Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

Yeah, I can't keep up.

I get now why moms keep blogs throughout their kid's first year. It's freaking boring. Nap, eat, poop, nap, make a funny face, nap again.

But I can't keep up anymore. Every time Sadie does something awesome I think, "I should put that on the blog." But then she does something else. And then fifty more awesome things. And then she says, like, forty-six words in a row, and sings the words to "Don't Stop Believin'" and writes out Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on her place mat in blue crayon.

I'm just kind of following her, in awe. Occasionally I stop to take video, but she's too smart to fool now, and immediately stops whatever cute thing she's doing to give me a look like "Bitch, please." Oh yeah, swearing is another thing she does. That's my fault. She knows "crap" and "Oh, shit." I can't tell her not to say them, because that only makes her say them more. I can't punish her for saying words that, to be honest, Mommy says all the time and couldn't stop saying if my life depended on it.

Then again, I'm probably failing all of the mom classes, and I don't worry about it anymore. I don't helicopter -- I don't have to, because I have a weird kid who enjoys sitting in one spot at the park, sifting sand through her fingers and occasionally noting, "I found trash." I fully endorse getting kids drunk on planes for overseas flights. I gave her a sip of my wine tonight because I thought it was funny. She asked for another sip but I said no, so please don't call CPS on me.

We have an amazing kid. She is hilarious, insightful and wise. When we have conversations over her head, she retains bits and tosses them back at me days later. When I sing a song in her presence, she remembers the cadence and the melody, even if the meaning of the words themselves are lost on her. Similarly, she can read a familiar book to herself and speak the lines exactly the way I say them. She is paying attention, all the time.

The thing I like best about being a parent is teaching her something new and watching as she files it away in her brain to retrieve for later. I taught her that the man on my Labyrinth tee shirt was named David Bowie, and now she knows that David Bowie is his name. She asks me what something is in passing, and I'll answer her absently: "shampoo." The next day she'll ask me again, but by the time I answer "shampoo," she'll have focused on something else. But the third time, I'll pause and point to it, wait until she's really paying attention, and I'll say, "this is shampoo. It's called shampoo." And wonder of wonders, the next time she sees my bottle of shampoo, she knows that it's called shampoo. And will, forever, until the end of time, know that this thing is called shampoo. That blows me right the hell away.

Sure, the responsibility wigs me out. Wouldn't it wig you out, too? It should. Everything you say is of ultimate importance. You can tell them anything, and they will believe it. If you tell them that a wind blew the door closed or that Tootie from "Yo Gabba Gabba" lives under the bed and snuck out to slam the door before running back under the bed to hide, these explanations are equally plausible. One may cause more nightmares than the other.

I'm going to stop trying to catalogue everything that happens, and just settle back to enjoy the ride.