I like to think I don’t drive you batty only writing about my child. I mean, I do write about her, but not every post so you can’t be that sick of her. Yet. Over the past few months, OP has grown by leaps and bounds and I thought I’d share a few stories.

I give you Tales of OP!

(Since I’m writing this, they are pretty much our conversations and not Daddy’s conversations with her. He can always send me some for an update).

Setting: OP sitting on Mommy’s lap drinking water from Mommy’s water bottle.

Mommy (to Daddy): I’m thirsty. I need to go get a drink.
OP (pushing the water bottle into Mommy’s mouth): Water, Mommy.

Setting: Mommy and OP go upstairs to get OP dressed. OP detours to master bedroom.

OP (pounding on bedroom door): Daddy! Daddy open door!
Mommy (opening door): Daddy’s in the shower, he can’t open the door for you. Do you want to see him?
OP (runs into the room toward the TV): Watch Phineas and Ferb!

Setting: Any day of the week

Mommy: What does the doctor say?
OP: No monkeys!
Mommy: What does Grandma Tilde say?
OP: No elephants!
Mommy: What does Cookie Monster say?
OP: Me love cookies!
Mommy: What does *insert girl cousin’s name* say?
OP: Du’oh!
Mommy: What does *insert boy cousin’s name* say?
OP: Aaaaaa!

Setting: At dinner

After eating, OP sits in her chair and coloring on paper and highchair tray. When she decides she is done, OP sprinkles water from her sippy cup onto the tray covered in crayon and proceeds to obsessively wipe the water with a napkin, removing all of the crayon marks.

Setting: Lounging on Mommy and Daddy’s bed while Mommy gets ready for work.

Mommy sits on the bed.
OP (looking at a beauty mark on Mommy’s leg): Boo boo. Mommy has boo boo. Kiss.
OP leans over and kisses the spot on Mommy’s leg.

Setting: Kitchen around dinner time

OP (yelling): Elmo’s World! Elmo’s World! Elmo’s World!
Daddy: Is she saying Elmo’s World?
Mommy: Yes. She’s singing the theme to Elmo’s World. Our kid sings now. You should hear her rendition of Rubber Ducky.

Setting: OP’s bedroom at bedtime

OP (yelling and waving her socks): Socks! Socks! Socks!
Daddy (Getting OP’s sleeve on)
OP: No socks.
Daddy passes OP’s socks back to her.
OP: Daddy, I said no socks.

Setting: Our house (there are some liberties here as I forget the specifics)

Daddy: Look at all the books, OP
OP: Books! One, two, three, four, five, six!
Daddy: Um, dear…she just counted the books in the room! Our daughter can count.

Since I can count now, Daddy, I feel that I should be allowed to drive. Can I have the keys?

I started on Skew back in June and it’s been a little slow going. I think that as much as I like knit socks and love sock yarn, I’m not the biggest fan of knitting socks. It’s the size of the yarn and needles. It’s all so small that my hands tire out quickly and it all takes forever.

Skew is a bit tricky. Everything is done on an angle and it’s an untraditional heel. That meant by the time I got the heel together and understood the beauty of the construction, I realized I knit the foot about an inch too long. Yup, time to frog a bit. At least I can look at it as practice and tweak a couple spots. It’s going to be worth it–these will be very pretty.

I knew life would change when I had a baby–less sleep, less me time, less freedom, less sanity–and I’m fine with that. I wouldn’t give OP back for anything. And by back I mean a generic back, small though the child may be, she will never ever go back into my uterus. That would hurt. A lot.

The Husband recently gave me an iPad for my birthday. I was thrilled because I had been frustrated by my cookbooks. I love cookbooks and have a small collection. I should note, it’s not an addiction I have less than 30 cookbooks and I can walk in and out of bookstores without buy a cookbook for years. Actually I haven’t bought a cookbook in the last few years because I can get ideas from this thing called the internet, but I’m digressing. One of the things that has been annoying me is an Indian recipe I made a few years ago. I can’t remember where it is or even fully what it is. I just remember making something Indian from one of my books and buying a Palak Paneer to go with it. I had been thinking about cataloging the recipes as I make them in a searchable database, but wanted an iPad so I could update the database in the kitchen and wouldn’t have to move my lazy butt into the computer room with the cookbook.

Back before we had OP, I would pick a random recipe and make it for dinner. Some were extremely complex and we didn’t sit down for dinner until 8:00. It was so fun. As I looked through one of my cookbooks this week to start adding a few recipes I realized how long it’s been since we’ve done that and was a little saddened that we can’t do that now. That’s not to say that I don’t cook, it’s just that I cook triage while I have a tired little girl who was running around daycare all day who wants to EAT. NOW. MAMA. Right now I cook either simple meals or prep most of it the night before in an attempt to stem the tide. The CSA helps to keep the creative juices flowing, so to speak, but it’s a bit overwhelming to stay on top of figuring out a new vegetable and getting it cooked these days.

What I miss more than cooking, however, is baking. I used to love to bake before OP (BOP?). I just can’t do it now and it’s driving me nuts. Actually, that’s not completely true. I can probably bake, but then I have to clean up the inevitable mess and that just numbs my brain with everything else I need to do. What’s worse is my office has been running a baking smack down every couple months over the last year and I just can’t find the time to compete.  Plus, I have ideas for new cupcake flavors and they just sit in my head.

I could take a day off from work or drop OP off at Grandma and Grandpa’s to get  baking in, but usually on those days I want to (1) sleep, (2) clean, (3)read, (4)knit, and (5) sleep. I’ve tried getting the child involved and it’s worked to a point. Often, she whines and just wants to be held. One time, while I made cookies, I gave her a spoon and a bag of chocolate chips to smash and every time I went to swap out a cookie sheet for the next batch she happily followed me in and bashed her chocolate chips with the spoons. It was seriously cute.

I know in time, I’ll be able to get back to how I used to cook and bake and even get her more involved (and I’m really looking forward to that), but right now I just want to make some cookies or cupcakes. Maybe I can bribe the Husband to clean up the cookie/cupcake mess? How have you gotten your baking in with a child running amok?

Hey, Mama. I'm just happy with bread.

Do you notice something about my last few projects?

That’s a lot of blue and green projects. Granted there are some gray and purple, but still. The socks I’m working on now are red and I think the next project will be red. Um, after that I have to stop with the red too.