Why I wish I'd had the internet as a kid

When I was a child, I loved going to the library. The bookstore was my favorite -- all those brand-new books, organized by genre, just waiting to come home and carry me away on new adventures -- but the library was far more vast. It wasn't just fiction; there were books on all topics. My favorites were the how-to books. Projects and patterns. Origami. Science experiments. Recipes. I ate it up. My local bookstore likely had some of these sorts of books, too, but nothing like the selection the library had.

But I lived in a very small town -- neither the library nor my local bookstore held a candle to what is now available on the internet. Which is why it frustrates me so that my daughter spends most of her internetting watching adults open and play with kids' toys.

Still, I don't restrict screen time, and other than the parental controls (oh, okay, and the occasional nerve-grating video) don't ban her from watching anything because I don't want her to get secretive about her viewing. I feel that the way to protect her from the darker side of the internet later on is to create a level of trust now. Also, I believe that kids learn best when you step back and let them. So I do.

And day by day, I am seeing evidence that she is at least occasionally using her tablet to learn. Like this.

She calls this Strawberry Swirl.

She watched a video on repurposing eos balm containers, and then took it upon herself to create new balms by mixing up chunks of her (quite impressive, really) lip balm collection. We are addicted to eos balms around here, so she had quite a few containers to fill. And fill them she has. Considering the fact that a) she is four, and b) she's never done anything like this before, I think she did a really good job. (I am studiously avoiding the mess in her "lab," and trying not to think about the dress she ruined making her new balms. Focus on the pride, Mommy.)

A while back, I pinned a recipe for making lip balm that uses these eos containers. I haven't tried it yet, but I've been meaning to. Now I know who to go to for pointers.

Today's vocabulary lesson: Ornery

My daughter is ornery. In fact, one of her nicknames is Ornery Anya -- and, as it turns out, a large part of the reason for that nickname is where I come from.

Let me back up a minute.

It bugs me when words vary wildly in spelling and pronunciation. Makes me worry I am spelling or saying the word incorrectly. I get that some letters are silent, and that shifts in language do things like make us write colonel yet say kernel. Fine. But how in the heck do we get ahnree from ornery? I asked myself.

To Google! Where I discovered that the dictionary and I have vastly different definitions and pronunciations for this word. I have always used it, and have always heard it used, to mean an impish, mischievous person. A prankster. Someone who does things like, say, light a string of firecrackers in the bathroom while his brother is in the shower. Or someone who, in retaliation, lights a string of firecrackers under the open window his brother is sitting in front of -- days later, when the original firecracker incident has been forgotten.

My uncles. Both gone now, RIP. And both ornery. In my sense, not Merriam-Webster's.

The* dictionary says an ornery person is crabby. I am not unfamiliar with this definition; I've seen it used in books, and have even heard people use it to describe old people and mean dogs. In that sense, I've always heard it pronounced orn-er-ree.

The dictionary also pronounces it orn-er-ree. Like it's spelled. So my faith in spelling has been restored.

I am not at all surprised that I pronounce it differently; where I come from, you warsh things and write with an ink pin. I then moved to a place where vowels are afraid to travel alone; here, you write with an eenk pee-in. I've long since accepted that the way I say things and the way I am used to hearing them does not necessarily mesh with the rest of the country. But how did I end up with two definitions and two pronunciations?

Then I came across an entry in a blog I used to follow before I had kids and lost any semblance of free time: Language Log. TL;DR version: While the dictionary has one definition and pronunciation, there is a second definition and pronunciation that is also widespread, that coincides with the usage I'm familiar with. This usage is most prevalent in the Midwest.

I'm from the Midwest, so...there you go.

Wiktionary also acknowledges a second use, though they attribute it to the South rather than the Midwest. (I'm finding more and more that there are many linguistic overlaps between the South and the Midwest.) Which explains why my non-Midwestern friends use this same definition and pronunciation.

I did notice that Urban Dictionary acknowledges the secondary definition/pronunciation, but they spell it awnry or anry. You'd think I would prefer that spelling to ornery, as it is more closely aligned with the pronunciation I use and also acknowledges the distinction in definition by treating it like an entirely separate word. But I guess I've grown accustomed to the original spelling, because awnry just looks wrong to me. Maybe because it's one letter from awry, which has a totally different pronunciation. I don't like anry any better, though, as it's one letter short of angry. No, though in my mouth the word starts with an a sound, I still feel like the original spelling is better in writing.

The misspellings would look better with Anya, though. Spoken aloud, ahnree Anya rolls off the tongue, but seeing it in print -- ornery Anya -- is jarring. Awnry Anya at least looks like the two words sound alike.

A rose by any other name, I guess, would still be a little stinker.

I wish my uncles had lived to meet her. They'd have gotten a kick out of her.

*I know there is not one authoritative dictionary, so I give you definitions from eight -- take your pick.

What I want (the 2016 edition)

I want to get back in shape. In some ways, I am already in shape -- at the very least, I can lift and carry way more than I ever could. And thanks to the pounds I lost to the stomach flu, I can see that yes, there are still abs in there under the loose skin. But there are refinements to be made, certainly. Also, much of what I need to accomplish is maintenance; if I do not exercise regularly, my old injuries flare up. So I need to make time for yoga, for planks, for walks. If I can get my allergies under control, I may even give running another shot.

I want to get my allergies under control. Resume immunotherapy, keep the house cleaner, buy a dehumidifier. I am tired of my itchy eyes and runny nose, tired of feeling bad so much of the time.

I want to feel better. I want to get enough sleep and eat better food and meditate. I don't like the cranky person I have become of late. I want to be a better me.

Because I want to do more. So much of my daily activity is...mundane. Not the kind of stuff I'm going to lay on my deathbed and think, "My gosh, I am so glad I kept my kitchen floor so clean all those years!" I want to write more. Practice graphic design more -- I've been doing some design for my day job and finding I have really, really missed it. I've also been designing jewelry in my head; I'd like to make at least some of it. 

There are other things on my 2016 list. Things like scaling back my debt. But while it is a high priority and I am especially motivated, it's not an interesting goal. Not to me, anyway. It's about hard work and discipline and curbing thoughtless spending. So don't expect blog entries on it, because while it needs to get done, it doesn't exactly melt my butter.

Now, the things I can do once my debt is under control...that is a different story. But those are off on the horizon. I'm trying to rein myself in on the long-term focus. I don't want to get so caught up in 5 years from now that I miss today.

Be the water

So this past week has had me thinking a lot about the coming year. I'm finding that I need to make some changes in order to "be the water," so to speak. Some of it sounds very Serenity Prayer, but there's a lot of wisdom in those lines.

I need to accept that certain people are going to treat me a certain way. Always have, always will. It may not be fair, but there is no changing it. Nor I cannot cut them out of my life, so I need to adapt how I react to the treatment instead of stewing over it and then getting all bent out of shape over little things. Some days it feels like everyone is against me. This is not so. (At the very least, Baby Kai always has my back.)

I need to accept that my family's priorities are not necessarily my priorities, and do what I can to compromise rather than becoming Crazy Germaphobe Harpy Mommy. This may mean I do more work than they do. But it really is a priority to me to keep the kitchen clean, for instance, so I will just need to make time for it.

(They do need to pick up after themselves a little better, though. I found a string cheese wrapper under the bed, for Pete's sake. And an empty soda bottle behind the recliner. Like I said...compromise.)

I need to accept that my personality is a large part of what makes me so stressed out, and work with that energy rather than against it. I spent so many years wallowing in apathy that it's nice to have so many interests now. But if I let my frustration at my lack of free time rule me, I will go bonkers before the kids start school. I must resist the feeling that I am running out of time. My time is finite, yes, but odds are I have many good years left in me.

I need to take more responsibility for my own calm. Because I'm on the merry-go-round now, and it won't stop for a couple of decades at least. What's going to happen when the kids start school? Driving? Dating? College? How will I handle moving? Getting a new job? I cannot control the stresses that enter my life, but I can control how I handle them. I need to make yoga and meditation a higher priority in the coming year.

I was doing really well spinning my plates, but then I came apart emotionally when they fell due to circumstances beyond my control. I tend to assume that if I want something bad enough, I can just make it so. Sheer grit and determination, while useful, do not guarantee a win. Sometimes my bullheadedness works for me, sometimes not. I need to work on dealing with disappointment when my best efforts fail, and give myself credit for doing all I can regardless of the outcome.

So that's all nice and vague, huh? Thus far, my 2016 credo consists of "All life is precious" and "Be the water." I basically want to be Morgan from TWD, sans all those zombies and personal tragedies. It's a nice goal, but I have no idea how to translate that into a resolution list of any sort. I still have a little time for that, I guess.

Gratitude

I thought I understood the concept of gratitude. I completed the "List 5 things for which I am grateful" goal -- on both 43 Things and PopClogs. I can pull gratitude out of the worst days, and can find the silver lining in just about any situation. I thought that this meant I had gratitude down.

I do not.

This week has just not gone according to plan. This week was supposed to be cleaning and wrapping Advent gifts and putting together care packages for the Memphis Union Mission and cooking Thanksgiving dinner. We were going to go to Zoo Lights and Starry Nights, have dinner with our families, and I was going to go shopping a couple more times before Freaky...er, Black Friday. I was going to knock out a little freelancing and clean my office and prepare my list for Cyber Monday. I was going to send my daughter to her grandparents for a sleepover so I could go through her toys before Santa dumps another load of them on our house. I was going to get. stuff. done.

And then everybody got sick.

We saw the doctor yesterday; the kids and R have colds, and Kai also has impetigo. Which, given Mom's precarious immune state, means we are on our own for Turkey Day, and pretty much housebound besides until everyone gets to feeling better.

I feel okay. A little scratchy throat, a barely there headache. Probably more allergies than illness, as I have been dusting that which has not been dusted since I got pregnant with Kai. But I am seriously bummed that my big, beautiful week isn't shaping up as I'd hoped. I've been planning this crap for over a month. I took time off from work. Of course it all fell apart.

That's fine. Disappointment is fine. The trick is to be grateful anyway.

I may not get everything done, but I can get most of it done. The rest can be rescheduled.

The important part -- the family togetherness -- will happen regardless of whether or not we check off every box on my list. It just may be more hot cocoa and jammies and Netflix than lights and music and outings.

And isn't that what my list is really about -- spending time with my family? Doing fun things with them?

So I will suck up this internal pouty lip and get over myself. Be grateful for the time I have with my loved ones, even though our activities may not measure up to my highest hopes. And I will enjoy Thanksgiving no matter how we end up spending it.

I hope you, too, are having a pleasant Thanksgiving.

Eat days

This year marks a momentous occasion: I am taking over part of the Thanksgiving preparations.

Not just kicking in a casserole or lending the use of my oven. In addition to baking my homemade mac and cheese, I am making the dressing and the pumpkin pie.

The pumpkin pie, especially, feels sacred. Like it's an honor to be allowed to prepare such a dish. I feel like a kid who gets to sit at the grown-ups table at last.

Part of this new order is just shifting our thinking. Though I am not just an adult but a mommy (and middle aged, for pete's sake), my parents still think of me as a kid. (And always will...I have no illusions about that.) So I have to remind them occasionally that I've been feeding and housing myself, paying taxes and keeping the lights on, for 20 years now. And occasionally, I have to say things like, "I'm making part of Thanksgiving dinner this year." Because they're not going to ask me to do that...I'm just a kid.

Mom's RA is better this week, but she has her ups and downs. She's in a bad flare lately, and winding down on her latest prednisone pack. Which means she never knows from one day to the next if she will be able to dress herself. I figure asking her to cube a loaf of bread and roll out a pie crust is a bit much, considering.

Also, I've come to realize that Mom doesn't really like to cook. She likes traditions, and food is one of those. But the actual act of cooking is not one of her favorites. I, on the other hand, love to cook. (It's washing the dishes I'm not crazy about.) So it just makes sense that I take some of the load.

When Anya was younger, she told Mimi that holidays are "eat days." Nobody goes to work; everyone goes to Mimi's house to eat. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the eating season. Hopefully I (and my oven!) are up to the task.

My funny boy

Kai continues to amaze me. I know Anya seemed to be learning by leaps and bounds at this age, but her goal was independence; she wanted to learn to walk, run, and climb, because she wanted to do things for herself.

Kai is different. Kai wants to get around so he can follow me. He does this cute penguin belly flop sort of crawl, and can get around amazingly fast that way. But rather than get into stuff, as his sister tended (okay, tends) to do, he's trying to keep up with me.

He also tries harder to communicate. Whereas Anya worked harder to entertain everyone, Kai tries to talk; he looks at me very intently and babbles. Also, he has learned that certain actions on his part, like lifting his arms and grunting, elicit a certain response from me, and he uses them to get me to do what he wants. Anya's focus was (and is) autonomy; Kai's is connection.

But the thing that really blows me away is that Saturday night, he told his first joke.

A little setup. R had to get up at 4:30, so he went to bed early. Anya also fell asleep pretty early. Kai was not tired; he wanted to play. (This is, I should add, extremely unusual for him. Anya is the night owl, not Kai.) I was trying to nurse him to sleep when he discovered that rolling his ear across the spot where he'd drooled on my arm made a clicking sound. He did this over and over, and just giggled. Stinkin' cute, but I was afraid it was going to keep R awake. So I took Kai in the living room.

That, as it turns out, was exactly what he wanted.

Finally has Mom all to himself.

To prove to me that spit is funny, he sang me a little song. Then he did this:

I could tell he was reminding me how funny it was when he was making that clicking noise. The fact that half an hour or so had elapsed made it our little inside joke. "Hey, Mom, remember that time when I did that thing and it was so funny?"

My baby told a joke. How adorable is that?

I made this!

Anya is at the stage where she makes artwork for the sole purpose of displaying it. If she had her way, I would hang every paper she scribbles on -- on the cork board, on the wall, on the fridge, on the door...any flat surface will do, really. I have put quite a bit of it up, because I am a mom and because she is my first born. (When it comes to taking pride in things you've made, you certainly cannot overlook children. Children are the ultimate craft.)

We live in a rental house, so the walls are not in the greatest of shape. Still, I don't want to fill them full of (more) holes. So I won't let her hang things with push pins; indeed, I had to hide the pushpins, because she is less concerned about our security deposit than I am. But I have let her have tape. To deter her looking for the hiding spot of the push pins, I left the roll of tape in her office (a printer cart next to my desk where she can "work" alongside me while I'm freelancing).

She loves making confetti. (Groan.)

Earlier, I left the office door open while I went to the doctor, thinking access to a normally forbidden room might take the sting out of being left at home. (It did.) I came home to a mural of...well, look.

The box is from R's latest Loot Crate.

It's less the art and the medium, and more pride in the fact that she can operate a pair of scissors and tape things together (and to the wall). While these pieces are more likely to wind up in the recycling than the Anya Art Hall of Fame, they are exciting to me in that they are a sign that she is ready to move beyond scribbles to more complex projects. As a crafting junkie, I have been dreaming of this day since before I ever got pregnant with her.

Okay, maybe I will keep one of them, to commemorate the occasion.


*Yes, the post title is a reference to the X-Files production company, Ten Thirteen. Because I am old, and a geek. Also, I have been rewatching Season 1.

The fun of failure

Anya is addicted to Reading Rainbow. It's up there with candy in terms of bribe power -- it is that good. But I am unsettled by her reaction to one of the themes: Learning. She seems genuinely puzzled by the episodes that focus on someone learning to do new things. I know she's curious; "But why?" is her favorite question. But she actively resists learning new things unless she pursues it and can stop whenever she wants.

I think I understand what her issue is: She is afraid to fail. But why? Other than the speech therapy (which we stopped just as soon as she started reacting adversely to it), she has never been pressured to grasp a new concept. It's more like an innate response. One I want to nip in the bud as soon as possible. Learning is one of life's greatest joys for me, and I just hate to see her so averse to it so young.

I was afraid to fail for many years, but that came later -- after people had made a big deal out of my intelligence. I was afraid a failure would prove them wrong, and make me not special anymore. It was only when I was much older, trying things in the privacy of my own home, that I realized failing and then succeeding is way more fun than only doing things you know you can do well. I don't want her to wait that long.

And I certainly don't want her to set out at the age of 4 with the attitude that learning sucks.

So I guess I have my newest project cut out for me.

I've been trying to let her see me fail. I know part of my issue as a kid was that it seemed like my parents knew everything, and did everything right all the time. So I thought she might feel better seeing that even Mommy screws up sometimes. (Daddy isn't as willing to admit to mistakes. ;) But aside from mistakes of an emotional nature (I always apologize to her when I lose my temper, for example, and admit when I have reacted badly to something -- something she seems to deeply appreciate), seeing me mess up or even admit to being unsure of myself tends to freak her out. No matter how inconsequential the matter is, or if it even affects her.

For instance, the other day I mumbled under my breath about a concealer I bought based on some reviews I'd read. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, and I said something to that effect. (I think my words were "Well, I don't think this is the makeup for me.") She asked me what I meant, and I told her -- and she looked like she was going to cry. Because I bought the wrong makeup!

When she was a baby, she got herself all worked up over every little skill she tried to master. At four months, she would throw temper tantrums while trying to roll over. Her face would turn beet red and she would shriek. I thought at first that she was in pain, but she was just frustrated. So this is definitely a personality trait at work here. And truth be told, it probably comes from me; I am the perfectionist in the family. (Poor kid. Of all the things I could have passed on!)

What helps me push through my perfectionist angst is focusing on the fun I have doing the activity. For instance, I'm finally returning to drawing, after deciding at the age of 12 that I sucked at it. Having kids means I have a "legitimate" reason to have art supplies, and I am enjoying the heck out of making things. Are they as good as some of my artist friends' work? No. And likely never will be. But it's fun for me, so I don't care.

That's the attitude I want her to have. I just don't know how to get her there before the age of 40. :)

I think I need to start a new family tradition: The Fun of Failure. I want to sneak in learning in a way that makes it too fun to resist, and that rewards trying and failing as much as success. I'm not sure how I will pull it off yet, but I'll figure something out.

A matter of life and death

The morning started with tears. In some YouTube video, Sonic the Hedgehog died. (You thought Sonic was just a video game? Au contraire.) Anya, a Sonic fan, was crushed. 

We'd been up all of about 20 minutes. I hadn't even touched my tea. Way too early for this sort of thing.

"It's just a video, sweetie," I crooned, rocking her like a baby. "On Netflix, you can see that Sonic is still alive." She wasn't quite satisfied with my answer, but her sniffles slowed. And in an hour, the incident was completely forgotten.

After I got off work, we ventured out for groceries. Which is when she noticed that her fuzzy caterpillar friend, who appeared to have claimed a corner of our porch as his home, was in two pieces. R and I found it like that a couple of days before; we assumed a spider had gotten to it, because we have huge wolf spiders around our house and it's spider season. I'd hoped R would have disposed of the body by now. But he had not, and the secret was out.

She was devastated. And not quiet about it. With the way she carried on, I began to worry about the day when she loses a grandparent. I'm certainly not up for her getting a pet, unless we can find a tortoise or something equally durable.  

The tears started anew when we returned from the grocery store. And once again when we ventured out for ice cream after dinner. I was seriously contemplating a caterpillar funeral, just so we could come and go in peace.

Then a minor miracle occurred. When we returned from getting ice cream, the caterpillar was alive! Just crawling along the top step like nothing had happened. The second chunk of fuzziness is still in the corner of the porch. R thinks the caterpillar was perhaps molting, or hibernating, though hibernation doesn't explain the spare fuzz. (I know nothing of bugs, nor do I care, so I am taking him at his word on this one.) At any rate, the dead had risen, and Anya was overjoyed, in that way you are after you've suffered terribly and are starting to feel good again. For the rest of the evening, she was her spunky, sassy, spastic self. 

I, too, was relieved. We'd gotten a pass. I know how rarely those are doled out. But there will be a next time. I need to prepare for it.

I'm just hoping they come one at a time, not two in one day.

Something to work toward

I remember summer vacations as a child. They were boring as hell. I used to set myself a schedule just to give myself something to do.

8:00 Get up (yes, I set an alarm on summer vacation)
8:30 Eat
9:00 Shower

I would schedule which game shows to watch, riding my bike to the post office to get the mail, lunch with a similarly bored friend, things like that. Nothing pressing, enriching, lasting. Just killing time.

I loved being free of the rigid schedule of the school year, but I needed something to look forward to. Three months of nothingness wore on me.

It took me a ridiculously long time to realize that what I need is not structure, but goals. Something to work toward. Which is nice, because there is no end to the things I would like to do in this life. I will never run out of goals. How cool is that?

I used to avoid trying things I thought were beyond me, until I realized that I gain far more satisfaction from improving at something I formerly sucked at than maintaining a stellar track record at something that comes easily to me.

In that vein, here are some things I would like to accomplish. No time limits; I'll do them when I do them. The fun is in the trying.

- Learn to draw
- Jog a mile
- Do a proper cobra pose (I could before the c-sections, but no longer)
- Learn to play drums
- Visit more national landmarks (Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Liberty Bell, etc.)
- Shop local farmer's markets
- Own my own home
- Get a bike; use it

See? I do think about things other than my kids sometimes.

Preparedness

Last time I had a baby, I was prepared. I took all the classes, read all the books, filled out all the forms, joined all the mailing lists. I preregistered for the hospital 6 months in advance. Thanks to flooding near our home, my hospital bag was packed and by the door in late April (I gave birth in late August). If it could be scheduled, I scheduled it. I had a birth plan, a postpartum plan, a battle plan.

And everything pretty much went awry anyway.

This time, I've been too busy for such preparations. Long hours and a toddler and a rough pregnancy have eaten away at my free time. And then there's the false sense of security in having done this before. I felt I knew what to expect. Not that I've made no preparations, but I've been pretty lax about it.

Last night, I had some bloody show. First time ever; I didn't dilate at all last time, even with help, so I never lost my mucus plug. In fact, I was under the impression that I couldn't dilate. (I'm still not sure if I can or not, to be honest. With my reproductive history, it's entirely possible that it's a permanent physical issue.) And Valentine's weekend I had several bouts of contractions -- not the painless Braxton-Hicks variety, but hard, painful contractions almost regular enough for me to go to the hospital.

If I'm going to do this stuff, my body's telling me, I'd better do it now.

So I'm aflutter in forms and packing lists and last-minute preparations. Making sure everyone has their vaccinations -- the adults, not my daughter. (She is already fully vaccinated, because that's how I roll. Not that I put much stock in the antivax movement, but even if they were right, I'd rather have an autistic child than a dead one.) Setting up bill payments and cleaning the house and making sure everything I need is at the ready, should I go into labor tonight.

The one thing I feel certain of is that I am forgetting something. But if I learned anything last time around, it's that you cannot be fully prepared. Having a baby is messy. Life is messy. You do the best you can; the rest sorts itself out one way or another.

Helping my child find her words

I've known for a while that my daughter has trouble communicating verbally. If I were totally honest with myself, I've known something was up since she was a baby, and called me "Mumma" instead of "Mama." Babies say Mama. It's in all the books. But I thought it was cute, and chalked it up to the amount of BBC we watch.

Plus, she did say a few words early. Once, when she was 4 or 5 months old, as I kissed her goodbye to go to work she said, "Bye-bye, Mumma." She never said them again. But I was just amazed that she said them in the first place.

Still, though, when she started calling everyone, including me, "Dada," I should have spoken up. But my pride was wounded. I carried her in my body. I was the one who walked the floor with her for hours, until the pain from my c-section incision made me cry, when she had colic. I was the one who couldn't be parted from her for a few hours, let alone overnight. I upended my life for her, and she called me Dada.

Eventually, she did start calling me Mumma again, so I relaxed. But she didn't say much else. Her father was a late talker, though, so I let it slide.

For about three years.

There were signs, of course, that something was amiss. Doctors spoke to her like she could respond. (Why are you asking her? I'd think. She's a baby. She can't tell you.) A study we participated in diagnosed her with a verbal delay of a year or better. Kids in stores -- younger kids -- would talk to her in complete, coherent sentences. But Anya was silent.

Not that she couldn't understand us. She understood every word we said, sometimes when I wished she couldn't. Spelling words out in front of her didn't even work; she learned very quickly what C-A-N-D-Y and N-A-P spell. But she mostly communicated with us using gestures and grunts.

She's an only child, I told myself. Surrounded by doting adults. She doesn't talk because she doesn't have to.

She's been an overachiever and a perfectionist pretty much since birth (oh, the temper tantrums she threw while she was learning to roll over!), so I figured she was waiting until she knew she could speak perfectly before she even tried to speak. That she'd start out talking in complete, grammatically correct sentences.

They say Einstein was a late talker.

Still, red flags were starting to go up. Strangers were starting to treat her like she had some sort of developmental delay. Or worse, like she was just a brat. Other kids would shy away from her, sensing something was up. She started throwing tantrums when she couldn't make us understand her.

She's tall for her age. People are judgmental assholes. Those kids' parents took the "stranger danger" thing a bit too far. Toddlers throw tantrums all the time.

Then we concluded the study, and the researchers urged me to get her into speech therapy. The words "special education" were bandied about.

Stupid scientists. Kids are not machines; they develop at different rates. She's so advanced in other areas. So what if she's slow to talk? Her father learned how to talk without any special intervention, and now you can hardly shut him up.

But I couldn't ignore it any longer. My child was nearly 3, and just...didn't talk.

Also distressing to me was her attitude towards books. I've read to her since she was in utero. When she was a baby, she loved it. She'd listen to me read four, five, six books in a row, those bright, alert eyes never leaving my face. But as she got older, she started shying away from books. Then outwardly disliking them. Not just books, either. Flash cards, coloring books...anything and everything bearing the printed word elicited anything from disinterest to an outright tantrum.

I started speaking at 6 months. I learned to read at 3. I wrote my first story at 7. In high school, I wrote thousands of pages of fiction (all crap, but still). I've worked as a writer and editor since I was 25. I read Kindle books while I walk, even after editing for 10+ hours a day. Words are my thing.

I do not understand why my child tantrums at the suggestion of snuggling up with her mother and being read to. But she does. I do not understand how my child can say a word once, then be unable to repeat those same sounds, but it happens all the time. And it's terrifying.

So I made an appointment with a speech therapist, and she was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech. Which basically means that while she has a vocabulary of hundreds, thousands of words, she doesn't say them because she has trouble remembering how to make the sounds.

I had never even heard of this issue before, but the diagnosis fit. She was talking a little more, but still tended to call everything "dat" (like she used to call all of the adults in her family "Dada"). The words she would actually say were more rote phrases (Mumma, Daddy, please, thank you, welcome, bye-bye, bless you) that she'd heard us say a thousand times; however, though she mimicked our inflections perfectly, she usually garbled the enunciation: "please" became "eese" and "thank you" became "dank oo." When she attempted spontaneous speech, it came out as gibberish.

Still, it wasn't an easy diagnosis to swallow. We really couldn't afford the therapy, and I'd just found out I was pregnant, to boot. But could I sit idly by, knowing what I now knew? Would she ever speak normally? Would the world ever see her as I see her -- sweet, brilliant, kind, fierce, beautiful -- or would they just see her as "special," with all its stomach-churning implications?

Part of me was tempted to just work with her myself. I am a communicator. I have two college degrees that say I know my way around the English language. Plus, I'm intelligent; I can read up on this stuff, the theories and techniques and strategies. Nobody is more motivated to help my child than me. But I still had that nagging doubt: What if therapy were the only thing standing between her and a "normal" life?

So despite my misgivings, she began twice-weekly speech therapy. And at first it was wonderful. She really clicked with her therapist, and looked forward to sessions. She didn't seem to be making a huge amount of progress, but enough that I couldn't justify quitting.

Then her therapist left the clinic, and we went through a series of substitutes until a new one was hired. But these sessions rarely went smoothly. She just didn't seem to click with these other therapists, any of them. She began dreading the sessions, and throwing tantrums that wasted most of the allotted time. Even more worrying was that she seemed to be backsliding -- losing words she'd acquired, and resisting our efforts to get her to talk. Finally, I couldn't justify the expense any more. Financial hardship that leads to improvements is one thing. Financial hardship that seems to actively be doing harm is stupid. I cancelled her standing appointments.

And then the most amazing thing happened: She blossomed. Overnight, it seems. Every day, she talks more and more, and the words are clearer and clearer each time. Not just single words, either, but complete sentences. Grammatically correct ones. It's still a little fuzzy around the edges, but it's speech -- speech that is in many ways more advanced than her peers.

Not that she doesn't still have some issues. Consonant clusters are hard for her: the lk in milk, for instance, and the pl in please. She usually just drops these syllables. But we're working on it. And she's working on it. It still comes as a shock when she comes up to me and starts talking; after all this time, it's incredible for me to finally know what's going on behind those gray eyes of hers. To hear her sweet voice. There is no sound more beautiful than that.

Such a wonderful feeling, to finally have a conversation with my daughter.

Small changes

Lately, my left shoulder has been pins-and-needles numb. The affected area extends from my shoulder blade to my elbow. It's not painful, or even overly bothersome -- just curious. I couldn't figure out at first what could possibly be causing it. Onset was sudden, and no amount of wiggling or massaging it brought relief. It just went to sleep and didn't wake up. It's made me nervous about carrying my daughter; I haven't lost sensation completely, but who's to say I won't?

Eventually, through trial and error plus some judicious Googling, I realized the tingling was the result of leaning on that elbow while I work. Apparently doing so brings on a repetitive stress response. Once I noticed it, I realized I've adopted this posture in front of the computer for years; the recent increase in my working hours called it to my attention.

I tried to fix the issue in the usual way -- changing positions, rearranging my desk, adding a stretch routine. Nothing helped. The minute I let my guard down, I was slouch-leaning again. (Have I mentioned I have horrid posture in front of the computer? It's atrocious. And apparently incurable.)

Then I lowered the left armrest on my chair to the lowest setting. Bingo. It's now far too uncomfortable to lean. I won't say I'm sitting straight, but I'm not resting my body weight on one elbow any more. And while the tingling isn't gone, it's improved. Just in a couple of hours.

Little things can have a large impact. And little changes can bring about huge improvements.