Posts Tagged ‘wee babe’

Indigo is a funny girl. She’s always up to something that makes me laugh. So often, she is doing something so cute that I want to capture it for posterity. These past few weeks have not disappointed.

• We were visiting a friend, and there was someone else there with her two-year-old daughter. Indy followed her around for a while and proceeded to try and sit in her lap when she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Imagine that poor little girl’s surprise. She kept trying to scoot over to give Indy room, but she kept readjusting her aim so that she can get her lap.
• When the above didn’t work out, she decided the next best thing was to sit in that little girl’s mother’s lap. She just plopped herself in there with out thinking twice about it. Indy = not shy at all.
• Indy loves books and spends a good portion of each day bringing us books to read to her. Sometimes, she’ll have one of us read a couple of pages, and then take the book to the other to read. Tag team story time!
• Indigo also thinks the dogs are smarter than they are. She brought our big guy Logan a book, so that he could read it to her. He, of course, picked his head up from his nap and proceeded to look at her like she was nuts.
• Last night during naked time before her bath, she was walking around her bedroom with her stuffed Pooh and a bunny. She kept setting them up next to each other in different parts of the room and I couldn’t figure out why. Finally, she got them to a place she was happy with and tried to sit in their laps. She was getting aggravated because they kept sliding away from her on the hardwood floor. Finally, she sat them in her boppy and plopped on top of them. Success!

As soon as I grab the camera, the moment is often broken. She gets distracted and often would rather have the camera than whatever else she was doing. Sometimes I can catch her quirky behavior, though.

Like the time the other week where she crammed herself into one of those Ikea drawer organizers and loaded it up with her toys on top of herself:

But she already kind of had a thing for cardboard boxes, so this didn’t come as a shock:

Or the time a few months ago when she learned about all the fun possibilities of her boppy:

My kid’s a little quirky (just like her momma), and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Well, I said that Indy loves music. Proof that she may just take after her daddy and do some drumming!

The Boy can’t wait to bring her on his big set and let her go to town.

Ever since Indigo was a newborn, there were nights that she would cry in typical newborn fashion. At first, we weren’t sure what to do. Everyone goes through this phase where your kid and you are trying to figure one another out. After a short time, we realized that she loved it when we hummed. We’d rest her head on our chest and hum, and she’s be a happy as a little clam. Now, you have to understand The Boy and me. We love music… he’s even a musician, a drummer, but neither one of us are singers. Not even close. When I was younger, I pictured myself singing lullabies to my baby. Ahhhh… picture perfect. Yeah, no. Not gonna happen. As we went through our repertoire of songs to hum, there was always one particular song that would settle her down quickest and get her into a nice easy sleep. Kind of like this:

What is this magical song, you ask? Why if you’re at all familiar with ska music, you may recognize it. I’m talking old school ska, second generation stuff. One Step Beyond by Madness. Humming the main sax riff is the one thing that transformed the sleepy crabby baby to a big old pile of sacked out munchkin.

If you’re not familiar with the song, give it a listen!

What I love the most is that now when she hears most music, especially happy bouncy ska, she dances around like a lunatic. We’re starting her musical education early.

Indigo is a great napper. She’ll sleep about an hour and a half at a pop, twice a day. She’s nearly always in a great mood when I go and get her. She usually squeals when I open the door, and immediately hands me her blankie and her bear. I’ve come to expect this.

But this afternoon was different… She slept her nap, and I went in to get her. I was greeted by a happy girl, who was happy to hand over what she had in her hand. The light was low, but I could tell that this was neither her blankie nor her bear. Oh no, not those at all. It was her DIAPER. Yes, my darling daughter has learned to take off her diaper. Dear God, am I in trouble.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, Indigo is cloth diapered. Up until recently she’s shown only a passing interest in the velcro tabs, but I guess today was the day that her curiosity got the best of her. The fact that she was in just a t-shirt and her diaper clearly did not help matters.

Oh, I didn’t mention? She had pooped… a lot. It was everywhere, and it was clear that she was playing with it, too. Luckily, The Boy was home, and we were able to divide and conquer. I cleaned her up, which was not easy, especially her hands and under her nails, while he hunted down the turds and stripped down the crib.

The silver lining in this all is that she now poops like a big girl and we didn’t have to contend with a big pasty mess. I suspect that we may find a rogue turd at some other point in time, but that goes with the territory, I suppose. My only regret is that we didn’t take any pictures of the crime scene.

Today, the fam and I had an outing to do a little grocery shopping. Our first stop was Costco. We had her in the cart, where she greeted everyone we passed. This is funny to watch, because people are usually caught off guard by her outgoing personality. Often she says it as we’re approaching them, which startles them because they don’t see us coming. Oh, and did I mention that she can be kind of loud? Most times she gets a smile and a hello back. People sometimes ooh and ahh at her. We’ve even been told that she “made my day!” Others don’t make eye contact and go about their business. These are the people without a soul. Avoid them at all cost.

From there, we went to the nearby Stew Leonards. For those of you who haven’t heard of the place, it’s a grocery store with fab meats and produce. Stew even spent a little time in the joint for tax evasion, but I digress. It’s a cool place with lots of cute things to keep the kids entertained. Take the dairy band for instance:

Photo from www.stewleonards.com

They’re usually reliable for a good performance, but Chocolate Milk seemed to phone it in with his work on the drums tonight. Anyway, there are cool thing like this around every turn. You can pull a rope to get a cow to moo. Indy wasn’t too sure about that one and gave it her best WTF is that?? look. I have to give her credit where credit is due. That thing scared the crap out of her, but she didn’t freak out. I think once she sees it a few times, she’ll be begging to pull the rope.

This is the first time since Indy has been a pro walker that we’ve taken her to a store. Every time we reached a little singing creature, she would stop in the middle of the aisle and dance. She was so psyched to be there that she didn’t know what to do with herself. She got her flirt on with the boy stocking the freezer. She had a passionate conversation with the trail mix in our cart; the yellow squash we let her carry was the best. thing. ever! It was like she discovered a whole new world, which I guess she did. To be honest, I felt a little guilty checking out and taking her home.

Thing kid sure makes life interesting… Man, I love that little girl.

Being that this blog has only been back in action a few days, I hopped on the D-Listed  Blog Party 2010 to find some cool new blogs and perhaps get some new visits over here, as well. So, here’s an opportunity to get to know me a little bit better.

You can call me Chrysanthemum. I live in the woods with my husband, aka The Boy, my daughter Indigo, and our two dogs – a mutt named Logan, and a pug named Bobo. It’s a madhouse in these parts.

As you can see, this blog has been in existance for quite some time. If you dare, poke through the archives. You can read the story about my engagement, when we bought our first house or about the time I jumped off a Swiss Alp or even that day when Logan pooped on Bobo’s head. I’m looking forward to filling it up with more fun and random moments of this crazy life of mine.

I’m what I like to refer to as a corporate refugee. I spent 15 years in corporate America and made the switch to academia. I currently teach design, copywriting, and new media at a local university. It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I get the best of both worlds… a steady paycheck, adult interaction, and lots of free time to spend with one of the coolest little girls I know.

I’m a cloth diapering mama. I’m proud to say that the only time Indy’s butt was in sposies was in the hospital. I’ll get into this in more detail later. I love that we’re saving money and helping the environment at the same time. Plus, I’m a sucker for a fluffy butt. I am, however, dreading the day she figures out how to undo the velcro. Now if only I knew how to retrofit these diapers for a pug…

I look forward to getting to know my fellow bloggers and anyone else who happens upon this site. So, please, leave a comment, add me to your reader, peruse old posts… whatever’s your pleasure. It’s good to be back!

This fall marks an interesting transition for me. As you may or may not know, I have been teaching at a local university for the past few years. The past two years I enjoyed a full time appointment, filling in some departmental gaps. I loved it, and had the opportunity to really get to know my students, some of whom had me three or four times for various classes. I got to watch them go from unsure freshmen and sophomores to confident seniors ready to take on the world. Well, most of them, at least. Next week, I get to see many of them graduate.

This arrangement meant I was fortunate enough to have a lot of time home with Indy over this past year. My schedule was such that I only had to be on campus a couple of days a week, which meant lots of time for the wee babe and me. My mom watched her on the days I worked, which was great for her, too.

Union rules dictate that I can only teach two full time appointments every seven years. This means that I have to wait another four years to have this opportunity again unless a full time position opens within the department that I can interview for. What does this mean? Back to part time I go, teaching one night a week.

So why bittersweet? Sure, I’ll have all my days free to hang with Indigo, which I’m so grateful for. I love my time with her; she’s hilarious and keeps me entertained all day. But, I’m only teaching one course, so I won’t have that opportunity to make the connections I had with my students, which makes me a bit sad. Sure, I can still impact their lives, but not to the extent as before.

So, to my graduating seniors, best of luck to you in all that you do. I’m proud of you and look forward to seeing your successes. But most importantly, to my favorite little girl, I look forward to all the fun we’re going to have this coming fall.

So, what’s been so important to keep me from my blogging life these past couple of years? Well, you see, it went a little something like this…

It all started when two people fell in love:

Then there was this, aka baby Wicket:

That ended up with this… well, more like the second one:

Who quickly wrapped her daddy around her finger:

And grew into this (and continues to grow despite our begging her not to):

Meet Indigo Rose, the newest addition to our little clan. She’s a sweet, funny, loving, mischievous little beam of sunshine. You’ll be seeing a lot of her, I suspect.