Every year around this time, I think about all the things that happened during the past 300 or so days. January always seems like it belongs to the year before to me.  It's still unfathomable to me that I was hugely pregnant this time last year and that I could've gone from being a terrified and clueless new mother with an hours-old baby to someone who waits five minutes to pull the wrapping paper out of her child's mouth because it IS kind of funny.

Obviously, the appearance of the little angel was probably the biggest thing that happened for me, but I am still aware that things like a presidential election, a horrible tsunami and earthquake and a war waged on under my own personal radar.  I was a bit distracted, thankfully, because all of the above were hugely disturbing to me and made me realize all over again how very little control I have over my environment. 

Upon further naval-gazing, though, I think 2004 has been my finest year.  It's the year I'm proudest of, anyway, and not just because I had a baby.  That was something that kind of happened - my personal strength or perseverence could not have kept her inside me, even if I had wanted that - which I didn't.  Any common weakling can get an epidural and experience childbirth.  Other things happened, though, too.  I taught my first college class, and out of 19 original students, about 14 or so hung in there until the end.  One even begged me to teach Composition II (I taught Comp I) because she said she couldn't stand writing but didn't mind my class. I think this is the highest compliment community college professors probably get.  I also became a manager of two, a term I should probably use loosely, because they don't really require management, but still.  I was a manager once before, and I did a very bad job at it, because I didn't really own the experience very well.  So 2004 was a whole year of firsts and rather a year of adulthood for me.  There were many situations in which I realized I had to be the authority figure, which then would require me to be firmer than I usually am.  I also realized that all that crazy responsibility probably also made me a BETTER person, because in trying to model the behavior I expected from my beloved, my students and my co-workers and subordinates, I probably did a better job than I would have had I thought no one was really watching.  Interesting.  I never really thought about this before. 

My company (a large tax-preparation corporation headquartered in KC, as you mostly all know) is building a NEW headquarters downtown. This is a good thing - KC is attempting to make downtown improvements, and it's a tough row to hoe.  As a result of the planned move, they are also tearing down a lot of used and unused buildings in the immediate vicinity.

I drive past this one old brick building every day on my way to work.  It had a mural of a guy dunking a basketball painted on it. I think it was a very permanent Reebok ad.  I liked the mural, but even more interesting has been the wrecking-ball procedure to tear it down.  Yesterday, they were actually smacking the building with a wrecking ball as people drove by not ten feet to the right.  I was kind of surprised, kind of worried some debris might fly over and smash my windshield and kill me, and I even briefly wondered if my family could get some sort of compensation from my company if that happened (isn't it SICK that I would think that?). 

Then, this morning, which is a very Catherine-and-Heathcliff sort of foggy morning, I drove by it and there was no wrecking ball. No people.  Just this half-demolished building with the floor pulled away and kind of fluttering down in a graceful pattern.  The outside of the building is brick and the exposed inside is sort of a fawny green color. It almost looks fluffy, like the blankets babies have with slitted edges.  Behind this torn building is a tall, cold, black-glass building with shiny edges.  The juxtaposition of the two is rather peaceful.  Sometimes destruction makes me feel good, like we're finally tearing apart the things that don't work and preparing to make them better. This building is like that.  I wish I had a picture.

A whirlwind trip to Iowa.  Watching the little angel learn to open presents.  Realizing she had her own stocking (these continued proofs that she is, in fact, a real person and not a figment of my imagination still amaze me).  Realizing she has enough energy to put six adults in a coma after about eight hours.  Realizing she is mine and will be my daughter for every Christmas from now until I die.

That's pretty amazing.

Well, the little angel has not only learned to crawl (was I REALLY worried about this?  I am insane), but now she is a crawler on crack.  Nothing is outside her reach, and she is exhilerated by speed.  Usually I can divert her by standing in ballet's first position directly in front of whatever she wants to reach.  However, I have to keep moving left and right to ensure she won't figure out how to go around.  Eight-month-olds are smarter than I thought.

There is one thing she can't figure out still, though...how to grab those little veggie puffs Gerber is marketing these days.  I thought they would be a good first solid solid food (as opposed to the pureed vegetables that everyone told me were solids - but apparently they are not REAL solid foods.  What a joke!).  The little angel doesn't use her pointer finger and thumb together to close over food. Nor does she rake.  All of those things the baby books and magazines talk about...no.  She uses two pointer fingers, and ONLY two pointer fingers, to try to pick up those puffs. And like Mr. Miagi catching flies with chopsticks, sometimes Babysan is successful in raising the puff two to three inches off the highchair tray.  Does she then put it in her mouth?  No. She does not realize veggie puffs are food.  Then again, they don't really look like food to me, either. Don't smell like food. Look like pretty pieces of colored styrofoam maybe (and they taste like that, too - I try all the baby food except the meat - YUCK).  I don't know. Maybe I should offer her something more appetizing. The real thing is that she just doesn't get that anything not offered to her on a spoon is something to put in her mouth.  She puts everything else in her mouth, but who knows.  I'm not too worried, because I assume one day she will be so hungry that she would put the cat in her mouth, and she will finally figure it out. It seems to only take one smack over the red head with the club of realization before she's all over that concept and on to the next.  If she's a little slow, she comes by it honestly. I am not all that quick with Excel spreadsheets, though they have been explained to me numerous times. It happens.

Last night the little angel and I nearly passed out on the floor while playing with her new puppy house.  After packing her off to bed at 8, I practically threw myself up the stairs to brush my teeth and hop in bed.

Around 11, we heard a rustling...a moaning...then...a wail.  My beloved came cautiously upstairs.  "Don't touch that door!" he cried, seeing my fingers twitch in the general direction of her door.

"But.." I whined. I am a wimp.

"No."  He wielded the Ferber book.  "Be strong.  You don't want a kid who can walk to our bed, do you?" 

I thought about it. I didn't.  I went back to bed and put the pillow over my head. It is feather and is actually pretty effective at blocking noise. I counted to 1,000 and lifted my head to hear...silence.  That was it. She slept the rest of the night.

What was different?  Well, we stuffed her like a chicken, to borrow  C's phrase.  And we gave her a dose of preventative Motrin to ward off the teething pain she periodically complains about.  Maybe she was exhausted from the night before. We'll probably never know. I just hope tonight is just like last night. Because I LOVE to sleep. Love it more than I ever really understood before becoming a parent.

The little angel has suddenly discovered we exist even when she is sleeping. Therefore! She! Should! Not! Sleep! Alone!  I had sorority sisters with this attitude, and it's just lots of trouble for everyone.  I attempted to hold out tonight after making the mistake of giving in last night.  She managed to scream and babble periodically (but not sleep) from 1:30 to 5:30. My beloved slept through a three-hour period when I got up, had a soda, took a shower, checked my work e-mail and actually started crying with exhaustion. At 5:30 I again gave in and we all passed out like New Year's drunks for two hours until we all had to get up and start the day. 

Everyone I talk to says not to worry and to just let her sleep with us.  However, I am a hard sleeper and used to regularly roll over on the cat. I don't want to co-sleep. I want to sleep with my husband, who is a ship passing in the night the way it is. I want my little angel to enjoy the benefits of her own crib. I don't care if it is purely cultural. So was breastfeeding, and damn it, I didn't like that, either.  I adore my sweet princess and love the time we spend together - but I want to sleep freely without crushing worries!  I don't want to listen to the bap, bap, bap of a pacifier all night long. I don't want to worry she is sweating too hard or suffocating on my beautiful feather bed, which I refuse to remove - sorry.  What's a girl to do?

The pediatrician and the old ladies at Oz tell me to be tough, and my modern, working friends tell me to do whatever is necessary for everyone to get rest.  I think they are both right. Are the stay-at-home moms the only ones with kids who sleep in their own cribs?  Weigh in, world!

Last night I walked out with a co-worker who is due in April of next year.  She asked me how the first few weeks are with a newborn.  I thought back to that time, and now it just seems like a dreamy, trippy, hallucinagenic slumber party.  It's true how quickly you forget the pain of parenthood.

As I was thinking fond thoughts of the little angel, I realized that she has actually been around for EIGHT MONTHS now. Eight and a half, really.  Almost nine.  And how I now can't remember what I did before she came along.  I went to graduate school - I remember that - but what did I do in my free time? 

I was still thinking about all this as I walked into Oz, preparing to tell them that I can't make it to their Christmas party.  The little angel was the last baby there (BAD MOMMY!!!) and sitting in one of those little chairs they have.  When she saw me, she reached her arms up and actually started SHAKING WITH JOY.  I stared at her, sure she was having some new sort of seizure, until I realized she was just excited to see me.  I picked her up, and she buried her head in my neck. 

I think I actually felt my heart grow four sizes in ten seconds.  If I could bottle that feeling, I would be a millionaire. I actually felt love course through my veins (though I'm sure scientists would call it adrenaline or something like that).  And I knew, then, that I would actually throw my body in front of a speeding bus to protect her. 

Someone saw the glamour shots that I have of my baby cover model on my desk the other day and said to me, "Did you realize you could feel that way?"  I almost started crying. The answer is no - I had NO IDEA that it was possible to love anyone so much.  Which I will keep in mind this weekend when she does another three-diaper poopy like she did last weekend.  We had to throw out that onesie.  But that's a story not made for the Internet.

Happy Friday!

My co-worker, S., is trying out for Survivor.  Today we taped a "sample conversation" for her application video.  Okay, I'm her manager, which makes both the application video and the sample conversation even funnier, in my opinion.

Of course, S's application was all a pretty funny joke until yesterday when I was at the gym and started to realize that she might actually make it on the show.  Heck, I would want her along on a desert island.  I wouldn't even have grades for the class I taught if she hadn't showed me how to use Excel properly. She's the most on-task 24-year-old I've ever seen in my life.  I'm pretty sure she'll by my boss by the time she's 30. I'll probably still be here, sitting in a corner rocking in the fetal position and saying how I hate taxes.

Anyway, I'm off-track again, which would drive S. crazy.  Which is why she'll probably get on Survivor. We'll have to live without her for six weeks or whatever, and she'll come back all hard-body and difficult to work with because she'll be used to eating bugs and strong-arming flight attendants from New Mexico into doing whatever she wants.  Then we'll have to wait six months to watch her on television.  And she'll probably be promoting granola or something on the side.  And driving a Lexus. 

I know one other person who was once on Jeopardy.  He's pretty smart, too.  I can't think of any game shoes on which I could excel. There is no game show for "tell long, obnoxious, difficult-to-follow stories and WIN."   Hmm.  I could see me doing fairly well with something like Wifeswap.  Maybe I'll look into that.

Last night, my beloved started asking strange questions.  "What's your favorite color?" was one of them.  Now, one would think that he would remember my favorite color from those early phone conversations that lasted into the wee hours of the morning.  Obviously, he was only PRETENDING to pay attention when I told him that my favorite color is blue, my favorite food is french fries and my favorite movie is the very obscure Lady Jane.  I think he was fishing for details in relation to my Christmas gift.  I hate it when he asks me what I like after he has already bought the gift, thus easily setting himself up for failure if I say the wrong thing.  However, there is a history.

It's true I would like anything the little angel gave me. For some reason, though, that rule doesn't apply to spouses, does it?  For instance, here is a list of all the things my beloved has given me that I didn't like:

• An electronic dartboard
• A soda holder for the fridge and new everyday plates
• A sweater that was too small
• Map-reading software that wouldn't go onto my Visor
• Handheld games (I'm a book person)

I don't know what he's worried about this year, though, because last year he hit the ball out of the park with a locket charm bracelet for the little angel's photo.  I LOVED it.  It was clearly my style, delicate, a piece of jewelry AND a piece of jewelry in white gold with a little diamond for the month she was born in, April.  Ah, coo. It such an amazing and well-researched, heartfelt gift that I still almost cry when I think about it (this happens to mommies a lot, I've found).  So I have NO idea why he is worrying this year. 

I'm not the best, though, either.  Usually I just buy him the same thing my friend S. buys for her 12-year-old son and do well.  The one year I got the too-small sweater was the year we set a $20 limit for each other.  I got him a 5-inch, black-and-white television set from Osco.  Neither gift was a hit.  We finally realized we either have to pony up or buy both of us something together, because we are way too hard to shop for.  We have discussed the idea of not buying each other anything - I know lots of couples who don't - but we actually both like exchanging gifts with each other more than anyone else.  It's a yearly challenge that we enjoy.  I have no idea if he will like his this year or not - I like it - but NOT KNOWING is kind of fun. There are really so few surprises during the year.