Wait, how are you running?

It happened so quickly. From my knee to daddy's knee three feet away. Just a few teetering steps and it was done. The most momentous steps of my baby girl's life; she didn't know it, and I nearly missed it.

A few minutes later, it was coffee table to loveseat. And I still didn't have my camera at the ready. So then it was encouraging and enticing, and back and forth she went, and I got it on camera.

Fast forward a week and a half. Today I watched in awe as Mary toddled her way across the room, doing a funny cross between a strut and a hoedown. At what seemed to me to be breakneck speed. How can she be going so fast already? Wasn't it just a little while ago she was learning to roll over?

I think it's every mom's dilemma: wanting your baby to grow and learn, yet wanting them to stay small. I am just trying to cement these memories before the next big thing! Which, at this rate, is due any moment now.

Hello again, it's been a while

I knew I am an inconsistent blogger. It's been so long, that I don't even really remember a cold egg breakfast. I just can't separate that one meal from the multitudes of others. Mommies eat cold food, I figured that out now.

We moved in July. Mary has her own room, and it's slowly transforming from storage room into a little girl's federal disaster area. I have decided if she would rather have her books strewn around on the floor in there, she's welcome to it. I am busy enough with the disaster relief in the living room.

Mary is cruising with ease. And starting to climb. And is crawling all over the place. And if there is something on the floor that is small and potentially hazardous, I can depend on my little girl to find it for me. But for every beat my heart misses, there's a melting too. She is so sharp and intuitive. She's one of the most expressive babies I've ever met. And I know I am already in trouble.

I also have the most adorable nephew ever. Gas prices keep me from visiting him as often as I want to, but pictures keep me from going crazy. He's growing up so big and cute. I'm excited that Mary has a cousin so close in age to her.

Oh, my heart just melted again. I caught her hugging her owl puppet. I think I'm going to go play a rousing round of Eyes, Nose, Mouth!

Big breakfast ideas

This morning as I fed Mary her breakfast in bed, I began to think of my own breakfast. What will I have?

I remembered the leftover homestyle potatoes from dinner out with the husband. I remember the leftover slice of corned beef from St. Patty's Day. And we have eggs! I'll make myself some corned beef hash!

We finish up breakfast in bed, have our stretch, play, and poop time on the bed. I gather everything and everyone and head down the stairs. With Mary in her bouncer, I start whipping up a delicious breakfast, ingeniously incorporating multiple leftovers. I feel like a food network chef.

Even Mary agrees. "Wow, mommy! That smells amazing! It's got me all ready to eat!" I look at my eggs frying. The last component of my hot, delicious breakfast. I slide the out of the pan and on to my plate. My beautiful, professionally plated breakfast on a Dixie plate. And I make my daughter's Second Breakfast. And feed it to her. As my hot breakfast, neglected, slowly turns cold.

Damn.

"Kitty mama" is figurative!

Now that Mary has had her first course (fresh) and is working on her second course (formula), we have been joined on the couch by our kitty, Reggie.

Reggie has always been a "mama's cat." He loves to make biscuits on the squishiest, most tender parts of me, all the while sticking his face somewhere dark like my armpit or the crook of my elbow. But now that Mary has come along, he must have decided that I smell delicious because he is actually trying to get mouthfuls of whatever is convenient -- my arm, leg, stomach. I'm worried he's eventually going to hit pay dirt, so to speak. That's just... not right.

I'm not really your birth mother, Reggie. I'm just a human who adopted you. I'm sorry. Please have mercy and don't bite me.

It starts.

Here it goes. Here I am sitting at my computer, staring at the screen, thinking, do I really want to do this? I mean, it sounded like a great idea while I was bumbling around in the kitchen, baking cookies and talking to my passed-out baby. "A blog! I should start a blog, and people might read it, and think I am funny!"

Then I heard my own mother's voice in my head: You are your own best audience. And she's right. I know she's right. I make myself laugh more than I make anyone else laugh. So, am I really funny enough to entice people to read a blog? Really, I am just another blip on the innernets. What's special about me, that others would appreciate enough to stop and read what I have to say?

Guess that will have to wait. Mary's still in the kitchen, and she is now calling me. She's hungry, dammit, and WILL have her lunch!!