Jenna Glatzer, Ghostwriter

Saturday "I got a cut on my finger ankle." (Also known as the knuckle.) Yesterday "Mommy, what are some of the situations when we might feel exasperated face?" "Well, if we wanted to color, but all our markers were dried out, we might feel exasperated." "And if we came home and found out that Kira ate our whole house, we might feel exasperated." "Well... yes. Yes, we definitely would." Today "Mommy, if you did poopies in your diaper, I would change you."

You remember how, just a few posts ago, I said my favorite part of the song "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" was when Sarina sang "I'm never gonna stop the rain by compwaining?" Well, without even warning me, she decided to start pronouncing her "l"s correctly now, so it's "complaining." It took all I had not to tell her she was saying it wrong and should go back to saying "compwaining." Darn you, progress! Darn you to heck! Her new favorite is when I sing "Anything You Want (You Got It)" to her. The other day, my dad said "You can have anything you want" when asking her what she wanted for a snack, and she said, "Roy Orbison sings that." But one of my new favorite Sarina moments came when we went to what was supposed to be a consignment sale at a community center, but when we got there, all the doors were locked. I had her in a carrier, facing me. I spotted a dad and young boy playing ball in th...

I fixed the dryer today. Well, not so much the dryer as the dryer door. And not so much "fix" as just realign it and screw it in properly, which the repairman failed to do when he made it stop sounding like someone was lighting off fire crackers in it. Sometimes, it's the simplest things that cause the most consternation about getting divorced. You sit there on that first day after the big decision, thinking, "How am I ever going to do this? I have never put air in my own tires. I don't know when recycling day is. How do I make sure my pipes don't burst over the winter?" And it all looks huge and overwhelming, and then you just close your eyes and trust that you're going to find a way. And day after day, you do. If you let yourself feel it, each thing-- each stupid little thing-- feels like a victory. It shows you that you're more capable than you knew. Maybe especially if you have kids, there's the extra impetus to become more capable. I wan...

She thanked me today... for changing the sheets on the bed for removing her socks for changing her diaper for taking her out to play "Thank you, Mommy," she says. "Thank you for changing the sheets." She wants to know what rhymes with "Joe" and "Blue," and where Meatball the Lion went, and if Aunt Peeka will come to our house soon. She wakes up from her nap and recaps her day for me down to the last detail-- such as that she was sitting on the Skee-Ball machine when she did poopies in her diaper. "I need to be held in the carrier," she says, and "I need my hair"-- which is actually my hair, which has been her security blanket since she was born. She tugs on my hair and wraps it around her fingers while she sucks her thumb when she needs comfort. So I haven't used hair products in almost two years. She made her public singing debut at my brother's 30th birthday party, using the Elvis impersonator's microphone. She s...

On New Year's Eve, I found a link to the video on Kelly Corrigan's homepage . It was a tough day for me; in addition to the holiday, it was my brother's 30th birthday and my daughter wasn't with us. So you could blame it on that, but I think it was something more. I watched that little video and the tears just came to the surface. Like I needed them to. Sometimes, it's a gift to help someone cry. I loved Kelly. Watching that video made me want to know more about her, so I read pretty much everything on her site. She talks about her father, a relentlessly positive person who welcomes each day by opening the windows and shouting "Hello, world!" And she talks about its effects on her as a child, feeling like the universe was actively rooting for her. I thought this sounded like a good thing, so the next morning I had Sarina, I asked her, "What do you think? Should we open the windows and say 'Hello, world'?" She grinned. "No, Mommy,...

We go to a "Mommy and Me" group, where Sarina and I hang out and do a craft, play, have a snack, sing and dance, listen to a story, and learn about numbers and letters. Sarina is very proud of her crafts-- almost as proud as I am. She likes to show people and say, "I made this!" Truth is I wouldn't have realized she was ready for that kind of stuff. I saw the glue and foam and glitter on the craft table and thought, "Yeah, right." But then Sarina began sticking on sequins and calling for green glitter like a little craft diva. As we left this week, I prompted Sarina to say thank you to the owners. She did, then paused and added, "Thank you for the songs." It snowed here today, all puffy and slushy. She wasn't here. I miss the heck out of her. I think if my life circumstances were different, I would have been an Angelina Jolie type, with 7 kids. These days, I visit "waiting children" sites, where they show pictures and short prof...

I remember reading an article in a parenting magazine about less-popular "firsts": sure, we all notice the first step, the first word, and the first tooth, but this writer mentioned the first time her toddler picked up the phone and said, "Hewo?" I'm not sure if Sarina had even been born at the time, or if I was still pregnant, but I remember thinking how toddlerhood was a far way off. Tonight I had one of those sorts of firsts. I had cleverly hidden her Christmas gifts in my closet-- which I do a good job of keeping closed-- but my parents came over today to help me install a ceiling fan, and apparently they left the closet door open. Later, when I was cleaning up dinner, Sarina walked off for a moment... and returned with three items: Mr. Potato Head, a Doodlebops book, and her "big" gift: the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse play set. I ain't exactly rich this year (I know, who is?), so it's not like I can just go out and buy more toys to replace the ...

Have to say, I'm not a big fan of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse series, but my daughter is, so... yeah. We have a bunch of the books. In them, Mickey Mouse and friends call on Toodles to come bring them their Mouseketools when they have a problem that needs fixing. Our latest book describes a machine. When it works, it makes the noise "chugga-chugga-chug-chug," and when it's broken, it makes the noise "chugga-chugga-squeak!" Okay, that was background information. Now I can tell you what happened. Sarina was trying on Mommy's shoes again, as she does several times a day. She toddled around in my shoes until she stumbled and fell on her bottom behind my exercise bike (which makes a great clothes hanger). "Do you need help?" I asked. "Yes," came the reply. "I need a Mouseketool." The next day, we visited my parents, and Sarina tried to get water from their water machine. She doesn't know how to use it, though. The hot water bu...

Sarina's new favorite song is "When the Lights Go Out" by the Doodlebops, which is lucky for me, because I really like the song, too. But she believes that the correct wording should be "When the Lights Go Down." We argued about it for a bit. I told her that she was indeed right that it could be "When the Lights Go Down," but that in this case, the song lyric was "When the Lights Go Out," which was also acceptable. She would have none of it. "Of course, 'When the Lights Go Down,'" she told me. She made me put on the music video again, and I thought this would settle the debate, but instead, I believe she was making me watch it so I could see just how very, very wrong DeeDee Doodlebug was. Perhaps she wanted me to write a letter of protest to make them change the title. Or perhaps she was just stalling bedtime again. Here she is singing the Sesame Street theme song. 19 months old. Here she is singing the ABCs. And here she i...

Our friend Lisa and her sister-in-law sent over a ton of fall and winter clothes for Sarina. Sarina has been modeling in front of the mirror for two days now, and exclaiming, "Cute!" about everything (her favorite is the Wiggles hat, which she's wearing at totally inappropriate times). She has a message for Lisa:

This just can't be normal. Are 18-month-olds supposed to make up their own songs? Her first one went something like this: We go shopping And we buy white socks And purple socks, too She serenaded me with it while she ate dinner tonight. Then I realized she stuck purple socks into the cart, in the wrong size. You know how it feels silly to go back to a store to exchange one pair of socks? So you wind up keeping them for five years until finally realizing that, no, you're never going to meet someone who needs this particular pair of size 3-4 1/2 purple socks, so you stick them in a donation bag? Is that just me? Anyway, this week has been all about questions. Sarina is asking whatever's on her mind now-- "What's that noise?" "Is something wrong?" "Aunt Pat, what are you doing with the saw?" "How 'bout pancakes?" She also has shown her first fear: the door. When someone walks in the door without knocking or ringing the bell, she ...

On August 3, 2008, at approximately 9:30 p.m., my baby ceased being a baby. It all started last week, really, when she began talking in complete sentences. I asked, "Sarina, do you want me to open the door?" and she responded, "Mommy, open the door." Several 4-word phrases and sentences followed. She dropped a quarter in her grandparents' pool and said, "Money in the pool!" What got me the most, aside from the fact that she was 16 months old, was that she was speaking in gramatically correct terms. I was unstoppably happy, glowing with the pride of a parent who's just found out her daughter will be the valedictorian of her class at Harvard AND has paid off her schooling with the money she's made as a cover model for tasteful magazines. Then the unstoppable happiness stopped. It happened when I was preparing for Sarina's bath. She was playing in her room, and I went to her closet to check for diapers. She came up behind me and tapped me. ...

I experienced a new joyful "first" today, and it caught me off-guard. I was reading Sarina a book, and she decided-- as she is wont to do-- that she wanted me to read her a different book. So she popped off my lap and went to her bookshelf, and brought me the book she wanted me to read. And it was a book I wrote . *Dies of happiness.*

A few months ago, my former editor at Nomad (hi, Lauri!) recommended me for a job writing a book proposal for Scott Rigsby, the first double-amputee to complete an Ironman. He was featured on NBC's 2007 Ironman special-- a great show, which you should definitely watch if it reruns again. I'm no sports person, but this was a human interest piece to the extreme. Great stories. So that's what I've been doing these past few months: working with Scott to get this book proposal ready. Slowly. (Yeah, this balancing-motherhood-with-writing stuff is still a huge challenge to me.) How lucky am I to have found a person who doesn't mind being interviewed at midnight? The proposal is just about done, and I can't wait to see where this book lands. A few publishers are already interested, just based on the pitch, but I suspect a lot more will be excited about it once they read this proposal. It's the longest one I've ever written... closing in on 60 pages. I thought it...

Little in life is more disheartening than this conversation I had yesterday with an acquaintance I see every few weeks: Her: You don't look good. Me: That's because I'm not wearing makeup. Her: No, really. Your eyes are very puffy. Me: No, that's how I always look. You just normally see me with makeup. Her: You look like you've been crying. Me: I haven't. I promise. Her: You really don't look good. *Sigh.* Thanks, lady. Could you perhaps point me to the nearest bridge that I could hurl myself off? My eyes aren't aging well. The rest of me is fine, but I've always, always had a problem with big bags under my eyes, and they're only getting worse with time. I've tried dozens of products, but no success so far. I'm actually contemplating plastic surgery eventually, because it's just hard to feel good about yourself when people actually insist on a regular basis that you must not be sleeping. (I am.) Of course, I've tried the cucumber ...

Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Do you understand how long I've been trying to coax a kiss out of this girl? Tonight, as usual, I asked, "Sarina, can I have a kiss on the cheek?" And this time, she did it. Twice. Bartender! Smoothies for everyone, on me!

5 Minutes for Mom is having a photo contest , and the challenge is to find a photo that exemplifies what motherhood means to you. This one is mine. Three generations. One little girl who makes my world turn. I finally "get it," what life is all about. Boop.

Sarina is attempting her first song. And it's Old MacDonald. A week ago or so, she started saying "E-I," which I knew was the beginning of "E-I-E-I-O." Tonight, she attempted to sing it. "E-I-YIIII... E-I-YIIII..." Four times, and she smiled, pleased with her attempt. These are the times I feel like one giant feeling. Like I'm just a big fuzzy ball of love and pride and more love. This is my daughter. My daughter sits in my lap and wants to read books and sing. She's a real little person, figuring out her likes and dislikes, letting me come along for the ride. Even when nothing else is going right, I still get to be Sarina's mother, and that's enough.

She now pulls out the book she wants me to read, hands it to me, then sits on my lap. Then, as I turn pages, she kisses the characters she likes. Sometimes I feel like my heart will burst. Normally, she doesn't kiss actual people yet-- though I did trick her into kissing my hand and she spontaneously kissed my arm one morning-- but she kisses pictures and clothing pretty often. Her favorite book remains Don't Be So Nosy, Posy , and she loves kissing the pig and cow in that book. She says about 30 words now; Elmo, purple, cookie, and neigh are some of the more recent ones. And she's making up some of her own sign language. One is driving me bats: she'll sign "eat," and I'll ask, "Are you hungry?" Then she'll do this very weird sign she made up-- she clasps the fingers on her right hand together and turns her hand upside down and sticks it over one eye. What in Zeus's name is that supposed to mean? I can narrow it down-- it's not cereal...