http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tq4HljbAkHQ

(I read this next poem when we scattered my mom’s ashes…)

I could watch this video fifty times in a row…

Anna (pointing): Da?

Me: That’s a tree!

Anna: Da?

Me: It’s a flower!

Anna: Da?

Me: That’s a telephone pole!

Anna: Da?

Me: That’s a street sign! It tells us where we are so we don’t get lost!

Anna: Da?

Me: It’s, um, I think it’s a transformer thingie!

Anna: Da?

Me: Well I know that one, that’s a septic pump!

Anna: Da?

Me: It’s a rock!

Anna: Da?

Me: That’s another, different colored rock!

Anna: Da?

Me: That’s yet another different colored rock!

This, my friends, is life with a 13-month old…

Is she actually learning the words as I say them? I’m guessing no, but maybe this is the first step in her future career of electrical construction or geology, or septic draining.

(May the only bunnies visiting you today be either cute and cuddly, or chocolate…)

I’m sorry, I just felt I needed to share a piece of information I only learned today, that April is Grilled Cheese Month. I also felt I needed to share some photos.

I’m also bringing a recipe to those of you who have not yet either drowned in drool or wandered off into your kitchen to make an imperfect version. I stole it from another website (which I’m too lazy to look up again and link), taste-tested it and have verified for you that it does indeed make the Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich. So go on, go on, you know you want to.

Next time I see you, you will be five pounds heavier. You’re Welcome.

Recipe

1. Melt butter in a nonstick pan over low heat.

2. Butter one of two slices of bread, then add a slice of your favorite cheese. (I used Trader Joe’s Cheddar/Gruyere, which is the bomb-diggety.) Assemble.

3. Put the sandwich in the bottom of the pan and cover the pan.

4. Cook over very low heat for about 15 minutes. Check every few minutes to make sure the heat isn’t too high and causing the underside of the sandwich to burn.

5. When the underside of the sandwich is golden brown and the cheese is melting out the sides, turn over the sandwich and brown the other side over medium heat.

6. Eat in two bites, and then make another. Eat in three bites, wish your stomach was big enough for another, say to hell with it and then make another anyway because after all, Grilled Cheese Month only comes 30 days a year.

These few days remind me of the reflux weeks, except now my hands and sleeves and face are covered in phlegm instead of regurgitated formula. (Jer actually was covered in spitup after a particularly bad coughing episode…Since she’s eating so much more, it was a regular spitup fountain. So festive!) Good thing, by the way, that one isn’t grossed out by the boogers and vomit spewed by one’s own child. It must be an evolutionary thing that allows us to take care of children during sickness, without reservation. She sneezes in my mouth and I just laugh…although…I’ve just imagined her vomiting in my mouth and have realized that perhaps love does have its limits after all.

Anyway, the cold was progressing as colds tend to do (i.e., not getting better) until Monday morning when she woke up wheezing. This was the first time Anna had ever been sick, and I’d read a lot on colds (“a lot” meaning everything in existence, since as you’ve seen from earlier posts I have a tendency to be paranoid.) Everything I’d read said that a rattly chest, which she’d had previously, is fine, the mucus is loose and will eventually dissipate. But if a baby starts wheezing it’s a sign of something potentially more serious. (And yes, I am still calling her a baby. If I’m calling her a baby in ten years you have my permission to squeeze my shoulder and give me a little talk. Till then, just let me have this one thing.)

Her breathing was labored too, and that’s what really worried me, so I took her to the pediatrician first thing and he diagnosed her with RSV. Then told me that kids who get RSV after colds are at a higher risk for developing asthma, especially if there’s a family history of it, which in Anna’s case there is.

Hey, paranoia, meet potentially deadly diseases. You’re growing stronger, aren’t you. There’s no stopping you now, you win. I will never put Anna down, and will be one of those parents who calls the pediatrician every single time her child burps. God help us all.

I sat in the doctor’s office holding Anna’s arms as they strapped a mask over her face and attached it to a nebulizer. She was terrified, screaming and thrashing, tears streaming down her face. And who could blame her? How would you feel if you had no idea what was going on, one minute you were laughing and flirting with office personnel and the next a stranger was pressing this contraption over your face, its motor as loud as a construction drilling site, making you inhale strange smelling smoke? The whole time she was looking up at me while she screamed, pleading with me to save her when all I could do was rock her back and forth and sing to her and try to pin down her arms to keep her from tearing the mask away. I was trying (and totally failing) not to cry myself, and feeling awful for the nurse who looked like she wanted to rip a hole in the plaster wall and disappear through it.

And then, oh joy, they sent us home with one of those wonderful machines, for treatments 4-6 times a day. She’s getting used to the treatments luckily, but I know she hates them. Last time I took out the mask she gave a little heartbreaking moan, but then sat there and let me slip it over her head. I have broken her spirit.

This is pretty much the saddest picture in the world. I title it "Illness and Defeat and Mommy's Chapped Lips."

We’ve been so lucky that she’s been healthy so far, that this is the worst we’ve had to deal with. But every time I sit there with her I find myself thinking of the moms of diabetic babies, or of babies with even more immediately dangerous diseases, and I think…How can they possibly stand it? How strong are these parents that they can somehow work with their children and stay strong through the pain of shots and blood testing, insist on jabbing sharp things into their kids’ bodies even though it might bring tears, manage not to show them their fear of high and low sugars and of what might come in the future?

I want to tell Anna’s damned virus to leave her the hell alone and take me instead, which of course is what every parent of a sick kid feels. When I was holding Anna in the doctor’s office all I could think was that I’m used to being the sick one, I can deal with it and I rarely get upset or angry about it, but having to do this to my child was making me more pissed off than I’d ever been in my life. But then the treatment was over and Anna grabbed my shirt and snuggled her face against my neck, cried a little and let me rub her back. All she needed was that minute of comfort before she grabbed for Henry, her stuffed cat, smiled at him and bit his ear. Then flirted with the women at the reception desk as we paid the bill, let me carry her to the car and slept on the drive home and when she woke, she was fully herself.

This is what I bet all diabetic kids would want to say to their parents, that it’s just part of life, not worth stressing over. Anna looks up at me while she wears the nebulizer mask and gives me little reassuring smiles, almost like she knows I’m having a hard time seeing her suffer, and wants to reassure me. I remember purposely not telling my parents about low sugars I got in school, about the few kids in fifth grade who teased me for being different, about times I felt weak and nauseous and thick-blooded from being high. Because I somehow understood their pain at seeing those things would be a lot worse than mine was at experiencing them.

It’s so hard to be a parent, see the inevitable bumps and bruises, small and big and very big. I’ve told this same thing to d-parents before, that whenever you’re feeling pity for your child please remember that you’re imagining a burden that they don’t really feel. Yeah, they feel the momentary pain of a lancet or syringe, just like Anna feels the frustration of having her hands pinned against her sides. But when it’s over it’s completely over for her, she doesn’t stress about next time or worry about taking her next breath. We do the worrying, it’s our pain. If they could, I’m sure they’d tell us we’re making it harder on both ourselves and them. That it’s okay, they’re okay, and we need to just let it go.

(Warning before you press Play…I now can’t get this song out of my head.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwzBuN7jfjw&feature=player_embedded

I promise this is my last post about the end of Anna’s babyhood, because I’m actually getting sick of my sappy self. But I like this video too much (and spent too ridiculously long on it) not to share it. I can’t watch it without sobbing but I can’t stop watching it, so my face always looks like raw meat, oozing from every orifice, one of which is emitting weird braying noises like a hyena in heat. (Anna sits on my lap while I’m watching and crying, grabbing for the little girl on the screen, and I imagine her watching this when she’s old enough to understand the baby is her, which makes me cry harder, after which she laughs at me because she thinks I’m playing Old Macdonald, which makes me laugh back so it’s all good again.)

(With a "whaaaa" here and a "whaaaa" there...)

(The video’s semi-long, but if you end up skipping ahead I hope you’ll watch the last 25 seconds or so with sound on. It’s my favorite part.)

A year ago feels like yesterday, and it feels like a lifetime ago…

Why yes, yes she did. Balloons and laughter and lots of laps to cuddle on and OMG the new toys. Her first taste of refined sugar was a hit (she took one bite of icing, her eyes lit up and, as you can see above, with no further ado she grabbed for the cupcake and jammed it in her mouth.) She finished the whole thing, and I have no idea how since I’m quite certain her stomach is smaller than a cupcake and there must have been some shifting of less essential internal organs. Must.Maintain.Squishiness.Of.Cheeks!

I love this age so much, I think it’s got to be my favorite. Anna has so much personality, she actually flirts with anyone who pays attention to her, giving these sly little smiles like she knows she’s cute as hell. You can’t resist me, can you. You know you want to give me that cookie, then carry me in your arms to Toys ‘R Us and fill your cart with flashy-light toys that sing annoying songs in the voices of adults failing in their attempts to sound like children. Wouldn’t it make you so happy? Really, if you think about it, I’d be doing it for YOU, not for me!

There’s something so awesome about having everyone you pass melt when they see your child. You get so used to being ignored, nobody meeting your eye because eye-contact is stalkerish, everybody’s so intent on going wherever they’re going and getting done whatever they’re getting done. But when you’re carrying a child they STOP, and they COO, and THEIR UTERUSES MELT. Anna’s smile makes people instantly happy, and it’s such a simple, pure kind of happiness. (But a sidenote to the lady at Pennington Market the other day who leaned into Anna’s face and caressed her cheek oohing and aahing, then turned away before hearing Anna freak out at the invasion of her personal space: Who does that? Not Cool.)

It’s slowly sinking in that our baby is no longer a baby. Although she’s not a toddler until she actually TODDLES, right? And throws temper tantrums and reaches into her diaper so she can smear poop on the walls. This at least is what I tell myself. I will call her a crawl-dler. (Do you see what I did there? I crack myself up.)

It’s not even the idea of toddler years that get to me, it’s the realization of how fast this year passed and that tomorrow she’ll be thirteen and on the phone every night to laugh with friends about how annoying I am and OMG kissing boys…Kids grow up so fast these days, wearing bras at eight and dating at nine and getting pregnant at ten. I mean, look!

Skyler gazes into her eyes...

...suavely caresses her chin...

...then leans in and kisses her tenderly.

Luckily, her final verdict was “Meh.”

Yuck, cooties.