the haunting dreams

I am sure this is the one bad dream I will have for the rest of my life.

The baby is missing. She was right there next to grandma/daddy/me and now we can't find her. I go frantically searching through the airport/playground/park/whateverpublicplace and we can't find her. We call her name and sing her favorite songs, but she doesn't respond. Someone took her away from us. I can't breathe in the dream, and then I wake up. Sometimes in the dream I know she's okay, even though she's missing, because I can hear her breathing. Then I wake up and she's right next to me.

I've had this dream several times in the last month. I do not enjoy them, and wish them to not ever come back.

My heart just breaks for the families who can't wake up from this horrible nightmare.

new tricks

Let's be clear. Things Dottie doesn't do yet: crawl, walk, or feed herself at all. She's working on crawling (mostly goes backward after lots of complaining), she's a champion stander and is starting to pull herself up a bit. The food thing confounds us. She can't figure out how to open her hand once it gets to her mouth (usually because we've placed it there, with the food in it.) It's very strange. She likes to pick food bits up off her tray, and pitch them over the side. It doesn't occur to her that they could go into her mouth. But I figure, she'll get it eventually. Either that, or I'll start really worrying in another month or so.

However, she will, after months of struggle and flat out refusing to do so, roll onto her stomach. In fact, I find her sleeping in that position quite often. That's bad, isn't it? But how can you stop it once she does it in her sleep? She's always slept on her side, from as soon as she could kick her legs up and over. So, I figure, he face is basically in the same place as it was from when she slept on her side in relation to the mattress. And it wakes her up sometimes. I think she's horrified when she wakes up and realizes she was on her stomach makes her freak out.

Dottie loves to wave. She waves hello, and mostly goodbye, although goodbye confuses her, and sometimes she waves after we've left. However, she does lots of waving at the cat. Which leads me to believe that it isn't so much a friendly wave, as "c'mere so I can grab ya".

Also, she knows how to play ball. She flaps her arms up and down so she can hit the ball, and it rolls. And she does it most every time you send it her way. Ah, so proud. "Oh yeah, so what that your kid knows his letters...my kid's going to be a professional Bowler!"

Rockin' Out

I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be jammin in my living room to "Do you know the Muffin Man?", but alas, here it is. And while it sounds relatively pathetic, it was actually the best feeling I've had in a while. I can't explain it, but you don't mind being a dork for/with your kid. In fact, you pretty much prefer it to anything else.

Today we also hit a Gymboree class, which I thought would be super lame. It just wasn't possible to take her outside today, its far too hot. And staying in with her is like torturing her. She gets bored looking at me all day. However, the class was actually quite fun. What made it fun was how Dottie, 9 mos, reacted to the whole thing. She had such a good time, and was so friendly to everyone....it was hard not to enjoy it. Clapping, laughing, banging along--it was right up her alley. Some of the other babies seemed either unfazed, or unhappy. And, the teacher talked to me afterward and sort of offered me a job, which was unexpected, at best. My background might be perfectly suited to working in a place like that, actually. And I considered it, for a moment.... Sure would be closer to home....

So about the title....

So, yeah. The title. See, I have this baby. She's nearly 9 months this week. And, when she doesn't like what she's doing, gets a little bored in babyland, she's kind enough to warn us. So, we get a little trill with her lips as if she's in the water blowing bubbles. This usually happens as her warm-up act to full on complaining about her situation. We call this motorboating. And usually, we respond with "Motorboat, Motorboat go so sloooow. Motorboat Motorboat gosofaaaaaaaast!" And she smiles, maybe even gives a giggle. Just before she really gets to yelling, anyways. But, the gummy smile is worth every scream.

You might also say to yourself, "Self, why is this lady starting this blog just now, just when her baby is 9 months old?" Sooo many reasons**:
1) I'm mega lazy
2) took me this long to recover from the shock of having a baby
3) just found decent childcare
4) been out of the country for the last nine months
5) Had to truly THINK about what to write
6) the baby wouldn't let me put her down till now
7) OOOPS, gotta run, someone is yelling....

**not all reasons are truthful

mbm (motorboat mom)