Trying to Simmer Down

My 13 month old doesn't walk, talk or want to give up her bottle. These three things give me nightmares of a kindergardener who crawls into class, babbling nonsense and dragging her bottle by the nipple alongside of her. I realize I am a bit dramatic about this, but I do have moments where my simple mom-brain goes this direction. Thankfully, Peanut's doctors are not concerned. They just tell me nonchalantly that the normal age for walking is 9-16 months, that she'll talk when she's ready and it's good that she does do some sounding of consonants in her babbling. The pediatrician just said to get rid of the bottle by the time she's 2. Sigh. I want someone else to freak out with me, but I don't think that's going to happen at this point.

My grand plan was to toss the bottle the day after she turned 1. Obviously, that didn't happen. She'll drink from a sippy just fine, but not if there's milk in there. She'll take one sip, glare at the cup, toss it aside and carry on until I put the milk in a bottle. I, apparently, have no spine for going cold-turkey anymore (unlike when we did the bedtime pacifier removal at 3 months of age and took it away until she was old enough to learn how to put it in by herself).

In this day and age of so much info on the internet and everyone comparing stories of what their child does and how early they are on their development, it's hard not to feel like a failure of a parent when your child does things outside of the schedule that you have mentally made for them. Truly, they have their own schedule for when they're going to do these things. I can't make her walk any sooner. I had her in PT for crawling and learning to stand, as she was really behind on those skills and she has muscle weakness/joint laxity. I don't feel ready to start that for walking yet. We work on walking together and I talk to her all of the time, not in baby talk. She understands huge amounts of what I am saying (sometimes it's scary what she understands!!) and I know that one day she'll open up her mouth and repeat back to me all of the things I've been saying to her since she was born. In the meantime, though, it's hard not to wonder if she'll ever get it. And of course, I am hoping she'll master walking and get rid of the bottle by the time #2 comes along, as I will have very little time and energy to put into PT sessions and fights over the bottle vs no bottle at that point. Perhaps the idea of 2 under 2 has only added to my frenzied thoughts about how she's not meeting the goals I had expected. I need to simmer down, though. My goal for #2 is to be more relaxed, to just go with the flow, and not have so many ideas of how it should be. Such a grand goal.

Summer's End

It's Aug 31. Where did the summer go? I know that we all ask that question every single summer, but this year has been especially odd. June was a slow, excruciating month of nausea and exhaustion and therefore, I remember very little of it. July was more of the same, though with birthdays and lots of busy-ness thrown in. August was a blur, with friends staying with us for 5 days (2 extra adults and 2 extra kids in our house=controlled chaos), followed quickly by preparation to go to the cabin for 9 days. After the cabin, it was quick returns to work and trying to settle back into normal life. And there it was. The summer.

While most of me doesn't comprehend that summer is over, there is the sure sign in me that summer is almost over: I have started to despise the gardens. It's something that happens every August, whether my gardens look great or utterly neglected. The sad part is, my few veggie plants usually don't produce until August and by then, I am so sick of tending to them that I can barely muster excitement to care for the ripening peppers or fend off the damn squirrels from my tomatoes that have started to turn red. I will say, though, that picking a Brandywine tomato and eating it for dinner right away or grabbing herbs for cooking just by stepping outside my door is pretty great and renews my enjoyment of gardening.