Scarlet's First Year of Life

Scarlet has been one year old for six days now. I am utterly smitten with her. Here are a few of her current activities:

-She's walking like a very precariously balanced toddler. Occasionally she'll just be standing and suddenly drop to the ground. Thankfully she doesn't have far to fall because she's pretty lousy at staying upright.
-She likes to get into things ceaselessly. She pulls open the cupboards in the kitchen and bathroom and my nightstand to get at all the things we store underneath. I turned my back for a minute after changing her diaper and she had pulled out twenty wipes and was trying to reach into the container to get at the rest. She dumps out Q-tips and then picks them up one at a time to put back in their box or insert into her mouth (gag). She especially loves to pull down dvds and play with my work phone.

She got into the toilet paper and trailed it behind her until I could stop laughing long enough to help her.

-She is a good eater and can eat anything that adults eat now, but her favorites are yogurt, cottage cheese, carrots, bread, and graham crackers. She's tentative about vegetables and seems not to like broccoli, beets, any leafy greens, or tomatoes.

-She watches Barbie movies all day long because I need to distract her while I'm working. Sometimes she demands attention to emphatically that I have to stop work to play with her for a few minutes. Otherwise she clings to my legs, sobs with her head thrown back, and slams her hands on the keyboard. It tries my patience, especially when we're slammed with work, but I really am just losing patience with myself because I have unending guilt for working when my little girl needs me to take care of her.

And sometimes she'll leave me alone long enough to stare at the tv. She really likes when the animals come on the screen.

-She loves Color Crew on Netflix. When she sees the show start to play, she'll scream in excitement and start dancing.
-She is a shameless flirt at church. She refuses to sit in the pew, and instead insists on standing between her parents, facing the row behind her, and flirting with whoever is unfortunate enough to sit behind us. She also enjoys tearing the program into shreds.
-She is generally a happy baby who wants to smile and play, so I have learned that when she cries (hurts herself, is not feeling well) it means something is genuinely wrong. She never cries wolf when it comes to actual crying so I always treat her tears seriously.
-When Josh comes home from work, Scarlet jumps at the sound of the key turning in the lock. She gets so excited to see him!

Josh and I are so lucky/blessed to have her and to have her as a first baby. I wouldn't be able to keep working at WGU with a more difficult child, and life would be a lot less pleasant than it is. I'm looking forward to the next year of milestones and laughter!

True Love

In honor of Valentine's Day (one full week late), I dedicate this blog post to admitting that I have finally discovered what true love really is. Sure, Josh and I love each other forever and always and all that, but it's taken these past three and a half years to really understand that love. It keeps changing so I'm not ever certain I have a grasp on what it means. I think I've got it now. Here are my observations:

True love is waking up early on the weekends to take care of the baby so your wife can sleep in on her days off.

True love is buying symphony and opera tickets for your wife's Christmas present and then snoozing quietly beside her in the semi-darkness while she enjoys the experience.

True love is spending money you don't want to spend to eat out at that restaurant you're so tired of visiting because it is your wife's favorite.

True love is working 5-10 extra hours a week for months on end so your family can save up for an amazing vacation.

True love is Josh providing this limitless service again and again every day since the day we first fell in love. Sometimes I get really mad at him and sometimes I tease him and sometimes I joke with others about his goofiness and his quirks, but I am irrevocably in love with him because he has shown me what true love is.

I love you, Josh.

Our Saturday

Poor Scarlet is sick today.

Josh got up with her this morning so I could sleep in, but I woke to her raspy, constricted breathing coming from the front room. I am so sad when she's sick. She's working on getting her second front tooth out--the tip broke through her gums but the rest is still in there--and it's given her a nasty cold and runny nose as her body struggles to grow older. Her nose is so chapped from my wiping away at it, that it's temporarily reddened and she cries out every time I approach her with a tissue. I just feel awful each time.

Growing pains are real, my friends, and they make for one sad baby.

Josh and I gave her a hot bath before her morning nap in the hopes that she'd get warmed up and breathe in some of the nice, warm steam, but it seemed to make her even colder and she's never enjoyed bath time, so she just sobbed the entire time, per her usual.

In the afternoon we took shifts tending to her and cleaning up the apartment. When Josh and I were putting away out laundry, Scarlet grabbed hold of one of my shirts and somehow managed to slip it over her head. She wore it like a fashionable scarf as she toddled around the room until it slid over her shoulders and down to her waist. Then she had to hold it and keep hoisting it over her waist to keep it from slipping entirely off. I laughed so hard watching her hitch the "skirt" back over her waist and stumble around the room. When we finally braved going to Costco after the snow stopped to pick up some bigger diapers. All boxes of diapers are the same price, but with each new size up, we lose out on 10-30 diapers per box. I told Scarlet in the store that she's not allowed to grow anymore because we can't afford her to. She smiled at me.

When Josh picked up the mail tonight, we found we'd received a birthday card for Scarlet from her great-grandmother Wilson. Scarlet's birthday is on the 22nd this month, and this was her first birthday card. We took a picture of her holding the card and the money. As soon as it was in her hand she licked the dollar bill, so I had to snatch it away and try not to gag. So gross. So dirty. So NOT what a sick little girl should be putting in her mouth.

The card, she can eat.

After I changed her into pajamas and fed her the last bottle in the evening, she started to get playful. She's always playful just before bedtime. Some nights when we lose track of the time, we are clued in that it's bedtime by Scarlet's silliness. I wish she were that playful all day long, but she reserves it for when she's trying to convince us to keep her up longer. It has never worked and likely never will because the hours after she sleeps and before we do are precious. Some days I live for those few short hours of selfishness. I usually read a book or watch tv or do something completely wasteful and insignificant. It doesn't matter what I do--all that matters is that I can do it completely uninterrupted. Tonight we watched a clean version of Braveheart until I was too sad and went into the bedroom to surf the web. Man, that movie depresses me.

Anyway, that was our Saturday. It was pretty standard as far as activities go, except that poor Scarlet was sick and probably will be again tomorrow. I wish Scarlet had been feeling healthy and that we'd had amazing plans to do something epic; that would have made for a nice break from the stresses of work. Instead, we did pretty much what we always do on our days off, but I'm feeling pretty content about it just the same. My life is fairly ordinary and I love it more than anything.