becoming a toddler

the thirteenth month (august)

just as we were entering the hottest part of the hottest month in the hottest city on the planet, marcus' company decided to open up a gym membership for all of its employees and their family members.  i could not have been more grateful.  running had taken a back seat during those sweaty days....and when running goes away, so does my entire exercise regimen.  i had been promising myself that "if only i had a treadmill," i would get in better shape.  but if we bought a membership, i would want to use it during the day, which meant paying extra extra for child care.  i couldn't justify that much money for me to simply use a treadmill a few times a week.  so the company gift was definitely exciting.  we went on a sunday afternoon to sign up.  we opted to sign up for the monthly child care instead of the daily, because I planned to use that sucker as much as possible...no excuses now.  the next morning, i got blake fed and dressed, loaded his diaper bag, and cheerily headed out for the amazing, air-conditioned workout that awaited me.  i practically skipped into the gym and over to the kids' center.  i signed a few release forms and started to notice that they basically told me that the staff was not there to babysit.  they would not be providing blake with any of his snacks or diaper changes or.....coddling, as i was soon to find out.  blake seemed content to follow a basketball into the play area, so i scooted away and up the stairs to the glorious treadmill.  about 20 minutes in, i hear my name over the loudspeaker, paging "molly garley to the kids' fitness center."  crap.  just as i was entering the best workout plan in the best gym from the best company on earth, blake decided to develop some serious separation anxiety.  as i entered, the sweet older lady was holding a screaming blake and saying, "i try to let him cry, but we not supposed to let them cry for more than five minutes, and he cry for ten."  i guess this wasn't going to be my day.  prior to this event, he had never really been terribly clingy or upset about my leaving.  of course, I hadn't really left him many places either.  we had been to church a few times...but the ladies there would do whatever it took to make him happy, so there was never an issue.  thinking that maybe it was just an "off" day, i decided to try again a few days later.  blake made it very clear that it was not about the day....it was about the mom-is-leaving-me-here part.  he started wailing as soon as i opened the front doors and he saw the playroom from a distance.  we promptly turned around and went home.  but i couldn't give up the prepaid childcare fee or my desperation for the treadmill just yet.  i had to give it one last go.  this time, i took him to a gym across town.  maybe a different place would help him not panic the moment we walked in.  the first part was a success.  we made it in the doors.  i felt a little hope.  then we made it to the childcare area and through the sign-in process.  i started to get the vibe, however, that the woman in "charge" at this gym was less than thrilled to be stuck watching the kids.  he started to whimper when i handed him over to her, but i had to take a chance that he would stop crying once i was out of sight.  i made it up the elevator, over to the lockers, and onto a treadmill before the woman paged me.  she wasn't even willing to give it the "5 minutes" that the last gym had been kind enough to offer.  sigh.  workout fail number three.  luckily, the gym customer service agent not only let me cancel future childcare payments, but she refunded the initial payment as well.  silver linings, people.
i'd love to say that this bout of separation anxiety only lasted a week or two.  not the case.  it actually picked up and gained speed in the weeks to follow.  for starters, he "graduated" to a new nursery classroom at church, and that completely threw him for a loop.  it took WEEKS before i was able to come back and have them tell me that he didn't cry the "entire" time.  he also started to freak out whenever i would leave him with marcus to go for a run....making marcus and blake equally annoyed with each other.  and from there it was little things like going to the children's museum, where blake would grip my waist with his legs and start to cry because it appeared to be a place to play with alternate adults, meaning "mom must be leaving me here, right?"  or whenever i would bound upstairs to grab my shoes and leave him down, he would sob in the loneliest little way.  i'd love to say that a baby constantly wanting you (and only you) feels flattering and somewhat sweet, but i'd be lying.  i needed to have a little freedom, and while i still made sure to get some, it was always in the back of my mind that he was giving the replacement caretaker a miserable time.  i wasn't so much concerned about him missing me.  i knew he'd get over that part as soon as i returned.  but i hated thinking that i had "that" baby.  the kind that others dreaded getting.  and i'm sure this is totally inaccurate, but i honestly felt like my kid was the ONLY one doing it.  every other child seemed to be giggling or playing quietly at every place we went.  it wouldn't be until his 18th month, when i dropped him off at the church nursery and he waltzed right through the door without even looking back, that i actually heard the cries of other children around me.  breakthrough.

the fourteenth month (september)
i have been using sign language with blake since he was 6 months old.  for many of those first months, it was simply me doing the signs and him ignoring them.  we also have one "baby signing time" video that he LOVED to watch, but i could never get him to mimic the motions.  around 10 months, he finally started to pick up a few signs.  inspired by my perseverance, i continued in my endeavor to communicate with him, and it really started to pay off as the months went by.  by his first birthday, he was using almost 20 signs consistently.  by consistently, i mean that he used them voluntarily, and he always did them the same way.  notice that i didn't say he did them correctly.  in "blake-speak" they were correct, but they weren't entirely true to form when it comes to ASL.  i've read that this is supposed to be normal.  as kids pick up signs, they sometimes do a reversed image of what they see you doing (i.e. a bird beak becomes a finger in the mouth), or they simply do it as best as their little motor skills can generate.  so with blake, we had multiple signs that were hand claps or fingers on the face.  it really became a game of context clues.  if we were in the bathroom and his finger was up at his mouth, it was brush teeth.  if we were in the kitchen, it was cereal.  if we were outside, it was bird.  there was a lot of mommy translating going on, but at least we were communicating!  when the fourteenth month started to roll around, it became very apparent that something switched on in his little language lobe.  he suddenly began to pay attention to the minute details of the gestures.  before, he would simply clap his hands for 'more.'  but now he started to close his fingers and tap them together very intentionally in front of his body.  he would literally stare down at his hands and concentrate on making the exact motion correctly.  each day he would practice refining his skills until they were as close to perfect as he could get them.  it was incredible to watch.  i remember thinking how exciting it was because now everyone else would be able to understand him too!  until i quickly realized that not everyone in this world is even remotely familiar with sign language.  the most common "misquote" is when we're out in public and he tells someone thank you.  they always think he's blowing them a kiss.  close enough, i guess. :) 

throughout the process, i will say that i took a few personal liberties here and there.  for example, i disliked that 'please' is signed by rubbing one hand on the mid abdomen.  we already had 'take a bath,' 'sorry,' and 'clothes' that involve a similar motion, and i was looking to avoid confusion.  so i created our own gesture of clasping the hands and fingers together as if praying or begging.  it makes for a super cute alternative. :)  we also tweaked 'where' from a waving finger to a palms up, shoulder shrug.  equally cute.  so i guess a few things are still left up to parent interpretation....but it has been so incredibly worth it!  i cannot tell you how many tantrums have been avoided by asking him to sign what he needs or wants.  one of the most invaluable signs we use is 'help' for when he is frustrated.  the other is 'hurt,' which really puts my mind at ease when i'm not sure if he is in pain or not.  and nothing quite compares to his voluntary retellings of the day's events using signs. my sweet storyteller :)
at 22 months, we're still going strong with over 75 signs.  it has been neat to watch him begin to overlap his signs with actual speech.  he uses them both interchangeably.  it's like spanglish.  or should i say, signlish.  and just like he learned to refine the signs, he's learning to refine his words.  his language is and always will be an ongoing fascination of mine.  i can't wait until he has "refined" things enough to play scrabble...

the fifteenth month (october)

ok....so that little separation anxiety thing i mentioned earlier....during this month, it decided to take it's toll on our nights as well as our days.  my perfect sleep-twelve-hours-through-the-night baby suddenly began to wake up in the middle of the night, screaming.  like an ear-piercing, i'm terrified, come and get me NOW kind of screaming.  the first few nights, i (naturally) went to him and scooped him up and rocked him.  and whenever i would stand up to put him back in the crib, he would instantly start freaking out again.  so i would take him with me to the guest bed and then proceed to lie awake next to a baby who suddenly wanted to sit up and stare and roll around and chat.  he would finally fall asleep after an hour or two, after which i would never truly fall asleep because i was worried he would roll off the bed (which did actually happen the first night....frown).  so.  on this went for about a week.  finally, i decided that we were not going to leave his room anymore.  for starters, going to the guest room put him in play mode.  and secondly, if i slept on the floor with him instead of a bed, i could actually get a tiny bit more rest because he couldn't plunge of the edge of anything.  also, i could sometimes sneak out of the room and back to my own bed and leave him on the floor.  it kind of became our little routine.  i remember thinking that i was ruining all of the hard work that we had done "sleep training" when he was five months old.  but i justified the coddling, because he truly seemed terrified to be alone.  it made sense to me at the time, so i let it continue whenever he would wake up over the next two and a half months.  i might do things differently on the next go around, but if it had not been for these moments of mommy weakness, i would not have experienced this jewel of a memory:
blake had just started saying "mama" about the time that marcus had to take a business trip out of town.  (for any of you mothers out there, you know that there is nothing quite as sweet as hearing your baby intentionally utter this word after months and months and MONTHS of only saying "dada.") so the first night marcus was away, blake woke up around 2 am. seizing the opportunity of my own comfortable (and now wide open) bed, i lined a row of pillows as a buffer on the edge and brought blake back to our bed with me.  he instantly began to sit up and squirm around and babble a bit.  i pretended to be asleep, hoping he would get the idea.  after a few minutes, i felt him lie down next to me, with his face barely inches from mine.  i could feel his little breath on my nose, and then his tiny hand reached up and felt my face in the darkness.  and in that moment, i heard the softest, most precious, almost inaudible whisper of realization..."maah maahhh."  my heart basically melted right onto the sheets, and i remember smiling myself to sleep that night.  100% worth having bags under my eyes the next morning.
bonus note:  sleeping next to blake for these few months also gave me the pleasure of realizing that he giggle-dreams in his sleep.  so sweet. :)

the sixteenth month (november)

i'm not going to go into great detail about this month.  instead, i'm going to leave you with a "video is worth a thousand words" type of feeling.
to preface, blake has always liked music, whether it is the radio or pandora or a television program or simply singing lullabies or playing the piano...he's intrigued.  i guess all kids are really. but it was in this particular month that he began to stop being just a listener and decided to actively become a participant.  watch and enjoy...

He's Got Soul video

bonus:

Blake-thoven video 

the seventeenth month (december)

i do believe that the month of december is when we really began to use the phrase "he's all boy,"  and even more fitting, "he's a little rascal!"  experimentation, silliness, exploration and nonstop curiosity made themselves incredibly evident.  i'm sure that every child of this age exhibits many of these characteristics, but his personality and boyishness seemed to be bursting out of him all at once.  for starters, we cut his hair.  for the first time in many  months.  the last (and only) haircut he had received was at the tender age of 10 1/2 months.  and it devastated me.  to the point that i waited an entire 6 months before tentatively venturing back to the salon.  he has gorgeous, thick, healthy hair.  it seemed a crime to chop any of it off.  but it was getting shaggy enough that it looked a mess (read girly), and we really had to get it out of his eyes.  i took a specific photo of a haircut with me this time to avoid undue repeat disaster (i.e. buzz cut).  i also opted for one of those kid-friendly places.  the result was a revelation.  plenty of luscious hair remained, but he was now a little boy.  the baby face started to vanish and his little smile and eyes seemed to really come to life like never before.  i think a lot of it was the expressions that did with his eyebrows.  underneath those wispy bangs they seemed to go unnoticed.  but now his face moved with great intent and his eyes had a twinkle in them that we hadn't seen before.  and a rascal was born. :)
the other things that became quite "boy obvious" were his obsessions with both the outdoors and sports equipment.  there was not a single day that passed that he didn't spend hours playing with balls.  big, little, soft, bouncy, hard, didn't matter.  he would spend equal amounts of time watching others play sports.  marcus would swing his golf clubs. we would see men playing one-on-one basketball at the park.  there would be a father and son practicing soccer moves on the field.  every time, he was mesmerized.  frozen and staring in awe.  when christmas came, he got a mini basketball goal, a golf set, and a soccer/football nerf set.  instantly, he became an athlete in training...no coach necessary.  even still, one of his most favorite games to play was "bounce the ball on the wall."  i think this game stemmed from the early ball obsession days when marcus discovered a basketball and some old tennis balls in the garage.  he started "shooting" them up high on the flat part above our garage as if there was a goal there.  then they would bounce back down and he would repeat.  once blake had his own "equipment" to work with, he soon began to play this game on his own.  if there was any ball and any wall close by, he was playing.  tennis ball, fence.  golf ball, bricks.  basketball, garage door.  and on and on.  of course, there was also the invention of new ball games and the classic old kick-the-ball or drop-the-ball-down-the-stairs as well.  it seems a shame to me that the fast food restaurants don't have those big ball pits anymore like when we were kids.  i think know he would have died if he could have played in one of those.  the mini-kind at the museum just don't cut it.
as for being outdoors, he would pretty much live there if we let him.  once he learned the sign for 'outside,' we were done for.  we couldn't walk past the front door/garage door/back door without a request coming.  our house in houston doesn't offer much entertainment (or safety) outside, so we spent much of our outdoor play time at the park.  and it always involved a ball or three.  and if he wasn't playing with those, he was off in his own little world, observing and exploring.  they say 'curiosity killed the cat,' but in blake's case, curiosity usually found a cat.  or a bird or a beetle or any old piece of junk you can imagine.  i imagine that one day he is going to be that kid who comes home after a long day of being outside with his pockets full of "treasures."  here's hoping he sticks with things that are non-living and reasonably germ-free.  but who am i kidding.  he's a boy.

the eighteenth month (january)
i'm not sure what inspired it, but one night i picked up blake's little dress-me doll (whom we named buddy) and started making him talk.  blake's reaction was immediate.  i soon found myself engaged in a "conversation" with a doll and a toddler.  to make it even more interesting, i started making buddy do some signs with his stuffed little fingers.  blake totally ate it right up!  his favorite was when i would make buddy fall down and then sign 'hurt' and say "oww."  he kept wanting the doll to fall over and over again.  and from that point on, all of his stuffed animals were required to speak and sign as well.  he would specifically dig certain ones out of the back of his toy box, just to see how they would sound or to see what sort of activity they would engage in (fyi, it is always the exact same falsetto voice......unless it's harley dog, who has a scruffy southern drawl).  we played this way for months until it developed into an even more precious habit....blake began to make voices or signs for the dolls himself.  of course, the old mom standard ranks pretty high above all other options, but there are times when i will catch him making his animals chat with each other.  he uses a little squeaky voice of jibber jabber that often involves either the phrase "oh no" or "no no no."  who knows what they are playing, but it certainly is sweet to watch.  and buddy has become his go-to friend of choice when it comes to playing....perhaps because buddy really started it all.  my most favorite tactic for using the talking doll is that he can make blake do things ten times faster than if i ask him just as mom.  for example, if i say, "let's clean up your blocks, blake," i may end up repeating myself a dozen times before he actually pays attention and starts doing it.  but if BUDDY tells him to clean up his blocks, he looks intently at his stuffed head, listens, and then jumps right to it.  brilliant. :)  i'm not sure how long this technique will last, but i'm willing to milk it for all it's worth when needed.

just before blake officially made it to a year and a half, marcus and i took a trip to las vegas.  i affectionately called this my "redemption" trip, because the last time we had been, i was 7 weeks pregnant....and vegas is not the ideal place to vacation when you're pregnant.  not to mention the fact that this was to be our first vacation away since blake was born.  so, needless to say, i was ecstatic about going.  in order to fully enjoy myself while away, however, i needed to be assured that blake wasn't going to give his babysitters some middle of the night wakings (see 'the fifteenth month').  marcus and i had done an overnight trip about a month earlier, and my dad had been the unfortunate soul to be stuck sleeping half the night in a bed with a squirming blake.  i felt terrible about it.  plus, this separation anxiety business had gone on long enough.  it was time to put it to bed (pun intended).  so we resorted back to the sleep training that had given us peace a year earlier.  yes, that's right.  he "cried it out" for almost 30 minutes before settling himself to sleep.  and that was all it took.  it somehow had me wishing i had toughened up and done it months earlier.  oh well.  seems but a flicker of time at this point.  anyhow, he slept peacefully through the night while we were away, which helped me sleep peacefully as well.  when we returned home a few short days later, i remember wondering what his reaction would be.  would he run to us?  would he cry for us?  would he even care?
we arrived home while he was out for a walk.  when he came through the door and saw me for the first time, the look on his face was priceless. i could read the flash of emotions in his eyes.  he seemed puzzled, then happy, then in disbelief, then excited, then unsure if what he was seeing was real....all within 2 seconds.  he said, "mama...." almost as a question and a statement rolled into one.  i remember holding him and he pulled his head back so he could see my whole face and take it all in and see if it was really me after all that time.  it's the kind of feeling that makes you never want to let them go.  and i honestly don't intend to for a very, very long time...