Mama Is a Wino

"Juice?" Zora says pointing to my glass of merlot.

"No, baby girl," I correct her, "wine. Not for baby girls."

"Wiine," she repeats then looks up at me and grins. "Wiino."

Vital Stats: 18 Months

Height: 33 7/8" (97th percentile)

Weight: 24 lbs. (50th percentile)

Head circumference: 19" (90th percentile)

Realizes for the first time that this field trip involves needles. Waa!

1.20.2009 : We Were There...For an Hour

A miscommunication with our nanny left us with a squirmy little redhead to bring to the Inauguration, so we strapped her on and headed down to the Mall. The bus deposited us on the D.C. side of the 14th St. Bridge. We marveled at the crowds and dove into the fray.

That's when we hit the wall...of people. Shoulder to shoulder. Hip to hip. Cheek to cheek. It was intimate.

Rodney grabbed my hand and blazed a trail through the crowd (what he lacks in brawniness, he makes up for with height, elbows and knees), but we ran smack into a Jersey barrier. It was like human pinball when the machine is full of pinballs.

Zora, cheeks flushed and fat little feet frozen, began to protest. And so we left the "thongs" of people and trudged across the bridge (which is where we were, checking out the ice floes on the Potomac, when our 44th president was sworn in) to the Pentagon; from there we caught a bus to Shirlington and dove into the cool depths of a martini at the Carlyle Grand

Thank God for YouTube, because that's where we'll have to catch Obama's inaugural address. Zora can't wait to see it, either, because she thinks Obama is the Alpha and the Omega:

What I Want To Read: "The Mommy Brain"

"The Mommy Brain" usually refers to a head full of feeding times, soccer schedules, and nursery rhymes, at the expense of creative or challenging ideas.

--From the Web site The Mommy Brain.

I really, really, really need to read this book.

Now that we've left the fog of Zora's infanthood and managing to stay on the wild ride that is toddlerhood, I find myself ready to embrace me again. What do I mean by that?

• I want to know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, rather than knowing the difference between Thomas the Engine and the Troublesome Trucks.
  
• I want to read a book that doesn't have cardboard pages, lift the flaps, or faux fur on it.
  
• I want to eat small plates of Spanish-inspired cuisine, not small plates of prefab food like nuggets and meatballs.
  
• I want to stop saying, "oopies" when I drop something.
  

Don't get me wrong. I don't resent Zora for a second, but I've had the damndest time getting myself to transition from mommy mind to anything else. What makes this all the more frustrating is that Rodney seems to straddle fatherhood and thinking-person hood quite easily. As soon as he puts Zora down for a nap, he can read the Washington Post online or scan Slash.dot for his techy fix. Meanwhile, the minute Zora is down, I'm thinking about groceries, what we should do when she gets up, does she have enough shampoo?

Let it go, I tell myself. But my mind has a kung-fu death grip on these mundane details. What happened and will I get my mojo back?

What I Know: 17 Months

Key Vocabulary Words

• Mas? (right index finger pointing at left palm): more?
• What's dat?: what's that?
• Peez (rubbing tummy in circular motion)?: please?
• Meecia: Mauricia
• Toonoo: Tony
• Wa: Will
• Harpo/Harpie: Harper
• Paci: paci
• Fshhhhh: fish (real and cracker)
• Ah-wah: agua (water)
• Pie: pie
• Cah: car (very Bostonian accent)
  

Favorite Tricks

• Eating chocolate cuppy cake crumbs out of her diaper.
• Clinking glass to sippy cup and saying with a big smile, "cheese."
• Helping Mama "wipe" by providing toilet tissue.
• Hurling plastic cows across the room.
• Going "boneless" on the sidewalk in front of Best Buns on a soggy day. (She wanted to go right, I wanted to go left).

Favorite Music

• Theme song to Benny Hill (courtesy of a stuffed reindeer wearing a Santa hat).
• Sexy Back (Justin Timberlake)
• Salsa
• La donna é mobile

Have a Wild 2009