Progress: We're Making it!

Last night my wonderful, amazing husband had to give a talk, which left me in charge of the bedtime routine. Bath-time has been terrible for us here. She is so frightened at the outset of every bath that she clings to you and gets both of you soaked, refusing to sit in the tub. I feel like I'm hosing the poor kid down as I dump cupfuls of water over her. (The shower is even worse!) But recently, since she is building up trunk muscles and finding new ways to sit other than "w" sitting, she has taken to the bath. Especially if it has bubbles. The first few minutes of fear are still there, but once she overcomes the initial shock, she's happy to sit down and splash. So last night for the first time in a while I felt less like the mean-scrubby-bath ogre and more like a mom cleaning up her kid!
For the last few minutes of her day, we usually let her zone out in front of the tv. But I didn't feel up to listening to sponge bob last night, so I asked if I could read her a book instead. She nodded, so I picked out "The Very Quiet Cricket" by Eric Carle. This is a great book, about a little cricket who wants to say hello and make friends, but can't get any sound to come out of his wings, until the very end, when he tries one last time. When you turn that last page, a built-in speaker in the book "chirps" like a cricket. It always makes me tear up, the metaphor about trying to keep trying. Penelope got to that chirping sound and looked up at my wet eyes and said, "more!" So we read it again. Then she signed "more book" and I got a whole stack of boardbooks from her room, and we read them for over twenty minutes! She has that kind of attention span, but it's usually reserved for her independent play. I was so happy and proud.
Just like the very quiet cricket, I am learning to keep trying, and learning that it's okay for Penelope to keep trying, too. One day she'll chirp with the best of them!

Happy Mother's Day

For mother's day: a gift. In the last three months Penelope's vocabulary has tripled from about 10 words to about thirty. Happy happy happy!

Happiness

What is happiness? When I wonder this, I think about those Charles Schulz comics wherein he would say "Happiness is..." followed by things like "a hug from a friend" or "a warm blanket". He was really on to something that my little kid mind clamped down on. Happiness lies in a moment: a fleeting, non-perpetual state. I learned that lesson from him, and I am working on re-learning it for Penelope's sake.
Penelope has been singing songs lately. She made up a song to the suitcase in our bedroom that is mostly babble, but the refrain of it is "going going going". She also has been singing a song we call the happy song which simply goes, "happy happy happy (phoooooo)" The phooo part is her blowing. It took me a couple of times of hearing this before I finally realized she was trying to sing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles! This is major because she's not a big cake fan or anything, so this little happy song is just about happiness, togetherness, the emotion, the moment, and anticipation. She sings it whenever she has a quiet little happy moment with her Dad or I. I think it's beautiful and sums up our life.
We should all have a happy song. Something we sing to remind us that yeah, life is tough but in this moment I feel joy. Something to make us really embrace and share that joy with those around us. Then maybe in the rough times we could ride it out, listening to our happy song in our head.