From April to June

April brought us to the end of Lent. What a wonderful Holy Week, Triduum and Easter we had! I had C with me all the time! We went to all the services, Tenebrae etc., went to Adoration in the middle of the night on Holy Thursday, went to the three-hour-long Easter Vigil followed by the reception in the basement of the church followed by drinks at the Abbey Pub... I remember her blowing bubbles during the Good Friday service. It was a good reminder for me to remain down to Earth if I had had a tendency of becoming emotional. Not that the emotional is not good, but her humorous attitude helped me live the Triduum in a very different way. I knew I could not completly concentrate, I could not lose myself in prayer and cry, I could not think deep deep intellectual thoughts about Christ's gift to us. Instead, I had to be content just being there with my little one. And offering all my life to the Man dying for us, having no real penitence or recollection to offer. It was good, very good.
In May, for Mother's Day, we all went down to Annapolis. Grandma Harriett also made it there, which made the weekend extra-special. While there, in an unnecessary attempt at impressing her public, C adorned herself with two little teeth and rolled over a couple of times. Needless to say, said public was delighted. C also gained everybody's pity by having a little nasty cough, which got her some Motrin, a lot of attention and special nightime rocking. It quickly went away and in no way revented her from smiling and laughing. She was also pretty much sitting by herself by that time, although I would definitely not have left her sitting on the edge of a precipice. The frequency of something needing to be looked at making balance a secondary concern causing dramatic headplants was still far too great.
I don't remember exactly when she started squealing. I do remember though that for a day or two that's all we could hear. Every event of our daily life was punctuated by screams as high-pitched as physically possible. Sometimes they're so high-pitched I can't hear them. I'm pretty sure dogs do. The squeals are used to show excitment at moving leaves, joy at seeing a breast being uncovered, sadness at having, yet again, fallen unto one's back, irritation at being swaddled and more. Definitly an interesting change from C's previous monotone middle E tuned voice.
I'm also sad to report that Mr. Octopus got forgotten sometime during those weeks with the acqusition of a new friend, Cool Dude the Giraffe. After having even mastered the putting of the foot inside the orange ring of Mr. Octopus and shaking him thus, we were done. Cool Dude the Giraffe offers more possibilities of ear chewing, bell ringing, general noisy shaking and color admiring. We're still working on all of those.
Maybe this is also the place to report the start of our Mommy & Me yoga classes. I had two goals in mind when I went to the studio: first to get in better shape and second to meet other moms from the neighborhood. I think I can say that the first goal has been achieved, or is on its way. As to the second goal, I admit a complete defeat. I'm the only one in the class! C and I still have fun though, especially since she's been able to sit. Her favorite yoga poses are the forward folds where mommy's hair comes close enough to grab and pull.