misplaced mama

Sula likes to nurse all the time. All the time. All the time. For hours and hours (literally hours) when it’s time to go to bed. My nipples feel like they have been rubbed against rocky concrete pavement. My nipples feel like they have been sanded with a hardwood floor sander. My nipples feel like they have been plunged. This just started happening. 3 weeks maybe. She has 2 teeth now. I guess that’s why. I dunno. Everytime I carry her in her Ergo or her sling…she must suckle, holding my nipple in her mouth like it’s a fine Cuban cigar, pulling it out and to then to side so she can have good view of everything around her. Bless her, bless her…but it’s startin to get old for scratchy nipple mama.

Sula likes to eat puffed millet and kamut. Well, she likes to play with it and pretend she is eating it. She also likes chunks of pears and bananas. Today she tried to eat her sister’s bagel. She grabbed it and I swear turned her little back to me and tried to hide that she had it while she started to munch. Well, I never…. ! She dispises baby food and I couldn’t blame her. Have you tried mushy peas? Eeeww.

Sula hangs out in Adho-Mukha-Svanasana (downward dog) Surya-Namaskara-Bhujangasana (cobra) and Surya Namaskara (plank). She is also into sitting zazen in virasana (hero pose).

She yells at her papa, her sister and her mama…and anyone else that appears to be stealing a moment of attention or taking away food. Tonight she yelled at our waiter in a total mafiaoso-style . Poor guy, he just came to take clear the plates.

She hits her head on something hard like 10 times a day. She doesn’t seem to see the ledges of tables, or window sills, chair legs or even the wood floor underneath her. I am starting to worry about that little brain in there.

When she nuurses she likes to beat the flesh of my boob like a drum. When she nurses she likes to do some of the yoga poses that I mentioned above.

She hates getting dressed. Arches her back and kicks her legs and pushes me away while she yells at me. Hates it. Screams. Cries. Until I bring her to the mirrow so she can see that I picked out something cute and styly. The she smiles with tears rolling down her cheeks.

She loves to just sit outside and listen to the birds in our yard. Still. It’s the only time she is still. And she stays very still to hear their songs.

Ecstacy and joy and mischeif. Thats what I see in her eyes when she catches a glimpse of her queen, her sister, Mia.

No matter what time she goes to bed…7pm or 10pm. She is up at 6am. Never later. Sometimes earlier. Sigh. At least she wakes up with a big smile, a little dance, loud laughs and lots of hugs.

She thinks it’s appropriate to throw a tantrum when she cannot have something…like food or a shiny knife or my glass of wine. Wonder where she learned that.

She says poo poo. I swear. She puffs her lips up and goes, ‘poo poo’…like she is puffing/blowing air out. She pooped all over the bathroom floor the other day and i kept saying “poo poo poo poo” kind like an owl would day “hoo hoo hoo hoo”. And now she does it all the time. Very cute. Very articulate.

She puked out a whole, green leaf from our orange tree. We were all in the bath and she started to gag. Mia looked worried. “Sula Bear, you okay?” And then out came the fountain of puke, spewing all over Mia and me—poor Mia was so distressed: “My sissy is throwing-up, my sissy is throwing up…get me out mama!!!” After cups of vomit she looked at me and then a small gag later brought up a 3 inch long green leaf. Whole. She smiled when it was all up. Little leaf eater. I guess that’s better than Mia at 9 months. She pooped out a while Ross Dress For Less Price Tag. Whole.

Bill says he heard her say Mama. He’s just trying make me feel good.

She is a warm ball of southwestern comfort every night when I crawl into bed next her. I spoon myself around her little breathing, sleeping self and try to taste the love I feel and store it in some sort of memory-bud.

She is growing so fast. Her hands and fingers and rounding and becoming that chubby little baby reaching for toddler hands and fingers. No more thin nails or daintiness. Her feet are little balls with pink toes all lines in a row. I eat her kness on a regular basis.

Her skin is olive, her hair is a coppery golden (okay, so she doesn’t have a lot, but what’s there is coppery golden). Her eyes are still changing from green to steele gray to earthen brown back to green again.

This is a great age.

Here is Mia, our local raindancer.

The desert sun is beginning to do it’s work. It’s heat is beginning to transform the earth into hard cement, the grass is browning, and the sidewalks around 1pm could very well burn your feet. Yet the breeze is still exsistant and the air has a brilliant chill in the morning when we go out to water the garden. But the sun is hot. Hot. I think it got into the 90’s this week. Yesterday while we were riding to the store, Mia had the back window is down with her hand reaching out, letting the wind tickle her fingers.

“The sun is too bright mama. Tooooo bright. Tooooo hot.”

“I know, Mia. It’s in the desert it gets hot now. It’s going to get hotter and hotter. But we can take it. We’re tough.”

“I have an ideer mama. Mia has a good ideer.”

I peak at her in the rear-view mirrow, waiting for her ideer. She looks at me with her mouth open wide and her eyes are amused and excited. SHe looks like even she can’t believe how smart her idea is.

“Let’s have another raindance! Another one, like with those little feathers and those sticks and the herbs and when Mia had a moon painted on her face. And thunderclaping. And jumping on the mountain. We love sun but Mia likes the rain, too. Can we dance for rain mama? Can we?”

A raindancing monster has been born. I think we’ll do another one this week. Perhaps we will get those nightly monsoons to cool things off this summer afterall. If you live in a hot dry, place, and you have kids and you want that rain to know it’s welcome whenever to cool things off a bit…balance things out…help keep those fires under control…then go outside in your yard and dance for the rain.