It's starting to dry out.  My front yard looks less like a pigsty and more like a freshly-plowed field.  My beloved claims he is going to finish the rest of the "hard work" on Saturday so that all I have to do is replant some hostas and spread some grass seed.  We finally broke down and called a real rock place to have one ton of little, itsy-bitsy rocks delivered to us on Friday instead of getting robbed by buying bags of it at Sutherland's.  I will be very relieved when the Great Wall Project of '05 (doesn't it make you feel pioneering to use the abbreviations in the new millenium?) is over. 

As we surveyed the wall last night, my beloved spoke softly.  "We're never, ever doing something like that again," he said.

Amen.

The little angel can dance.  True, she doesn't possess much coordination, but she already knows as many steps as many adult white men.  She can bend her knees and sort of bob up and down, and she can do the sprinkler.  I have caught her doing this several times in the past week.  Shake, shake, bounce, bounce, swat, swat, bounce.  This is so cute you could almost throw up when she is wearing her new piggy tails.

I have a confession to make, though:  She's not dancing to kiddie music.  I LOATHE kiddie music.  I know some wonderful parents who have Wiggles CDs in their cars.  Can't do it.  I have resisted buying Dora the Explorer videos under the pretense that the American Association of Pediatriacs says children do not need videos until they are two (and it's actually not that THEY need them after two, but that their parents do).  I know we will have to break down eventually, but I have seen Dora videos. Have you?  Really annoying music.  Baby Einstein, people, at least features classical music, much like Warner Brothers cartoons. See a connection?  The parents.  The parents can't stand the noise.

We do have a few CDs of kids music sung by people like Sarah McLaughlin and the BareNaked Ladies, but I can't find them right now. I have repressed where I put them, and all the rest of our CDs are languishing in the basement, since we are iPod junkies and can run our downstairs stereo through the computer.  What do we listen to in the car?  Yes, folks, my iPod. 

Now, I'm not horrible. I purposely never download the "X-rated" version of any song.  And I DO hit "skip" when Eminem or Metallica comes on.  But really, what's the harm of a little Beatles or Counting Crows in the little angel's life?  Doesn't she need Madonna, too?  I remember growing up to Johnnie or however you spell her name, gospel music and very loud NPR (my father's car).  I don't think any of those are particularly attractive to children, but it wasn't that big of a deal.  I had my books and stuffed animals with whom to grouse about the radio selection.  I didn't really know any different. And there were always those books-with-tapes to listen to when I was playing in the house.  In the car, though, we didn't get to control the radio until we were teenagers and my parents were trying to humor us until we left the house. 

I personally think we parents should at least take back the car radio.  We've already given the children our houses, our bank accounts and everything in the car from the driver's section back.  The little angel doesn't even mind.  She listens to kiddie music AND gospel music all day at the Emerald City (have I mentioned the Emerald City is a church?  She will even go to chapel when she is three.  How handy).  She told me the other day that she thinks the whole kid-music market is a bit bourgeois, anyway.  And it's so much cuter when she shakes her diapered booty to "Mrs. Robinson. "

It's happened.  My sweet mama friend, whose lovely son is only three weeks younger than the little angel, called me today to tell me she is indeed again blooming with life.  Her fertile soil has been seeded.  She's preggers.

The rest of the conversation involved my new job and how neither of our children were really, oh, walking, even though every other child on God's green earth within three months of their age is (I know, exaggeration is a key personality trait of mine, but I was excited to talk to another mama whose baby prefers crawling to Darwin).   Then we talked about the pool, and how we should really get together and get the sunscreen-slathered tykes in the water while we attempted to sun our white Midwestern skin.

The whole time I was thinking how terrified I would be to be pregnant again right now.  Or maybe ever.  I know, this will probably inspire a rash of "oh, you have to have two, everyone does" sorts of comments, but most who know me well know that my beloved and I have been ruminating since January about how maybe, maybe we wanted a singleton.  A nicely socialized and unspoiled singleton, but a singleton all the same.

The sister-in-law whose son is the little angel's "twin," (they were born one day apart), is preggers. Two of my sisters-in-law have sent the "another grandkid coming" e-mail in the past few months.  They are both on their third child.  One is a SAHM, the other has a high-profile DBA job.  One pinches pennies, the other will have three in expensive daycare. Both are rather laid-back mothers, which I personally think would come with the territory for large broods.  I admire each and every one of them, also the ones with two, for their stamina. Of the seven other families that help comprise my beloved's nuclear, there is only one other that might, just might, stop with one.  That sister-in-law did not enjoy her first pregnancy and is in the midst of getting a doctorate, not that I think either of those facts really influenced her much more than her own opinion. 

So now I wait for the other shoe to drop.  The other friends to call.  The guilt to begin when someone asks where the second angel is.  My mama friend told me she is happy to be pregnant because her first son needs a friend.  While I know he is wildly popular and hardly lacking in playmates, perhaps he is more lonely than the little angel.  (cue guilt music) I imagine that she kicks off a day at the Emerald City ready to get away from those ridiculous brats and play uninterrupted with her own toys for a while, basking in the undivided attention of her already-feeling-bad-for-putting-you-in-daycare-kind-of parents, but that could just be what I wish she is thinking.

Still, I have only recently (in the past five years) started paying more attention to what I really want out of life.  What I really want at 31 is to reconnect with the me who I was before I became a wife and mother. I don't want to renounce these new roles, but rather dig back into the third closet from the left and drag out a personality trait that, while now unfashionable, always made me feel beautiful.  I remember when I used to have goals for myself as well as for my family.  I don't know if I'll have the energy for me if there are more angels.  Selfish or self-aware?  Probably both, maybe neither.  I think the little angel is going to be the only angel for a while.  Maybe forever.  And yes, there will be judgements, but they would've done that anyway.

The Ferberizing continues.  Again very tempted to videotape the action, but held off in fear of being characterized as a heartless mother.  Now, on the third morning of VERY LITTLE SLEEP, I am starting to see the humor in the situation, sort of like morticians do.

I thought I'd share the conversation I had in my head last night with the beloved Dr. Ferber.

8 p.m.

Me:  Okay, Ferber.  She's cute and cuddly and warm, she's snuggled into my chest, and she's almost asleep.  If I put her down, she will immediately hate me and scream.

Dr. F:  Do it!  Do it!

8:10 p.m. 

Me:  I'm going in now.

Dr. F:  No words. Not a word.  Not a peep.

8:30 p.m.

Me:  I'm going in again. 

Dr. F:  Don't make eye contact.

Me:  Oh, no!  I smell poo.  I HAVE to change her.

Dr. F:  No talking.  In fact, don't even smell.  To smell it is to admit defeat.

Me:  What? I can't hear anymore.

1 a.m.

I kick my beloved and make him go this time.  I channel Dr. F.  "Not a word!" I screech, loudly.  I can't hear anymore.

4 a.m.

Me:  I'm going in with the Oragel and Tylenol. Her Motrin's worn off.  She needs relief.

Dr. F: Fine, but no talking, no eye contact.

Me:  Her eyes are awfully close to her mouth, which is where I have to insert all this stuff.

Dr. F:  Feel your way.  Watch the teech.  Especially the incisors. 

Me:  I hate you.

5:30 a.m.

Me: Isn't she supposed to be learning to put herself back to sleep by now?  She can't have more medicine this soon.  Why is she still screaming?

Dr. F:  I don't know - I just write the books. I don't actually have toddlers.

But she did sleep - after the last, ten-minute round at 5:30 a.m., until 7.  Then it was time to prepare for Sprinkler Day at the Emerald City.  I dressed her all up in her new swimming suit and hand-me-down Steamboat cover-up.  We took some photos. 

She didn't look as puffy around the eyes this morning as she did yesterday morning, but I looked more so.  We are passing each other, apparently.  The key is for the parent to suffer more, I think.  I think that is her strategy.  Another mama friend assured me yesterday that if I keep this business up for two weeks, I will not have to keep going through it every three months.  I hope she is right!  The little angel is getting stronger than I am!

So, the little angel doesn't sleep anymore.  Two nights ago, after the hour-and-a-half bedtime bonanza, she treated us to one-hour each wake-ups around 1, 4 and 6.  At six, we just gave up and got up.  That happened a little earlier last night.  She didn't do the 1 a.m. thing, but she got up at 4 and did not go back to sleep until 6.  She slept from 6 to 6:30.  I've been up since 4.  When a small child is screaming at the top of her lungs for more than 30 minutes ten feet from your bed, there's really no point, is there?  Somehow my beloved managed to sleep. I applaud him.

Judgemental Pediatrician, whom I unfortunately got when I took her to before-hours emergency care yesterday (I heard her through the wall chastising a filling-in grandma for her grandson being in daycare), told me that if the little angel stopped crying when I walked into the room and had a) no fever and b) already been administered the appropriate molar-numbing pain killers, that I should turn around and leave the room.  Back to Ferber.  So I did.  Does Dr. Ferber know that small children can scream for an hour and a half?  I do not know that he does.  Or maybe he forgot what it sounds like.  I had one moment in which I seriously considered tape recording her for posterity, but then I thought, no, that's mean.

There's no more fever, but apparently she is growing molars.  Isn't it a funny joke how things like that have to hurt so damn bad?  Why do kids have to do it twice? 

Right now she is grinning at me from her high chair, her eyes puffy from crying and lack of sleep.  I don't get it. I don't get it.  I don't get it.

8:05 p.m.

Dear God,

Thank you so much for my perfect little angel. Tonight she was so cute. She walked to me, she said "ball," and she patted my back.  She caressed my arm as I rocked her to sleep.  What a perfect child she is.  Her hair is long enough for barrettes.  Oh, life is bliss.

8:15 p.m.

Dear God,

She's crying. Why is she crying?  She used to go to bed so easily.  Bottle, Billy Joel song (I know I suck, but she doesn't care), 240 rocks, then bed.  It was magic.  Where has the magic gone?  But I shouldn't complain. She is still perfect.

8:32 p.m.

Dear God,

Okay, so I went in and patted her head like Dr. Ferber said.  She was sitting up in bed, rattling her pacifiers like the chains in a Turkish prison.  She wailed in agony when I wouldn't pick her up.  I rubbed her back for exactly one minute, then I left.  What should I do?

8:47 p.m.

Dear God,

She is occasionally taking breaths and listening, like she's assembling the rats for a full-on siege of the house.  Oops, there she goes again.  Maybe one more pat, just like SuperNanny.  I will be strong.

9:12 p.m.

Dear God,

I hope you thrash that damn Dr. Ferber when he arrives at the pearly gates.  That bastard is full of shit.

9:43 p.m.

Dear God,

I finally threw Dr. Ferber to the wind after all this time. She was supposed to be asleep almost two hours ago.  Maybe she'll be seriously stunted from lack of sleep. Oh, God, please don't let that happen. She must grow up to be brilliant.  She's finally asleep, after 6.3 minutes of back-rubbing. She had the aftershocks, so I had to rub her back a little longer than usual. I waited until she started twitching before I left. Is that bad or good?  I don't know what is bad or good anymore.

9:53 p.m.

Dear God,

Please don't let me get pregnant again anytime soon. I'm not sure if I'm cut out for the job.  Please, PLEASE let her sleep past 5:52 a.m.  Not like last night.  Good night.

The little angel is in love.  I noticed she had been cozying up to J. lately.  He doesn't seem to mind that she can't walk yet.  I think he likes younger women.

Anyway, it was solidified yesterday. First, when my beloved went to pick the little angel up from the Emerald City, she was hugging J.  Then, as I was carrying her around the kitchen, she caught site of her class photo on the refrigerator.  She pointed and gurgled loudly.  I carried her over there, and she lovingly fingered his image with her chubby little pointer.  "Uh-oh," she said.  (This is a sign of pleasure right now.)

I didn't know what to say.  What's next?  J. showing up in a tricked-out walker, luring my little angel away for a night of cigarettes and Purple Passion?  Will she get his name tattooed on her bicep?  A mother worries.

She told me about their latest conversation. She tells me everything.

Little Angel:  You know, I really like a man with long hair.

J:  I know the sign for "bear."

LA:  I think you're awfully cute in cordouroy.

J:  I know the sign for "bear."

LA:  I love you.

"Wild nights are my glory."

I remember reading that line in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time when I was about eleven.  Maybe that was the line, maybe it wasn't.  Maybe it was the right book, maybe it wasn't.  There were these witches or something named Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. Whatzit.  I think Mrs. Which said it.  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  The line always stuck with me, the way good sentences do.

I think the rain the other day seriously ended my slump.  I'm not necessarily affected by heat and humidity the way some of my Midwestern brothers and sisters are.  I don't seem to wilt as quickly in an unairconditioned room.  I much prefer hot to cold.  However, I need variety in weather. 

At the moment, it looks like a nice storm is brewing. The air coming through the windows is cool, and the sky is glowing from the sun hidden behind all those clouds.  It's going to pour.

My aunt J. moved to California when she was in her twenties.  She grew up in Iowa, like I did.  I remember her telling me the same summer I read that book that she was depressed when she first moved west because there was never any weather.  The days were always the same, without release.  I get headaches sometimes when the rain is coming, but then it comes, and somehow it's like my body chemistry rebalances.  Like the storm itself can release my tension.

Yesterday was a proud day for this mama:  My little baby got her first library card!  For someone with a graduate degree in fiction, this is indeed exciting.  She gets to check out as many books as she wants.  COULD THERE BE ANYTHING BETTER?

The side effect of this frivolity is that I can also gauge if she will look the book or throw it mercilessly to the ground (as she is wont to do) before making the mistake of purchasing its shiny self for $11.50 plus tax in Barnes & Noble.

We went to the big, pretty new KCMO library on the Plaza.  It has a huge children's section (carpeted - I was shocked the rest of the library is uncarpeted and has book-warehouse-looking shelves sporadically placed on the concrete - kind of like a cement plant with interesting furniture) that contains the following:  1) tiny chairs shaped like blocks 2) a globe you can sit in - how cool? 3) a bunch of stand-up boards with buttons to push and things to slide around 4) squishy pillows to jump on 5) little-angel-sized shelves 6) a fairy playhouse and 7) "boo - os", as the little angel frantically repeated, over...and over...and over.

We joined the summer reading club. She can now win fabulous prizes after three hours of listening to Goodnight Moon.  Ain't life grand?