Thursday, February 26, 2009

Buying Love and Other Things

I've been bitching and moaning about my impending death for the past few days, and not once have I acknowledged the fact that my beautiful daughter is suffering right along with me. No, she doesn't have the death-flu (thank.you.God.), but she does have a horrible case of Mommy-ignored-me-for-three-days-straight-syndrome. I didn't really ignore her, she was still clothed and diapers were changed, there were still bananas for breakfast and boob whenever she wanted it, but there was very little playing, and more than a few annoyed glances thrown her way. Hey, I admit it, something had to give while I was puking with a two-month-old in my arm, unfortunately for Mads, it was her. I'm usually a really hands-on kind of Mommy, we play with her toys together, do chores together, and nap together most every day. These past few though, hands-off has been the general rule, and Mads has definitely noticed. While I was camped out on the couch, slumped over the arm-rest holding a bottle in Tiven's mouth, Mads would bring a toy over to me and smile. A few times, I attempted to play just a little, shake up the toy and hand it back to her, kiss-kiss it and say "ew, cooties", throw it across the room to see if she'd fetch (she does, lol). But as the hours stacked up against me, I couldn't even fake it anymore. I was only good for one thing... sleeping. We did a lot of that together.

To make up for my absence, I took Mads to Walmart tonight to buy her a new toy. Not just any toy would do, this had to be a super-freaking-fabulous toy, a toy to make up for her Mommy-loss. We roamed the toy aisle for like, ever, and we finally settled on this busy ball popper thing. On the way out, I grabbed a bottle of bubbles for $1, and a medium sized rubber ball for $1.50.

I should just take that stupid ball-popper back. She LOVES bubbles. Careful to keep them out of her eyes, I blew a few right past her face, and her mouth dropped open in awe. The first time she caught one, she giggled like a total idiot and threw in a gimme hand to tell me she wanted more. Why didn't I think of these things before? As for the ball, my kid is a flippin' genius. I rolled the ball to her, and the crazy kid straight-up rolled it back to me! She's just now learned to throw things on purpose, over-hand and with horrible aim, but I didn't think ball rolling counted as the same skill.

So much has happened in the past few days. She's walking so much better, so well in fact that I hardly notice when she follows me to the kitchen (without holding on to anything). I don't even count steps anymore, there's just too many to keep track. The wobbly-topply is being replaced with an almost graceful semi-run. She seems older every time I look at her. I'm scared to put her to bed or leave the house without her, afraid that the next time I see her she'll be asking for my car keys or peeing in the potty.

From now on, I hope I don't get sick until she's done growing. Things just happen too fast in baby-time. Fingers totally crossed.

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