cindy's world

My parents-in-law told hubby a couple of weeks ago, “Your daughter’s making us feel guilty for not visiting, so we’re driving down to see you guys.” We had both thought they were saying the stepkidlet may have said something to them, but turns out, they meant Allie. I’ve gotten in the habit of posting an Allie pic and having “Allie” wish people happy birthday/anniversary/whatever-the-occasion on the social networking site, and both my father-in-law and mother-in-laws’ bdays were recent. As an example, this is what “Allie” posted for her grandpa on his birthday:

“Why were you hiding behind me on my birthday, grandpa? Does that mean I should go hide behind you today? Happy birthday!”

So, last Friday, they drove all the way down from Vegas just to hang out with us for 2 days before driving back Sunday morning. Saturday morning, we took Allie for her first boat ride on our Lake. It was a chilly foggy morning, but Allie still had fun exploring the party boat.
With grandma and mama.

Mr. W was excited to see these paddleboarders do their early morning yoga on the water.

Allie even got to be captain of the boat for awhile.

Allie points out ducks to grandpa.

As they got ready to leave Sunday morning, they found the time to give their youngest grandchild a little ride on her trike.

Allie: “Hey mama, did you get lots of good photos to guilt grandma and grandpa with for the next year?”
Me: “Shhh, we’re calling these photos ‘memories.’ ”
Allie: “Blackmail material, memories, potato, potahto. You and I know what’s really up.”

It was a fun visit. Grandpa kept remarking throughout the weekend, watching Allie good-naturedly go through her routines, feed herself and cleanly eat all her food and snacks, hang out with us at restaurants, take her naps and go to bed on time without fussing, “I never thought I’d believe in giving a baby set routines, but now I’m a believer. She’s something else! What you’re doing is really working. I’ve never seen a baby behave like this.” Score. Let’s hope we can keep the charade up until and through her “Terrible Twos.” Heh heh.

It’s been super-busy at work, with us being in back-to-back, slightly overlapping trials. We’re a down a couple of trial courts in the building, as with the California budget crisis, the Courts are simply shutting down the courtrooms where the bench officer retired or got transferred. The workload gets distributed to the remaining courtrooms, so that means more trials. For us, that has recently meant more criminal trials, which made me happy. Give me a simple felony any day over people whining about real estate transaction disagreements.

Our current trial and the trial immediately before this one were both gang-related multiple-defendant cases. The previous one was a gang-related murder where the defendant showed up to a friend’s friend’s family BBQ, saw a rival gang member, went to the car, grabbed a gun, returned to the BBQ, and shot the rival gang member point blank. Convicted, sentenced earlier this week to 50-years-to-life in state prison. His co-defendant, a teenage girl at the time who had handed him the gun and pushed him to do the deed, took a plea bargain for 21 years in state prison.

The current trial, in which our jury has just started deliberating, is a gang-related robbery. Four guys formed a “robbery crew” for a gang and they hit up a jewelry store and in less than a minute, walked away with over $100K of gold jewelry. They were only caught because two civilians (separately) who happened to be outside saw the guys pull masks over their faces and run in, then later run back out with guns and jump in their car, and the two called 911 and followed the car giving the dispatcher car, suspect descriptions and locations.

Both trials had gang experts testify as to the habits, tattoos, “jobs,” indicia, lifestyle of gangs.

I’ve had gang cases before, but I must not have been listening or something, because I’ve learned so much from these last 2 trials that I found myself surreptitiously studying the tattoos of people I come across at the beach or wherever, trying to figure out if these were symbolic gang tattoos. And yesterday, because Mr. W and I drove separately instead of our usual carpool commute, I got to listen to my choice of radio music, and Dr. Dre’s “Let Me Ride” came on. It was at first nostalgic to high school, driving around in my ’86 Ford LTD, so different from my life now…and then I recognized “TEC-9” in the lyrics. That was the weapon used and recovered in the robbery case, and I hadn’t known the assault rifle was a “thing” with the gangs. The song went on and Dre rapped about the California Penal Codes 211 (robbery) and 187 (murder), the charges in my last two trials, and he went on to say “I don’t represent no gangbang.” It was in this trial that the defendant, testifying on the stand, said there’s a difference between a “gangbanger” and a “gang member.” I had always thought the two were interchangeable. So now I understand the lyrics better.

Who woulda’ thunk that my job would help me appreciate the music of my high school in a deeper way? My parents should be proud.

Almost exactly 7 years ago to the day, I gave up on a huge 6-inch avocado I’d been coveting for weeks, waiting for it to soften and ripen, and just sawed into it with a plastic utensil knife. It almost broke my knife and wouldn’t slice through, so I had to pry it open. I found the flesh totally hard and rubbery, bitter and inedible. But the white part of the seed had popped out of the brown outer shell, looking like a little brain, so I put it in a cup of water to see what would happen. I documented that here.

The little avocado brain sprouted roots in the cup, then a stem, then leaves. Almost a year later, I realized I couldn’t just have this avocado plant sitting in a plastic cup of water forever, so with some help from my court reporter, we potted it. It became sort of a courtroom mascot, healthy, straight, with very even and regular leaves.

It grew…and grew…and people came to my courtroom to see if it were really true. Did I have an avocado plant growing from the seed that I nurtured myself from “birth?” It was so healthy it was later moved to a bigger pot and couldn’t sit on the corner of my desk anymore. People coming by asked me when we could expect avocado fruit. I didn’t know, so I asked around, and learned that there’s a “female” avocado type and a “male” avocado type, and the two need to cross-pollinate so ideally, the two would be in a grove close together with bees traveling between the two trees’ flowers. I don’t have a grove, so my dad came up with a different solution after asking a botanically-gifted buddy of his: grafting.

In the meantime, Mr. W and I got married in 2008, moved into our new house, brought the little avocado tree (it was a skinny little tree by this time) with us, and eventually planted it into our backyard.

And then 6 more years later, we finally did it! My dad came over on Sunday and did some magic with a sprig of avocado he’d collected from his buddy’s tree and left at our house to acclimate to the environment for a few months. My little avocado tree, now taller than I am and with branches, all sturdy (but still skinny) in the backyard, is no longer a virgin. My reporter and I had always referred to the tree as “he,” since the energy felt like a little boy to us, and as my dad prepared to graft, he observed that there are FINALLY flowers on the tips of the branches/sprigs. The only way to tell male from female types are from the flowers; the female flowers have a small “bud” at the base of the flower and the male does not. The avocado tree is MALE, just like we thought. (Maybe I should name him Riley.)

So now the female branch in its own little pot is bonded to the male branch. Dad is keeping the pot intact to lessen the shock and to increase chances of the branch’s survival. He’ll check back on it in a week but meantime, we were instructed to keep the little branch watered. If the graft “takes,” I guess he’ll trim the grafted part off the plant. I think.

I hope we can get a few avocados out of my plant son before Mr. W makes us move out-of-state.

After Allie woke up from her long nap on Sunday, I thought I’d introduce peanut butter to her, as she’d been eating so well and is now well past the recommended age of 12 months for trying peanuts, a high-allergen food. So for her afternoon snack, I spread some all-natural, no-sugar-added organic peanut butter on a slice of sprouted whole grain bread, and started giving her pieces. She seemed to enjoy it, although she did need to chug a bit of milk during the snack. I didn’t give her the whole slice, and she had the equivalent of maybe a teaspoon of peanut butter, when I decided that was enough fat and carbs for now and switched her to some cut melon. Mr. W winked at Allie, and she in turn clenched both eyes, then put her index finger into her left eye, which Mr. W laughed at, thinking she was trying to wink one eye but unable to do so without some help from her finger. Allie was a few pieces into the melon when she started pulling the melon out of her mouth, refusing to eat any more. She kept digging her fingers and fists into her left eye, which had gotten red, and my attempts to get her to stop just make her fussy. I was observing her closely for peanut allergies, and noted two or three small red bumps appear on her chin. I fed her water, concluded snacktime and asked Mr. W to help clean up her hands and face while I cleared the table and washed her dishes. I noticed her left eye was now swollen, watery and red, but it may have been Allie digging her fingers in there that caused it.

Soon my parents came over for their weekend visit, and Allie’s mood was good as she ran around playing with them. I saw a tiny white bump on her temple, like a bug bite. Soon I noticed another on her cheek, then on her neck. In another half hour, the raised bumps were everywhere I could see skin, surrounded by redness, and Allie was absently scratching her ribs. Mr. W stripped her to check her body, and with horror we saw that the bumps and the red rash were on her neck, torso, back. Her ears were also growing red, as with her cheeks where more bumps had appeared.

I got Allie’s medical card and dialed the number for the advice nurse. While I was lost in the maze of push-button options, my mom noted that Allie’s hands were growing pink and swollen. The rash grew and spread, the pink parts getting pinker. Mr. W bolted out the door to the store for Children’s Benadryl. I had finally gotten through the phone options to be put on hold for a live person, so I put the phone on speaker and set it on the desk, then went to my daughter who was now crying for mama. As soon as I was with her, she was fine, and I made sure she wasn’t having respiratory issues or other signs of discomfort. So far the only symptoms were the bumps, redness, and swelling of hands, feet and ears.

Mr. W soon returned with the Benadryl and I was finally on the line with a live advice nurse after 15 minutes of being on hold. She had me check for signs of fever, lethargy, disorientation, breathing difficulty, oral swelling, behavioral change. They were all negative. She told me I could go ahead and administer 3/4 teaspoons of the Children’s Benadryl to help alleviate the rash but that it could take up to an hour to take effect and it could also make Allie drowsy. Since the bumps had already flattened and all that remained was the pinkness around where the bumps used to be, I decided to let nature run its course instead of drugging Allie unnecessarily. She definitely didn’t seem uncomfortable. When the nurse ended the call, she told me to call back or bring Allie to a doctor if the rash deepens to red or purple with pinhead-sized red dots, and to not feed Allie peanut butter anymore. Of course, not. Never, ever, ever, I vowed, only half-jokingly.

We carried on as normal and about 45 minutes later, I fed her dinner. For Allie’s dessert, I fed her the pieces of the yellow-skinned, white-fleshed melon imported from Brazil that she didn’t finish while having her peanut butter and bread snack earlier. This time she ate it without protest, but a few pieces in, within a minute after she started the melon, her ears flamed red and swelled to the point where the outer ridge was barely discernable, her hands and feet swelled and got pink and hot wrist- and ankle-down, bumps appeared around her neckline with a vengeance, her cheeks flushed. She started digging her fists into her eyes again, rubbing violently. Both eyelids swelled. I immediately pulled her out of the high chair and said to Mr. W, “It’s the melon! It’s the melon!” We fed her water, and Mr. W immediately administered the Benadryl. She sucked on the oral syringe playfully, but as soon as she tasted it she gagged. Some of it dripped out onto her shirt as she whimpered, but the swallowed most of it. We checked her body again, and saw that her entire torso was flushed hot pink down into her diaper area, which we also examined and saw that it looked like she had a diaper rash (altho her skin wasn’t sensitive the way it is when she gets a diaper rash), one that went all the way down to her lower inner thighs nearly to her knees. She was also red behind the knees, inside her elbows, under her arms. Behavior-wise, she again acted indifferent to the changes.

45 minutes to an hour later, Allie was much better and there was only mild pinkness around her cheeks and the areas that sustained the most severe rashes, and her bumps were gone. Allie nursed at bedtime and fell asleep, and slept through the night as usual. Mr. W recalled that the bumps I’d initially noticed on her chin during snacktime had appeared when she took her first bite of the melon and the juice dribbled down her chin, so he also thinks it’s the melon.

“What kind of melon IS that?” people wanted to know when I relayed the story. I don’t know; it was something we bought in an international grocery market Friday evening and all the sticker label said was “melon” and that it was imported from Brazil, and that it was ready to eat and delicious. The flesh inside was similar to that of honeydew, but whiter and less sweet. The yellow-skinned melon she had twice on Saturday without issue, but the third time on Sunday she reacted within half an hour, and the 4th (and last) time, within a minute. Crazy! I should’ve followed the 3-day rule when I introduced this melon, but because she’s never had a food allergy problem before, and also because has eaten similar melons (honeydew and cantaloupe even the day before) without issue, I really thought it’d be fine. So now even though we suspect the melon, I guess I don’t know that it wasn’t somehow peanut-related as well or in addition.

I’ll try the skin-contact allergy test at some point, I suppose. I feel bad doing it so soon after her reaction, so maybe I’ll wait a few more days, then rub some melon on her skin and see if there’s an eruption. And maybe a month later, I’ll rub some peanut butter on her skin. We’re hoping it’s the melon and not peanut butter, because it’s certainly easier to avoid exotic melons than to avoid peanuts, peanut oil, peanut butter, etc. *sigh*

Allie had the typical Southern Californian weekend for most of the weekend. Mr. W had ordered a new bicycle hitch rack for the car (I think it’s a Thule) and had been itching to try it, so on Saturday morning, we drove out to the historical old town district in San Juan Capistrano, Mr. W hitched the covered kiddie trailer to his bike, and we rode along a riverbed bike path a few miles to Capistrano Beach.

It’s a pretty beach that was relatively empty at 9am, except for a 5K race going on behind us. The beach even set up a handicap access to the water’s edge.

Allie plopped herself in the sand and immediately started the now-familiar process of shoveling sand into her little bucket.

Allie had so much fun frolicking…

…and climbing…

…that she didn’t want to leave.

She was eventually cooperative when we strapped her back in her trailer for the ride back to San Juan Capistrano.

We had brunch at Sarducci’s, and on the way back to the car, Allie got to play on a playground at the park, and even got to go bouldering! She loves to climb. She’s not very good at it, yet, but she always makes the attempt.

We got home in time for Allie’s noon nap, then went to a local park and playground to let her play with other kids. Allie gravitates toward any ball and most of the kids’ parents are generous about sharing. Her daddy helped her climb more playground toys, go down slides (she now does it on her own as long as I’m at the bottom to catch if needed), pushed her on swings, and she loves steering wheels and picking up handfuls of sand to help other kids build their castles or fill their buckets. One young boy was climbing a high kids’ rock wall and made sure he called his mom or dad over before climbing each time, announcing in a well-trained manner that he will never climb without an adult present to watch him in case he falls. Something to remember when Allie’s old enough to do the same.

On Sunday morning, we took advantage of our annual pass and Allie’s current under 2 age and hit up Disneyland again. With the time difference, I woke up later than I’d wanted so we got to Disneyland at 8:30a, half an hour after it opened. But it was still enough time to tire her out, which was the goal, so that she could take her noon nap an hour early under the new time. Allie got to explore Toon Town.

She knocked on doors and rang doorbells to see what special effects are in place.

She got to drive me around on a firetruck.

She met some of the residents of Toon Town.

She accidentally drove into the mailbox of a resident.

Allie: “I’m sorry I crashed into your mailbox, Mr. Goofy.”
Goofy: “It’s okay, it’s nice meeting you anyway. I’ll see you in court.”

Allie tried to hire the firm of Chip & Dale to represent her, but no one was in, so she settled down to wait by their mail box.

Since neither Chip nor Dale showed up, she first tried hiding behind a ladder. But she remained highly visible.

She finally got the great idea that she’ll just disappear. She hid among the shipments bound for the next train.

Success! We made it home, Allie had lunch in the car on the way, and right around noon, Allie hit her nap on time and slept over 3 hours. She woke up for a whole different new adventure, one that wasn’t as fun… see the next post.

In 2010, I got this photo taken at Disneyland near the Pooh ride, and in jest, I captioned it “Me and my honey.”

Between then and now, 3 years later, some things changed, including they honey jar props. Here’s in the updated 2013 version of “Me and my honey.”

Allie’s started playing peek-a-boo while eating. It (unfortunately) goes like this:

Allie: *grabbing steamed carrots or a skinned orange wedge*
Allie: *bringing it to her eyes*
Allie: *smearing it on her eyelids and forehead while covering eyes with hands*
Allie: PEEK!

Often it goes into her hair as well, and she ends up looking like a certain scene from “Something About Mary.”

We’ve had more park time, lake time and Disneyland time recently. This one-nap thing is great. Here are some favorite photos.
Saturday, 2/23 at our Lake:
A princess needs her castle, but Allie destroys them as quickly as her daddy makes them.

The little digger experiences wet sand for the first time.

Sunday, 2/24 at Disneyland:
The weather was forecasted to be warm, but we neglected to think about what it’d be like from 8a-11:30p (before her nap), so Allie ended up underdressed in her long-sleeved onesie, dress and leggings.

So we HAD to get her a jacket. A Disney Princess jacket. One with enough room to grow in.

Even tho we rode on the Monorail, Finding Nemo Submarine ride, Storybook Land boat ride, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean, Allie was the most excited on the Disneyland Train. She’s learned to wave at all the people passing on the trains, stagecoaches, and rides (because people at Disneyland wave back), so she was happy to be on one. Unfortunately, after sitting idle for awhile, an announcement was made that the train would not be leaving the station after all due to injury to the conductor. Mr. W somehow learned the guy had a heart attack. So we got off. Allie was very patient and very good about having not gone anywhere, as well.

Saturday, 3/2 at Sycamore Park:
We met up with my parents for breakfast at Julie’s Cafe near their house (which service was so lacking it caused me to write a rare review on Yelp about it), then my parents suggested we go to Sycamore Park a couple of miles away.

That park contained the most intricate playground I’d ever seen, with multiple tiers of bridges and paths with play activities up and down and all over. Allie was still a little young for much of it, but she got some help from Daddy.

There are lots of surprises around the corners, such as this slanted, protruding window.

Daddy was suddenly very intensely busy for a long time. Turned out this is what he was doing…

We did find a separate toddler section, where a little girl 3-year-old was running around. Allie happily went up and said “hi,” then hugged the girl, who hugged back, then the two played together for a bit, but I didn’t photograph them in case the girl’s mom had an objection to a stranger getting a photo of her kid. So here’s daddy playing with her again.

Later that Saturday afternoon, we hit the Lake again, where Allie and her daddy were busy as crabs.

Allie had fun bringing her little bucket to the lake’s edge to fetch water for her daddy so that he could make castles for her again, although she had too much fun shaking the bucket on her way back that she spilled all the water, twice. Plus, there was a girl around 5 who settled down to build sandcastles a couple of feet from where we had set up and the girl kept panicking and freaking out anytime Allie walked in her direction, blocking her sand mounds and yelling “NO! NO! NO!”, even when Allie was just trying to get to the lake behind her, and it annoyed me, so we eventually went to play at the playground there instead. There were much friendlier and less spazzy kids at the playground and Allie made some friends. (Even that girl’s mom kept saying, “Sunshine! Stop that, it’s okay!”)

Sunday, 3/3, at Disneyland:
Yup, we hit up Disneyland again on Sunday morning, to get on rides we didn’t get to the week before. Small World finally opened up after being down for months for renovation. Allie loved it and now anytime we hum or sing “It’s a Small World,” she will bring up her hands and snap her fingers while bobbing her upper body or head left to right in time to the music. The ride was too dark for photos without flash, which was not allowed. We also went on the Alice in Wonderland ride, and on the way out, Allie thought she’d visit the Mr. White Rabbit’s house, which was just her size.

Me: Hey Allie, wanna ride the spinny teacups? It was one of mama’s favorites!
Allie: Seriously?

Allie: I’m outa here.

Thanks to the stepkidlet who is a multi-year premium passholder, we found the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride way in the back corner of New Orleans Square, which featured Pooh characters being carried away by balloons, balloons for Pooh’s birthday party, balloons everywhere. Allie was very happy to point out all the “bbbloon, bbbloon, bbbloon!”s to us. Outside the ride, we saw some of Pooh’s sweet props and we couldn’t resist.

Allie: Mom. Seriously. This is getting ridiculous.

The flying Dumbo ride got a “meh” rating from her.

Hubby passes on his shotgun know-how.

The littlest chauffeur in all of California Adventure. Hopefully, she doesn’t learn her driving skills from her daddy, or it will be Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride all over again.

Mr. W: Did you have fun this week?
Allie: It was acceptable, dada.

This little girl is 15 months old today.

The peach fuzz is getting longer, but even dressed like this at Schabarum Park last weekend, some older lady asked my mom whether Allie’s a boy or girl. My mom was SO offended. I guess unless a baby has long hair, people will think she’s a boy.

Allie’s main source of recreation these days are walks or trips to the park. When I took her myself last weekend, I was surprised how many people knew her (“Is that Allie? Oh, I didn’t recognize you in that hat!”) and how well she played with other kids. She even knew what sand toys were as she picked up some other kid’s rake and started clawing lines into the sand, then put the spade in the kid’s bucket a few times, imitating the sand-scooping action (she doesn’t have the coordination for actual sand transfer down, yet). I was also pleased how well the kids at the park shared their toys and played together.

She loves kids, and when she sees anyone under the age of 13, she’d point and say, “Baby!” This offends the age-sensitive 6-year-olds, but I thought it was funny when another toddler at Costco pointed at Allie and did the same thing. Allie looked a little stunned. Allie will walk up to any kid and make serious eye contact, and try to touch the kid’s hand, cheek, or sometimes foot if the other kid’s sitting in a stroller. It’s very sweet how she doesn’t have any inkling of possible rejection, or any insecurity about walking into a bad situation. At the park, she’ll just go. She doesn’t turn to see if we’re following. And as much as she now loves to play with the sand, she still loves the swing. She’ll slide if she’s sitting on one of our laps.

Still only has 15 teeth, still missing the lower right molar. But that’s okay, she eats raw apple slices (skinned and cored) by crunching the pieces between her front teeth or her left side. Allie still isn’t what I’d call picky with food, but she’s starting to see the entertainment value of food now, much to our chagrin. When the edge of hunger is relieved, she’ll start pulling food out of her mouth to examine it, test its texture by squishing it between her fingers and smearing it on her tray. Sometimes she’d flick it and it’d go flying. If it lands anywhere on her tray, she will pick it up again and eat it, but it does slow down the whole meal process quite significantly. Stuff like oranges also gets very, very messy. With edamame, she likes to put it on the tray, push her index finger down on it until the bean comes out of the skin. Then she’ll eat the skin, then separate the two halves of the bean, then push them around on her tray like little cars. And then when the bean’s nice and cold and dirty, she’ll offer it to me. Sometimes I let her feed me some because she finds it so gratifying. Since she’s napping, I made her a big pot of pasta to freeze for future servings. It’s chopped organic veggies (broccoli stalks, carrots, kale, fennel) with a quinoa/corn pasta spiral in roasted tomato and red pepper bisque (low sodium, of course). I thought about how my dream for this kid is to have her one day say, “Ooh! Kale and fennel! Yummy!” instead of what I’d seen other kids do: “What is THAT? *sniffing suspiciously* It smells disgusting. *poking with a fork* Ew.” Okay, maybe the first scenario isn’t entirely realistic, but if the second one happens, I’d kick her ass.

Allie imitates sounds but doesn’t seem to have added many words to her spoken vocabulary lately. But she’ll hum, sing “la la la” and snap her fingers when she hears music or someone else singing.

Her focus, as it seems to have always been, is still on motor skills. Earlier this week, Mr. W left Allie in the living room (which has basically been turned into her fenced-off playroom) for a moment and when he returned, she was sitting on the couch. Tall babies. *sigh* This makes me very nervous about her crib situation.

Her one mid-day nap is going pretty well. Her latency period is shorter these days, probably because she’s more tired by the time she goes to bed. Now she’ll fall asleep in 10-15 minutes (sometimes less) instead of 45. Her noon naps are still approximately 2 hours, longer with me, sometimes shorter with Jayne.

We’re not potty training, exactly, but since my parents bought her a Disney princess potty for Christmas (my mom thinks I should’ve potty trained her before she turned a year), we pulled it out and put it in her bathroom when we noticed that if she ran around with her diaper off before her bath, she will always stand by the side of the bathtub and pee on the floor. She must then have some control/awareness of it, right? Allie was at first scared of the chair with the big hole in the middle she could fall in, but now we let her sit on it and make the magical flushing sound with the plastic gemstone handle, and altho she hasn’t peed in it, yet, and I don’t know how to tell her it’s for peeing, she now enjoys sitting on her “throne” during bathroom time. We placed it across from the adult toilet so that I’ll sit on the toilet to show her what it’s for (pretending), and she’ll turn her back to her little toilet, put her hands on my knees, slowly back up and keep checking to see the toilet by bending and looking between her legs, then lower herself onto the toilet by steadying herself with her hands on my knees. Then she’d sit there looking up at me with a big smile, as if to say, “This is fun! I’m sitting down, too!”

Re bathroom time, I can’t get her to clamp her teeth and open her lips so that I could brush the front of her teeth. She’ll do the “aaah” thing and let me brush her tongue, but I can’t get the toothbrush to the front surfaces without her pushing away. Something to work on.

Meanwhile, the days march on with lots of laughter and discovery.

Judge: Any big plans this weekend?
Me: There’s no such thing anymore.
Judge: Little plans for little people.
Me: Exactly. Altho we might try to go to Disneyland Sunday morning.
Judge: Do you have passes?
Me: Yeah, we just got passes.
Judge: They’re kind of pricey, aren’t they? That’s what I heard.
Me: It was like $350 for the lower-level pass.
Judge: Holy toledo! You used to be able to get a good car for that price.
Me: …when?!
Judge: Back in the day, kiddo. Back in the day.

* Can anyone identify the source?

Yesterday, I found herself where I’d never expected to be: on Team Meddling Moms in a public place trying to protect a strange toddler from an even stranger mom intent on creating a traumatic memory for the little terrified girl.

Mr. W and I took Allie to a large chain retail store to buy baby wipes and sand toys (bucket, spade, etc). While there, we heard a kid wail. That’s nothing new, and we moved on. The wailing continued. I turned, and saw a little toddler girl at the end of our aisle turning slowly in a circle, looking around, crying. Other women had paused and were looking at her, talking to each other. I thought that surely, with her crying that loudly, the mom would find her little girl. She was way too young to be far from her mom. Other moms watching must’ve been thinking the same thing, because people just kind of stood around, keeping an eye on the girl, and waited. Mr. W started pushing Allie away in the shopping cart, and I started to follow, both of us looking back toward the girl, still wandering, still sobbing. “Go take care of that,” he shooed me.

I walked up to the girl, knelt down, and said, “Are you looking for your mommy?” She nodded, crying so hard she couldn’t talk. I decided to take her to the front so I could ask a cashier or the customer service people to make an announcement on the intercom. She looked so bewildered that I just picked her up. She quieted down, although she was still sobbing quietly. “What’s your mommy’s name?” I asked her. She didn’t answer. I asked again, wondering if she didn’t understand English, although I didn’t know enough Spanish to try that. One of the other women who had stopped asked me what I was going to do. I said I was bringing her to the front to have her mom paged on intercom.

Halfway down that section, a woman approached me and said, “Oh, she’s just –” and waved her hand dismissively.
I looked at her without understanding. “I’m sorry?”
“She’s just –” She gestured again, kind of rolling her eyes, as if to say the girl was acting up for no reason.
“Is this your daughter?” I asked.
“Yes.” The woman made no attempt to take the girl from me, and I looked at the girl dubiously, who also made no attempt to reach for the woman. Unsure of what to do, I put the girl down, and she was quiet now, and followed the woman, so I walked away. I noticed when I returned to my aisle that the women who had been watching were STILL watching, and heard the girl start wailing again. Since I had turned into my aisle and couldn’t see what was happening, the older woman who’d asked me what I was planning to do with the girl said to me, “She’s just telling her, ‘Go, go away, I don’t want you with me.’ She’s waving the girl off.”
I frowned. “What? Why would she do that?” The wailing was sounding hysterical again.
“She’s still doing it,” the woman said, watching something out of my view. “She’s saying, ‘Go away, go.'” The woman imitated the gesture of lifting her arm forward and making a shooing motion with her wrist, pointing away from herself. “She keeps walking away from the little girl.” I looked, and the little girl was once again walking by herself, turning in circles, looking bewildered, wailing. The older woman beelined for the mom. “I’m going to say something to her. This is really making me mad.” I couldn’t see the confrontation, but I watched other women still standing as spectators and gawking. The older woman eventually came back, found me, and said that the mom put the girl in her shopping cart now. “She didn’t want to do it, but she did.” Everything was quiet now.
“Why would she want to do this to her daughter here? The girl’s, what, three?”
“I wouldn’t say she’s even that old. Two, maybe.” Geez.
“I’m glad you said something,” I told her.

I later saw the mom pushing her shopping cart with the now calm toddler in the basket. There was an older girl also there, teen or just pre-teen. I feel like maybe the mom felt like she was punishing the toddler, who maybe didn’t to follow or didn’t want to hold her hand or something, so the mom was doing the overly-dramatic, “Fine then, if you don’t want to be by me, then go away.” She probably thinks she’s teaching the girl a lesson, or she’s immaturely retaliating against the girl’s uncooperation, but I don’t believe this kind of parenting is effective. At this age, the girl’s just terrified and unsure of what to do with her mother, her perceived lifeline, rejecting her and withholding love and security from her. The toddler followed because she didn’t know what else to do, was afraid to approach too closely because she was being continuously rejected, and cried because she was and felt lost. Flashback to me following my mom doing the exact same thing, crying, at one point on my knees begging for forgiveness and even kowtowing and swearing I loved her as my mom either turned her back or looked way coldly, and my sick fear of abandonment. Many times I’ve chased after her as she told me to go away, begging her to take me with her. I must’ve been between ages 4-6, way older than this girl. I wonder if the little girl at the store will remember this, too.

When I returned to Allie, she was quiet and had been observing, wide-eyed. She had seen the crying girl first, before the girl had gotten that hysterical, and had pointed the girl out to me, saying, “Baby.” I kissed my little girl on her fuzzy head, and hoped that she would always be this happy and secure.