Stop the ride, it's going too quickly

Cora, 8 months

Cora mowing on sushi

Evie, 8 months

Wow. Cora is eight months.  Somehow this seems super old in baby age.  Six and seven months didn't bother me that much, but eight months... that means only 4 more until she's a "toddler"! Not okay.  On the plus side, it was like a switch was flipped when Cora hit the eight month mark.  She went from waking 1-3 times a night to sleeping through almost every night. She went from taking three 45 minute names to suddenly dropping to two naps that range from 1-3 hours. She no longer spits out or throws most of her food, but instead readily eats almost anything in front of her (and continues to get pissed if I don't share something she wants).  It is glorious.  We've never had to do "cry it out" for her, and I'll be forever grateful because I'm still traumatized from doing it with Evie.  She is just a chill kid.  Still no signs she's looking to crawl yet, but I was looking through old videos of Evie and saw that she was really only army crawling at this point anyway, so C isn't quite as delayed as I thought she might be.  Her other new trick is nodding yes and bobbing up and down like she's dancing.  She may well be dancing as she most often bobs when music is playing.  It. is. fantastic.  

 Two weeks ago was the Saint Joan of Arc carnival, and Evie had a blast.  We were surprised to see that she was eager to go on many rides but once she'd sit down she'd pop up crying and want to get off.  I had never seen Evie scared of anything before.  It was like her excitement for what the ride might be propelled her into the seat and then that momentary pause before the thing actually began was enough time for her to realize that on second thought she might not like this afterall.  This is the child who just a week before literally lept off a 12 foot ledge at the playground and onto a firemans poll without so much as a second glance. Who runs full boar towards dogs twice her size and lets them lick her in the face.  And who bounds into ocean waves and gets toppled over and over and doesn't get phased.  So, I wasn't quite sure what to do with her when she would start crying and demand to be let off.  Obviously she had some internal gauge going off saying this wasn't the ticket for her.  Enter peer pressure.  Wow is that a powerful force.  Two little girls she is friends with from the neighborhood grabbed her hand and sat with her on a ride.  And she absolutely loved it.  Once that happened we couldn't get her off of them and it was hell to try to leave.  

Parley comes for a visit - the girls were in heaven
and got sad when we had to take him home

On one of the rides, Evie was sitting behind Mikey and Petey in a little helicopter.  The two brothers started hitting each other and Evie’s face was priceless.  She’d never seen anything quite like it and was noticeably shocked to be such a close witness.  Every time the helicopter came back around, there was Evie’s little face all scrunched up and looking to me like “what do I do here?” When the ride ended, Mr. Inzi grabbed Mikey and told him no more rides for him.  Meanwhile, I took Petey and Evie to the next ride.  As they were waiting in line, Evie started rubbing Petey’s back and saying “It’s ok Petey.  You’re ok. Do you want a hug?”  Adorable.  And Petey, who is a year older than Evie, kept trying to shrug her off and walk away.  He wasn’t remotely interested in the comforting.  Poor Evie didn’t get it and kept trying to hug him until Petey finally immersed himself in a group of friends from his preschool and Evie couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong.  It broke my heart to watch the whole thing go down.  I know you’re supposed to let your kids suffer through these little things so they learn how to deal with emotions and social cues, but wow was it hard for me.  I wanted to pull Petey aside and tell him to be nicer. I wanted to pull Evie aside and tell her to be bitchier.  I felt all my own heartbreaks as a child rise up and propel themselves towards Evie’s experience.  But, I bit my lip and just leaned down and gave Evie a hug and whispered “it’s ok, honey, it looks like Petey doesn’t want that attention right now.”  Then, when he ran off to sit on the next ride with his friends from preschool and left no room for Evie I about lost it again… instead I helped Evie get into a car full of girls one ahead of Petey.  The girls weren’t mean, but weren’t exactly welcoming (to be fair, only one of them knew Evie at all), and Evie sat there with a scowl on her face that showed me she was NOT pleased with my solution.  She rode around the whole time with that scowl and I totally got it.  It sucks to be rejected at any age. It sucks when you try to

Evie's ballet "recital" with Coco, Skylar & Katelyn

help someone and they ignore you.  It sucks when you realize a person would rather be with someone other than you.  Life’s lessons are hard.  And it’s not easy to watch your tiny little babies go through them!  I’m not sure whether the whole thing sucked more for her or for me and my childhood memories…

Evie telling Cora she'd be ok before her shots
(Cora apparently listened as she didn't cry at all!)

That night (and many nights since then), while putting Evie to bed she asked me to sing twinkle twinkle.  I started to, and she joined me.  I wish there’d been someone there to record it.  The two of us singing together with her looking up at me – this tiny little body in a huge big girl bed.  As I left, she asked if she could read stories to herself.  Yes, of course she could, so long as she turned off the light and went to sleep when she felt tired.  She hopped out of bed with a huge smile, turned the light back on and grabbed 10 books to bring into bed with her.  I checked the monitor (yes, helicopter parent in the making… I still have the video monitor on my 3 year old.  Time to let go mama.  But I can’t!) about 20 minutes later and she was sitting up still immersed in her books. 10 minutes after that, I heard little footsteps scurrying across the floor and saw she’d returned the books to their shelf, turned off the light, and tucked herself back in.  Our little girls are growing up all too quickly.