Happy Birthday to Us

Yesterday my little muffin turned one year old.

I can’t explain to you exactly why that had me feeling maudlin all week. Part of me is excited that she’s a big girl now and is becoming more and more self-sufficient, but the rest of me is worried that I’m losing the baby bit by bit. Also, the one-year mark means that all the fun is over in terms of time spent at home with Nora – in a week I have to hit the pavement and get back to work. I feel like it’s the end of it all, even though I know evenings and weekends will be just as fun as they are now, and that we’ll still have plenty of snuggles and playtime.

Another thing about the one-year birthday is that back when I had a tiny baby, like when Nora was four and five months old, it felt like one year was a million miles away. I really thought that by the time she is a year old my worries about feeding, weight gain, all of that would be solved, and I could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labours. Not so. Just when I think we’ve got it all figured out, something happens (gastro, teething, general malaise) and we get set back again – like walking in snow: two steps forward, one step back. She still only weighs barely 19 pounds, which I think is just fine but according to the numbers game, she’s on the small side. She has a delicate frame. It is however true that I can now feed her almost anything. The other night, at her birthday party, she kept helping herself to the basket of baguette slices on the coffee table and I think she put back half a loaf without my noticing. She was standing at the table wearing a Hawaiian lei (would not remove it) with hunks of bread hanging out of her mouth, playing her new casio keyboard. She is a funny one, my kid. On her actual birthday hubby and I took her out for lunch and ordered off the kids’ menu for the first time ever – a pita pizza with mozza and sauce, which she liked quite a lot (she ate about 1/5 of it. The dog helped herself to the remains later on).

Anyway, all to say, I guess when you’re a parent you’re never out of the woods. My new thing is making sure she doesn’t fall and hit her head too much. The other day I made a call to the emergency health line (a fabulous service if you are a parent) which went something like this:

“Hi, I’m calling about my one-year old daughter. She fell off of a cooler and hit the back of her head on the electric baseboard heater and I’m wondering if I should be worried about head injuries.”

“Okay, well, is she bleeding?”

“Well, not from her head. You see, about two hours later she was sitting in my knitting basket and as she made to get out, she smacked her face against the leg of my ironing board and bled everywhere. Now she has a fat lip and I think her gum may be cut.”

“Alright (the nurse said slowly while typing, undoubtedly a quick e-mail to Child Protective Services), does she have any bumps or bruises?”

“ Weeeelll (sigh) not from that fall. She also fell while standing at the edge of the sofa, looking at the dog. She just fell over randomly, and hit the corner of the footstool on her temple. So there is a bit of a blue bump there, yeah.”

And on and on. That was one day. Turns out, after four days of carefully watching her, that she likely doesn’t have any brain damage. My intrepid baby is a bit too fast for her slow-witted mommy, and often I will watch helplessly, slowly, as she falls and injures herself right in front of me. The cooler incident happened as I ran upstairs to get a t-shirt. I was gone thirty seconds, and had left her in the back room (the play room, full of her toys) while I bounded upstairs to change. I heard a horrible BANG and then screaming and there was the scene laid out before me: the cooler on its side, Nora laying across the hallway with her arms out to her sides and her head up against the heater, bawling. Man alive. And she doesn’t yet learn from these mistakes, because while she may not climb that particular cooler again, she climbs everything else within range. I am beginning to see some real advantages to having wall-to-wall plush carpeting in one’s home. Hardwood and laminate are not forgiving. The biggest hazard is footie pyjamas – if they don’t have rubber dots on the bottoms of the feet, they are dangerous. Forget the flame retardants in kids’ clothes, just make sure they have rubberized feet.

Nora has a few new quirks. She has decided to be a stylish lady now, and she motors around the house in her sun hat and random necklaces. Yesterday she put on one of my necklaces and draped it around the back of her neck, so hubby did it up, and she wore it all day. We went out for lunch and I didn’t realize why people were kind of giving us the side-eye. I assumed they thought me negligent for ordering my tiny baby a cheese pizza, but really I’m sure it was the large splashy beaded necklace that got their attention. The other night she was wandering around in her pjs, wearing her orange sun hat and her pink heart-shaped glasses. This was really really cute, but not as cute as when she picked up my camera and made as though she was looking through it and taking pictures (upside down). She looked like a damn tourist. Like a crazy lady tourist. I love it. The real irony of it, however, is that I bought the sunhat to use as an actual sun hat, and while she loves wearing it around, she refuses to wear it outside.

Another quirk: if Nora decides she doesn’t want to eat something, she makes like she’s dramatically barfing, then hands it to me quietly. It’s quite funny. She’ll fake-retch, then gingerly pick up the offending item (either off of her t-shirt or the tray of her highchair) and hold it out for me, as if I should now eat it. Then she will not eat another one of its kind in that meal. When Nora is finished eating, she will mechanically hand each bit of food to the dog, which waits eagerly beside the chair. They are perfect for each other because Rosie is very gentle with baby fingers in her big mouth, and Nora finds it hilarious to jam her hand down Rosie’s toothy gullet.

She got a baby dolly for her birthday. I recommended it as a gift idea to my sister-in-law and she came through with the perfect one, though it had this horrible noisemaker inside that sounded like Chewbacca and scared the crap out of Nora. It actually sounded like a baby screaming and then choking to death. So babydoll had its first surgery after Nora went to bed last night. It has a soother attached to its neck, though, which confuses Nora as she’s never had a soother of her own. She tries to suck the doll’s, which is tiny, and the resulting look on her face is like “what the hell?” Yesterday (day 2 with the dolly) she decided dolly was hungry and fed it a bottle. Sometimes via its mouth and sometimes via its eye, but still – genius right?! She likes to hug the dolly and try to wear the doll’s clothes on her own body, like the doll sock that ended up on her toe. It’s watching her do things like that that makes me realize that while she doesn’t yet talk, she is picking up on everything and understands more than we think.

Speaking of talking, we’ve had some successes in this department but also some regression. There was a time when I swore she said “asha” for the cat and “tick” for stick, but now she is focused on making O sounds. She will pucker her face dramatically and go “OOOOOOOOowwwwww” over and over. She said “atcha” again at the cat this morning (the cat’s name is Sasha) so that’s good, but right now she mostly points – points at everything. And is very very good at making herself understood by pointing. She’ll point at the patio door to go outside, so we go out, then she points at the hanging tomato basket, so we walk over to the tomatoes, then she wants to pick all the green ones. I don’t let her and the she screams. Every day. I let her pick the red ones, which she holds tightly in her hand until her grip gets so tight that she pops the tomato, and then she eats it, seeds and juice dripping everywhere.

Anyway, one year old. Fastest year on record. I have enjoyed most of it and the rest of it made me stronger. I am a different person now – more grey hair, sharper reflexes, etc. I am mother to the cutest little monkey around and I could not be more in love.