julie and me, I don't remember Lyla ever doing that--just randomly turning to someone and saying an entire sentence while using their name, and without any prompting from us.

Of course, Lyla got her bite of cheesecake. I remember when she first started communicating, saying "Dat!" and pointing, and in those first weeks she got whatever she asked for.

One thing's for sure, at least for me and maybe for others too. When a toddler says your name, it validates your existence in a way that nothing else can.

Changing tactics

Parenting is all about changing tactics. Something will work perfectly one day, and the next day it's disaster. Post-binky bedtimes lately have been successful because we put a book in the crib and leave the light on a little.

"Read for a little bit, and then put your head down and go to sleep."

"Yeah."

Brilliant.

Until tonight, that is. "Light on! Light on! Read Dora book! No bed!" On and on.

I went up there twice and failed both times to convince Lyla that bedtime was a fantastic idea. Then Julie, back in the land of the living, went upstairs to give it her best shot. Lyla was ready for her.

"Meh-sin."

"You don't need medicine, honey."

"Meh-sin!"

"Does something hurt?"

Lyla thought for a moment. "Toe."

"We don't take medicine for a toe."

She tried again. "Mouff."

Then Julie changed tactics and appealed to Lyla's ethos of maturity.

"You are a two-year-old now, a big girl, so it's time to lay down your head."

Again, she thought for a moment. "Yeah."

So somehow, it worked. It probably won't work tomorrow, but something else will.

Hopefully.

Anguish

Remember Lyla's puke-fest on Saturday night? Julie is in the midst of one now.

On Sunday and Monday, Julie felt awful but with little pockets of feeling better. That all changed early this morning. If you picture her stomach like a school and her mouth like the front door, then early this morning someone pulled the fire alarm.

But she's tough. She's hanging in there. In fact, as I type this she has just devoured an orange popsicle so viciously that popsicles the world over are on high alert. She asked me when she can have another one, and I suggested she wait a bit to see if she can keep this one down.

"Give me a time," she said, "something to shoot for."

"Uh, big hand on the three?"

The big hand currently rests on the eleven. I wonder if she'll last.

But I am screwed, I fear. How will I avoid coming down with whatever this is? Positive energy. Breathing. And shit-loads of hand sanitizer.

In other news, I dropped Lyla off at daycare this morning during breakfast. Clearly she suffers a lot of anguish when I turn to leave.


"Bye, Lyla. See you later. Have a good day. Love you. Bye bye. Use your manners today. Adios."

Do dis

You can see Lyla's evolving syntax by examining her car-ride sock removing ritual.

"I need hep, Dada!"

"Are you taking your socks off?"

"Yeah."

Then: "I do dis!"

"Oh, you did it all by yourself?"

"Yeah! Hi Dada."

"Hi Lyla."

"I 'ave puppet hand!"

"You have a puppet on your hand?"

She also likes to define things by what they're not.

"Lyla, did you eat a popsicle today?"

She tripped and split her lip, resulting in a popsicle and our first incident report in awhile; then came another incident that resulted in her coming home wearing loaner pants, but I'll (uncharacteristically) spare you the details on that one.

"Yeah."

"What color was it?"

"Wed."

"Ooh, red?"

"Not black."

"Oh."

"Not yellow."

And so on.

And at home she defines possession through non-possession.

"My mihk!"

"Yes, your milk."

"Not Daisy's."

"No."

"Not Tutu's."

"Right you are."

"Not Matt's."

"Are you sure?"

"Not Ava's."

Etc.

And finally, ridiculously, Lyla tries to outsource the opening of her own birthday presents.

"Mama do dis."

"Lyla, it's your present!"

"Peez."

"Do you want help?"

"NO!"











We have three presents to go. Hopefully we'll get through them by Christmas.

Indigestion

Yesterday Lyla went down for a late nap. Julie left to run some errands. I sat downstairs and listened to the baby monitor as Lyla sang happy birthday to herself and did not sleep. Momentarily, the singing escalated to a full-fledged rebellion of "No nap! No nap! Up! WAAAAAH!"

I crept upstairs and stood outside the nursery door, hand poised over the knob in the dreaded pose of sleep-failure indecision. When do you go in? You don't want to give up 30 seconds before the miracle happens, nor do you want to listen to this pitiful, devastated child. It's her birthday--good grief!

At school our faculty mail boxes are doorless and span a massive wall in the resource room, over 100 of them, and on Wednesday members of the American Legion placed an apple into each one. You walked in and were hit with an aroma so powerful you felt it in your eyes.

That's what I experienced when I entered Lyla's nursery that afternoon, only instead of apples it was shit.

"Up peez, Dada."

"Oh sweet merciful heavens."

The diaper had put up a valiant fight, but in the end it was no match for the blitzkrieg. (I should say shitzkrieg.) I balled up her leggings and threw them on the floor, then mopped up her war zone with approximately 900 wipes.

New leggings. Four books. Back in crib. Three hour nap.

So that was after Julie's parents left and before Jodie, Matt, Ava, and Luke came over. When they left, we put her to bed. Then we went to bed. Everything was calm and lovely.

Until 12:45 AM. Lyla started crying and saying "All wet!" She had barfed cupcake all over herself.

Here we are after the bath and after three post-bath barfs.


We're watching Elmo in Grouchland, a movie that has slightly less cinematic merit than The Terror of Tiny Town, a 1938 musical western with an all-midget cast.

Lyla did finally stabilize, so we put her back to bed.

Julie woke up the next morning queasy and miserable; Lyla woke up cheerful and starving.

After Lyla played vigorously with her new toys, I put her down for a nap by setting her in the crib, handing her a book, and saying "You can sit and read for a little bit, but then you need to lie down and go to sleep." She woke up four hours later.

That evening, Julie stayed back to continue sleeping and writhing while Lyla and I headed to my parents' house. My uncle and his family got Lyla a bitchin' new ride.


Check out the birthday pie.


Nice candle arrangement, Mom! Job great!


Lyla stuffed herself with apple cheesecake pie. Hopefully she'll make it through the night without yacking it up.

One more thing. My brother, sister, and aunt asked Lyla what her baby brother's name is, and Lyla told them. Then I lied and said _______ is just the name of a boy at Lyla's daycare that she likes. So if you want to know the name, just ask Lyla. But do it away from me and then keep quiet about it. Neither Julie nor I want to hear our son's name bandied about before he's born.

Two years old

Julie's parents came over with birthday gifts for Lyla and lunch for everyone. Grandpa John gave Lyla a washed-out little plastic bottle that previously contained juice. Throughout the afternoon, he pulled quarter after quarter from behind her ears and she plunked those quarters into that bottle, fascinated and immensely pleased with herself. The quarter in the ear: classic grandpa illusion. The improvised storage container: genius.


So the excitement around Grandma and Grandpa led to a late nap; fast-forward to this evening and here's what led to a late bedtime.





Ninety minutes past Lyla's bedtime, when Jodie, Matt, Ava, and our friend Luke had left and Lyla had finally burned off all the sugar in her system (mostly by sprinting around the house while hitting a balloon and shouting "Puh-ple boon!"), she finally agreed, grudgingly, that it was nigh-night time. Julie left her in the crib sitting in the dark with a book. Books are the new binkies. As an English teacher, I couldn't be more pleased.

Rewind to this morning. At 8:11, I brought Lyla into our bedroom to rouse her mother.

"Mama, wate up!"

"Hi Lyla."

"Mama!"

"Happy birthday, Lyla."

"Yeah!"

"Careful Lyla, be gentle with Mama. Don't jump on her belly."

Lyla nodded. "Yeah. Baby bruddow."

Wow. It's tough to comprehend that in about two months, we'll have another birth day.

Two eve

7 days old:


729 days old:


We should buy a new towel.

Lyla turns two tomorrow. She's pretty happy about that. So are we.

Octopus

"Oh ah-ta-puss."

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Then she pulled an I and said "I iddlo," and I nearly ran outside to build her one.

I was talking to a colleague today about the joys of two-year-olds. Their vocabularies haven't caught up to their emotional range, and their dexterity hasn't caught up with their desire for independence. That could be a textbook definition of the terrible twos. Sometimes you just have to say, "Lyla, my love for you transcends this ear-bleeding hissy-fit you're throwing," then haul her up and football-carry her wherever you need to go.

After last night's bedtime kerfuffle, this evening we started reiterating the bedtime routine during dinner. "Then we'll go upstairs and put on pjs, and then brush teeth--"

"No bush teeth."

"And then we'll read books."

"Yeah."

"And then it's nigh-night time."

"No nigh-night."

"But first we need to put on pjs."

"Yeah."

"Lyla, can you say 'I go nigh-night pretty soon'?"

"I nigh-night pity toon."

Upstairs after the aforementioned routine, Lyla demanded that Julie leave a book in the crib. Julie obliged and left the dimmer switch just high enough for Lyla to see. "Nigh-night, Lyla." Shut door. Tiptoe away.

"WAAAAAAAAAH! Light off! Light off!"

Open door. Look in crib at toddler screaming and looking at book. Return room to inky blackness. Exit.

Silence.

If Lyla could talk better, she would've said, "No, I don't want to see the book. I just want to pretend to see it. Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"

Bedtime psychobaby

In the mirror you can see the wreath that Julie chose instead of the "awful" cast-iron candle sconces. I think it looks like Lyla has a big Cheerio on her head. It's certainly not a halo considering her bedtime behavior lately.

Everybody online is saying the same thing. Suddenly the toddler loses his or her mind and devotes considerable vocal resources at bedtime to making sure the parents lose their minds too.

Lyla screams. Not a scared, sick, or in pain scream, but a manipulative, angry, fuck-you scream.

"Nigh-night, Lyla."

"FUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUU!"

She won't even lie down, won't put her head on your shoulder, won't do anything but scream. Wanna come over?

I know what you're thinking: "Are you sure she's not sick? Maybe she's scared of the dark. Maybe she's blah blah blah."

Seriously, wanna come over?

She finally settles down after we wait it out for 15 minutes and then go back up and then wait it out and then go back up. Then she sleeps through the night, but only after she has wrapped her little fingers around the fabric of our sanity and unraveled a little more.

Of course we know what to do and we're happy to do it: stricter bedtime routine, more communication, relaxing bath, soothing books, fewer lines of cocaine, and so forth. Julie even read about a clock with a red light, yellow light, and green light, which you work into her routine--green light for ten minutes, yellow for five, and red after that. "Wed wight, Dada. Bed!" she'll shout gleefully and then squirrel-climb into her crib. It's worth a shot.

I wish it didn't have to be so reactive, though. If we could have anticipated this sudden bedtime psychosis, we might've prevented it. Or at least sent her to boarding school.

On another note, yes I'll probably start another blog, sheesh. I like how writing affects the way I think about the ordinary events in a day. The world becomes a giant, ridiculous storybook.

Mama's birthday

The flowers and the paint color are the only two aspects of the room redecoration that earned Julie's approval. It has occurred to me that since each flower represents a hole in the wall and that the paint color represents, you know, a hell of a lot of work, that she might have just convinced herself that it was acceptable.

Everything else--the rug, the sheets, the duvet cover, the candle holders, the wall decal, and the blanket--made her want to style-barf. Thankfully she is past the barfy stage of her pregnancy or she might have actually barfed, and then we would've had to keep whatever misguided pieces of bedroom ugliness the barf hit.

So we're taking everything back. She's already purchased new bedding and this weird wreath with wooden flowers on it that looks like it was designed by the love child of Martha Stewart and a woodchuck. But what do I know?

Even though I'm an idiot in a lot of respects, due to a beautiful cosmic accident I'm smart enough to know that once a birthday surprise becomes a collaborative project, it no longer exists in the realm of birthday. So in a fit of cost-be-damned husband bravado, and in wholehearted acknowledgment that Julie will never (no, Mom, never) be pregnant on her birthday again, I bought her an iPad.

When she opened it, her water nearly broke. Add a couple hundred more husband points for me to lose in the delivery room by committing various infractions such as providing the sperm in the first place.

We ate dinner at our favorite neighborhood place. They brought out key-lime pie with a candle in it.


After a moment of hesitation, Lyla decided she wanted to eat all of it.


And on the way home she sang the following: "Happy birday to you, Mamaaa."

Meanwhile, Lyla's birthday is in four days. And then this blog will end.

Late

Lyla has discovered that a well-timed entrance into the toddler zone can add 20, maybe 40 minutes onto her day. Tonight she extended her bedtime by almost an hour because, well, because she stuffed two socks into a cup and washed them in her pretend sink over and over again, and we were so fascinated/horrified that we let her stay up.

Changing the bedtime routine is a rookie mistake. When we finally plunked her in the crib, she screamed things like "No bed!" and "Meh-sin!"

Downstairs I listened to the monitor and Julie in surround-sound.

"Dan, I think you should bring her some medicine."

"Meh-sin!"

"She doesn't need medicine."

"MEH-SIIIN! WAAAAAAAAH!"

I turned off the monitor. We could still hear her upstairs.

"meh-siiiin...waaaaaaaah."

"Dan!"

The "intolerant of crying" pregnancy hormone was in full effect. I went upstairs and gave Lyla medicine on the off chance that she was teething and not simply overtired from being put to bed an hour past her bedtime.

So yes: I am a terrible person. It's not Julie's fault; at that moment, she was simply a bit out of her mind with pregger hormones. I was the supposedly sane one who was like, hey, let's medicate our overtired daughter in hopes of shutting her up. Might as well have said, "Here, honey, this is called chew. Just put it under your lip and suck out the happy."

But it did work. In the future maybe we just need some nasty liquid like V-8 that tastes like medicine even though it's not. Or maybe we just need to get the kid to bed on time.

Big dump

Julie took Lyla to the zoo this morning while I went to Starbucks to grade papers. Ten papers into it, my cell buzzed. Lyla had been looking at dolphins and standing on a roughly two-foot-high ledge when suddenly she turned and leaped off it.

"Big dump!" she said, before taking a couple steps and starting to cry. Julie was afraid she had sprained her ankle.

"Can she walk on it now?" I said idiotically.

"She walks three steps all funny and then cries. I don't know what to do."

We convened at home, where I entertained the child on the couch for half an hour while we iced the ankle.

"Big dump."

"Yes, you took a big jump and hurt your foot. Ice will make it better."

"Yeah. Big dump."

"Big jump."

"BIG dump."

"BIIIIIIG jump."

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIG dump."

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG jump."

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-"

"Okay, you win."

One dose of ibuprofen and a failed nap attempt later, Lyla was sprinting around the house again. It seemed like the appropriate time to tease Julie.

"So Lyla jumped off a wall while you were off having a cigarette?"

"Shut up."

"Did the zoo authorities revoke your membership?"

"You're done."

Later we ate at Macaroni Grill, mainly because you get to draw on the tablecloth.


So the day ended with a happy, walking toddler. No trip to the emergency room. No limp. But what do you do if a toddler actually breaks or sprains an ankle? How do you immobilize the passionately mobile?

Style

Lyla's putting stickers on the fireplace, which felt safer in real life than it sounds in a sentence or looks in that photo. Julie's talking to my parents, though it's tempting to suggest she's smiling at nothing and potentially insane.

Speaking of mental illness, I have 14.5 weeks of sick time banked up, so I took a mental health day yesterday so I could redecorate our bedroom as a surprise for Julie's birthday. We're talking paint, art, sheets and duvet, rug, candles, and lamps. Look at your man, now look at me, now look at your man, now look...at...me.

So I woke up and acted like I was heading to school, then went to Starbucks instead. At the time when Julie and Lyla usually leave (check out Lyla's pic in the previous post), I drove home and...oh shit, saw them in the driveway. But they didn't see me.

Ten minutes of mindless drive-wandering later, I returned to the now-empty driveway, entered the house past the more-confused-than-usual dogs, and worked for the next three hours to gut our bedroom, tape, and apply the first coat of paint. Then Julie texted me.

"Come have lunch with me."

As she confirmed later, she truly thought she was texting me as a joke between 4th and 5th period. But I wasn't sure, so I decided to call her bluff.

"Where should I meet you?"

"Seriously?!!!!! City Center Starbucks."

I called her and came clean about my scheme. What's odd is that this is my 10th year teaching, and Julie has never emailed, texted, or called to jokingly suggest that I come meet her for lunch.

So we had lunch. Then I came home and finished painting.

Fast forward four hours. My mom came to pick up Lyla. Julie came home and we threw some clothes into a suitcase and headed downtown to the Hotel Ivy. Dinner. Room service. Sleeping in. More room service. Breakfast (in a snowstorm!). Massages. Lunch. Home. The perfect 24-hour vacation.

I finished styling the bedroom. Downstairs, Lyla styled Julie's hair.


Upstairs, the big reveal...

Kindly, quietly, respectfully, guiltily, lovingly, Julie hated it. It turns out I am as skilled with room design as Lyla is with hair design. Ah well.

So it's a work in progress. She liked the paint, and she liked what I did with one of the walls. But we have a bunch of stuff to return and a bunch of shopping to do. I'll post photos once it's done.

When a guy does something thoughtful for a girl, it's just that: thoughtful. When it fails miserably, it's still thoughtful but it's also cute, goofy, tragic, and in the end a better story. I can live with that.