Veronica's napping and Jason's working on bills, so a quick note:

On Wednesday, Jan. 14, Debbie taught Veronica how to clap her hands. She was just doing it to music, but now pretty much anything will provoke her to clap her hands together and, sometimes, make sound. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen, and Veronica's so proud of herself.

Her doctor's visit last week placed her in the 25th percentile for weight (16 lbs. 14 oz.) but 80th for length (28 1/4 inches), with her head being smack dab in the 50th percentile. What does this all mean? We have a long, slender baby. If you know what I look like, you will see how I wonder if there wasn't some mix-up at the hospital. :-P

The doctor said we could start her in on any sort of food, so we went up to the Gerber No. 3 foods, which have spices and little chunks of potatoes and such. Man, does she hate that. Fortunately we still have a nice supply of bland, mushy No. 2 foods. Maybe she'll be ready for the other ones later...

In an effort to get her clapping again today, I turned on the kids music on internet radio. Did you know that "Obli-de, obla-da" was converted into a children's song, along with some little British boy not a day over 7 singing it? Me neither, but we danced to it and I was pretty psyched to here a kidde version of my favorite Beatles tune.

I have been exhausted lately, moody, and having a hard time watching what I eat. Fortunately, it's not due to another pregnancy; rather, my thyroid's out of whack again. Frankly, I was more worried about having something really wrong with me, so this is quite a relief.

I'm still tired. So while Veronica continues to doze, and Jason continues to crunch numbers, I might just get a little shut-eye before we head over to my friend Heather's tonight. :-)

Yay me!

I've joined a webring, Blogging Mommies. Sorry, but I've never been part of one before. It's silly, really, to think I was the only mom with a blog like this. Maybe I won't feel quite so alienated.

Either way, I'm part of a webring and kinda happy about it. Laugh all you want, if you think it's silly, but it makes me smile.

One thing I didn't expect about motherhood: The loneliness. I feel like I have nothing in common with anyone anymore.

I know this sounds abrupt, but that's part of the problem: My being pressed for time constantly. I had no idea how much spare time I had before having a child. And Veronica's very well-behaved - relatively low-maintenance as far as kids go. I can't imagine if she weren't. This blog problably wouldn't have been updated since April.

That being said, even so, I don't feel like I can connect anymore. Almost all my friends are single, most not in serious relationships. I only have a few married friends, and a handful of homeowner friends, but I'm the only mother. I suppose someone has to be the first in a peer group to have kids, but dammit, I'm hoping someone else will follow suit sometime soon just so I'll have some company. Selfish, but true.

I know that I'm not the only mother in the world, but somehow I'd always thought that I'd have some kind of Insta-Bond with all other moms. And yes, I do have more to talk about with mothers than when I was childless. But the conversation only goes so far about kids - "My kid makes a mess when she eats." "Oh, mine does too." "Veronica weighed 9 lbs. 6 oz. at birth." "Really? My little one was 6 lbs. 14 oz. but he was two weeks early." And that's about when it stalls. It's not like the bond of motherhood makes up for the fact that you have nothing else in common with this person.

It's frustrating as hell, when your girlfriends have a New Year's Eve party and you stay home to watch the kid and nurse your cold. It's maddening when people keep asking if you've seen the new Lord of the Rings movie, and you haven't been able to waylay a babysitter to do so yet. And it drives me nuts that even when I get to talk to a friend, the conversation always goes to Veronica - and usually, nothing else. But how can it go to something else, when she and work are all I do anymore? The friend has no way of responding to my experience, I'm far-removed from hers, and the conversation ends. And so the vicious cycle continues.

I know having a child changes everything, cuts into your free time and such. That's a given, and Veronica is worth it, don't get me wrong. But I'd always had this picture in my head of being Maranie with a child, not being Veronica's mommy who used to have a first name, used to have her own life and personality. I always used to wonder why my parents never seemed to have friends outside their own family, and the reason why is becoming so frightfully clear to me now.

So to my friends who haven't heard from me for a while: I miss you. Write me - get that ball rolling, and hopefully I'll get out of this rut long enough to roll it back.

*sigh*

Being sick sucks, but at least all this time off recently has led us to new Veronica discoveries:

First, she's in love with our new clock in the kitchen, a Christmas gift from Jason to me. It's a Simpsons clock, saying "MOE'S TAVERN" with Moe, Carl and Lenny on it. She noticed it from her high chair almost immediately after we hung it up, and every time she looked at it, she said "Tock. Tocktocktocktocktock." I spoke with Debbie the babysitter and found out that the name of the clock on Blue's Clues, which they watch frequently, is Tickety-Tock. So that impressed us, needless to say, and convinced us that she's supersmart because we're her parents and that's the sort of thing we tend to think.

But wait, there's more: So last night, I had a hunch when I was feeding her and said, "Veronica! Where's the tock? Where's the tickety-tock?" And she turned her head and looked directly at the clock. To check if this was just a fluke, I waited until Jason came in the kitchen a couple minutes later and tried it again. We ended up with the same results. All in all, she showed me where the clock was about five times or so last night. Of course, she didn't do it at all today, and probably won't again for several months. But last night was occupied by a few phone calls to family members, talking about her latest breakthrough.

Which leads me to another observation about Veronica: She is the Michigan J. Frog of babies. I swear, one of these days she's going to start strutting across the floor singing "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal!" only to later look at my parents, or one of our friends, and just say "goo." Every time she does something like this, she never does it in front of anybody else. Even Debbie never hears her; every time she's said a little word in Debbie's presence while I was there, Debbie was preoccupied with one of the other kids and had no way of hearing her. If Darren and my parents hadn't heard her say "kitty" on one occasion, no one would probably believe us.

I could go on with other examples, but suffice it to say that her verbal development is really impressing us at this point. She's understanding things, she's trying to connect with the world around her. It's so wonderful to watch, and to know you're an integral part of it is just the best feeling in the world.

Happy New Year!

We're all sick!

Yup, Jason and I rung in another year with runny noses and head congestion, retiring just minutes after midnight. Then Veronica woke up the next morning with the same cold! Oh what fun! :-P

So our first memories of 2004 are going to involve tons of Kleenex and frantic searches for Veronica's aspirator. (For those who don't remember the aspirator: It's the bulbous, plastic thing that sucks snot out of kids' noses when they're too little to grasp the concept of nose-blowing. Remember now, do we? Jason and I both hated that thing when we were kids, and we can't be the only ones out there who did.)

So if you'll excuse me, I'm home early from work and am going to go rest until it's time to pick up Veronica, runny nose and all, from the babysitter's house. 'Night.