Oh God, I think she ate poo …

That’s right, if the baseball style black streak under her eye is what I think it is, combined with her clean hands, I think The Hurricane had a taste of poo when ‘napping’ this afternoon.

(I’m on holidays this week, so that’s why I’m home in the middle of the day seeing but not believing all this)

The Hurricane naps for everybody but me. What she does when I’m in charge is play in her crib for an hour, then jump up and down, and then drop a huge deuce in her drawers.

Like clockwork.

Today, the jumping started halfway through my sandwich, so I chose to finish eating. Big mistake. Five minutes later, when I went into her room knowing the unmistakble reek of naptime poo, combined with baseboard heater, would greet me upon opening the door, I noticed something under her right eye. It was a black streak, running from about mid-eye and down towards her earlobe.

Being dim-witted, it took me a minute to fit 2-and-2 together, but eventually I realized there was shit on The Hurricane’s face. I grabbed her hands to see if she was covered in it, only to realize they were mostly clean, with only a few traces of poo on them.

And, other than the back of her diaper, where else do her hands spend most of their time? In her mouth, of course.

Again, some math was required for me to piece these facts together, but I’m pretty sure she stuck her hands down her diaper, pulled out a few fingers of poo, marked up her face like the crazy kids from Lord of the Pigs, and then cleaned herself up like any self-respecting 19-month-old would.

I asked her if that’s what she did, and, to her credit, she fessed up.

Then I asked her if she wanted some milk to wash her snack down with and there wasn’t much hesitation with that head nod.

No wonder she still won’t go to sleep, an hour later. I might have insomnia tonight too, knowing what happened in the room down the hall.

Dada has left the building

I went into last weekend as a Dada.

I left as a full blown Daddy.

No, I didn’t have to make a religious pilgrimage into a forest with nothing but a jacknife and a piece of rope, hoping to come out 10 days later a different man.

I just had to listen carefully to The Hurricane when she called my name. Although I wasn’t the first to pick it up – The Boss listened to Ace of Base instead of Guns ‘n Roses in her childhood, so her hearing is better than mine – sometime on Sunday the little one made the move from baby to toddler by declaring the days of ‘Dada’ over, ushering in the days of calling me ‘Daddy’.

And oh my God, it is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Pees Daddy wawa.” (Please Daddy, water)

“Daddy potty.” (Daddy dropped a bomb)

“Daaaaaaadeeeeeee.” (Hey old man, I want you to pay attention to me)

“Daddy high.” (No, I’m not actually high, it means let’s hide under a blanket and tease the dog until she jumps all over us)

The list goes on and on. And, what’s shocking is that at 19-months-old that just scratches the surface of her vocabulary. The Boss signed me up for some parent website about, oh, 20 months ago, and every week it sends me an e-mail with tips and hints and things to watch for with my kid. Yesterday’s e-mail said a 19-month and three-week old should be able to say 10 to 50 words. The Hurricane easily has over 100 – hell she can rhyme off 50 words from just one picture book. In fact, last night when watching Baby Einstein Shapes (which she calls Baby Shay) she turned around in her chair, looked at The Boss and said, “Oval.”

Clear as day.

Oval.

Some words only those closest to her can make out, but it’s still pretty amazing. I’m sure I’ll start a list sometime for the baby book, or to carry around in my wallet to bore amaze people with, because it seems like she knows too much for someone her age.

Her expanding knowledge is great and it’s scary as hell, because not only is she poised to pass me by any day, it also means she’s getting big, and I’m not sure I like that.

* update – I also noticed at supper last night that ‘choo choo’ (which was one of her first non-parental words, along with apple and baby) has been replaced firmly by ‘train’. So now when we hear action on the tracks about a mile from our house, the whistles will no longer be accompanied by a surprised ‘choo choo’, but a matter of fact ‘train’. She’s such a big girl (and it kills me).

Ahhhhhh, Wipeout

The Hurricane had her first major wipeout last night, and the tears were still flowin’ when I walked in the door after work.

Her Nana and Papa Farm got her a great table and chair set for Christmas, but she still has problem sliding off the hard plastic seat. When she wiggles her way to the end of the chair she can’t quite get her butt off before the legs kick out and she and the chair go skidding across the hardwood laminate flooring.

I guess last night, the position of the chair was in a bad spot and when the inevitable kick occurred, it sent The Hurricane headfirst into the toy box, a cheap chest made of a woven wood but with a fairly solid frame.

By the look of the blood on her chin, I think that’s what made contact with the toy box, although she said her teeth were sore and she kept her finger in there for a while, not letting Mom a peek for a few minutes. Luckily, all the pearly whites are still intact and standing where they’re supposed to.

So, after a bout of hugs with Mom, which I walked into the middle of, and then a quick hug and kiss from me, she was back in action, jumping on our bed (I know, we learn so quickly), then hiding under the covers, finished off with a bout of ripping around the house.

So we all survived her first big fall. Hopefully there’s no more of them, and if there are (duh), we’ll just hope for the same result.

Because kisses are the best way to heal wounds.

The morning after ... still milkin' it

A million dollar arm

I am not going to be one of those parents.

You know, the parents in the stands at their kid’s sporting events yelling and screaming and carrying on over what, in the grand scheme of things, is a meaningless recreational activity.

This isn’t easy for me to say, because I’m an athlete. Maybe not a good athlete, but someone who loves sport, and winning, and being competitive, and working hard at all times when playing the games we love.

But I refuse to go down the road that so many parents do and begin living vicariously through my child’s sporting exploits. The Old Man didn’t do it with me — either because I wasn’t good enough at anything, despite many championships that prove otherwise (damn, I was going for humble there …), but more likely because he was smart enough to know I wasn’t going to play in The Show.

So, like many things in life, I’m going to try to follow The Old Man’s lead when it comes to The Hurricane’s participation in sport — a more than willing coach, tireless practice partner, advice giver, chin-picker-upper, and strategizer — but I’m not going to start pushing her to become the first female pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Believe me, this is a big statement for me, because this chick has a million dollar arm.

Wait, that’s a dated saying. She has a billion dollar arm.

Although we don’t encourage her to throw things around the house, we do let her chuck The Mutt’s toys, because otherwise she hits the poor dog on the nose repeatedly, before one of them tires of the game. So, yeah, fire away kiddo, before you cause even more brain damage to the long-haired black thing you already torture at every turn.

But over the past couple of days I’ve really noticed The Hurricane’s developing form, when throwing items. Gone is the noodle arm and wrist flick that results in a throw that might go two feet ahead, three feet to the side or even a foot behind her. That’s so what’s expected of an 18-month-old.

But, with yesterday being her 19-month birthday, she has suddenly developed a cannon. She’s throwing rubber ducks clear across the living room and bouncing them off the window, while The Mutt looks stunned and The Boss dives for cover.

Last night, she hit me in the upper arm with the same duck when she popped up from behind the bed in the spare room, while I pretended not to see her because there were no lights on in the room. I totally could see her, but I didn’t see the rifle action of her throwing arm coming, until after I took the blow.

There was velocity. There was aim. And, of course, there was laughter. And still I managed to stamp out visions of The Hurricane in a Toronto Blue Jays uniform shaking off the catcher’s call for a curve when everyone in the park knows the punk at the plate can’t catch up to her 100 mile per hour heater.

So my kid officially has a lightning bolt for an arm. She’s like Nick Laloosh (Tim Robbins in Bull Durham for those who haven’t seen the greatest baseball movie of all time), with her million dollar arm, but hopefully only her Daddy has the 10 cent head.

So I’m not going to be that parent — no way, no how — but Daddy’s Little Superstar is already making it tough on me.

A girl, a flashlight and a dog

The Hurricane has known for some time that The Mutt chases light.

Reflections, flashlights, shadows — anything that moves on a wall.

So when The Hurricane got a hold of a flashlight, well …

Jumping in with both feet

As we age we have fewer and fewer ‘firsts’.

In fact, it’s a rare occasion when we divert ourselves from the day-to-day monotony of adulthood to explore new areas, try new foods, or take part in new activities.

As adults, we’re just too busy going to work, picking little ones up from daycare, getting supper on the table, and finding time to play with the kids before jettisoning them off to bed, before crashing on the couch for an hour or two.

When you have kids, it’s a Monday to Sunday routine, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, just being in the same house as The Hurricane on a daily basis is all I need to keep me going.

But there are times where I long for an adventure, something completely new and exhilarating, something I can look back on in a few years and say, ‘Wow, that was really awesome’.

I guess the last time I had that feeling was in 2004/05, as The Boss and I backpacked across New Zealand and Australia, after quitting our jobs and selling our house in Alberta and moving back to Ontario with no plans except a whirlwind trip around parts of the world The Boss had always wanted to see. Luckily, she convinced me over a year or so that I wanted to quit my job, leave the security of a company I had a good future in, and become a backpacker too.

Since we were the most senior of rookies on the backpacking tour — I turned 25 early into our journey, while The Boss turned 24 a day or two before we left — and we were the only married backpackers we met (tourists aren’t the same), we soaked in as much of the experience as we could, knowing full well it would be our one and only chance for such a carefree life, unlike the 18- to 21-year-olds, who said they’d see the Great Barrier Reef “next time”. Sha. Right.

But the experience that still sticks out in my mind the most, even after all this time, is skydiving in Taupo, New Zealand, with the mountain used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a backdrop. I’d love to say I was first in line, ready to be strapped to my dive partner, and eager to feel the wind on my face. Instead, I was the pussy who hoped he was too far over the 190 lb. weight limit (they made an exception for my 10 or 12 extra pounds), then paced the building like a man in a maternity ward in the 1950’s (I don’t know what that means), and finally only signed with shaky hand after an ecstatic 70-something woman came running in off the tarmac after her successful jump and The Boss looked at me with those “What, are you gonna let some Grandma outdo you?” eyes.

The flight up was nice — great scenery that Taupo — although the benches that slanted towards the open door were a bit unnerving. Then people started to disappear. They were actually jumping out of the goddamned plane! As people in front of me dropped to what I assumed was their sure death, my partner began pushing me towards that gaping door. Although I dug my heels in like a cowboy dragging behind a roped steer, I was no match for this experienced skydiver. We got to the door, he sat me down on the edge and my feet dangled into oblivion. I looked down at Lake Taupo below and, in hindsight, it was beautiful, but at the time, I think I pooped a little.

Then he forced my head back onto his shoulder (to avoid my head snapping back and knocking him out) and we fell into nothing.

You lose your breath, y’know, those first five or 10 seconds. But when it comes back, and you are weightless and screaming towards the earth at 1,000 miles an hour, and your mind is racing but not with fear but pure glee — giddiness even — it is an unexplainable feeling.

Then the parachute gets pulled, your nuts get ripped up into your throat, and you begin your slow descent towards the earth, whooping and screaming and telling your partner he has the greatest fuckin’ job on earth about 200 times, and taking in the breathtaking scenery, and realizing that you have just experienced the most amazing minute of your entire life.

After landing, and being freed from my abductor, I ran towards The Boss, who was the last to land. We hugged and jumped and screamed and talked over each other, because neither of us could form a complete thought, but we had so much to say.

The reason I’m reflecting on this today is because The Hurricane has discovered the 18-month-old’s version of free falling — the two-footed jump. Last night, instead of skipping around in a circle, she was getting full air. Bending both her knees and jumping.

Now, she’s not ready for the NBA just yet, but there was definitely daylight underneath those feet, and, judging by the smiles and screams of delight coming from her, my best guess is she was sharing the experience I had in 2004.

It may seem like the two are unrelated — one a 9,000 foot drop from a plane, the other an inch high ‘leap’ into the air — but can you imagine the feeling of freedom a child must have the first time they are airborne?

The first time they experience gravity (at least intentionally, butter fingers). The first time they reach for the sky, lift their feet from the ground, with no net below them and nobody catching them and then stick the landing.

Wow.

Oh shit!

In case this is the first time you’ve ventured to this blog (if so, I say 1) Why? and 2) Welcome!) I must tell you that I swear.

Sometimes.

OK, a fair bit.

But now that I know Great-Grandma-In-Law found the url, I promise I will try to cut down on the swears, especially the big one that rhymes with puck, and truck, and muck, and duck, and stuck, and … ah you get the point.

But I can’t make any promises for The Hurricane, who, by all accounts, used her first swear – in proper context, that is – in the bathtub Sunday night.

Now, I did not witness the heinous act, as I was diligently working on yesterday’s post, but I ran to the bathroom when The Boss called out to me through fits of laughter.

So this is how the story went.

The Hurricane was having a bath, surrounded by bubbles and toys. She reached for a toy just out of her grasp and began to fall.

As she put her hands down to block her descent, she said “Oh shit”.

That’s right, my 18-month-old daughter said “Oh shit” in context, in the exact scenario as her father would.

That’s freaky.

Especially since she only first heard the word at Christmas, when her Auntie Janine dropped something in the kitchen and bellowed the expletive in front of The Hurricane’s virgin ears. Now, she’s maybe heard it a time or two since when The Boss or I let it slip, which is rare, because we try to be careful because the kid is like a giant freakin’ sponge.

So, yeah, I get that she might have picked the word up on the rare occasions she hears it, but to actually use it properly in a sentence, when faced with a definite “Oh shit” moment … well, that’s some messed up shit.

Swearing can sometimes be nasty, or funny, or necessary, and sometimes it’s just cute as all hell.

Until she says it in public … then we’ll be up shit creek.

Weekend visitors

The Hurricane had the perfect weekened – four grandparents and lots of spoiling.

The In-Laws made the four-hour trek to our place this weekend for a visit, which is always fun for all, because they get caught up on all the new things The Hurricane has learned since they last saw her – in this case, at Christmas.

I’m sure they noticed she was talking a lot more, and saying a whole bunch of new words that, once we translated, they would laugh and pick up on it the next 1,000 times she asked to give The Mutt a bone, or told her toys to “Hang on” as she pushed them around in her mini-stroller.

My parents, who live only a half-hour away, also dropped in for visit, so it was The Hurricane show, with the star of the show milking the attention for all it was worth.

So, even though it’s not Saturday, here’s a couple photos from the weekend that just scream to be posted.

Goofing around with Papa Apple (The In-Laws own an orchard)

Thanks for the irreparable eye damage, Nana.

I’m raising a butt sniffer

I think we’re going to have to stop smelling The Hurricane’s bum.

Oh c’mon, if you’re a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a friend of a person with a kid, or have ever babysat for five minutes, you’ve sniffed a baby’s ass. Don’t go acting all high and mighty, because nobody on this site is buying it.

We do it because we don’t feel like stripping a struggling child down to nothin’ only to find out if they soiled themselves. Believe me, there is a much better way, and it involves either lifting the child’s ass to your face, or acting like dogs and getting down on our hands and knees and taking a good ol’ whiff of the diaper.

It’s not pleasant, it’s not proper, but goddamn it’s effective.

But The Hurricane is just too smart for her own good, and proved it again last night as we played on the living room floor after supper.

I don’t know if it was the excitement of our belly raspberries and play fighting, or all our laughing and giggling, but I let a bit of a toot slip. Toot might even be too strong a word, because I would never, ever dream of ripping a huge fart releasing gas in front of my dear wife. I certainly wasn’t born in a barn.

Anyway, The Hurricane and her super-sonic hearing somehow detected my little poof and she quickly said, “Dada poo-poo”. The Boss and I laughed, but then as I stood up and turned my back to her, she smelled my ass.

Like literally ran up and shoved her nose in my butt crack.

The poor thing.

Laughing, I fell back to the floor, but she wasn’t done – she grabbed me by the hair and tried to pull me towards the bathroom, repeating the words “Dada potty”. She’s not a hair-puller, so she must have thought time was of the essence.

Although I haven’t bothered to check, I think my drawers are clean this time, but it’s nice to know I have a shit-detector at my disposal should I ever be unsure.

Out-parented by the babysitter

The Hurricane has been on holidays from her daycare since mid-December, with Christmas break and then weeks off for both of her parents.

But yesterday was her first day back with Carolyn, her fantastic daycare provider, who The Hurricane adores.

The Boss and I felt bad sending her back, because over the past three weeks she has given up naps – after Carolyn had her trained to be asleep every day by 11:30 a.m. – she has received constant one-on-one attention, and is pretty much used to getting her own way because no matter how hard we try, it’s damn near impossible to say no to that face.

In fact, we were pretty sure she was going to drive Carolyn insane today, not wanting to share her attention with the other four kids at daycare, and we figured there was no way she’d have a nap because naps are so 2008 for this big girl.

If she won’t do it for her parents, despite two weeks of tough love and being left in her crib from noon to 2 p.m. in hopes that she’d talk herself to sleep (instead she just played with her dolls and tore the sheets off her bed for a couple of hours each day, which I thought was better than nothing), what were the chances she’d be a perfect angel on her first day back at daycare? I would have said 25% chance of goodness, and 75% chance of nastiness.

Well, it turns out it was like she never missed a day. She was nice to all the kids, didn’t hog Carolyn’s attention, was hugging and kissing everyone (a rare occurrence, even for Mom and Dad), and slept for two hours starting at 11:30 a.m., her regular routine at the babysitter’s. That’s right, a full two hours.

Say what?

What sort of magic sorceror is this woman? How can she get The Hurricane to revert to routine so easily, when she down right refused to do so for us after the Christmas rush destroyed her day-to-day schedule?

It’s amazing and it’s embarrassing all at the same time, because I’m happy the little one is behaving properly and napping and all, but perplexed as to why she won’t do it for me and The Boss.

Perhaps Carolyn can bottle her magic potion up and give it to us, because I would love my Saturday and Sunday afternoon naps back.