Minky & Me

Yesterday Coco set the head smashing world record starting with a spectacular fall out of her stroller onto the floor of the Wild and Woolly, a knitting shop. Foolishly I put her into it without fastening her buckle. She was near the end of her rope, having become bored with staring at the ceiling fans and suffering the injustice of having skeins of yarn and a displayed shawl taken away from her by mommy. The nicer woman at the shop was answering questions for me and while my head was turned away from Coco, she toppled out. It was terrible but I did not shriek – an amazing feat of self restraint. She cried for quite a bit of time and we made a somewhat hasty retreat to the car but I felt terrible about it and wondered what the woman at the shop thought. How dumb, not buckling her up.

Later, several times while playing Coco suddenly fell onto the floor, her head clunking loudly. Plenty of tears and the repetition of na, na, na which Larry figured out is her way of requesting to nurse. When we got her clothes off before bed I looked her over to make sure there were no bruises anywhere.

She is just mobile enough now that I guess these spills will happen more frequently. It’s scary.

After having a couple of intense weeks with almost no break from home, I got to go out and do some girl things this weekend.

On Saturday my friend Judy and I took a lampshade making class together. While busily cutting and pasting paper onto our shades, we became acquainted with many, many personal details of the instructor’s life. Like the fact that in high school, she stole a doctor’s notepad and wrote a note excusing herself from gym for all of her remaining school years. Her mother is a Virgo, although the significance of this was never explained. She came to the realization in young adulthood that she has a 1950’s body and not a weight problem. She likes Star Trek but no longer needs to watch the show, preferring to listen while she makes lampshades. She owns three cats, breaking her own rule of never having more cats than people living in her home. A fellow attendee responded to each of these insights with comments like, if I were a feral cat, I’d come live at your house.

Here is my lampshade.

Sunday morning I decided to once again to attempt home waxing. Who doesn’t like being well groomed and saving money? There was a perfect opportunity to try too, while Minky was napping. Sadly my technique needs perfecting. I spent a lot of time scraping melted wax off of my skin. There is still some stuck to my knee.

Later, the whole family went to the DeCordova and saw a great exhibit of Robert ParkeHarrison’s work.

Then, to top it all off, Larry made me an appointment for a massage at Wellspace! Heaven.

Hum. I wonder if the masseuse noticed the wax on my knee.

I think one of the biggest, yet hardest to quantify changes in Coco this past month or so is how she’s just starting to ‘get it’. A short while ago she was a mere sponge, a large and absorbent sponge mind you, taking in everything around her. Now she’s taken all that stuff in, processed it, and is using it in her everyday life. She knows when I’m kidding or teasing. She knows when she’s going where she oughtn’t. She knows when Rocky is doing silly things. She knows how to get us to put her down, pick her up, feed her, or put her to bed. And she knows when I’m coming to ‘get her’. And she ‘runs away’ with the world’s slowest scootch, because she wants to be caught. Cute, cute, cute.

It was yesterday, Friday the 17th of September at 3PM. I had left Coco for a nap in her crib. This week instead of sleeping, she’s been standing up patting the wall or hanging onto her aquarium and then, because she isn’t sure how to sit down, she cries. Hearing this on the baby monitor, I went to investigate. As I walked into the room she turned toward me and through her tears said clearly, mama. Suddenly, it was like there were only two people in the world, me and Coco. Birds stopped singing, traffic screeched to a halt. I picked her up and held her close.

Hey, wait, that’s me. I’m mama! I was ready to be content with making her laugh on occasion for the rest of her life. But Minky said MAMA. Her knowing who I am, priceless. Wait, did she really say that? I started to have doubts, after all she’s only seven and a half months old, for heaven’s sake. But later, she repeated herself and even Larry heard. Larry, who bet me she’d say dada first.

Mama!

This morning after a few solid eye rubs I put Coco into her crib for a nap. Downstairs I was hustling around straightening up because my Dad and Diane are coming to visit this weekend. After about fifteen minutes or so I heard the music from Coco’s mobile. Lately she’s been lying on her tummy reaching up toward the animals. When the mobile is pulled it will play a few notes. I was hearing a bit more than usual of the music and since Coco has been attempting to stand up while leaning on things this week, I thought I’d better go look. I walked in and was stunned to see her fully standing up next to the mobile with her head in amongst the animals. I laughed and she did too! Exciting, I’m sure, from a seven month’s old perspective but dangerous from mine. The mobile came out after plenty of pictures were snapped. Coco wasn’t doing this a week ago.

Now, back to cleaning.

This movie can now be found in the Movie section of this site.

If you follow the Chinese zodiac at all, you’ll know that this year – 2004 – is the year of the monkey. How fitting a subject to kick off things. This blog has been in the making for months and now with the help of my friend Paul, it is ready to see the light of day.

People born in the Year of the Monkey, as Coco was, are described as “the erratic geniuses of the cycle. Clever, skillful, and flexible, they are remarkably inventive and original and can solve the most difficult problems with ease. There are few fields in which Monkey people wouldn’t be successful but they have a disconcerting habit of being too agreeable. They want to do things now, and if they cannot get started immediately, they become discouraged and sometimes leave their projects. Although good at making decisions, they tend to look down on others. Having common sense, Monkey people have a deep desire for knowledge and have excellent memories. Monkey people are strong willed but their anger cools quickly.” They are most compatible with the Dragon and Rat. Other monkey years are 1920, 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, and 2004.