The parenting thing has suddenly gotten really hard. Piper whines constantly these days. Says "No!" like it's going out of style. Hardly touches her food during meals and then gets upset when I turn down her requests for crackers, cookies and/or ice cream. Refuses to walk anywhere on her own (if I try to force her, she throws a tantrum). Won't have anything to do with other children. Is happiest sitting like a zombie in front of the television set, watching her beloved Sesame Street. I am constantly fighting the urge to snap at her (sometimes I do... and even though she seems to forget about it quickly, I still feel terrible for hours afterwards).
It hasn't been all bad lately, though. Piper never fails to blow my mind with her ability to learn new things. Every day she becomes more intelligent and more verbal, and every day she seems more beautiful and more awe-inspiring to me. Several times a day, she says or does something that is so cute, I feel like my heart is going to explode into a million pieces. These are the things that keep me from losing my mind.
1) I took Piper to her first movie in the theater last Tuesday. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have bothered (she's too young), but one of the local theaters shows a series of kids' movies during the summer months free-of-charge and Tuesday's happened to be Curious George. Piper loves the cartoon on TV, so I figured I had a pretty good chance of getting her to pay attention. She did really well - we saw about 45 minutes of the movie before she got restless. All in all, a successful trip... although I think I'll wait until next summer to try again.
2) T is the best husband in the world! On Friday, he received a surprise bonus at work. On Friday night, he went to the Apple Store and bought us each a fancy new MacBook, plus a speedy new AirPort AND a new printer to replace the one that died several months back. How cool is that?! We've been geeking out hardcore ever since. I am so lucky!
3) We took our usual family trip to the Troy Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, and the produce was SO NICE this week! Everything looked so beautiful, I was inspired to take some photos. Fruit season makes me happy! While most of these items are available in grocery stores year round, they taste completely different when they are local and fresh. So delicious!!
4) I got a relaxing, deep tissue massage on Saturday afternoon (my Mother's Day present from T and Piper). Plus, T took over parent duty all day. Once my massage was over, I came home, shut myself in my office, and spent a few heavenly hours with a glass of wine and my new computer. Bliss!
5) I have been juicing almost daily and exercising every afternoon while Piper naps. I have added push ups and the Abs of Steel video to my usual treadmill routine, and Piper and I have been taking many long walks as well. I wish I was able to drop pounds the way I could in my 20s, but I just have to have faith that something positive is happening, even if I can't see it. At least I am healthy!
6) Piper began cutting her two-year molars this past week, and they are giving her a really hard time. Her appetite has gone through the floor (I'm lucky if she eats one meal a day), and she often whimpers "Mouth!" to let me know that it hurts. She has been extraordinarily whiny lately and unusually anti-social when around other children. She has been taking shorter naps and wakes up several times each night (thankfully, she knows how to soothe herself back to sleep). I can't wait until this phase is over and we can stop worrying about teeth for a few years.
7) Piper's obsession with Elmo continues. She sings "Elmo's Song" regularly to herself as she plays, and she spends a lot of time offering fake food to her stuffed Elmo doll. She has also added the phrase "ME WANT COOKIES!" (a la Cookie Monster) to her rapidly-expanding repertoire. I find myself embracing television more and more these days, which kind of bothers me. But at least it's just Sesame Street... god knows I watched the hell out of that show, beginning at a very young age.
We have a busy week ahead of us: a lunch date tomorrow, a visit from my mother on Wed/Thurs and a play date on Friday morning. I'm hoping that the weather stays clear so we can visit the local pool once or twice.
One of Piper's most recent obsessions is this small box of Hamburger Helper, which came as part of a play food set I bought her a few weeks ago:
She calls it "Helper," and she loves to carry it around the house and feed it to the cat and to her Elmo doll. Being the cheap piece of crap that it is, "Helper" was not designed to withstand heavy use and it has quickly become flimsy and misshapen. This wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that my daughter is extremely anal-retentive and gets really upset when "Helper" falls out of its box formation. All you have to do is look at the damn thing and it caves in... so basically, Piper is constantly in a state of high anxiety when playing with it. To give you a little taste of what I dealt with on Friday:
And later that same afternoon:
I managed to wrest it from her clutches on Saturday afternoon, and it is now hidden in a pile of junk in my office, where she will never find it. She's still asking me for it, though. I thought "out of sight, out of mind" was the rule with babies. Guess not.
1. Piper has officially discovered Sesame Street. She calls it "street," and asks to watch it incessantly. So far, her favorite character is the dreaded Elmo (she actually sang "dassss Elmo song!" to us last night, as we listened in amazement/horror), followed closely by Cookie Monster. I do a pretty crappy Cookie Monster impersonation but fortunately, it seems to be doing the trick for now.
2. Piper now knows the word chair.Whenever I sit down to take a moment's rest (on a chair or on the couch, it doesn't matter which), she will walk over to me, tug on my shirt and whine "Chair!" As in, "Get your lazy ass up offa that chair, woman, and entertain me!" Lucky for her, she's cute.
3. In non-Piper news: I have been deepy infatuated with 80s music this week. It all started when my brother-in-law Christian burned me a copy of an 80s mix he made for himself. It's a great mix... but I thought there were some holes in it, and I figured I'd download a few tunes and flesh it out a little bit. I think I have now managed to compile something like eleven straight hours of music that should definitely remain buried in the past... the completist in me just can't stop. High humor. I'd be happy to burn an MP3 CD for anyone who's interested...
Happy weekend, everyone! Live Earth starts tonight. Educate yourselves! Check it out!
