Mom of the Year, Not

First of all, Happy 16-month Birthday, Baby B! BB turned 16 months yesterday and I didn't get a chance to write about it then, so happy 16-plus-one-day. Can't believe it's been 16 months that Brigid has been in our lives, has been such a fixture in our world. I can't imagine life without her. She is growing at an amazing rate and developing before our eyes. Her steadiness on her feet, her dexterity and physical presence is getting so strong. She's also a smart, cunning little thing. Yesterday I was singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to her and although she usually tries some of the hand gestures, yesterday she just stood looking at me, a slight smile on her lips. She then went and picked up a small book and handed it to me, open to the page that has "Itsy Bitsy Spider" on it. I also started reciting something from one of the Sandra Boynton books we have, "Stomp your feet, clap your hands, everybody ready for a barnyard dance" and she looked for and found the "Barnyard Dance" book. She knows what it means if we ask her if she wants to watch TV. She loves "Shrek" and the "Toy Story" movies. She knows which ones they are and where they are. She also understands that if she points the remote at the TV something is supposed to happen. When it doesn't (like if the DVD player is on and she's pointing the VCR remote" she'll look at you, confused. I gave her a non-working remote to play with and sometimes when she points it at the TV, Patricia will work the other remote just so Brigid thinks she's doing something that works.

We were in the kitchen the other day and I have a gate up between the kitchen and dining room. When it's stretched across the entryway, it's about 10 inches off from the floor. I walked over to see what she was up to and caught her trying to crawl under the thing, but not in a conventional way. She was actually on her back, trying to limbo under it, kind of like Steve McQueen in the "Great Escape." She looked up at me and did kind of a "heh heh heh" and pulled herself back out.

She's babbling all the time and throwing real words and phrases in the middle, so it's hard to discern the words at times, but sometimes she'll hold something up and say what sounds like, "Look what I have." She'll say pretty clearly, "All done?" She says, "side? side?" and point at the door for outside. Ball is pretty popular for anything that is round and ball-shaped. She'll say Hiya and wave. There are lots of little words I need to write down when I hear them. She certainly understands more than she can speak. Dogs drive her nuts. She loves when she sees a dog and gets all excited, and then she says "woofwoofwoofwoof" like it's all one word.

But it's time to report the reason for today's headline. Chalk it up to another entry in the Mom of the Year scorepad. Yesterday I noticed BB was cutting a molar on her bottom left. Hey, I said. Brigid's cutting a tooth. Yay! We all clapped and I was going to write it in her baby book. But later, when I had her on the changing table, I thought I'd feel around inside to see if she was working on any more. She had three molars fully erupted and in working order. So with the one that she's cutting, she'll have 12 teeth altogether. In her baby book I'll have to write something like, "Brigid cut four molars, one top and one bottom on both sides, sometime between January and July." How's THAT for staying on top of my daughter's developmental milestones. Take that, Barry Brazelton. I'll be reporting on her taking her first steps any day now.