Tonight I went for a hike in the HEAT with my friends S1 and S2 (I'll let them try to figure out which is which).  We brought along the little angel and one of the S's dog, Jasmine. (Dogs do not need the protection of annonymous Internet nicknames.)  I think the heat index lingered somewhere above the 100 degree mark, or at least enough to bring about a rise in the coloring of my cheeks.  The rise in coloring did not happen when I was younger. I think this heat-cheek thing goes along with the sudden need for night-time beauty products sold as "serums."

I realize, in retrospect, that I both freaked out about a mosquito on the little angel's cheek and accused her of succombing to heat exhaustion when she was merely napping.  One of the Ss commented that it is unfortunate my beloved is embarking on a new career path, because it means money will be too tight for the next several years for us to consider birthing another angel. For some reason, these people think I am a paranoid mama.

Ha ha ha.  They can't possibly be right.

Although, to the casual observer, to my family and to my beloved, I appear obsessed. Sometimes, to myself, I also appear obsessed. In my trolling of various web sites dedicated to Parenting the Only Child, I've noticed that becoming obsessed with one's solo offspring is a grave danger.  I must work on this.  I don't want more children, but I also don't want to be That Mother.

However, in my defense, the little angel is now sleeping, without her paci.  Victory is mine.

When I went to put her down, I gave her Tulip (her first stuffed friend), then offered her the choice of Stuffed Kitty or Odd Mickey Mouse.  She chose Stuffed Kitty and laughed when Odd Mickey gave her a kiss.  She was quiet for some time.

Then, we heard something odd on the baby monitor.  The little angel was apparently poking the buttons on Tad the Strange Learning Frog's tummy.  Instead of "one minute 'till night-night" we heard "that's the BLUE TRIANGLE" and "that's the PURPLE SQUARE."  Then we'd hear the little angel chuckle ruefully.  This was followed by some barking "wah wahs," then a long, low scream. 

Silence.

Wah. Wah.  SCREAMMMM.

Wah. Wah.  Silence.

"Why is my cheek ticking?" I asked myself.  After all, I am not worried about this latest milestone.  I am Mother Supreme.  Mother Laid-Back.  I will overcome all stereotypes.

Wah. Wah.  I went upstairs, made Mickey kiss her cheek again.  Nemo swam around the crib.  I pushed the button on the crib aquarium, and set off that blissful bubbling noise that makes me want to rip the aquarium from her crib and position it near my own bed to keep the dreams of rabid dogs at bay.

Then...again...silence.  She's done it again.  She fell asleep without the pacis.

Can someone please start the applause?  Overprotective Mother emerges victorious.

Hmm. That was it.  An hour and a half of crying, then silence all night long.  She even slept a little later than usual, perhaps exhausted by the drama of the night before.  This morning was a little hard, as she usually has her paci while being coated with sunscreen (her least favorite activity), but all in all, pretty good.

I, on the other hand, had nightmares all night long. I got shot (I recently saw Fargo on cable), I was chased by a rabid dog (I read To Kill a Mockingbird last semester) and I had some harrowing falling experiences.  I also slept hard, like I was getting sick or something.  I almost think I was torturing myself with the guilt that comes from removing the child's favorite comfort object, when I'm not even sure it's that big of a deal for her to have it.

However, in the morning, with the birds chirping and the sun shining, I realize we have gone too far to look back now. She made it through the worst part. We'll probably have a few more hard nights, but then she'll be on to full-fledged toddlerhood without her props (or maybe with furry, but more socially acceptable props). 

I'm so proud of the little angel. Such a big girl.

Well, I've been dreading weaning the little angel from her paci since the first day she greedily sucked on it (okay, she was THREE DAYS OLD when we introduced the paci).  Today I called the Emerald City and found out the little angel hasn't been napping with her paci for a month, ever since the switched from cribs to mats.  Of course, as my friend C. says, "they do things at daycare they will never do for you."

I called the dentist.  He said to get her off the paci by two and a half.  She's sixteen, almost seventeen months old now.  However, this is the only time for the next few months that we have two weekends in a row in town, with no visitors save maybe my parents for one lone Saturday night a week and a half from now.

Surely she'll be over this by then?

My beloved is off work this week as he prepares to embark on a new career. He can nap during the day if need be.

So we decided:  Tonight's the night.  Tonight, we end the paci madness.

She's been screaming for oh, about an hour now.  When I first put her down, she didn't say anything, probably because she hadn't yet scoured her crib.  Her cry is one of frustration more than sadness.  She calms down when you rub her back.  Mostly, I think this may be the first time we've ever utterly shocked her.

Knowing that she can sleep at daycare without the paci makes me think she will EVENTUALLY fall asleep.  Still, this is killing me.  Why must we do this?  How bad can the paci be, really?  DO YOU HEAR THE DESPERATION IN MY VOICE?

C. thinks I should probably just let her grow out of it.  I wish I could be that laid-back. The problem is that damn show SuperNanny.  When I watched the episode about the two children, aged probably four and five, who still had their pacis all the time (and I realize this is a huge difference from the little angel, who apparently doesn't even use it to nap), I almost had a nervous breakdown.  They screamed from nine at night until five in the morning the first night.

That episode stuck in my head.  I pictured the little angel, aged five, screaming for her paci and running all over the house in the dead of night looking for it.  Now, the little angel is still in a crib. She doesn't even know the WORD for paci.  She can't ask in that cute little voice of hers where it is.

No, if I wait, it'll be worse.  Now.  We have to do it now.

I really can't stand to hear her cry like this.  I think it will probably be like this through the weekend.

ARGH!  Can't we all just keep our crutches?  What is so bad about them, anyway?

Wah.

(Open scene.  Heroine ducking out of business meeting at Large Corporate Telecom and running to parking lot.  A hot wind blows.  Heroine gets in Ridiculously Large Vehicle and drives onto interstate.)

Beloved:  "Hello?" (on phone)

Me:  "So I just stay on 435 and take 70 west?  Are you sure that's how I get to the school?  Are you SURE?  I'm really late."

Beloved:  "Yes, I'm sure.  Stop panicking."

Me:  "I always panic on the first day of class. You know that."  (Heroine angrily hangs up.  Rustles through purse.  Dials phone again.)

Beloved:  "Hello?" (little angel wailing in the background)

Me:  "I can't find my classroom keys!  I won't be able to get to my mailbox!  ALL IS LOST!"

Beloved:  "Calm down. It's the first week of class. I'm sure the office is still open."

Me:  "I knew I should've driven there last week!  I'm an IDIOT."

Beloved:  "Well, you got me there."

(Heroine punches the gas and speeds to the school, rushing in to the office.  Dean is still there (que horor) plus lovely and wonderful administrative assistant, who bestows a new set of keys on the heroine.  Heroine rushes up to classroom, looks in purse for new keys, which have now disappeared.)

Me:  "What the HELL?" 

(Heroine discovers large hole in the lining of her T.J. Maxx two-seasons-old purse.  Heroine discovers both sets of keys.  Tra la!)

Me:  "Ha, ha.  I guess I should buy a new purse, eh?"

Student 1:  "Do we get a smoke break?"

There are twenty of them.  TWENTY OF THEM!  Hopefully I scared off at least four last night.

Tangent:  Before I begin, I'd just like to point out that from my second-story home office I can see the firefighters a block away practicing their golf swings prior to 8 a.m.  It's the little things that get me.

Today is the first day of school for the community college where I teach English Composition I on Tuesday nights.  This will be my third semester teaching there.  I currently have 20 students.  On average, I lose about six per semester.  I usually like to go in, guns blazing, and smother them with paper on the first day. This effectively weeds out about two people.   Then I explain the grading rubric.  The use of the word "rubric" weeds out another two.  You can see it in their eyes:

Student 1:  "Dude, she said 'rubric.'"

Student 2:  "What the hell does that mean?'

Student 1:  "I have NO idea, but it sounds hard."

Student 2:  "I thought we were just going to journal.  I have so many thoughts to share."

Student 1:  "If we leave now, we can still catch the Fear Factor rerun."

Student 2:  "Meet you outside at the break."

Student 1:  "You mean, at the RUBRIC."

Student 2:  "Ha, yeah."

Last semester, if you recall, my favorite excuse for why someone couldn't be there for a test was their fiance's surprise, extended hospital visit for which there was no paper trail.  Inevitably, every single semester I have also seen a dead grandmother or aunt, usually one who lives far, far away.  There is never any mention of attending the funeral, just the need to mourn, at home, far from class. And maybe with an extension on Essay 4. 

Tonight, I will look out on my twenty shining young faces and try to guess which ones will leave, which ones will lose grandmothers and which ones will turn in an essay good enough to surprise me.  I don't know why I am still drawn to school after attending it myself through high school, college, then some more college.  There's something about the cyclical nature of it, the chance to renew yourself every four months, the release of being done for a month at the end of the semester.  It might have something to do with my fascination with paper products, especially NEW paper products. I love writing utensils.  I ADORE white boards.  And now, on the opposite side of the lecturn, I have the opportunity to spout off on my favorite subject while fourteen or fifteen young (and sometimes older than me) people have to sit and listen for three hours.  I admit, this is a total ego boost.  It's also entertaining on the scale of the Surreal Life when they start fighting amongst themselves about grammar rules or the point of "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Ah, yes.  Adjunct teaching:  the pay is bad, the benefits are non-existant, the hours are weird, but there's a whole underground of us who just keep on coming back for more every fall and spring.

I think the firefighter just hit a birdy.  A real one.

The little angel fell in love with baby dolls this weekend.  Her cousin A. brought TWO baby dolls, and the little angel immediately mastered the word "baby."  In fact, it was all she would say all weekend - "baby, baby, baby, baaabbeeeeee!"  They put the babies in their booster seats, in the high chair, on the cat, etc.  When A. left, the little angel looked around.  "Baby?"

So off we went to Target in search of a baby for the little angel.  We found one for $10.  It has a plastic head, hands and feet, eyes that open and shut and an outfit that would make a gay man cringe.  All the baby dolls said they were for ages two and above, but when your sixteen-month-old decides she needs to give birth NOW, what can you do?

We ripped the box open and cut off all the tags right there in the store.  The little angel's excitement had built to a fever pitch.  "BBAAABBBEEEE!" she cried upon realizing it was hers.  "BAABBBEEEEE!"  As she covered the baby with kisses in the cart on the way to the car, I was surprised by my own reaction.  She's liked toys before, but never like this.  Every time she sees the baby, she kisses and kisses it (she just learned to kiss this weekend, too). 

My baby isn't a baby anymore.

Tonight my brother- and sister-in-law and their beautiful toddler arrive.  They are "easy" in-laws - they don't demand gourmet meals and are easily entertained by baseball games and Plaza shopping trips.  However, in the whirlwind of travel that has been July/August, we haven't had time to attend to much around This Old House. 

There's nothing like visiting in-laws to bring your attention to the bevy (herd? flock? gaggle?) of spiders in every corner, attending to their large, only-visible-when-visitors-come cobwebs in the corner of every ceiling.  Or the fact that the entire yard is dead and crunchy, the flowerpots broken and filled with half-dead impatiens.  The office we swore we would paint before one more visitor descended upon us.  Things like that.

To add insult to injury, our house is so hot up in my home office/guest room that during the day it peaks at 85 degrees and doesn't really cool off to 77 until around midnight.  There is no room in the office/guest room for a pack-n-play.  So what to do with four adults and two toddlers in a two-and-a-kind-of-half bedroom house?  We decided to give them OUR bedroom, so they could put their daughter in with them and let the teething, waking-in-the-night angel keep her little fiefdom.  Am I being overprotective?  Oh, probably.  But why mess with a good thing?  She slept through last night AND past the witching hour of 6 a.m.   Maybe, just maybe, A. can teach her to sleep until 7 a.m. At the very least, we'll take all sorts of photos of them being cute together then drink when they go to bed.

One of my co-workers, V., recently returned from his visit home to Bombay.  I teased him before he left that he would return with a wife, as many of my co-workers at my last company left to go home to India for a month and returned either married or engaged.  Some of them had arranged marriages, and some did not.  V. does not strike me as the type to have an arranged marriage, but he does strike me as the type to want to marry an Indian girl, of which there are some, but certainly not the majority, in Kansas City, Missouri (or even worse, Overland Park, Kansas, where V. lives - hello, Scandanavia, how are you?).

All this talk about weddings (he did not get engaged, but he did say he "met someone" - mark my words - this will happen) got me thinking about dating and cultural dating differences.  My experience with Indian courtship, I admit, has been limited to my co-workers.  Some of them were more methodical than others. Those planning to participate in arranged marriage even had some web sites - sort of an Indian Match.com - that listed a level of detail unheard of in American circles - things like resumes, parents' religious backgrounds, level of education, etc.  Here is a list from one site:

Gender:
Age:
Height:
Body Type:
Location:
Birth Country:
Will Travel:
Religion:
Cultural Values:
Star Sign:
Caste/Subcaste:
Skin Tone:
Languages:
Occupation:
Education:
Income:
Diet:
Drinker:
Smoker:
Citizenship:
Living Status:
Marital Status:
Has Children:
Wants Children:
Health:
Hobbies:

Not quite "loves dogs, walks on the beach and Faulkner", eh?

However...smarter.  I mean, we want to know the same things, but we just tend to date for two years to find out how Joe feels about God.   I have a few friends back in the dating pool after being in serious relationships for a few years, and it seems that after the age of 30, people tend to spin the Wheel of Fortune with a more discerning eye than they did at 18.

In America, we don't have arranged marriages.  We do have a 67% divorce rate.  I do not imply these are inherently connected - I think they're mutually exclusive.  However, are we asking the right questions?  Is it time for more resume posting in the dating world?

One of my co-workers, V., recently returned from his visit home to Bombay.  I teased him before he left that he would return with a wife, as many of my co-workers at my last company left to go home to India for a month and returned either married or engaged.  Some of them had arranged marriages, and some did not.  V. does not strike me as the type to have an arranged marriage, but he does strike me as the type to want to marry an Indian girl, of which there are some, but certainly not the majority, in Kansas City, Missouri (or even worse, Overland Park, Kansas, where V. lives - hello, Scandanavia, how are you?).

All this talk about weddings (he did not get engaged, but he did say he "met someone" - mark my words - this will happen) got me thinking about dating and cultural dating differences.  My experience with Indian courtship, I admit, has been limited to my co-workers.  Some of them were more methodical than others. Those planning to participate in arranged marriage even had some web sites - sort of an Indian Match.com - that listed a level of detail unheard of in American circles - things like resumes, parents' religious backgrounds, level of education, etc.  Here is a list from one site:

Gender:
Age:
Height:
Body Type:
Location:
Birth Country:
Will Travel:
Religion:
Cultural Values:
Star Sign:
Caste/Subcaste:
Skin Tone:
Languages:
Occupation:
Education:
Income:
Diet:
Drinker:
Smoker:
Citizenship:
Living Status:
Marital Status:
Has Children:
Wants Children:
Health:
Hobbies:

Not quite "loves dogs, walks on the beach and Faulkner", eh?

However...smarter.  I mean, we want to know the same things, but we just tend to date for two years to find out how Joe feels about God.   I have a few friends back in the dating pool after being in serious relationships for a few years, and it seems that after the age of 30, people tend to spin the Wheel of Fortune with a more discerning eye than they did at 18.

In America, we don't have arranged marriages.  We do have a 67% divorce rate.  I do not imply these are inherently connected - I think they're mutually exclusive.  However, are we asking the right questions?  Is it time for more resume posting in the dating world?