13 Months

Jett!

You are thirteen months old! We missed your birthday. I guess once you hit a year, these month anniversaries lose some significance. (As if! You know we celebrate you every day. Every day!)

You're walking now, walking everywhere. We came home from work last Tuesday, and Grandpa H told us you walked from your bedroom to the computer armoire, and we didn't really believe it. It wasn't until Thursday (your 13 month birthday) that I saw just how far you could walk. Now you toddle along from one end of the condo to the other. Aunt Jenny said when you walk you remind her of E.T., and I have to admit, I see what she means.

It's so exciting! Tonight you walked across the room, bent down, picked something up, and stood back up on your own.

When you first started walking such long distances, you did so with your arms straight up in the air, yelling happily the entire distance, as if you could hardly believe it yourself and you couldn't keep from exclaiming, "Look at me! Look at me! Look at what I'm doing!" Of course we were exclaiming along with you. It was a happy yell-fest in here last week.

You've eaten a lot more food this month. Black beans, guacamole, shredded chicken, mandarin oranges, rice crispies, alphabet pasta, scrambled eggs, spanish rice, grilled cheese sandwiches, and fruit smoothies. You're also drinking a lot of whole milk - as long as we offer it to you in a bottle. Apparently you believe sippy cups are for water and bottles are for milk, and eventually you'll have to start drinking milk out of sippy cup too. Don't worry though. You can walk from one end of our condo to another! You can bend down, pick something up, and stand back up! Who cares about a little old bottle?

This month your favorite activity by far is pushing the stroller. Grandpa H took you to the park every day last week. I think you spent almost three hours there one day, and most of the time you just push-push-pushed that stroller around and around and around the park. Not only do you want to push it, you want to steer it, and you are strict about enforcing that rule. That's why the park is perfect for you right now - you can push the stroller all over the place in there without getting in to any danger. It was just yesterday that I sat at park and laid you on a blanket next to me. Now it's pointless to bring a blanket, because you never stop moving.

You just keep on going, Jett. It's a ton of fun keeping up with you. Happy birthday. We love you.

Grandpa H

Last week Jett turned in to the loudest kid I've ever met. I'm not saying it has anything to do with the fact that Grandpa H took care of him for four days last week. Oh no, I'm sure he had nothing to do with it. Jett spent the week doing quiet activities, like reading books and counting cheerios. There was no running in the condo. No yelling with delight. And no chasing. Definately no chasing.

Or so I'm told.

Working Mom

Being a working mom is laying your clothes out the night before, waking up before your alarm, and always hanging your keys on the same hook. It's about having a system in place so you can make it through the mundane tasks as efficiently as possible, saving all of your extra, spontaneous, greedy time for your baby.

It's about walking to the bus stop while your previously-organized mind, the one that layed your clothes out the night before, starts disassembling itself, like you're messing up the rubic's cube that you just spent hours solving. The square that plans your baby's meals is over there next to the square that remembers your computer password, and the part of your brain that remembers to put the dish detergent on the high shelf out of baby's reach is all mixed up with the part that gets you to your meeting on time and schedules appointments. By the time you get to work you've thought of so many things and turned them around so many times that you just want someone else to put the yellows with the yellows and the greens with the greens, the reds with the reds. Smooth and shiny. Organized. Neat.

You're at work now and you wonder how long they are going to let you work here, you with your rubic's cube brain. You who remember to set out your baby's meals every night, but forget your lunch every single day. Although you don't mind running out to buy lunch, because it's your only time to leave your computer. Even at lunch you sit at your computer, running through the other things you have to complete during business hours - scheduling doctor appointments for your baby, ordering shoes for your baby online because you don't want to use your free time at home dragging your baby to the store, figuring out childcare, answering email. You don't love spending lunch this way, but you don't hate it, and you know you're lucky that you have a good job and get to sit at a computer so you can do these things on your lunch hour.

You might feel lucky for the adult interaction during the day, except you are busy, so busy. Too busy to eat lunch out or to hang out because now more than ever you don't want to work late or take work home with you, because your baby is at home, and at home you try to focus on only one thing. You're better at that at home, and you wonder if Work gets jealous. You're playing favorites, and you wonder if Work feels left out.

You're a working mom and you feel like a martyr, even though you realize that is unbecoming in a person. You don't even qualify as a martyr, you with the luxury of choices, your supportive family, your college education, a job you like. So what is it that you want?

You want what every other hard-working person wants. You want the world to take notice and look at you with kindness and generosity. You want this world to turn to the next world and tell it to look at this working mom. She is working so hard. She doesn't get enough sleep. She's worried about her work. Her baby cries after her every morning when she leaves. She's trying her best and it is so hard.

Then you would like the world to buy you a beer, give you a high five and tell you you're doing a good job. You're working hard. We notice. Thank you.

Fourth of July

I hope you all had a happy fourth of July.

In the afternoon we drove down to the lake front path, paid $8 to park, and spent about three hours walking at a snail's pace while Jett pushed the stroller. Then some huge military airplane flew out from behind the trees and scared me half to death.

Actually, our afternoon was more fun than that sounds. Jett had his first taste of ice cream and was in heaven pushing the stroller, we walked along the water, and later that evening, we ate dinner outside. It was a good day.

Kalamazoo

We spent last weekend in Kalamazoo.

It's kind of a small town. But there are a couple of good restaurants, a park with clean bathrooms, and a beach with soft sand and a few fish. There is a hotel that will lend you their pack-n-play if you forget yours and on your drive home, there is a rest area with miles of green grass which is perfect for picnics, and blowing bubbles, and wrestling. In other words, Kalamazoo has everything you need for a little weekend away.

Plus, if you are lucky, like I was, you might catch a glimpse of the most photogenic people on the planet.