I am in pretty good with Amelia’s teachers at the Montessori school, seeing as I’m there every day to nurse Amelia at lunchtime. I get all sorts of great stories about the cuteness that Amelia perpetrates at school while I’m off marketing my silly old construction company.

Two of the best ones, lately:

All the kids were outside with their teachers: Amelia’s class and the class older than hers. Miss Cortney, who is a younger teacher in Amelia’s class, was hula-hooping to show some of the older kids how it’s done. Well, Amelia thought that hula-hooping was just. utterly. hilarious. She started laughing, slapping her knees with her hands, and laughed so hard, that she leaned back, lost her balance, and fell over backward – still laughing uncontrollably. Even after Miss Cortney stopped with her crazy hula-hooping craziness, Amelia sat and periodically laughed to herself, as if she was remembering a funny joke. “Heh, hula hoops. Heh! Hilarious.”

Just yesterday, Amelia was one of only two kids in the classroom with Miss Cortney (the other morning teacher is on vacation in Columbia). When I finished nursing her, the other little boy was getting his lunch – black beans and avocado – so I put Amelia down in the other seat at the table and left. Miss Cortney told me today that Amelia was squealing and slapping her hands on the table so much, clearly enjoying herself but agitated, that Cortney thought to offer her some avocado as well. (It was avocado that I had brought from home.) So Amelia and L sat at the infant-sized table with their teacher, both eating avocado, and had a long conversation together. First Amelia would babble along, and then L would babble and gesture, and then Amelia would respond. They never spoke over each other, and seemed by all accounts to be discussing something quite entertaining. Needless to say, kids their age rarely hold conversations, so Cortney thought it was pretty remarkable, to say nothing of the adorable.

I’m aware I miss out on things when I leave Amelia at school, but it’s lovely to at least get regaled with the fun happenings rather than not knowing at all what she gets up to.

Wow, OK – so Amelia’s feeling better, though last weekend was AWFUL. She hardly slept because she was feeling so crummy and Tom was out of town and for three nights in a row I didn’t get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. But then on Sunday night she miraculously felt better and didn’t wake up but twice all night. Sleep has been really good since then – for those of you keeping score (like the critic in my head), Amelia sleeps with us in our bed and nurses off and on at night, whenever she wakes up really. Or whenever she wakes me up, more appropriately – she could be waking up quietly and not letting me know, I suppose. Having her there in bed, close, makes it really easy for me to just quickly nurse her down every time she wakes at night, which allows me to get more sleep, and honestly I don’t have the stomach for the sleepless nights that would be necessary for night weaning. Tom lives in horror of the day I have to travel for business or something, but we’re both so comfortably in denial about it that the status quo is undisturbed, for now.

Which is not the subject of this post, actually. Thought I’d catch you up and then I went off on a tangent.

I’m kind of got the doldrums these days. Work is frantic and dull by turns, and frankly it’s worrying to be in construction right now. It’s particularly worrying when both your incomes are in the building sector. Bah. Amelia and I seem to be in a good pattern, and Tom and I are collaborating well in giving each other some independent time and spending some time together every month, more or less.

And that’s all I’ve got, honestly. Life has kind of boiled down into a minestrone of baby, work, eat, sleep, and sometimes chat with Tom. Going to the farmer’s market on a Saturday is a big fancy outing for me. We don’t have any money to speak of, so we’re having to be very careful with our expenditures – my workplace has cut its hours 10% and Tom still works part time so he can spend afternoons with Amelia – and that’s pretty soul-deadening too. I love my daughter and I love my husband and life seems a little… too tightly focused, lately.

How do other parents of young children deal with this? Or is this kind of what it’s like from now on? (Please say no, please say no…)

OK, wow on many counts. First, that there was a Free To Be You And Me movie. Next, that it’s all on YouTube. And finally, that it included a teenaged Micheal Jackson singing about how “we don’t have to change at all” with Roberta Flack in “When We Grow Up.”

Amelia has some kind of viral crud that involves a nose that runs like a wide-open faucet, poor sleep, clingy behavior and intermittent fever. We both got no more than 2 contiguous hours of sleep last night and were up at 2:30 with fever. I took her to the doctor in the morning and her fever had broken but she was still very lethargic. The doctor didn’t like the look of that, so we did a blood test and it indicated a viral something. I’m just glad it doesn’t require antibiotics – she’s had way more ear infections in her life than I’m OK with, especially for an exclusively breast-fed baby!

But caring for a viral illness involves no magic bullet of antibiotics – just the old reliables of sleep, lots of nursing and quiet play. So we’re not going to the Whitehead Family Reunion this weekend, which is where Tom is right now, barbecuing brisket for about 50-80 people. Hopefully he’ll bring some home – he was really pulling out the stops for this year’s brisket! He left on Thursday night and will return on Sunday.

As much as I love spending time with Amelia, it is a little daunting to care for a sick baby all by yourself for 2 days straight. You can’t visit anyone because Amelia will get them sick, and it’s WAY too hot to be outside unless you just have to. I’ve been able to get a few things done around the house, just to preserve my own sanity, but I confess I’m a little tired and bored (our games are fun, but repetitive) and I’ll be happy when Tom gets home.

We have the funnest baby in the whole world. She just gets more fun and charming the older she gets. I love how she laughs when you tickle her ribs or under her chin! In Tom’s family (I think it’s a Texas thing, but I’m not sure) they call it “stealing her sugar” when they kiss or nibble the baby in a way that makes her giggle.

Amelia’s teachers all agree that she grew longer in the week that school was closed. She has been blowing them away with her new, wide smile and her ever more confident manner. This week she’s started sleeping on her belly at school, which was a big deal and I think gets her to sleep faster there. (This does not work at home, but lots of things that work at school don’t work at home.) I feel really lucky that the women she spends so much time with at the Montessori school are so genuinely loving and interested in our darling girl. It makes me feel much more confident about our decision to have her there, despite the almost crippling cost of it.

Amelia pulls herself up!

On Thursday, Amelia’s babysitter called in sick with a migraine and I ended up working from home so I could watch her. Working from home with her at this age is only medium difficult, compared to when Amelia was colicky (shudder), but I still end up feeling that I’m cheating her AND work by trying to attend to both simultaneously.

Perhaps it due to my slight inattention that Amelia attained another developmental milestone that day, a day before her 8-month birthday: she pulled herself up into a standing position! Granted, she hasn’t done it since, but she was SO pleased with herself that I am sure she’ll be back at it soon. See the play-by-play here:

Pardon the fuzzy photos – not trying to get all 1974 Sears baby portrait on you – all I had handy was the old iPhone.

After she finally got tired of standing in the crib, I sat her down (getting up is easy compared to getting down) and I swear on my soul that she just sat and giggled at me for two minutes straight.

One more piece of evidence that the child will walk before she crawls. Our little girl is growing up so fast!

Amelia started crying when I left to go to work today. When the babysitter arrived, Amelia asked me to pick her up by raising her arms like she does. I did, and gave her a kiss and a cuddle, and Amelia smiled at the babysitter. As soon as I put her down, she started getting upset. Then the babysitter picked her up and Amelia was wiggling and leaning away from her, looking at me with pleading eyes. She started really bawling when I opened the door to leave, and I could hear her outside the house as I got into my car.

I know we’re right on schedule for separation anxiety and this is perfectly normal, but I still feel like the Worst Mom Ever. Tom has volunteered to wait for the babysitter tomorrow, so we can share in the misery. He’s pretty awesome like that.

Does anyone want to pay me a couple of thousand a month to stay home and care for my baby? Oh, and I’ll need health insurance with that.

I’ve always thought of myself as a slightly heartless person. I was cynical from a ridiculously young age, though my face has always been fairly sympathetic – motherly when I hit my 30s. Despite my “cara de pureza,” as my students used to call it, I have mostly spent my life as a wry observer of life, apart and therefore somewhat unfeeling.

What has surprised me this year is the extent to which my heart has been cracked open by motherhood. Though still slightly terrified by the strength of my love for Amelia, I’m finally starting to take it a little more in stride… what’s ridiculous is how tender-hearted I’ve become! I can barely stand to hear about sick babies, and change the channel from NPR when they talk about children dying or families being torn apart. News stories that didn’t make me blink a year ago now send me into miserable imaginings of how horrible it would be to have my grown daughter stoned to death in Iran, or how I would feel if my child died when her school collapsed in an earthquake. Isn’t that hideously morbid? Why even go there, right?

I suppose that for me 2008 was a year in which I started learning the power of kindness and positivity. I took some risks, decided to try being optimistic (though I spent much of my time ranging between nervous of and terrified by that optimism) and generally set myself on the path of being open. I guess I didn’t realize how sentimental I really was, under all that sarcasm. I definitely remember thinking it was just dumb old hormones.

Does anyone have advice on how to be find the balance between laconic curmudgeon and teary-eyed sentimentalist? This getting misty at Hallmark commercials has GOT to stop!

We had a lovely weekend, partying with the DeBusks and getting the house ship-shape. The latter was de rigeur due to the fact that Amelia’s school is out this week – so we hired a babysitter to care for her during the week. It’s terrifying to realize that a relative stranger is not only going to care for your daughter for a week, but also be alone in your house, which hasn’t been properly cleaned for almost 8 months!

Of course, we put things off to the last minute and so were up until 11 pm or so, quite late for new parents. But then, of course Amelia let us sleep in – we were up only 15 minutes before Jennifer arrived! Poor thing, what could she have thought of us, Tom barely awake, though at least dressed – I was rushing around the house in my robe with a towel on my head!

Amelia actually took 2 naps with Jennifer, 2 more than we thought she would take, though she was pretty darned fussy and tired when I got home. She ate badly too, and needed to be held A LOT, which harkens back the the bad old days of C-O-L-I-C. Sleepy and whiny hours before bedtime, but hard to get to sleep – definitely feeling off her game!

It’s impressive to me how much the smallest of children thrive on routine. I must say, I miss our usual patterns as well – seeing Amelia at lunchtime as I do when she’s at school really lets me de-stress and reconnect with what’s truly important. And even when I know precisely why Amelia isn’t falling asleep easily, or sleeping well, I still find myself questioning my mothering abilities – and getting miserably tense.

Jennifer is perfectly capable, don’t get me wrong – but I’ll be really pleased when school is back in session and we can all get back into our well-worn grooves.