The snow has finally melted here in Albany... and while I wouldn't describe the weather as warm, it has been mild enough this week that Piper and I have been able to enjoy several long walks. For the past couple of days, we have gone to the playground at Washington Park in an effort to mingle with some other children.
Piper used to love the swings, but now she appears to be deathly afraid of all playground equipment for some reason. She enjoys watching other children playing and will smile broadly and yell "Wheee!" from the safe confines of her stroller or my lap. But every time I try to place her into a swing, she kicks and squirms and keeps repeating the word "Done!" in a worried tone until I stop. On a few occasions, I have forced her into the swing anyway, figuring that the happy memories might come back to her once she started to move. Wrong!
Today, Piper spent her playground time running through the wet, muddy grass in her moccasins and playing with dirt and wood chips. There was an odd mixture of rebellion and separation anxiety in effect. She kicked and screamed every time I attempted to pick her up or steer her away from a particularly messy mud puddle ...but would then cling to me whenever I tried to sit down somewhere and bury her face in my coat whenever anyone else said hello to her. Very unusual behavior... or maybe not. Maybe today's antics were a preview of Piper's developing toddler personality, of the temper tantrums that await me and the other challenges that lie ahead.
Parenthood is definitely the most difficult job I've ever had. But it is also by far the most rewarding.
The City of Albany declared another snow emergency today. For the next 48 hours, parking spots will become sparse as plows move through the streets and remove the huge drifts of snow that accumulated on Friday night. I've got to say, I'm more than a little bummed out about this most recent storm. It was so warm last week... Piper and I took several walks in the park (without our coats!) and I felt my mood seriously begin to lift with the promise of Spring right around the corner. Now we're buried again. It has been a L-O-N-G winter, and I honestly don't know how much longer I can deal with being cooped up in the living room. I think I may have a touch of seasonal mood disorder.
Despite the snow, we had a fun weekend. Our friends Tatiana and Eric drove up from Boston yesterday with Elektra, their almost-seven-month-old daughter, to spend the night. Piper's first sleep-over! We ate lots of delicious, fattening food and played with the kids and then watched Borat once we put them to bed. The movie made me chuckle out loud a few times, but I have to admit I was disappointed in it. After all the attention it got, I expected it to be much funnier.
Today has been a really lazy day for all of us. I think I'm still in a food coma from yesterday. I took a nap this afternoon (a rare luxury) and now I am about to park myself in front of the television (something I rarely do) and zone out. The perfect ending to a gluttonous couple of days.
No sooner did I write the previous "zippidy-doo-dah, yay March!" entry than Piper came down with a horrible cold... AGAIN! I haven't gotten over the LAST cold and have been operating at around 65% of my normal capacity for the greater part of a month. But I refuse to play the victim and I am still doing everything I can to convince myself that March is and will continue to be a great month.
Despite being ill, Piper has made HUGE strides during the past couple of weeks. Let me backtrack and explain that until just recently, she used to want me by her side for 90% of the day. She didn't always want to play with me, mind you, she just wanted me right there in case the desire to interact with me should occur to her. And if I tried to do something (anything!) else while sitting next to her on the floor... read a book/magazine, use my laptop, make a phone call... she would immediately let me know that my actions were completely unacceptable by whining, tugging on my clothes/hair, dropping a book or toy into my lap, sometimes all of these things at once. Occasionally, I would ignore her and do something else anyway because, well, I refuse to become my daughter's bitch. But much of the time I would submit and sit there next to her, staring into space, because it was easier to do that than deal with the whining.
But this week! This week, Piper has played by herself willingly for a large portion of each day. We have still enjoyed several daily play sessions together, but when I have needed/wanted to divert my attention elsewhere, she has not complained. There have been a couple of times this week when Piper has not wanted to take her nap. But has she screamed and cried about it? No! She has played quietly and contentedly in her crib instead (sometimes for an hour or more)! This is such a drastic, radical change that I am almost unsure of what to do with myself. Stay-at-home mom-hood may have just gotten a lot better for me (at least for the next few weeks... don't worry, I'm not that delusional...)
Piper has also made a lot of headway with her vocabulary recently. She now attempts to mimic much of what I say, and she's doing pretty well with her pronunciation considering the fact that she only has 10 teeth in her head. She tends to omit the final consonant from most words ("hat" is "ha" in Piper-land, "coat" is "co" and so forth), but at least she's trying, right? She called me "Mama" for the very first time this week, and I almost exploded with happiness. She's been calling T "Daddy" for months now, and I was beginning to wonder if she'd ever give me a name other than grunt and point. She also said her own name yesterday for the first time! Amazingly, I captured it on video this morning on my first try:
This weekend is going to be busy. Tomorrow, I am driving down to Tuxedo solo. Piper was supposed to come with me, but she's still got snot issues and a horrible cough and I don't want her to infect anyone, or have to deal with keeping her completely segregated from the other children (T has graciously agreed to be Mr. Mom until Sunday night). Tomorrow evening, there is a big party for my ex-boyfriend Jeff, who turned 40 earlier this week. Mexican food, free music, lots of friends I haven't seen in a while... should be a lot of fun. And on Sunday, I will be at Chuck E. Cheese for Eliza and Zoe's third birthday party.
Maybe it's all the positive visualization I've been doing lately... but March has been peachy so far, compared to the yuck that was February. OK, so we're only three days into the month... but I've got a good feeling about the next few weeks, and I'm gonna tell the world about it.
Here are a couple of things that have made me really happy during the past 24 hours:
(1) Last.FM: I know it's old news, but for some reason I didn't check it out until last night. And now I can barely tear myself away from the computer.
