First Words

I think I can officially declare that Delphine's first word is "up!" Spoken imperiously while tugging on pant legs or holding up a book to be read. She also says "Hi" and "Byebye" (actually "Buh-bye") but it's hard to tell whether she knows what they mean. "Buh-bye" is always accompanied by waving. She also makes a credible attempt at "Zeyde": "Tz-da", but she definitely doesn't know what (who) it means.

In other news, she's sleeping pretty well in the crib. She wails a few little wails when we put her down, and then drops off to sleep and stays there until about 5:00 am or 6:00 am. Then we bring her into bed and I desperately try and catch another hour of sleep while she has breakfast. I would like her to not cry when we put her down, and I would like her to not wake up so early, but I do not know how to go about effecting either of those things. I suppose I could go back to the advice books I scorned so thoroughly earlier, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.

She's eating pretty well, although I'm breaking a couple of rules in order to get her to eat: I don't sit her down in her high chair and feed her. Instead, we hang out in the living room and I give her bites of whatever she's having while she toddles around and plays and hangs out. She seems to eat more that way. I only do that for one meal a day, though, and for the other two I make her sit properly. It's not bedlam here, you know.

The other rule I break is that I let her wander around with her sippy cup of milk, which is supposed to be bad for their teeth or make them obese or something. In general I'm not doing a great job looking after her teeth. She won't let me brush them, and I don't know what the hell to do. Every few days I poke at them ineffectually with her pink and yellow baby toothbrush while she clenches her jaw. Maybe one day she'll actually let me in there. Anyway, I'm sure my parents never brushed my teeth as a baby, and I turned out fine! (A sound and popular argument among proponents of many a lousy parenting technique.)

My friend Tanya from pre-natal class and I are both poking idly at the idea of doing something productive with our lives; me working for my father-in-law to earn money to buy a dishwasher, she making a documentary about her husband's family's pursuit of Native status, or something. Clearly she is far cooler than me. Anyway, to that end we need someone else to take care of our babies while we do our shit. We bandied about a few ideas, and finally settled on each other! We're going to trade a few hours of child care a week. I'm a little nervous -- make that terrified -- about looking after a second toddler, but it's worth a try. Maybe it won't be so bad? It might be fun, even. And one day soon (I hope) I'll have to look after two kids all the time, so this will be good practice.

Oh yes. I don't know if I should post about this because it seems like an overshare (I know, I've overshared so much, why stop now? Because I've finally realized that family reads this sometimes is why.) Anyway, I still haven't got my period back, and I'm getting impatient, so I've decided if I'm still not fertile by the end of the year I will wean Delphine. It will suck, but I don't want my kids to be years and years apart. If I were my mother I would be six months pregnant with my second child already. So, the clock is ticking for Miss Delphine's love/love relationship with my bosom.