Snapshot: 13 and 1/2 months

Yesterday some of the teachers had their wives or husbands and babies come to the school for the potluck. One of my colleagues has a baby who was born on November 13, just a week after Laurel. He toddled up and down the empty hallways with boundless energy. He looked like a little peanut to me, which reminded me of how tall and lanky Laurel is. Right now she's meticulously wiping down the dining room floor and picking up little bits of cheerios and cheese and bringing them to us. Wiping up is her current favorite activity. I don't know how many teeth she has. They are sharp, so I don't make a habit of looking into her mouth to count. I do help her to brush them now, with a special tiny toothbrush and baby toothpaste. I think she really likes the taste of the toothpaste, as well as the feeling of the brush on her gums. Her hair is long enough to be styled into a barrett or a tiny pigtail. For some reason, she recently started sucking on a pacifier. I decided it was probably helping to ease the transition during weaning, so I'm not too concerned about it. My friend gave me a good piece of advice for breaking the pacifier habit down the road, so I'll deal with that one later.

Last night I took her to Lindsay's house and Matt hung out with her while we went to a Zumba class with this crazy little dance instructor. I sweat my buns off and looked ridiculous doing it, but it was pretty fun. I brought Matt a beer for his trouble, but when we walked in they were sitting in a chair reading and looked pretty happy. Matt said, "We read all the books!" And I can totally see that...Laurel bringing over each and every book, one by one. I'm grateful to have friends who are up for anything and flexible enough to make it happen. I'm glad Laurel seems to be able to handle being away from me. And I definitely love the babysitting swap.

Last year at this time it was me and Laurel 24-7. And while I wouldn't trade that time for anything, I am definitely enjoying chasing after a toddler more than spending hours upon hours bouncing on a yoga ball with a vacuum cleaner blasting in my ear, holding a swaddled baby who refused to sleep without the aforementioned accommodations.

M just got his grades from graduate school this term, which of course were A's. Spring term classes don't start for a couple of weeks, so it will be nice for our family to have some time to spend together, since there were many days in the last few months when we barely saw each other.

As for me, I think I am finally getting used to life as a working mom. Luckily I work with awesome people, who are everlastingly supportive, who brew extra large pots of coffee on days that I come in with out a lot of sleep, who slip me thank you notes and chocolate when I need it the most, who compliment me on the classes that are going well, and remind me that I have some of the most challenging students in the school in my other not-so-great classes. The secretary can find someone to cover for me in the blink of an eye if Laurel gets sick. My co-teacher is wonderful combination of laid-back flexibility and competency. I have nice people to eat lunch with. If I had tried to do this working mom thing at any of the other schools I worked at over the past ten years, I think I would have crashed and burned.

As it is now, life gets totally out of control in the blink of an eye. Last night I accidentally washed a disposible diaper with a load of laundry, so all that gel crap from inside it got stuck to everything and I had to wash the load three times to get it out. I didn't really do any dishes since Tuesday afternoon, so the kitchen is a total nightmare. My aunt is on her way to stay with us for the holiday, so there's a million things to clean up and put away. But Christmas music is on the radio and our family is together and nobody is puking or coughing or having a temper tantrum, so by 13 1/2 month standards, we're doing just great.