====================================================================== ========================== ======================== ======================== PEBBLES PRESS ======================= ========================== ======================== ====================================================================== ``The Straight Poop on Heather'' 30 August 1995 Vol. 2, No. 2 Editor-in-chief: Heather Contributing Editors: John & Marie Fashion Editor: Aunt Susan -- LETTERS! WE GET LETTERS! So okay, half of you are asking me "where on earth do you find the time to do this?" and half of you are asking me "I haven't gotten an issue of the Press in AGES -- when's it going to come out?" And a lot of those halves overlap. Give me a break! The tough part is, the longer I wait to write this, the more there is to write. I'm trapped in a vicious cycle! Karen Krebser writes (well, actually she said this, but that's a lot like writing except more sound-wave-oriented): "This is the cutest picture ever... fashion sense is ascendant in the constellation of this child." (Thanks to Charles and Mary for handing down the brightly colored romper she's wearing in the cited picture!) Another reader pens (well, actually types): I noticed that the mailing list for P2 is getting longer. What is the current circulation? Mark Rasch Funny you should ask, because coincidentally, *right after* I read your letter I went and counted. It's hard to give an exact number, because I forward it to a couple of sublists and there are some people who appear on more than one of those. But I'd say around 100. Maybe I should start sending it bcc'ed to everyone so everybody doesn't have to wade through that long address list. (Or is that actually the most enjoyable part of receiving the Press? -- finding out who else is in the know?) -- MOTOR DEVELOPMENT UPDATE She's walking! She's really walking! She took her sweet time about it, though. She first stood unassisted for a few seconds at her birthday party, then stood stably for longer periods beginning on May 1st. A few days later, she took her first real steps, and within a couple of weeks was able to take 8 to 10 steps. We figured she was just about ready to walk. So when did she really start walking on a regular basis, as a means of transportation? June 24! -- we were at Penny and Terry's house in North Carolina, and Heather picked up a football, walked from the dining room into the kitchen, careened around the corner, bouncing off the cabinets, and staggered into the living room. The next day I saw her crawl maybe twice. Since that, not at all, unless she's REALLY tired. I think she was just waiting until she could do it RIGHT. Now she's walking as though she's been doing it forever -- it's really old hat. She can even pick her way through the clutter she creates in our living room after she's pulled all of her toys out of her basket, and can back up when necessary. She's on the verge of being able to run and jump, but can't quite get herself all the way off the ground. -- JET SETTING BABY Travel! We traveled everywhere! I couldn't possibly give a complete travelogue, I'm afraid, so I'll just hit the high points. For the entire month of May, we stayed home. For the entire month of June, we traveled. That about covers it. Oh, you want more detail? Oh, all right. In the first week of June, I had to go to Rome Laboratory in upstate New York to give a demo, so I flew to Detroit first and spent a day in Ann Arbor visiting my sister, Susan. Then Grandma flew up, and we had lunch together, then I left Heather with her in the airport to fly to Rome. I had the bright idea of sitting them down with a bowl of frozen yogurt, so Heather hardly noticed I was leaving ("yeah, yeah, bye mom, see ya, I'm eating now"). I missed her in a way, but it was fun in a weird way to have that freedom again, even if it was for less than 24 hours. She did fine, though as soon as she saw Susan, it was "bye-bye Grandma, hello Susie!" -- I guess something about my sister reminds her of me. And she did keep Susan up most of the night. Right after I got back from that trip, I left again for San Diego -- this time with John and Heather. We spent the weekend with Karen and Joe Davies, in their new (huge! clean! non-baby-proofed! :-) house. We went to the San Diego zoo, which Heather LOVED (she explained to us that all animals can be categorized into "kitty," "doggy" or "bird," which makes taxonomies MUCH simpler. She did decide that "monkey" was a worthwhile additional category (then pronounced "mummy," later refined). Then I went to an ARPA workshop, while John and Heather played together during the days. We went out to a fancy dinner one night, which was probably a big mistake, but John was a GREAT dad/wife/mom and took her outside for most of the time while I schmoozed with my pals. We returned home just long enough to do the laundry and pack again, then were off to Boston for a week with John's sibs, at his brother's house in Sudbury. We had lots of fun, and got to see lots of old friends. Then Heather and I flew down to North Carolina and spent ten days traveling around with Penny and Ross. It was lots of fun to watch Heather and Ross playing together -- they're only a few weeks apart in age, and had a blast together. Every morning when they woke up and saw each other, they'd go nuts, Heather yelling "woh! woh!" and Ross jumping up and down and running around like a madman. Of course, he inspired her to start walking, too. We had an adventure of the worst kind -- the car we were driving broke down on the highway, in the middle of nowhere. YES, I drove with the oil light on, I know, I know, but it was almost 100 degrees out and we were sitting on the side of the highway with two sleeping kids in the back seat. What would you have done? Luckily, we managed to rely on the kindness of strangers -- one guy let us use his cellular phone to call AAA, and followed us off the highway, and the owner of the warehouse we stopped in front of told us to go inside and wait in the air conditioning. The guys at the garage were incredibly nice, too -- they looked at the car and fixed it to a point where it was at least minimally drivable, for next to nothing. Terry drove out with a real car, which we drove up into the mountains, then up to Kentucky to Penny's parents' house. (He drove VERY CAREFULLY back to Chapel Hill and sold the car the minute he got back for whatever he could get.) Throughout this entire month, Heather was a real trooper. After a couple of tough nights during the first trip or two, she even started sleeping fine -- going right to bed, even when we were all in the same room on our North Carolina trip, and sleeping right through the night. A week after we got back from North Carolina, I took my first long trip away from Heather -- four days in Tahoe City for the Machine Learning Conference. Heather stayed home with John and was fine, of course. (Luckily, she had weaned herself just before my trip to Rome -- see HEALTH NEWS.) I missed her, but also enjoyed having some time to myself. The first night I got up there, I didn't see anybody I knew around, so I snuck out for a nice dinner out by myself. (If you're ever in Tahoe City, try Wolfdale's -- yum!!) I also managed to get away later in the week for a few hours one afternoon to take a short hike down near Emerald Bay. Then we were all home together for an entire month, before Heather and I went off to Montreal for IJCAI. Susan, Grandma, and David all flew up for vacation, so I had plenty of babysitters. Again, after a couple of days spent adjusting to the new time zone, environment, and people, Heather did fine. We even had the smart idea of eating dinner really late (9:00) a couple of nights, and both times she fell asleep in the car on the way there, then slept right through dinner. Sightseeing is a challenge with Heather, and one definitely has to scale back one's expectations, but we did drive up to Quebec City one day, which we really enjoyed, and got to see a fair amount of Montreal -- the botanical gardens and Biodome, the old fort, a couple of museums, and some shopping. -- ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT Heather really knows how to throw a tantrum. When she's really upset, tired, and angry, she'll run from room to room, screaming and crying, and periodically throwing herself on the ground or against some furniture. Eventually she'll let me pick her up, and curl up against me sobbing her little heart out. But most days she's lovely and fun and a joy to watch. She's so friendly and adventurous, and so inquisitive, anywhere you go with her is a real experience -- it gives you a different perspective on what's interesting and worthwhile in the world, to watch what a toddler cares about. She can spend forever moving a chair back and forth from one side of the room to another, determinedly pushing her stroller around an airport waiting lounge, pointing out every airplane and car that goes by, or gently touching tiny little flowers in the grass that you didn't even notice. -- SNACKS AND SUCH Heather will eat almost anything -- if she's in the mood. Otherwise she will eat nothing whatsoever. SOMEBODY who shall remain nameless, but has the initials Daddy, introduced her to cookies, and now she's hooked. But we try to keep them under control, and learned that the easiest thing to do is to NEVER give them to her at home, only as special treats when we're on trips or at the playground. It works for us -- she doesn't usually even ask for them at home anymore. Kiwis are out. Blueberries are in. (I mean, kiwis are okay, but there's no contest here.) Raspberries are pretty good too, and apples and grapes are good if there are no berries in sight. Bananas are old news, but every once in a while she has a banana craving and then nothing else will do. She had her first Happy Meal on Sunday, May 21. It was a big occasion for us, being McDonald's junkies from way back. (Our shameful secret.) Heather doesn't eat much meat, but she does enjoy some forms of it -- turkey sandwiches, cheeseburgers (sometimes), pot stickers, and spare rib bones to gnaw on. -- SCHOOL DAYS Today is Heather's last day in the infant room at day care. Next week she starts in TKP (Teeny Kids Place) with the other toddlers from her room, the other infant rooms, and some new kids. We're looking forward to it, and I know she'll love it there (they take her over during the day to visit sometimes, and she never wants to leave), but we'll miss the wonderful teachers she has now. Earlier this week, we went in to TKP to look around. It's got a lot of nice areas -- there's a cozy, very private loft the kids can climb up into to have alone time away from the other kids if they need to. There's a bookshelf with a sofa and a bunch of pillows to curl up on and read (they have story time every day where the teachers read to whatever kids want to listen). There's a little aquarium on a low table, and a big dollhouse set up on another table. They have one of those Little Tikes kitchen setups, and a workbench area. There are also two giant appliance boxes with doors and windows cut out that they can use as a playhouse. Oh, and the diaper room is left open -- and there's a toddler-size toilet (wishful thinking :-). The play area outside is terrific -- they have a nice climbing structure with a little bridge and a couple of slides, some mini-trampolines (so she can practice her jumping!), lots of balls, bicycles, and push toys, and a sand box. She's defniitely going to be able to find lots to do. -- HEALTH NEWS I didn't think she'd ever wean herself, but she finally did -- one day, just before we left for Detroit, she slept through her usual morning nursing (she was down to just that one, anyway). She didn't seem fussy or put out when she woke up, so we just skipped it. The next morning we got up really early for the flight, and we never got around to nursing. The next day, in Detroit, she nursed very briefly. The day after that I was in Rome, and after I got back she never seemed to be asking to nurse, so I didn't any more. That was that. It was good timing -- I wasn't really that sad that she stopped, because we were both really ready. And it made my trips away from her much, much easier. She had her first real injury a couple of months ago -- she was reaching for a book, slipped, and banged her chin on a corner, splitting her gum and generating a fair amount of blood. She was okay but VERY upset. Since then, she's had a couple more cut gums, various scrapes and bruises, a few bumps on her head, and a gen-yoo-ine cut on her toe that required a bandaid (which she immediately tried to pull off, sitting down to pick at it every few minutes). This walking is dangerous stuff! Teeth. Heather has lots of teeth. As you may recall, she was very late to get her first teeth, and slow to get any more after that. But all of a sudden, in early June, teeth started coming in. Now she has all 8 front teeth, and all 4 molars (only 2 of them are all the way in). She's usually real whiny for a few days when a new one is coming in, especially a molar, but it's hard to tell since she had so many teeth at various stages of completeness for so long. (See "ALL THE POOP..." for further details.) At her 15-month checkup in July, she was 30.5" (which is 50th %ile), and 22 1/4 lbs. (35th %ile) Just about what we expected. I haven't noticed any particular growth spurts since then, so maybe now she's 31 or 31.5" and 23-24 pounds. She has wonderful sleep habits most of the time, except for the occasional disruption caused by teething, travel, or random toddler upheavals. On a typical day, after dinner around 7:00, she has a bath -- we wash her hair first, then soap her up, then let her play in the tub however long she wants to. After that, she'll run around and play for a while, taking her toys out of her basket, pushing around her car or popper, looking through her "flashcards" or books, or moving furniture (one of her favorite activities). After a while, she'll come over with a book and tell us to read to her in no uncertain terms. We sit and read for a while, then usually she'll start yawning and rubbing her eyes around 8:45 or 9. At that point, she gets her pacifier ("babboo"), gets 3 more books read to her, then we take her into her room and put her in her crib. Most often, she'll turn onto her tummy, scooch her butt in the air, and stare off to the side. We tuck her in, say good night, leave the room -- and that's it. We are blessed. Most days she sleeps straight through, sometimes waking up at some point to whimper a bit if she can't find her pacifier right away, until 8 or so. Now that I've said that, she'll have a terrible sleep night tonight. Oh, well. -- ALL THE POOP THAT'S S*IT TO PRINT [Warning: not for the squeamish] One day, in the middle of the teething hell, Heather woke up rather early and was crying quite decidedly. So I went in, picked her up -- and discovered I was holding a seriously poop-covered baby, and that there was poop EVERYWHERE in her crib. I ran with her out at arm's length into the bedroom, and said "John, get up, we have a poop emergency!" He sprang into action and warmed up the water in the tub, while I stripped her down and dumped her poopy shirt in the sink. I handed her off to him, and he started hosing her down under the faucet while I stripped and cleaned her bedclothes as best as I could. Then we threw everything in a HOT washing machine with plenty of bleach. The next morning it happened again. At least time we had been smart enough to put sweatpants on her, so it was somewhat contained. It continued for the next few days, but was never as messy as that first day. Have I mentioned that teething babies sometimes get diarrhea? If you ever read that, BELIEVE IT. It is true. All I can say is, I did NOT sign up for this. On a more colorful note, guess what happens when a baby eats a whole pint of blueberries at one sitting. What comes out the other end is bluish, grainy, and smells... you got it, like poopy bluberries. Yuck. [Will you squeamish people QUIT reading the part that's clearly marked "not for the squeamish" and QUIT complaining? Jeez.] -- BABY TALK Heather's vocabulary has positively exploded. It's up to around 150 words, and we're definitely starting to lose count. (Those are the words she says, spontaneously, with something reasonably close to the "correct" meaning -- not words she understands or will repeat after us; that set is uncountable.) I've been struggling to keep her "glossary" up to date until I could get this issue of the Press written, so I could include a word list (see appendix) -- after this, I'm giving up! She started out with a few basic words, gradually adding more and more. In mid-June I suddenly realized that she knew all of the animal sounds in one of her books -- without my having really tried to teach them to her (just read her the book a bunch of times, and she picked up the sounds on her own, then one day started saying them every time I got to a new page). By the time she started walking, in late June, she knew over 50 words. Around early August her pronunciation improved a lot -- she started pronouncing final consonants (agaiN, booK). You would think, though, that with 150 words, she would call me Mommy. And she does *know* that I'm Mommy, and will say that sometimes when you ask her "who's that?" and point to me. But if she's upset and wants me, or I'm leaving the room, she cries "daddydaddydaddy!" Recently she's developed more ways to tell us she does NOT want to do something -- "NO" was one of her early words, of course, but now she also says "not-going!" and "no-go-way!" when you try to get her to do something she doesn't want to. What a toddler. Still no two-words combinations, except "kick-ball" and some other two-words phrases that she seems to think are one word ("sit-DOWN," "all-done.") -- FUN 'N' GAMES Heather loves to dance; every time the music comes on she starts bouncing up and down, back and forth. Sometimes she'll spin around and around in little circles until she gets dizzy. She likes to give hugs and kisses, but SHE has to be the one to initiate it; usually she won't do it if you ask her to. It's great when she gets in a kissing mood; she'll run from person to person making little smacking noises and giving everyone kiss after kiss. Hugs are more likely to be reserved for special people -- she leans her whole body against mine sometimes, and just snuggles there enjoying being near me. If she's really missed me during the day, and is especially happy or relieved to see me, she'll pat my arm -- pat, pat, pat -- like she's making sure I'm really, really there. She's getting fairly good with the shape sorter, though she figured out that the circles are the easiest, and now usually just does those and then brings it over to me saying "open, open!" since she can't get the lid off herself. I had a pile of little pieces of cardboard that came as filler space in a box, and got inspired one day -- I put a sticker on each one, labeled it, and wrote a little description to go with it. So now she has flash cards, which she loves sorting through and carrying all around the house. Of course, she's still a bookaholic, and especially loves her First Dictionary -- a big book with nice big words, simple descriptions, and nice pictures and photographs accompanying every word. She'll sit by herself flipping through it for half an hour at a time, and loves to sit with one of us looking through it and pointing out all of the things she knows. As Aunt Susan discovered, she can get a tad obsessed though -- when we were in Montreal, she was really into the choo-choo, and just kept saying "choo-choo! choo-choo!" over and over until Susan turned to the page with the train. Other favorite books right now are Go Dog Go ("go!"), Goodnight Moon ("moon"), and this wildlife calendar that came with some junk mail. In May, we took her for swimming lessons, and she loves the water. She even learned how to kick, and now can finally blow bubbles (it took her a while to figure out what that was all about). She doesn't LIKE to put her whole face in the water, but we've dunked her (with prior warning) a few times, and she's more somber than upset afterwards. -- FASHION We bought Heather her very first shoes in late May, when it looked as though she was actually going to be walking soon (ha)! They're cute, though, little white Stride Rite lace-ups. The next ones we bought were sandals, since we figured she could use some warm-weather shoes during the heat wave. They're great -- really easy to put on and off (the fasteners are velcro), and seriously cute -- they look like tiny Birkenstocks. Very California. Since then, she's also acquired a little pair of bright-pink-and-purple Keds. Every day at day care, Theresa does something different and adorable with her hair. A couple of times, she's even French-braided it! I don't understand how she gets Heather to sit still -- I have to put Sesame Street on just to distract her for long enough to do one simple pony tail. I don't know what we'll do when Heather moves up to TKP! In Montreal, we acquired lots of new clothes -- both Grandma and Aunt Susan brought along new clothes they had bought for her, including an adorable Baby Gap hat and matching romper, and a sailor-style cardigan. Then they made another Baby Gap expedition in Montreal, plus they bought her several souvenir sweatshirts and t-shirts (including a really cute blue-and-white-striped Quebec City t-shirt with a little hood, very French). -- DREAMTIME Uncle Steven just can't seem to get Heather off of his mind. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In my dream, I was taking care of Marie's baby. The baby had no name or sex, as far as I can tell. Like all other young human infants, it looked like a very large crawdad. We were in the back yard of my mother's house in Columbia, and a black cat with white paws grabbed the baby in its mouth and tried to run away. I stopped it, but the baby didn't move, and at first I thought he/she might be dead. But then I noticed two meaty legs, like crab legs, lying torn off beside it. I was in grief because he/she had been crippled (I couldn't remember if an injury like this was temporary or permanent; do human babies regenerate their limbs?), until I realized a surgeon could reattach the legs. I wanted to hurry, both because limb reattachment surgery should be performed promptly and because I wanted to get it done before my sister got home, so she wouldn't worry as much. So I tried to decide whether I should go to the emergency room or a veterinarian. I knew it was undignified to take a baby to the veterinarian, but I thought that would be faster, so I decided to do it. I was concerned about using the proper terminology to describe the baby. I couldn't remember if it was acceptable English usage to call a human baby a crawdad. I don't remember ever finding an answer to that question, but I did learn that a human infant in this stage of development was technically known as a hero, which I thought was interesting. I also wasn't sure if a veterinarian would be open. It took me longer than you would think to find the Yellow Pages (but this was a dream, so there is some excuse). There were two veterinarians in Columbia, although just now I realized I looked up pet shops; evidently one of the rules of this dream was that every pet shop has a veterinarian, and vice versa. Both were closing soon, and I wasn't sure if I should risk going to them first. David and Susan came home and called down the stairs, telling me that dinner was ready. Leftovers from lunch: sourdough pudding and bread salad. I didn't want to tell them what had happened. Then I realized that human infants are not shaped like crawdads. I'd known for some time that I was dreaming, but this broke my train of thought. After a few minutes I got up and wrote this down so I'd remember it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John's response to this dream: Yes, that is a truly bizarre one. Remind me the next time you suggest that Steven babysit for us to bonk you on the head with a candlestick. -- STAY TUNED Can it possibly get better than this? -- GLOSSARY These are the words Heather says, in roughly the order she started using them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Cracker, uh-oh, babboo (pacifier), bird, Big Bird, yah (yes), no, Daddy, Mommy [sometimes], tree, dog, buttsdat/buttsdis (what's that), dis (this), cheese, yay, ball, fowwow (flower), yummy/yumyum, Tati (friend at day care), noh (nose), bear, baby, kikky/kah (kitty-cat), milk, apple, book, picture, eye, monkey, juice, namma (banana), Cory, Ross, mummy (Mickey or Minnie Mouse), horse, hwish (fish), gwa (giraffe), hat, bucket, water, shoe, sock, hi, em-mee (empty), car, whale, frog, chair, Heather (!), bath, outside, doll, open, cup, bagel, bread, night-night, buh-bye!, Nouri (her teacher), buh-ee (bunny), Pebbles, cookie, again, more, up, down, moon, teddy, hair, dirty, touch, peach, diaper, dee (her dictionary), pocket (Wocket in my Pocket), crayon, teet (toothbrush), pee-pee, potty, poo-poo, read, kick, climb, run, walk, twa-bwy (strawberry), pat, sandwich, kitchen, tee-sa (Theresa, another teacher), Chris, jessy (Joseph), Doke, Meaghan, Kyle, sun, mouse, camel, hammer/bang-bang, shirt, sit-down, choo-choo, help, hand, tickle, Cookie (Cookie Monster), Ernie, Bert, mine, rice, jump, hot, cold, hwoot (foot), not-going, truck, clown, fruit, Go (Go, Dog, Go), wash, Elmo, bus, pig, dip, mouth, head, tep (step), hwork (fork), poon (spoon), trash, clap, wind, push, money, no-go-'way!, all-mine, all-done, all-gone, page, shake, splash, pop, airplane, good, two [generic number], Susie, gamma (Grandma), circle. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not kidding. She also says these animal sounds: quack-quack, neigh, moo, baa, maa, grr (bear), roar (lion or any large cat), oink, meo, woof, hiss, peep, tweet, squeak, whoo.