Hickory Dickory

Another week, another...what? I don't know. The days seem so similar. I know that routine is good for toddlers, but man, it's kinda dull for me! Yeah, yeah, I know: "It's not about you anymore."

Yesterday Jarrah and I attended our first toddler "Let's Make Music!" class. Of course, we got behind schedule, got stuck behind an accident, and then I made a wrong turn. All the while, Jarrah was snoring in her car seat, and I dreaded waking her up when we finally got there. Sure enough, she seemed to find everyone in the room, especially me, certifiably insane. Why were all these ladies and babies clapping their hands and chanting in that unnecessary way?

But I get ahead of myself. When we walked in, they were just getting started, it being the first day and all. There were about eight moms and kids, one who seemed to be about Jarrah's age, the rest slightly older. It also looked like a Benetton ad in there--kids of every race, and I was not the only non-matching mother. Well, that was a relief anyway. The two nice teacher-ladies had us seated in a circle with babies on our laps, and I was just starting to relax when they started clapping their hands and knees and chanting "Mu-ther Goose, Mu-ther Goose..." and something in my head went "Bing!" That sound was the alarm bell that the part of parenthood where I feel like an ass in public has begun. I'm not sure why I felt so ridiculous, except maybe that Jarrah looked dumbfounded by this display as well, and I had to choke back the giggles.

Then I really had to laugh when we were instructed to pick up our child and dance around in a circle to a song called "The Ping-Pong Samba," complete with little kicks like Elaine Benes doing her "full-body dry heave." The reason it was so funny is that Jarrah was sleepy-head deadweight in my arms, and I was staggering, literally staggering, because motherhood has made me throw my back out--just on the left side--and I can barely tie my shoes, let alone samba. I was so stiff and so achey when I woke up yesterday that I consulted David to see if he thought I had one of those "I'm old now" back conditions like a "slipped disc" or a "fused vertebrae" or one of those other horrific-sounding ailments that I used to hear grownups talking about when I was young and supple. David, being Australian and, well, DAVID, waved away my spinal deformities, suggesting I had some muscle strain from always lifting a 26-pound-baby on the same side. I suppose he's right, but...harumph. I feel wrecked.

Anyway, back to the class. Jarrah could not be persuaded to bang on drums or shake maracas for ANYTHING, and part of my amusement was recognizing at this point how much of this has to do with her bleariness after being awakened. At home, she happily beats on her drum and bangs her xylophone, but dammit, now she was TIRED and these people were all up in her FACE. ;) Between that and my crippled inability to lift my own baby, Jarrah and I were the star under-performers of the morning.

Towards the end, she started becoming more alert, but that just meant she wanted to wander around and point out each picture on the wall with great urgency, as if there was a danger of my not noticing them. In general, she is a very emphatic pointer: when the mouse puppet joined us, she didn't want to pet it, but she was insistent on pointing and proclaiming "Deh!" about 87 times. I told David it always seems like she fears dire consequences for all of us should I be so frivolous as to ignore her warnings: an unidentified stuffed animal is in our midst! Let your guard down at your peril!

On the subject of feeling like an ass: none of the other moms seemed affected by it. They dutifully kicked and clapped and chanted and "wee wee wee'ed" like they were born to do it. Maybe it's the novelty of this kind of behavior that makes me self-conscious. Check back with me in a few weeks: I might be putting the mouse in the armpit "house" with the best of them.

Jarrah isn't saying any words in English yet, but I have noticed some changes in her activities in the past week. She has started waving to people a lot, and can be persuaded to wave "bye-bye" if you ask her like five times. Her wave looks like a clam shell opening and closing. She received a pinwheel at Anton's birthday party a couple weeks ago, and occasionally I see her when she doesn't know I'm looking attempting to imitate us blowing on it. The way she blows involves pursing her lips like a grouper and then emitting a whisper that sounds like "Pooh." Feel free to try this at home; it's pretty freakin' hilarious. ;)

At the park, she's over her fear of grass, sand and transitional edges (as in grass/blacktop, blacktop/sand, etc.) and gallivants everywhere, frequently pitching over and hauling herself up. On a more alarming note, she is fearless about stairs and ladders, and heaves herself to dizzying heights from which she thinks nothing of hurling herself back down. At the park yesterday, we had no fewer than THREE incidents where she fell head-first from a piece of equipment in a split second of my inattention, one of which was a full face-plant resulting in an exfoliating mask of sand granules evenly coating her features. I was scrubbing sand out of her hairline well into the evening. She also threw herself down the slide before I could grab her, and not quite grasping the part about sitting, fell right onto her head at the bottom. Seriously, how do children live past the age of two? And, a little less urgently, how do moms restrain themselves from very loud epithets of a profane nature each time an incident occurs? I'm starting to fear that Jarrah's first word would invoke the 5-second delay on network television.

Okay, here's my last question: will you write to me? A lot of people e-mail me and call me and say "I read your blog religiously!" and I am so pleased to hear that! So let me hear from you! I do have my faithful posters (you know who you are--smooches to all of you!) but I want to know who else is lurking in the blogosphere. David suggested I tempt everyone with something irresistible like "your name will be entered in a drawing for an autographed photo of Jarrah if you post." How about that?

If you feel shy about just introducing yourself, you can answer this pressing question:

What should I do with Jarrah between 4-6 p.m. when she won't take a second nap (believe me, I've tried tossing her in her crib) but she spends all of that time wailing either to be picked up or put down and is basically undistractable when I wish I could either make dinner or have two minutes of peace?

Oh, and don't be afraid of the window that asks you to re-type the letters in order to post. I promise you're not agreeing to donate one of your kidneys or anything like that. It's just a feature David installed so that I can't be spammed. Yes, even blogs get posts like "Your blog is awesome! Would you like to buy some steroids?" Nothing bad will happen to you and I can feel secure that my innermost thoughts don't get responses like "Cool blog--and your life will get even better once you're free from erectile dysfunction."