metersmith

Brynne is back in town, on holiday from her East Coast business school adventure, and hosted an "Old Skool communal dinner, inviting the whole crowd over for dinner. I think unfortunately her dinner was less "old school" where everyone brought something and the host cooked only the main dish, and more "new school" where one person does all of the cooking. Well, unfortunate may be the wrong word. She spent a lot of time cooking. If she enjoys it as much as I enjoy cooking, it wasn't really that unfortunate.

What WAS unfortunate, however, was Meter's spectacular nose dive into the coffee table. Except it wasn't really a nose dive, so much as a gum dive into the table, and I feel about 1" tall about it.

Earlier in the evening, I had managed to snag Meter from the ice bucket she was playing in, where she had snagged a giant ice cube and was sucking it down. She was doing a good job of melting the cube in her mouth, losing it only a couple times to dump it down my shirt (brrrrrrr!) or on my pants.

When the ice cube was done, Meter wanted to walk downstairs, so down we went, to find Brynne's mom and toys, toys, toys! Fun! We played with the boxes and the stars for a few minutes until Meter just turned around from what she was doing, and threw herself into my arms, scrambling up my lap and into my arms.

Although I found the move adorable and endearing, it confused me, too. When I set her down, she immediately scrambled back up into my arms and held on tight.

Ohhhhhhh..... kaaaaaaaaay. Adorable kid, you're confusing me.

I took her upstairs to hand Meter to Mark and ask if this was a sign for something, anything, or was she just being cute?

Mark let me know she was just being Meter, and that she was fine. He set her down, and walked away to be social with some group. I watched Meter as she stood up and started walking towards a glass coffee table.

Now, earlier in the evening, I had a conversation with Katie about learned helplessness, and how many children in today's society can't do anything because their parents do EVERYTHING for them. There's no sense of try, there's no resourcefulness. There's only this prevasive helplessness that will be the death of this society.

As Meter started walking towards the table, I had a HUGE urge to pick her up and turn her away from the table. I had horrible visions of her falling into the table. I recalled the conversation from before, and thought, let the kid go, she'll be fine. At this point, she was only about 8" from the table, she'd be fine.

Until she tripped.

And wasn't fine.

Her forehead hit the table corner, bounced and her upper gums hit the corner again. Her arms went just under the table, missing the save.

HOLY CRAP. I swooped in and grabbed her before she even knew she was hurt, and picked her up. She started crying and screaming, I turned and thrush her into Mark's arms, while people in the other room called out to me, "Kitt, what did you do now?"

I felt so bad. Beyond bad. Horribad.

Meter had cut her upper gum and was bleeding a lot. Mark calmed her down, stopped the bleeding and held her for a while. Me? I just wanted to be very, very small.

And gone.

Even earlier in the evening than all of this, I had also managed to break one of Brynne's mother's chairs, when I put my feet on the rung that seemed footrest-ish when I put my feet on them. The loud CRACK! when I propped my feed up let me know how mistaken I was about the chair, with the deafening silence that followed letting me known that everyone else knew it, too.

With the chair incident and Meter's crash, I was no longer in a holiday, social mood, wanting just to crawl under that rock over there (right over there, see it?) and hide, so I left early. Hopefully I'll time my visit at Mark and Megan's housing warming this weekend with Brynne's and have the opportunity to catch up with her.

Megan needed a little help this morning, with the handful known as Meter. When she asked me to help out, I jumped at the chance, er, gracefully accepted. Megan needed about an hour, so she helped me fit Meter into a front sling and off the two of us went.

We wandered down the main street of Los Gatos, looking into windows, wandering into various stores. The first store we went into was the one I was looking for: Williams Sonoma. We went in, wandered through the baking items, the various fancy glasses (which I dashed away from quickly when I realized that Meter's reach was greater than I thought), the mixes and sauces, the knives, and the cooking implements. I was looking for some small pie dishes, similar to the ones I received from Max and Rosa at our wedding: a set of four 5" pie plates for mini pies.

Alas, Williams Sonoma didn't have them, but they did have a set of four towels that match Andy's kitchen and a spatula that doubled nicely as a Meter chew toy.

Fifteen minutes down, another 45 minutes to go.

We managed to find a health food store which carried rice protein powder. I was momentarily discouraged when I first looked at their selection, as it was about 90% whey protein, 6% soy protein and 2% "tastes like crap" egg protein. Fortunately, I found the rice protein and was all set.

We wandered down to the end of Main Street, before turning around and wandering back to the other end of town. That trip included a detour into the Apple store. Meter was fascinated with all the colors and buttons. Not that I blame her. Have to start these kids early, so that they know quality.

Eventually, Megan was done, and the three of us wandered to a cafe to pick up lunch and, the best part, dessert. I ate mine before lunch, as all good dessert should be eaten first.

We then walked back to Mirabelle's day care, and waited for her class to end so that all of us could have lunch together.

While we were waiting, Megan had to head into the office for a permission slip, so I continued to wait for Mirabelle's class to be over. Megan was still gone when the classroom door flew open and a rush of little people came pouring out of the room into waiting arms of crouching parents.

Mirabelle, however, stood just inside of the room, as everyone else ran around. She stood there, looking down, looking so sad. I had intended on waiting for Megan, but seeing Mirabelle standing there, all by herself, the tiny little girl looking so sad, I just had to go and say hello.

After I said hello, Mirabelle looked up at me, very confused. Recognition danced across her face after a few seconds, and she smiled, launching into an excited tale of kittens on a pillow, kittens on a PILLOW, KITTENS ON A PILLOW!

Megan, Meter and I sat down to eat lunch, but Mirabelle kept running around excited about the map of the complex, and the KITTEN on a PILLOW, and the acorns, and oh, oh, oh! The DRINKING FOUNTAIN! How exciting was the drinking fountain? She kept running to us, then running back to the drinking fountain to take a drink, then back to us, then back to the drinking fountain. Every once in a while, she would also return to us and announce she used the DRINKING FOUNTAIN!

So much fun.

Eventually, Meter ate Mirabelle's quiche, minus the hot pepper parts, thereby earning both Mirabelle and Meter their just desserts.

Gingerbread men were never so tasty.

Megan, Mirabelle, Meter and I (oooooo, you could say the four lady M's!) went to Ikea today for lunch, because Ikea is just where you go for lunch with a 2 year old and a 2 month old. It's true. You knew that, right?

Mirabelle surprised me several times on the trip by asking me full questions complete with the proper intonations. Imagine a fifty year old woman projecting the question, "How are you, Kitt?" through a two year old girl's vocal cords, and you might get a hint of how wigged out I was at her questions.

It's neat watching her, though, seeing her develop a personality, much like watching Liza go from a toddler to this amazing little person. Not that I'd call her little to her face - she's practically to my shoulder already! Don't I feel short.

At one point during our Ikea adventure, Mirabelle and I decided to "run this way!" and off we went. Megan called after me a few moments later, "Hey, Kitt, do you have one of my kids?" I'm not sure how sheepishly I had to answer, "Yes, but she started it!"