This past Sunday, Lauren went into NYC to visit a friend. I told Anya that because Mommy was taking the bus to New York, that Anya and I would have a very special Daddy Daughter Day.

I had her at “bus.”

“Mommy take the bus! Mommy go to New Jork!” (Anya has an interesting accent sometimes.)

Now, spending time with one’s offspring isn’t a special event. I hate when it’s implied that because I’m home with Anya, I’m “babysitting.” No; I’m parenting. Spending an hour or a day solo with kid is part of Dadhood, and doesn’t suggest that I’ve achieved some milestone.

Still, with Lauren going away for the day, I thought it’d be fun to label the day as special and plan some activities, vs. just hanging out and playing at home. I also assumed that if we gave the day a special name, we could add it to Anya’s repertoire of stories she loves to tell and be told (e.g., “Anya Goes to Sesame Place,” “Anya Goes to the Park,” “Daddy Wakes Up Anya in the Morning,” “Anya at School,” “Anya at the Library,” and “The Great Gatsby”).

After we dropped Mommy off at the bus for New Jork, we started driving to the Sprayground. During the drive, amusingly, Anya asked me to regale her with some of her favorite personal stories — the ones listed parenthetically above. Over and over and over again. It was cute, but eventually we ran out of stories, although demand for stories continued to rage. The stories became more self-referential and less, uh, interesting:

“Once upon a time, Anya and Daddy were driving to the Sprayground at Doorbrook Park! Anya wanted Daddy to tell her stories, so Daddy told her the story of how once upon a time, Anya and Daddy were driving to the Sprayground at Doorbrook…”

Anya has a good time at the Sprayground. She’s not the most adventurous kid at the park by far, but she can have a great time. We started with one of the little mini-streams, and she pretended it was a sink. (This became a major theme of our time at the park.) After washing her hands for awhile, she suddenly became consumed with the need to find soap and ran around looking for some until I suggested we use pretend soap instead. With some of the bigger sprayers, Anya enjoyed having me swing her around, darting back and forth through the sprays. There are lots of ways Anya plays at the splash park, and it’s a joy to watch.

Note for the jealous who can’t see how we played: I decided I wanted DDD to be a day I experienced live, instead of getting tied up in taping and photographing. You lose!

We ate lunch on our blanket at the park. Said meal was eaten very nicely by Anya, and punctuated with bursts of enthusiasm from her: “The man has a dog! The dog’s walking! The man is walking, too! He looks just like Charlie!” (I assume she meant the dog.) “The girl is wearing a swimsuit!” “The baby is crying!”

Post-lunch, we drove home. I tried to keep Anya awake — it was too early for her nap, but it was also clear she was pooped. As I attempted to engage her (”What does a cow say?” “What’s Mommy’s real name?”) The answers got softer and softer and more drawn-out: “L-aurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrren.” She conked out about two minutes from the house. Attempts to rouse her — loud taking, Charlie barking as we walked in, etc — were futile, and she went down for her nap. She woke up too early, after just 40 minutes, and rather than attempt perhaps a better solution in the long-term, I went for short-term success and satisfaction: I sat in the rocker and let her sleep the next 30+ minutes on my shoulder. Good times.

Post-nap, there was book-reading in the playroom, than piano-playing in the family room. When we first sat down at the piano, Anya began plunking keys at random and singing Elmo’s Song. Hilarious. We played songs together for a surprisingly long time.

Then, when I suggested we make a project for Mommy to welcome her home, Anya thought it was a heck of an idea. She made a beautiful card for Lauren, and when we finished up, it was time to go get her!

(”Mommy on the bus to New Jork!”)

Daddy Daughter Day was great. I do regret not having enough accumulated wealth to stick around and play with Anya all day long every day. The requirements of work and needing to Get Stuff Done aren’t flexible right now. But frankly, work doesn’t pay as well as Anya does.

When Anya moved to her crib, we scattered a bunch of pacifiers in there with her. That way, when she lost one at night, she could find another one pretty quickly just by feeling around.

Within the past couple months, I’ve become mildly obsessed with figuring out how to get Anya to retire her pacis. I’ve worn braces three separate times in my life, and I have read plenty about the negative effects pacis that overstay their welcome can have on teeth. I was fully supportive of Anya’s using pacifiers early on; anything that helped her sleep / feel calm was okay in my book. But now that she’s becoming a true big girl, I was ready to say bye-bye to pacis. It turns out, Anya was too.

First, I removed all but two pacis from her crib. One for the mouth, one to grip tightly in her hand as she fell asleep.

Then, Lauren and I (especially Lauren) talked to Anya a lot about how her big girls sleep with Only One Paci. Eventually: “How many pacis are you going to sleep with tonight?” “ONE!”

Following a few minutes of crying for “TWO PACIS!”, sleeping with one went fine.

After a week or two, we spent several days talking to Ani about how some of her best friends sleep with NO pacis. Anya could successfully tell us how many pacis those buddies slept with pretty quickly, but she was also often quick to add: “I sleep with ONE paci.”

We started telling her that soon she, too, would sleep with no pacis, like a REALLY big girl.

Yesterday was the Big Day. We talked to her (again, mostly Lauren) in the morning about how she would nap with NO pacis. Then, at naptime, Anya traded Mommy her paci for one sticker, and got the promise of TWO MORE stickers after she woke up. The stickers were propped up so that she could see them from the paciless crib.

Anya did actually cry/moan a little bit as she went to sleep for the nap, but only for a couple minutes, and seemingly NOT in relation to the pacifier situation. Rather, she was complaining that Lauren had left the room when she did (rather than read, oh, 347 more books).

She proudly claimed her two bonus stickers upon waking after a nice long nap:

Lauren went out last night. The plan was for me to show Anya a new, secret gift (pom-poms from the dollar store) that she would get in the morning after sleeping all night with no pacis. I decided not to bring up the pom-pom gift unless it seemed totally necessary. I talked very briefly to Anya about how she’d be sleeping for the night with no paci; she had no objection.

After last night’s bed time routine, I put Anya into the crib a little nervously. She immediately did the “check for pacifiers” routine… for less than a second. Then, I watched her brain click as she remembered what was going on. She settled down and went to sleep.

She really is a big girl.

And maybe now, I can keep the pom-poms instead

Anya was playing in the playroom and then, in her trademark way, plunked herself down on her behind. Unfortunately for her, her behind, and Ernie, a little Ernie bathtoy was in her bottom’s path.

She got up and said to me: “Tushy hurts. Tushy hurts. I’s tushy hurts!”

I had to give it a kiss to make it feel better.

——–

A bit later, Lauren was in the playroom with us. I was headed upstairs to shower and started taking off my shirt. Anya noticed and said, “Daddy’s naked!” I responded jokingly: “Yes, and Anya’s a pervert.” 

Anya then said: “I’s a pervert! I’s a pervert!”

Lauren and I started laughing, hysterically. Anya soon joined, laughing and giggling and snorting in her perfect way. That fueled our laughter, which in turn fueled hers. In fact, Anya began laughing so forcefully that she propelled herself down, onto her tushy. 

Fortunately, this time, both Ernie and Anya’s tushy were safe. 

And if you think I kissed bare tush as opposed to be-pajama’ed tush, then you, too, are a pervert.

In the past 10 minutes Anya has:

laughed because I said, “Hello” in a funny voice
wailed because she dropped a piece of macaroni & cheese and couldn’t reach between her tray and her bib to get it (Daddy: “What’s wrong?!” Anya: “MACARONI FALL DOWN!!!!!!!!!!”)
said “Macaroni and cheese — oh boy!”
screamed “All done with the fork! Spoon! SPOON!” 

Amazing.

We’ve been more hesitant blogging about Baby #2 here than we were the first time around, but I’m vowing to change that now. The main reason for me is the health challenges that we’re facing with this pregnancy — Lauren’s colitis flare-up, the subchorionic hemorrhage, more recently a potential amniotic band. But although these are serious and important health concerns that we have to stay on top of, I’m no longer going to allow them to hamper my excitement and enthusiasm regarding #2!

We’ve spent the last week or so informing key family members about this pregnancy. First, we told Grandma Esther — but only because we thought she already knew! Grandma had been using Lauren’s laptop, and Lauren realized in a panic that she had left some pregnancy-tracking websites open. We used the same method to tell her that we ended up using with Grandpa Marty a few days later:

Lex: Y’know, we’ve been thinking about that Bahamas trip you had in mind for this December. We don’t think we’re gonna go.

In-Law: Why not?

Lex: We don’t think the baby will be old enough by that point.

In-Law: Old enough for what?! Why not?

Lex: Well, by then, it’ll only be one or two weeks old.

Hehehe. Credit goes to Lauren, because that was her idea.

Next we told Great-Grandma Evie, since we wanted to give her some happy news before she went in for her second hip surgery in three months. The funny part there was, after Lauren told her the news (and that Daddy didn’t know yet), Ev asked: “So, what are you going to do?” Lauren replied: “Um… Have the baby.”

Ev: Oh, so you’re going to keep it?

Lauren: Um. Yes?

Ev: Are you going to marry him?

Lauren: Grandma, you know this is Lauren, not Sam, right?

Grandma Evie breathes sigh of relief that actually causes a breeze straight through the telephone line.

In between Esther and Marty, we told my parents (Papa Ducky and Grammy, which sounds more like a Saturday-morning cartoon, but I digress) via video-chat. Anya was wearing her custom-made “I’m going to be a big sister!” shirt. Grammy noticed first, and jaw properly dropped, said “I like Anya’s shirt!” to make my Dad spot it too.

Last night, Anya wore the shirt to tell her Aunt Samantha, and today she wore it for Great-Grandma Shirley. G.G., as she prefers to be called, was told to read the shirt, which she did. She thought nothing of it. “Put your glasses on, Mom,” Esther suggested. “I can read it!” Shirley said. “It says, ‘I’m going to be a big sister.’” Pause. “WHAT?!?!??!?!!!?!”

Today, we have four more siblings to notify!