So how’s this for an encouraging statement from the pediatrician:

“Yeah, its looking like you are going to have to get that verbal discipline thing down pretty quicklike. At this rate, she is going to be able to take you down by the time she’s 5.”

Nice.

It has really taken me a long time to realize that physically, Stella really is larger than your average 18-month-old. As of yesterday’s weigh-in she is tipping the scales at roughly 30 lbs and towering at close to 3 feet. I just don’t pay attention to it that much. I see her around other kids, but never really compare her to them, I am too busy enjoying that fact that I am not the one having to entertain her. The part that is so deceiving is that, overall, she is pretty well proportioned. Aside from her cute little buddha-belly, she is a lean ball of muscle. [You can thank your daddy and his genes for this, Stella. Just be thankful Mommy didn’t pass on her Flinstone gene to you.]

Aside from the usual recording of stats, and administering of a lovely tetanus shot, we spent the majority of the visit discussing a certain someone’s ‘volatile nature’. I sheepishly admitted that I brought Stella in to see one of the other doctors a month or so back when it all started, thinking that there was actually something physically wrong. There had to be. How could she have gone from precious to goblin in one day? So, she diligently checked Stella’s ears, poked the usual spots, asked the obvious questions: “Is she teething? Sleeping okay? Any major changes in the household?” Aside from the fact that our entire house was currently turned inside out (literally), there was nothing else out of the ordinary I could think of that would cause my otherwise easy-going kid to turn into a demon overnight. By the end, all she could write down as diagnosis was ‘Tantrums, Teething’. I told her how much I appreciated that she at least added that ‘teething’ part so I didn’t look like a complete idiot. Great. So it is just who she is now.

In my conversations with Stella’s regular pediatrician she (a new mother herself) was supportive and empathetic (one of the reasons I adore her), and confirmed that our approach was good: distract her, walk away from her, have that 3rd glass of wine . It’s all okay. Really. Then she said something that totally made me laugh.

“Don’t worry about long explanations and reasoning right now. You can just use caveman speak to get the point across in a basic way.”

“Oh, you mean my husband’s approach of pointing out an item, explaining it’s scientific name, origin, its use in both ancient and current society and whether or not she can eat it isn’t necessary at 18-months?”

I think it took her a second to realize I wasn’t kidding. That this is Stella’s reality. She won’t just learn the word fan. She will also learn about angular velocity. She won’t just learn how to point out about a ladybug, she’ll learn that they are important because they eat aphids. She won’t just be able to point out the microwave, she’ll be told how the microwave actually heats the water in the food and, subsequently, about the process of heat transfer. She will not only be able to point out an animal, but identify whether or not we eat it (like when she points to a cow and says YUMMY!)

“So unless, caveman-speak is anything like nerd-speak, I don’t know if that will work in our house.”

Sorry Stella, you have no chance for normalcy. Embrace it. You have no other choice.

Okay, so here’s the thing — I am all about personal responsibility. It irks me to no end when people play the victim-blame-game and can’t fess up to the reality that they are, in essence, the master of their own destiny. Own it.

Me, owning it.

Let’s take for example yesterday afternoon when I made a really poor choice. Stella and I were playing a game of peek-a-boo in her room — she in her crib, me on the floor, and Steve diligently Swiffering the loveliness that his our new wood flooring (hence the need to keep her contained). It was at this moment that I had two choices: 1) ask Stella if she can climb out of her crib, 2) don’t ask Stella if she can climb out of her crib. I’ll give you one guess which choice I made.

Yup, with no help or guidance from yours truly, she simply hiked her leg up and swung it over as if she were going to do one of those big spins on the monkey bars. She then hoisted the entirety of her body up so that she was then straddling the railing. Then, using her ninja-like precision, she gracefully maneuvered her body until she was parallel to the mattress — balancing lengthwise on the rail. With a concentrated look, and muscle control that rivals an olympic gymnast, she then proceeded to scootch herself down towards the floor.

And what was I doing this entire time? I stood there, agog at the simplicity of it all. It was like she had been working with a trainer on the side, waiting for this exact moment when I would challenge her to such a task. How’s that for a mother-daughter connection? She knows that it is only a matter of time before I do something as stupid as asking her child if she can climb out of her crib!

So guess what everybody? Stella now knows how to climb out of her crib. Who do we have to thank? Right again!

This morning when we went in to get her we had the usual chit-chat with her about water, poop, blue, goggy (doggy), and then I said to her, “Are you ready to get up Stella?” She replied, “Yeah,” and proceeded to hike her leg up over the side of the crib…

Last weekend, while we were in Ukiah for Shannon’s birthday, Steve took Stella on the mother of all field trips. It was the Sunday morning after the party and, as the sun started peeking through the blinds, I heard the usual early morning commotion. When I asked Steve what time it was, he replied with a simple “You don’t want to know,” and handed me some aspirin and a tall glass of water…for my…sore muscles.

The next thing I know, I am hearing the pitter patter that I instantly recognize as Stella’s straigh-legged-no-upper-body-movement-except-her-head-bobbing-up-and-down running style. I roust only to find her running around the expanse that is Shannon & Ryan’s property. She quickly came running up to me wearing — wait for it — her fleece footed pajamas with her Teva sandals — on the outside! (This is one of those moments that is making me realize that I need to have my camera at my hip at all times.) So, she is babbling in her Stella-speak something about “payyyyyy” and holding a rubber ball fashioned as a globe. I instantly began to realize that a lifetime had passed during those few short hours of slumber.

With Steve’s help, Stella goes on to tell me the story of how they got to go to go to the land of low priced enchantment that is known as WALMART (i.e. the only retail establishment actually open at 6:00 am on a Sunday), and got to buy “EhmoEhmoEhmo” (for those of you who don’t speak ‘Stella’, that is Elmo). So as the story continues to unfold I realize that “payyyyy” is actually pancakes and that before he even has to tell me, I know exactly where the story is headed.

Me: “Duuuude, don’t tell me you actually took her to McDonalds!”

Steve: “Well yeah, and I had to ask the lady at WalMart where it was.”

Me: “So let me get this straight. You took our daughter to WalMart, in her pajamas, with sandals over them, at 6:00am on a Sunday morning, while her mother was at home sleeping off one too many glasses of wine, then proceeded to McDonalds where you bought her the toxic troika of pancakes, sausage and hash browns?”

Steve: “Yeah, and she ate the entire hash brown all by herself.”

Me: “You do realize that, in the period of a couple of hours, we have just become the people we make a sport out of mocking?”

Steve: “Yeah, but can their kids do this? Hey, Stella, where is Antarctica?”

Stella proceeds to spin the globe in her hands until the blue blob of Antarctica is side-up and says, “actica.”

Me: “I give up.”