... to eat anything and everything with maximum stealth. Because if you don't learn to chew each mouthful without actually moving your lips or face she WILL see you, and she WILL cry, and you will find yourself hungrily longing after whatever it is you are now trying to make sure ends up in the little Nugget's mouth.
... for getting sloppy open-mouthed kisses whenever I ask for them from my tiny affectionate Sugar Plum.
... for the aptly named "raspberries of anger," whenever we don't seem to understand what the Baby Munchkin is trying to communicate. If her cries get heated and we're missing it, the brow is immediately furrowed and she clearly starts cussing us out via rasperry-ing. And it's even better when she is SO terribly mad, fist-clenching, raspberries flying, spit shooting out between those two lone teeth, the whole bit, that she accidentally "shoots a bunny" (pushes out a little baby-sized toot). The portrait of a lady, our Bug.
... for delicious little baby grins (sometimes the sneaky, I-hear-you-but-I'm-busy-mom kind) whenever she hears me say her name.
... to play "No Mommy! You mustn't put me down because I need you!" Followed closely by a game of "Listen lady, if you don't put me down so'st I can work on my crawling skills I'm gonna freak!" No further explanation needed.
... for screaming 20 minutes into every nap, because we've awoken sleep-crawling. This is mostly because the aforementioned insanity-invoking back-and-forth erred on the side of too much loving on mom, and not enough skill development time. Seriously, I tried to be the grown-up today, you know act like my 6 month old isn't really the Boss-Lady that we both know she is, and do a little "Come on and crawl to Mommy Sweetness, and THEN I will pick you up." You like that? See what I did there? Clever right?! Yeah, unfortunately the only tangible result that running from the Wee One all day yielded was a tiny boost to my parental ego.
... for actively trying to teach the phrase "gentle, gentle" so as to salvage mommy's hair from slobber-dom, and minimize the number of Baby's-got-me-in-a-headlock incidents.
... for baking horribly bland vegan snickerdoodles.
My husband's reaction:
"It looks like a cookie, but it tastes like bread," and...
"once you get passed swallowing it, it has an okay aftertaste," and my personal favorite...
"maybe it'd taste better if you dipped it in milk. Oh right, you can't have milk. Well that coconut milk will sweeten it up right?"
Thank you Dear, you're really too kind. ;)
It's not that all vegan cookies are bad, but just that I'm a complete novice to this whole food intolerance thing and so far totally incompetent at baking impostor desserts. But the real non-mommy version of me (the one that doesn't have to worry about Little Miss's belly issues) is an insane lover all things sweeter than sweet and terrible for you. I haven't had eggs or dairy in OVER 4 MONTHS so the sweetest things I've consumed have been red peppers and sweet potatoes. I kid you not. I know, it's heartbreaking, isn't it? But by-golly it's CHRISTMAS!!! so there will be some sort of sugary deliciousness to consume in this household if I have to use every almost-good tasting thing I am allowed to eat to concoct it!!
Clearly sweets are a close second favorite topic of mine behind my Cutie Pie daughter.
Merry Christmas to All :)
xoxo,
Jo
