lucky number 13

At least in our house, there is something about this number...13 1/2 to be exact.  Months.  Something happens to babies here when they are 13 1/2 months old.  They change.  Somehow, someway, sometime all of the sudden I just sit back and say "ugh!" what is going on.  Then I think and realize, oh 13 1/2 months old.  It's not like I have a million babies, and believe me this is it, so whether this is a pattern in other households I may be presumptuous, but here it's the truth and it's ugly.  

I remember it clearly with Greta.  One day, happy loving, fairly easy baby.  She did get quite sick -- double ear infection, high fever for several days, throat infection etc. -- and then after that, BOOM.  It was like someone whacked our house with a stick.  It was like a little toddler-coup.  Someone new was in charge, or trying to be, and was going to fight our retaliation to her rebellion every step of the way.  And with torture.  She was going to whine and tantrum her way into our submission, and then use sleep deprivation at night to further whittle away our nerves.  I remember many nights on someone's bedroom floor repeating "lay down, lay down, lay down" over and over again....thanks for the memories.

And so, while Clara doesn't seem to have the same caliber of revolutionary guns to break down our front, things have definitely changed a bit.  There are demands.  Many more.  And I someone forgot to let me in on what they were, or the language.  So the demands then become even more demanding.  I give the girl credit, for someone the size of most 9 month olds, she's got the strength of a 13 1/2 month old for sure, and then some.  She can be a bulldozer if she wants to get through to something, or she'll just sit on you.  She has this crazy throaty yell that has made its appearance -- it sounds like it would hurt your throat after a while, but clearly, as I learned at bedtime last night, it must take a really really long time to get to that point, because I caved.  However, since there have been several nights lately where I have had to get up, we really are going to have to go back to enforcing the "cry it out" thing, throaty scream and all.

Each time I think I am sailing into at least somewhat familiar territory, I am reminded that really I am just a visitor on a foray into the unknown.  I am not really fully in charge, it's just made to look that way, and as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing there will be smiles and hugs and snuggles...but when the 13 1/2 month old has to take over, look out -- she's got a great big can of whoop ^$% and she's not afraid to use it!