Poop and Manners Are Important

Yesterday was a little rough. I mean, granted, Amelia has had the flu and we think she has some additional teeth coming in. Unlike us, she cannot tell us specifically what is wrong when something hurts. All she can do is whine and fuss. I do my best to be patient, but honestly, it can be really frustrating at times, especially when I am by myself. When you add that I have not been able to get as much work done as I would like since I had the flu right before she did, things were challenging yesterday.

Jon and I did come up with a few options though:

1) Buy a pair of prosthetic arms so I can type with one pair and hold her with the other pair. We are thinking of looking on Craigs List.

2) Clone myself so one of us can work and the other one can play, rock, feed, nurse, and change Amelia. That sounded like a good idea until Jon suggested a third clone. I can't handle that much competition, even if it is from myself, although it also highlights how productive I generally am as a mommy-- enough that it should take three of me to get everything done.

3) Baby straightjacket, which would allow me to pin her arms down so I can hold her and she won't slam her hands down repeatedly on my keyboard. Don't wrinkle your nose at me, swaddlers do the same thing as a straightjacket. So, I guess what I need is a toddler swaddler.

I coped by taking deep breaths, eating Halloween candy, and listening to Brittany & Meredith Live podcasts. Suddenly, at 2:00 p.m. I smelled something. I looked at Amelia all the way across the room and decided that it could not possibly be her. She has never produced something so smelly that the odor wafted across large spaces.

Until yesterday.

After I cleaned her up, she was like a whole different baby, smiling, clapping, reading her books. An important life lesson taught by an 11 month old:

Everyone feels better after a good poop.

So, with that, I worked a bit longer and we headed to the gym. Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some odds and ends, which included cat food because OMG when our cat can see the bottom of his bowl he follows us around meowing driving me frickin' crazy and then poops on the bathroom floor out of spite. Which teaches another life lesson:

Poop can also be used as revenge.

After we grabbed everything we needed, which included sushi, roses, and chocolate covered pretzel ice cream for mommy because I earned it, damn it, we got in line to check out. Then it happened.

Amelia turned towards the cashier next to us, opened and shut her hand repeatedly, and said "Hi!".

My jaw dropped as everyone around us said Awww, smiling and waving back at her. She turned to the teenage boy bagging our groceries and said it again "Hi!" with her little open and shut wave. He looked like he could care less about this little baby and her cuteness and maybe considered ignoring her efforts at friendliness until I gave him my tight lipped smile that said 'You'd better wave back and say hi or I'm going to kick your pimply adolescent ass.' He waved back.

I can't pinpoint exactly what was so thrilling about this moment. Maybe it was that mommyhood has been a little more tiring than usual lately and this was a reminder of the good parts of parenthood. Maybe it was because her 'hi' was so distinct and intentional, another step towards toddlerhood as she nears her first birthday. I don't really know for sure. All I know is that I texted all my family, as if she had just taken her first steps.

Now, if we could just get her to stop picking her nose...