Daddy's Girl

Chad has been home the past few days due to the crazy cold weather, and Ella has grown quite accustomed to his presence in the a.m. When I opened her door this morning, she took one look at me and vehemently said, "No! No Mama! Dada! Dada! Dadaaaaaa!" Good thing I have thick skin.

Oh, and Also

I got 9 inches of my hair unceremoniously hacked off at WalMart last weekend for a mere $15. I feel so much better, even though you can tell it was a cheap haircut and now it needs to be colored. But it feels great nonetheless - lighter, more manageable, and completely out of my way. I'll need to update my profile picture now.

Technology is Cheap

My absence of late is primarily due to network connection and modem issues, technical stuff that I semi-understand. All I know is that my old and usually reliable computer won't stay connected to the Internet for very long before it inexplicably hangs up. The tech support guy at our ISP diagnosed my problem as a modem gone bad. I don't know if I trust his diagnosis, but until I solve the problem I must suffer through an even more erratic Internet connection than usual.

The breakdown of technology - such is becoming the story of my life. In the past year, we have had the following items breakdown: one washer, one dryer, one dishwasher, two coffeepots, two riding lawnmowers, a chainsaw, a car and a god-forsaken work van (whose presence I can't even acknowledge without cursing), a very expensive water softener, a laptop, and now a modem. Our telephone service, while not "broken" per se, does go out when there is a minor weather disturbance, sometimes for minutes but sometimes for days. And our satellite TV goes all berserk if there is even the slightest wind.

There are times when I feel like running away to an apartment in the city and buying all brand-new things with the promise of easy credit and ten-year warranties. But those moments usually pass quickly. I'd take spotty Internet service over morning traffic any day.

Poop!

Yesterday morning when I went to get Ella from her crib, she was already awake. She was also completely naked. Her soaking wet overnight diaper was crammed in the corner of her crib and she was looking at me sheepishly, vaguely pointing to the corner of the crib. I looked and, god help me, there was poop squished down between the mattress and the crib rails and smeared on her knee. One of her bears was soaking wet (she sleeps with 9 bears now), presumably from pee. I was appalled. She was embarrassed. It was not a good way to start the day.

I cleaned everything up and called Chad to commiserate. I wailed: "What if this becomes a thing now? What if she does this every morning?" And Chad said if that was the case, we could tape her diaper on, wrapping duct tape round and round her waist so she couldn't get it off. I would definitely wrap my child in duct tape if that's what I needed to do to keep the diaper on.

In a weird twist, yesterday night Ella pooped in the toilet for the first time in her life. Maybe she was trying to make up for the shitty morning (pun intended). We hooted and clapped and smiled, and she beamed with pride.

No no

It finally happened: the dreaded and inevitable Monster No has moved into our home.

Every other word out of my sweet child's mouth is "No." Ella says "No" even to those things she actually wants. She says "Nononono" in fast, disapproving succession when Free gets out of line. It's already annoying, and it's not even an old thing. She just started obsessively saying it a week or so ago. (Or maybe it has been longer? Time gets fuzzy in this stay-at-home gig.) She has grasped the subtlties of pronunciation - a long, round "No" means she is tired, a short, clipped "No" implies impatience and frustration, and a bouncy, perky "No" is playful and inviting.

All of the sudden I hear other words coming out of her mouth too: "Ball," "Try this," "Sorry!" "Dirty," "Fire," "Help?" They are garbled, mushy, unclear, but they are definitely in there, shining like rough jewels for me to pluck out of the babble-muck. When I hear a new word, I exclaim to Chad, "She just said {insert new word here}!!" And he smiles and chuckles about how she is growing up so fast. It's a constant refrain around here these days.

Up and Down

The weather has been so bizarre this week. Has it been weird for everyone else too? Yesterday it was 67 degrees, a ridiculously high temperature for the Northeast in January. Hello, global warming!

Last night the warm wind howled all night long and made it hard to sleep. It was so disturbing that it scared our ferocious pit bull, who came into the bedroom at 3 am quivering and wide-eyed. Chad let him sleep in the bed with us, an event so rare that I can count on one hand the number of times it has happened.

The Happy Hermits

Ella and I have not left the house since January 1. This hermit-izing was not intentional. Chad worked long days this week and I was too lazy to wake up and drive him into town, so I didn't have the car. And it was entirely too cold to venture outside for any length of time. So we've been in the house for days, simply by accident.

In an effort to avoid complete mental atrophy we've been doing all kinds of fun new things. One day we taped five sheets of printer paper together, stretched it across the kitchen floor, and colored with Ella's fun new markers. Another day we stirred together some homemade play dough and spent a full hour cutting out different shapes and mashing the colors together. I've discovered that Ella really loves "doing" the dishes and would spend an entire morning at the sink if I'd let her. And we've developed a modified, toddler-friendly version of hide and seek where I leave my big butt hanging out so it's easier for her to find me.

As cliche as it is, I feel like my daughter is growing up so goddamn fast and this week allowed me the time to marvel at the little person she's becoming. She's independent and headstrong, and, like many toddlers, she rarely wants help getting things done. She listens to most of what I say very closely, and I can clearly see her taking it in and working out the meaning. She has this endearing way of coloring where she hovers over her marker and colors the tiniest little scribbly circles I've ever seen. And she's very fond of the color yellow, a fact that amazes me because I think yellow is yucky.

But the best part? I've caught glimpses of a gentle, loving little girl peeking through her tough toddler exterior. She's started to hug and kiss, and sometimes she takes my ponytail out to play with my hair. One morning I opened my eyes to see her gazing at me sweetly and sleepily, rubbing her little finger so softly along my cheek. I think it was the sweetest thing I've ever felt.

Night Owl

We bought a new coffee pot over the holidays. Our last coffee pot was such a drag to use. It leaked 2 cups worth of coffee on the counter, it spit steam and spray everywhere, and I swear it brewed cold coffee, or at least lukewarm. It got to the point where I didn't even want to turn it on, which is really remarkable for a caffeine junkie like myself. But now, armed with a new coffee pot that brews an entire pot of steaming hot caffeine, I'm back to drinking a pot a day, and as a result I have been staying up until 4 am.

Staying up to the wee hours of the morning has actually been fun. I've been using the time to clean, obsessively organize, and write for a new blog that I'll share when it's ready. When I wake up tired and dragging ass the next day, I just brew a new pot of coffee. I'm sure it isn't very healthy or sustainable, but right now I'm enjoying this unfamiliar energy. I feel almost like I'm in college again.

Resolutions

I love New Year's Eve. Of course I like to get drunk and kiss, but what I really love is the opportunity to start a new calendar, a new notebook, and a new goal.

I used to make grand resolutions on New Year's Eve, things like "This year I will lose 30 pounds" or "This year I will write a book." Like most people, though, I never followed through on these resolutions. By the middle of the year I would feel like a failure because I hadn't yet met the exceedingly high expectations I set for myself in January.

Last year I tried a different approach to my New Year's goal setting: instead of being super-specific, I chose a wide area of my life that I wanted to improve. My goal for 2007 was to "make our house a home." I kept a long list of things I could do to meet that goal, and I frequently added new things or crossed off tasks throughout the year as they became irrelevant or completed. I never approached the list or the goal as something I had to finish, but instead used it as a tool to give me focus.

My goal for 2008 is to become smarter with our money. I want to establish a sustainable system to track where our money goes. I want to add to our savings. I want to know when I am getting a good deal and when I am getting ripped off. I want to add to our household income. My list will grow and change with me throughout the year, and I think that's why it works for me. It's fluid, it's low pressure, and it's focused.

Do you make resolutions?

Holiday Hangover

Christmas is finally over. Finally.

We have been running to and fro like crazy people for the past 6 days - visiting relatives, shopping, eating, and gifting. Our diet has almost solely consisted of cookies, chocolate, and ham. I haven't washed dishes in two or three days, and laundry has been sitting around for longer than that. Remind me next year that waiting until the last minute to do all of my holiday chores is not festive or merry. In fact, it is crazy and leads to a serious holiday hangover.

I'm anxious to get things back in order. I don't deal well with chaos.

Ella thoroughly enjoyed the opening of her presents once she got the hang of it. I tried to take pictures, really, I did. But I only took two and they are both poorly lit and poorly focused. I need a personal photographer to follow us around and document all of life's most precious moments for us.