Swimmer Arms

I love to watch Phaedra as she crawls to Grant when he first comes home. She does such a turbo crawl that her arms flail out like swimmer arms, making a full circle before returning to the ground with a thump. She's like a little windmill scooting across the floor to him. Plus, it feels as if my girls' excitement when he comes home embodies how I feel without me having to have the energy to jump up and down like they do (because believe me, I don't have the energy).

Phaedra said, "Daddy," loud and clear several times tonight. That's probably the first very clear word she has said with full awareness of to whom it referred. She started out her talking skills babbling, “ma ma ma,” but I don’t know if she ever really thought of it as my title. The close second to being a word she can say is doggie. She started out by saying the “gee” sound excitedly when dogs were around. Since then, she babbles the first of the word, “Dah, dod,” but saying Daddy tonight was the clearest I have ever heard her.

Today (and yesterday, too, I guess) was one of those days. Yesterday, we just got back from a trip to the coast. Grant had to work on homework much of the time, but we still got to spend quite a bit of time as a family. The girls loved having him around. Then, yesterday, we packed and cleaned all morning long and finally got home just in time to grab very late lunch/early dinner with Grant before he had to dash away to his evening class. He came home after the kids were in bed, and he left for his Saturday class before they got up in the morning. Of course, they both woke up about five minutes after he left to ensure that Mommy had no chance of sleeping in.

There’s something Bill Cosby used to always say his dad said to him. “I brought you into this world, kid, I can take you out!” I didn’t actually say that to my kids, and I didn’t actually consider taking them out of this world, but Cosby’s words ran through my head many times as I told myself to breathe and ignore the headache, backache, hunger, exhaustion, or ringing in my ears I may have felt at the time. Oh the tantrums! Oh the screaming (I’d like to be able to say the kids did all the screaming, but I had a few moments too)! Oh the fussiness! Oh the trouble my ten-month-old can get into in a blink of an eye! It was one (well, two) of those days. Now that the kids are in bed and Grant is doing yet more homework, I think I need to go get a bowl of ice cream and try to erase my memory of this entire day except a few of the highlights: swimmer arms, “Daddy,” and Eleanor at swim class. At this point, I can’t exactly say it’s good to be home.

Oh, and one more thing. As the kids were getting ready for bed tonight, Eleanor was in the bathroom next to the laundry room with Grant. Phaedra was trying to get to them but got distracted by the open washing machine. When Grant said, "Phaedra, please don't climb into the washing machine." Eleanor laughed and said, "Daddy, she thinks she is a dirty clothe." That's not a spelling error on my part. She took the word "clothes," and took of the S. It was really cute. I'll try to remember that about today, too.