My little girl might not be policing other kids' dirty diapers just yet, but that doesn't mean that one-year-old (okay, 13.5 months ... but I really want to start just using whole years) isn't plenty hysterical and interesting.
Tonight's post is going to be 100% about Miss Annalie Charlotte, who had me in labor/limbo for three full weeks, resulting in three trips to the hospital (the first two humiliating and frustrating false alarms), before she finally emerged after, yes, three pushes.
The happy checkmark on her forehead (which I hardly notice anymore and could be gone; but I am not going to risk waking her to verify) is a temporary birthmark known as an angel kiss--a variation of a stork bite (which appears on one's neck). People routinely ask me if it's a bruise, thereby tempting me to pass the real, occasional halo of bruises off as minor congenital anomalies.
My daughter's name is pronounced Ann-ah-LEE, though we usually call her Annie for short. Except, of course, when Gunnar someone who will not be mentioned in this post affectionately calls her Potatohead. She earned her most endearing alias--Shit Fountain--at two weeks old when she projectile defecated on my bed.
In fact, it took the girl a good five months to grow into her bowel movements. Back when she was still nursing and wearing size 1 diapers, she'd poop erupt in epic proportions only about every three or four days. It would honestly look like she fell into a vat of yellow street paint over which someone had been eating a sesame seed bagel.
Actually, and I didn't even plan this segue, Sesame was her very first nickname. When I learned I was knocked up, I referenced my trusty copy of Your Pregnancy Week by Week, which had but 16 weeks to collect dust, and determined that I was impregnated with a fetus the size of a sesame seed. That's what we called her throughout the entire pregnancy. If she had been born pre-Apple, Brian and I might have inked the name Sesame on her birth certificate.
Annie's current personality almost defies written description. She's more aggressive than I remember you know who being at the same age--or ever. She holds her dollies by the throat. If she wants to give someone a kiss, she'll lunge at her subject open-mouthed as if to engulf completely. It's not uncommon for her to out-eat the rest of the family at any given meal; and every word in her vocabulary--even if it's technically a noun--is a command.
And--yes, there is a God--Annalie's a wonderful sleeper. It wasn't always that way, but even in the throes of reflux and impossible newborn-ness, her No. 1 meltdown reason was that she was tired. I discovered this by accident. In my early days of mothering two, there were times I'd place her in her crib just so I could safely take a breath (or pull somebody down off the dining room table), only to return a few minutes later and find her snoozing peacefully. Still, she starts coming unglued--angrily sucking her thumb and giving the evil eye--like clockwork at 8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. daily.
Finally--and I'm going to try to get this on video--Annie has a patent-pending Complete Comfort Maneuver, in which she methodically inserts her right thumb into her mouth, with the rest of her fingers flared, until the blankie portion of the lovey is placed securely in the rest of her fist, causing the little bear face to obscure her nose and right eye. With the other eye, she expresses a love deep enough to crumble civilization as we know it, until she drifts off to hallowed sleep.
