Katsuke

Just a quick story here.

I had made Alia’s breakfast, mostly of her own choosing, consisting of peanut butter toast and yogurt. She loves it, and I can eat the same thing and we’re both happy. I decided to have a mug of cocoa with mine today just for a little sugary celebration of “I’m at home today,” and she just watched me as I made it.

So when I sat down next to her with cocoa in hand she scoots over closer, as far as her chair allows, and holds out her toast. “Teece?” she said, which from all I can gather means “please” and mimes dipping the toast up and down. I laughed and let her dip her toast in my cocoa.

She has never had cocoa before, let alone cocoa and toast, and as she bit into it her face lit up. She dropped the toast onto her plate so she could clap, got a big smile, and started giggling in happiness.

Yeah, that’s my girl.

Warning: this topic may not be relevant or comfortable for men.

I was again reading a topic of conversation on the internet about whether or not to breastfeed their soon-to-be-born little ones and the general consensus was “it’s hard at first, but it gets better,” and, “it’s one of the most bonding activities.” I am a firm believer in the “breast is best” side of things, but I realize just how bad everything went for me when all I want to tell people is that it can be the most stressful, painful, awful part of having a baby.

Especially the “it gets better” line. I know it normally does, I remember talking to someone with an 8-10 month old when the munchkin was about 3-4 months and remarking on how they got their kiddo to stay still. At that point I got hope, just a few more months and I won’t be pinning the baby down… a few more months and I wouldn’t need to go sit in public restrooms to nurse because of the constant battle. For a kiddo like mine, it only got worse as she became stronger and could fight harder. Part of what kept me going was the knowledge that the mommy has to win everything! Remember, if you are fighting battles it may seem horribly difficult in the here and now, but it is worth more than you can possibly imagine if you win.

I really admire the people who can keep breastfeeding for two years, that’s a lot of dedication, but I thank my lucky stars almost every day that child-led weaning worked in my favor and that she decided she was done at 13 months.

I’m not writing this to scare people or to play a pity party, mostly just in the off-chance that someone going through the same thing I did will find it. I remember searching the internet for hours trying to find someone who dealt with the same problems, someone who, though I’d never talk to them, would be fellow soldiers on the same battlefront. And you know what, I never found anyone. For a long time I felt like no matter what I did right, who’s great advice I followed, I must be a total failure because it always failed. Now that the little missy is older I can see in hindsight that it’s just her personality and she honestly doesn’t seem to like the taste of breastmilk. I can see now how I didn’t fail because it wasn’t a matter of right way vs. wrong way, it was a matter of what she wanted vs what she was physically capable of.

I know to people who didn’t have such a hard time this may seem weird, but I know if I had found this 10 months ago it would have been one of the most comforting things ever. So as much as a stretch it may be, I hope this helps someone out there in the vast nothingness of the internets.

Since I have now learned what the story I’ve been thinking of is (The Wise Woman, or The Lost Princess, by George MacDonald) I thought I’d share with you what hundreds of retellings and the course of time does to a story.
This is what I wrote down Monday when I was supposed to be learning about tiered learning and dissa-something-er-ation, but wasn’t paying attention.

Once upon a time a princess was born and the good witch gave her a mirror to connect her to her people to keep her a fair and kind ruler, it would give her the ability to speak through it to her subjects. But in the night the evil witch came and changed the mirror for while she could not be so powerful she was capable of corrupting something good. The evil witch made the mirror so it could only connect to one person only, a child as well - one the witch knew she could twist to her purposes.
When the princess grew older she started using the mirror and not knowing exactly how it would work did not think it odd that it showed a girl, her complete physical identical twin. They spoke often and became good friends but the witch whispered lies into the peasant girl’s ear about how the princess knew that the mirror was capable of bringing people through but did not care enough about her friend to save her from her wretched life.
The peasant girl grew jealous and hateful and used the princess’s kindness to learn all about her life. And then, the day before the princess was to be crowned heir, the peasant girl pulled the princess through, took her place, and destroyed the mirror. The princess was smart and fared well enough in the wild country even though she did not know where she was. Eventually she found her way to a neighboring country and met a lord who told her how the witch and peasant girl had begun to crumble her country…

And that’s where the story starts breaking down. I think after so many new tellings, it’s just become completely warped.
Thanks for the help!

An alarm clock has an amazing power over me; so between that, an overabundance of self-imposed guilt, and an unhealthy sense of vanity I set the alarm for 6:20am this morning. A horrible hour though it may be once the alarm went off I was out of bed. Once I was out of bed the guilt made me realize how long it had been since I last exercised (a feeling I’ve had for a while) and then felt bad about it. The vanity then clicked in and there was no internal arguing anymore.

I ran. I ran for five minutes. I ran to the mailbox and back in five minutes. I hung my head in shame for how out of shape I am.

I’m not going to touch the alarm, it will continue to go off at 6:20 every morning and give me two choices. I can either sit around like a lump or exercise, I can read my LOLcats or be able to continue to have access to the pants I worked so hard for about nine months to fit back into.

See, I can put anything in a way that will severely guilt myself, it’s a talent of mine. I hope I can keep it up, and that’s partly why I put this on here. If you all know about my goal then my shame and guilt will be insanely multiplied if I fail, thus really cutting down on my “you can just skip it” thoughts.

Y’all have to help me here.

A vague story passed through my brain today after work, it’s a story that’s been in an out of my consciousness at various points of my life and I can not figure it out. Before I burned my last set of old diaries (from ages 12-14) I found references to it, the same basic story but every time it comes back I retell it to myself a little differently. It’s gotten blurred with time, but some of its so vivid I know either I dreamed it or it was read to me.

The part I need help with is if anyone reading this has known a children’s story with these elements so I finally put my brain to rest after so many years.

The main event in this story is a wealthy girl (I think a princess) passing through a door (infinitesimal chance that it was a mirror) and ending up in the green mountain country and living there for a while, having to learn hard work. I think she lived with an old woman, perhaps a witch. The picture is just burned into my mind of a girl stepping through a mahogany door into green rolling hills out in the middle of nowhere with only a old little peasant home nearby. And I’m pretty sure there was an identical looking peasant girl who went through the other direction, but that’s a little more fuzzy.

Sorry for the vagueness, but this was foggy by my early teens and I’m to my early 20s now. It’s just extraordinarily bugging me this time, and I think it may be that I don’t want to be ripping someone off. This is something I’ve told to Alia multiple times and I was thinking I should write it down for her someday, even with my average story writing skills, because she’s going to grow up hearing it so much.

I’m so glad I just took the garbage out, I’d taken some out just an hour or so ago but I figured I’d just take the rest while Alia slept.
Super-dooper excited awesomeness!
Someone just dumped Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish into the dumpster. I took them inside and sanitized the covers and checked through them to see what caused the throwing away. There were a few pencil-scribbles on a couple pages in each book and one page that was slightly torn. One person’s trash can definitely be my treasure. They’re in a sealed bag for a while, just to be on the safe side I don’t want to get too excited and bring in germs or lice or fleas or something, but after that I can do a little erasing and taping and they will be ALL MINE!

I drugged up Geordi with da ‘nip this afternoon, and it was hysterical.

Last time I gave the cats catnip they really didn’t care and it didn’t really effect them. Today, though, as I was sitting on the wash machine trying desperately to keep Alia nearby I had a stroke of genius and grabbed the bag of catnip as it was about to fall off the dryer from the vibrations passed from the wash machine to the broom to the dryer, the broom being wedged in tightly enough to cause this problem.

If the cats were busy next to me, the baby would most definitely be nearby also. Disregarding the fact that I just vacuumed, I sprinkled about a tablespoon’s worth of catnip onto the floor in front of me. If it weren’t for the fact that I was tired of resetting the clothes in the machine I would’ve gotten down and put it on a plate or something, but if I were willing to get down I wouldn’t have been in the predicament with the girly that I found myself in. I needn’t have worried about the state of my carpet. Samson took one whiff and pompously, or perhaps offendedly, walked off, Geordi on the other hand started eating it. He was like a vacuum, a very slurpy vacuum. He was so occupied that he received a baby hug for a total of five seconds which is longer than she has ever been able to manage before for a hug.

The wash machine finished just as he was licking up the last of the catnip; my plan worked perfectly. I was very amused and decided to give him more, but this time on a hard floor so as to not risk my carpet any further. I’ve never had a cat that was really effected by catnip, Ashes did weird things after eating carrots but not after catnip, so I cannot describe the joy I got from watching a normally dignified cat writhing on the floor, rolling in the dried mint, licking my knees (and the wall), and trying to walk with his head on the floor… turned on it’s side.

I certainly got some healthy laughing in today, and that’s not counting some of Alia’s antics.

*Note: there was nothing wrong with the wash machine, it just had a whole bunch of heavy items in it and needed an extra 100+ pounds on top of it to stop it from shaking itself to the point where it believes it needs to turn off.

I love being surprised by what Alia is capable of when she’s in the mood. She’s pretty apathetic regarding most neat indulging-mommy-moments, but every once in a while she goes above and beyond what I would expect of her.
Yesterday she decided to put her books back on the shelf. It was still kind of messy but she tried so hard and she’s only 14 months old, so I thanked her and left it. Today she couldn’t care a lick and left books all over the living room floor.
She got a new book for Christmas with “mommies and babies” cat-kitten, dog-puppy, etc. We’ve gone through it about five times now and this evening on a whim I pointed to the puppy and said, “Where’s the mommy?” She matched all five of the babies to their correct mommies… then rolled onto the floor, tried to eat the book, and had a major screaming fit.
She loves to sort. She sorts her books, the cans, the magnetic letters (I found all the “n”s and the “u”s that looked like “n”s on the floor in a neat pile tonight). She’s also particular about where her toys go. I dared to put one of her pop-up boards in her bedroom yesterday after she went to sleep, first thing this morning when I opened her door she carried it into the living room. It’s very hard for me since I’m a perfectionist, but I’m trying to teach unperfectionism to a child who I can see easily turning out to be more of a perfectionist than I am.
In other news a few days before I started work Alia decided she was done with breastfeeding. There was some tapering down, but I hadn’t even adjusted to her only wanting to eat once a day when she decided to go cold-turkey. Apparently the “minimum expected age” of child led weaning is about 2.5 years, but I will not delude myself into thinking Alia is anything other than determined to have her own way.

I can’t wait for her to start talking. We think she may gotten board with the few words she knew because she’s not really talking with real words anymore. I’ve only heard her say “bye” once in the last month and she will really only say “hi” to children and animals. She’s stopped saying “kitty” and “hello,” and as far as I’ve heard she hasn’t been saying “mama” and “dada” as much anymore. She still jabbers, not as much, but she still does. She did point at one of the dogs on Christmas and say “dog” but that was a one time occurrence.
She is getting better at non-verbal communication. If she gets hurt she will come over and hold the area that hurts.

The best thing, though, is if you ask for a kiss you’ll normally get a kiss.

And that’s Alia for you!

Oh boy, have I been neglecting this.

I found myself, instead of cleaning the kitchen, in the middle of losing things. How does one find themselves to be in the midst of losing things? Isn’t the act of losing objects something we only find out about later when we need it?
Apparently not.
I thought I was cleaning the kitchen and singing along with my music when in the middle of a sentence I realized I had just closed the Etc. Cupboard and the last thing I had been holding was a potholder. Sure enough, there was my oven mitt in amidst the extra spatulas and vinegars. After that awakening I went through the rest of my cupboards and shelving units and found a few other misplaced items. At least I’ve never put odd things in the freezer, right? At least not for more than a few minutes… or counting those accidental… umm…
Lets put it in a better light; I have never put foods that belong in the freezer or fridge into the cupboard.

I’m just a little scatterbrained.
Wouldn’t you rather be thinking about the cute antics of a baby than dishes or whether or not you put soap in the wash machine?

• Oops I left my iced tea touching the back of the fridge. Yesterday I found about a 1/3 of a gal. of ice in it. It’s so nice and cold. #

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