A few notes

It seems time has been doing its thing--namely getting away from me. We're leaving for Mexico on Saturday (with my entire family, hopefully, hopefully), and there's packing and cleaning and so much else to do. But first I thought I'd take note of a few developments around here.

For starters, Becca has decided that despite how disdainful crawling seems, she'll do it...a little. When the motivation is right, she'll crawl at quite the clip across the room. However, it's not her preferred mode of transportation, which is to walk with assistance. She wants to be standing or walking ALL THE TIME. And fittingly, her new word is "up," which she utters constantly. I think it's become her catchphrase for "I want something." It's a bit hard to decipher if an "up" means "more bottle" or it actually means "up, you, and walk me about the house until your back gives out." But now that we're mobile I'm both relieved (Hooray! No explaining to the doc why my daughter refuses to crawl!) and suddenly more exhausted. Parenting just took on a whole new challenge.

She continues to be incredibly stubborn, which is at times funny and at others so exasperating that I want to run from the house to the nearest bottle of wine. Every other day she's on some sort of strike: formula strike, baby-food strike, nap strike. Staying one step ahead of this kid is harder than one would think. But at the same time she's a joy. Becca is funny and sweet and exhausting and all-encompassing. There are days when I think I made a mistake in staying home with her and other days when I know I did the right thing. Depending on what day you catch me, you get a whole different take on parenting. But I think that's part of the gig. The ups and downs, the steps forward and the steep slide backward.

And with this need for flexibility in mind, I'm mentally gearing up for Becca's first plane ride, first vacation, first dip in the ocean. I fervently pray everything will go smoothly. As to whether I'll continue this blog when I get back, I'm undecided. I wonder if it's serving its original purpose, and at times shouting into the abyss seems a bit fruitless. But until I'm back and have had time to decide the fate of my incoherent ramblings, cheers!