Today my cell phone rang while I was at work.

Hello?

(heavy breathing)

Who is this?

Hi Oma!

It was Chiara, calling me by pressing a speed dial number on the cell phone we got for ahjuma. My mom was visiting to see Chiara (no one even pretends anymore that they would also like to see me and Luke) and prompted Chiara to sing her songs. So I listened as my daughter sang, in tune, her two new songs in Korean. One is about a bunny rabbit, where is it going? it is running, running! The other is about school, the school bell rings, dang, dang, dang, and we come running. The teachers greet us.

Oh my gosh! I was so proud of her that I could have cried tears onto the phone receiver. My little baby can not only remember all the words to two songs, but she is beginning to carry a tune, too. Sometimes her amazing talents and wonderful mind are just too great to comprehend all at once. Sometimes you just have to cry to take it all in.

Chiara had her hair in pigtails the other day and I thought it was so cute I had to take photos. But she kept moving and so, this is the best that I got.

Chiara is at the age where she mimics everything. So last week, May 5, we taught her to say Happy Birthday Nana, as a gift for nana’s 85th birthday.

this weekend it was anthony’s birthday. he’s considerably younger. we asked Chiara to wish anthony a happy birthday and she said, Happy Birthday Nana! at least she has a good memory!

So yesterday she learned how to say Happy Mother’s Day.

what a great present!

Every year, Luke likes to go to the ITP–Interactive Telecommunications Program–show at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The students there show their senior projects, really interesting interactive software programs, robots and games, etc.

This year Luke was especially ambitious in wanting to bring Chiara with us. Everything takes place on a single floor on a building basically across the street from Canal Jeans. Narrow hallways and small classrooms cram crowds of people playing and trying out these imaginative realizations of everything from fanciful to practical ideas. No stroller would survive so somehow we’d have to navigate the crowds with a 20 month old who won’t let us hold her for long.

But everything worked out really well. When we entered, there was a red carpet and lots of cameras and recorded voices telling us to look this way or that way for the imaginary paparazzi. I held Chiara in my arms and tried to smile like a million bucks. Chiara, having no clue what was going on, didn’t look at any cameras I’m sure, but I think that toy was for me more than her. What a nice way to start a tour!

The very next project we tested out was for 2 year olds! What were the odds? The student invited Chiara into a four-walled square pen, each side about four feet long, that was soft and made of inflatable rubing. there was a television monitor over one wall that had a large image flashing of what looked like a simplistic castle. The student instructed us to tell Chiara to try to find the identical item on one of the walls of her pen. It took a while and some coaching but she found it and when she pressed it, a cartoon began, with narration. The narrator would get to a point in his story, and then an image would flash large on the screen and the story would pause until Chiara found the corresonding image in her pen and press it. Then the story would continue. At one point it got repetitive because a rooster and an ant were having a conversation and she had to touch each piece for the dialogue to continue. But it worked to reinforce the point of the game and we didn’t have to prompt her any longer.

Then we moved on and found an even more exciting and fun game for Chiara. It was kind of a carousel, but instead of horses, there were scooters. And when you pushed on your scooter around in a circle, the pole in the center would light up in different colors that varied, i believe, depending on your speed. I put Chiara on a scooter and pushed her from behind. But three other people got on the other scooters and clearly we were working at cross purposes so everyone jumped off. But Chiara stayed on. The student had lowered the handlebars on her scooter so she was standing pretty securely on her own. A man jumped on a scooter in front of chiara and began to gently get the carousel going. He made funny faces and gestures and Chiara was having a blast. She imitated him bobbing his head, bending his knees, doing all manner of gentle tricks. And she had the purest smile of happiness and joy on her face as she went around and around the carousel.

Oh, how she cried when we took her off.

But that’s a lesson in life, right? The fun has to end some time.

Chiara turned 20 months on Thursday. She’s blossoming into a chatty, quick and even funny little person. She’s not entirely fearless, but she’s adventurous. She’s not one to accept setbacks without trying again. All of this I learn whenever I take her to the playground. First of all, for 20 months, she’s quite ambitious with the playground equipment. she climbs the ladder/stairs up to the medium slide (about 5 feet high) all by herself. once, she fell, but after taking a pause by playing on the low slide (about 2 feet high), she went back, up the ladder, and down the slide. I was so proud of her! she even clapped at the top of the ladder. Yay! she said, with a big smile on her face, all her fingers spread wide while she clapped. That girl knows how to celebrate her own little triumphs.

The way she goes down the slide is a thing to behold as well. She doesn’t look scared, and if she pauses at the top it’s to survey the view rather than to delay the push off. she lets go and smiles all the way to the bottom, hair flying. then she says, yay at the bottom as luke or I catch her and throw her up in the air.

she has tried the tall slide (about 6 or 7 feet), which also curves into a spiral. that wasn’t that successful as she didn’t stay in the middle of the funnel, so her head hit the side of the slide (as gently as it possibly could have when going down a slide I suppose) and when i caught her at the bottom, instead of saying, Yay, chiara said, A-ya — which is Korean for Ouch! so i think we’ll wait a little while longer before encouraging that slide. although i myself want to go down that slide every time i go to the park. it looks like so much fun and I love slides.

chiara is also developing a stubbornness and a whine. she has twice demanded that she walk instead of sit in a stroller, only to then get on her stomach and lie on the asphalt of the street, at a crosswalk, while cars are waiting for the road to clear so they can pass. the first time, i actually laughed because it was so comical. she must know the crosswalk is the absolute worst place for a tantrum. and lying prone. where did she learn that?

as tantrums go, though, i don’t even know that it would measure as one for other moms. she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t kick her legs. she just whines, noooooowwwwuuuhhhh, not even that loud, and instantly assumes the prone position. it’s like the perfect protest body tactic. but i didn’t teach her! luckily she’s still only in the 20-30 pound range so even though she’s like a sack of potatoes, i can manage to pry her up from the tar. she’s a mess always now, with dirt streaks and stains from her knees to her chest, but i try to accept that she will outgrow this at some point.

Tonight I crept quietly into Chiara’s bedroom while she was sleeping just to get a look at her and listen to her breathing. She was sleeping perpendicular to the length of her bed, as usual, pressed up against the headboard. She sleeps in the strangest positions!

I never risk disturbing her sleep. But tonight I was feeling really guilty about our evening together so I wanted to be close to her.

Earlier this evening, I took Chiara out for a walk with my mom, who came into the city despite the heavy rains because, she told me on the phone, I have to see Chiara, my baby. I have told her a million times that actually, Chiara is not her baby, but her grandbaby and indeed, *I* am her baby. But to no avail. I have given up.

Chiara hadn’t napped at all today (a frequent state of affairs when Halmoni comes to visit), so she was showing signs of real fatigue during our not-so-short walk. I was thinking she’d go to sleep easily once we got home.

Instead, Chiara was fussy. She wanted to climb the stairs, any stairs, all stairs, no matter where or how impatient I was. She refused to come into the apartment, preferring to climb, yes, the stairs, again. I tried my trick of entering the apartment and staying out of sight until she followed after me but this time it didn’t work and what’s worse, I think she could have been hurt. she climbed three of the marble and terrazzo steps herself, and then lost one of her shoes so was reaching down for it when I swooped over to make sure she didn’t fall.

While I was feeding her, she was also hyper, insisting on being taken out of her chair, then crying to be put back in it. I was going nuts. But i was also trying to relax by reading a magazine in between feeding Chiara mouthfuls of her dinner. So the straw that finally broke my back was when she demanded I put her on the floor, again, and then asked for a cup of water. She took one small sip of water and then turned the cup over with an insoucient little flick of her wrist, dousing the wood floors.

What bothered me most? It was that little flick of the wrist, which was basically telegraphing, Hello Mommy, stop reading that magazine. I am the boss of you! Ha!

So, after yelling, NO! I went and grabbed a towel, handed it to Chiara and said, Chiara, you clean this mess.

She looked at me with such a perplexed expression. I was genuinely angry and she was not sure what to make of it. She finally sat down (yes, in the puddle she created), and wiped a few splashes. Then I pointed out some larger puddles and she looked at me again, with that same perplexed expression, as though she were asking why I was insisting on this charade of bossing her around. Hadn’t she already shown me she was boss?

I pointed out yet another large puddle but she would have none of it. She threw the wet towel at me! I tossed it back on her already-wet lap! She threw it back, yelling, No! And I returned it again, saying, When you make a mess, you have to clean it up!

What was there to do at this point? I cleaned up the very little dampness remaining (Chiara actually had done a pretty good job). And then got her ready for her bath and for bed.

Once we were quietly slowing down in her bedroom the flashes of anger from earlier in the evening began to bother me. Was it because I was feeling guilty for being so tough with her or was she genuinely being a little wary of me? I wasn’t sure but I felt like clearing the air. So, I held Chiara in my lap and told her I loved her and that even though I sometimes get angry at her behavior I will always love her.

Chiara seemed to understand, or maybe she was just responding to being cuddled. She gave me a few kisses and fell asleep pretty easily, as her nights go.

When I got home this evening after a long, difficult week at work, I said to Luke, “Let’s go OUT for dinner tonight!” It’s been a long while since we’ve done that. We often cook or order in and lately, being so busy, the cooking has been uninspired: pasta with sauce from a jar, simple soups, Indian food from foil packs and cans! Eating this way makes me feel like I’m back in college, or just starting out instead of a 30-something (I can’t believe that’s a description I’m going to have to give up in a short while!) with a husband and kid!

Dinner out was just the right thing. We walked across Union Square to Zen Palate. Chiara got to choose her own shoes before we left the apt. and as she has been doing lately, she chose her bright green froggy rainboots. Never mind that it was a gorgeous, clear, crisp evening. She had on her emerald green plastic boots with a cute pink and lavendar ensemble and her cute little lavendar knit hoodie sweater to beat the chill.

Unfortunately, there was a wait for a table in the casual downstairs dining room so rather than risk overestimating Chiara’s patience, we opted for fine dining upstairs. Chiara and Luke took the stairs together — three staircases in all. Our food came quickly and we ate uneventfully. Sounds boring, but with an 18-month-old, having an uneventful restaurant dinner, especially on tablecloths with cloth napkins, was triumphant. I was a little concerned that Chiara wouldn’t be able to handle the restaurant since she had eaten before we left so she wasn’t that hungry. But she kept her interest level up, played with the chopsticks and the bamboo napkin ring; she drank from the teacup of water the waiter gave her, spilling a lot on her lap, but otherwise handling drinking from a cup wtih consummate skill. At one point, when I had placed chopped up pieces of orange-glazed seitan on her plate, she looked at me and said, Thank you!

Luke and I faced each other during dinner — for the first time in a really long time I realized. At home we sit at a counter on barstools and at best are on two sides of a corner. I really felt lucky and relaxed. We are privileged to have the comfort to dine out in New York City whenever we want to, without having to plan ahead. And we are especially privileged to have a daughter who will go anywhere and do anything with us.

During dinner I would look at her little face and feel my heart breaking a tiny bit with every glance. She’s a beautiful, wondrous baby. So full of intelligence, love, curiosity, and her own unique and very engaging personality.

We walked back home, all of us, which is slow-going with a toddler. There was a gorgeous three-quarter moon tonight so we pointed at the sky and waited for Chiara to notice. Moon, moon, moon, she gestured, pointing up. The she did a little dance hopping from one leg to the other because she was so excited to see the moon!

Inevitably, she finally lost her composure on the long walk home. Nothing big or dramatic, but she was just having none of this hold-our-hands-when-you-cross-the-street business. She just let her knees give out and sat on the street for a moment before we cajoled her up and to the curb and offered her the stroller. No, no!, she said. And then she shrugged us off and continued walking. She stopped at the first brownstone stoop we came to and insisted on walking up and down the tall stoop all by herself. Finally, after that triumph she graciously accepted her Apa’s offer to ride in her stroller the rest of the way home.

The moon was behind us so Luke turned her toward it and pulled the stroller in reverse. The rest of the block Chiara kept waving at the sky and saying, “Bye bye, Moon! Bye bye, Moon!”

Luke turned to me and said he never could have imagined how quickly Chiara would develop.

It’s true. In one short year and a half, she has gone from being a milk-sucking, sleeping cuddle of flesh to a walking, capable and even independent toddler with preferences for what she eats, how she eats it, what she wears, how she wears it, where she goes and how she gets there, what she says and how she says it. Amazing!

The best part of the whole evening was that she was in bed by 8:45 — just 15 minutes later than our goal. Of course, she wasn’t exactly asleep yet, but that’s another story altogether.

I took Chiara to her 18-month check-up today. It’s hard to believe I’ve been a parent for that long! It’s the easiest and the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s a permanent part of my life now, there’s no turning back once you’ve had a kid. You are a parent forever, and it changes who you are fundamentally.

Every check-up, I am asked a few developmental questions. Today Yasmin asked whether Chiara was into books and whether she pointed at things. “Do you want to see?” I asked.

I pulled a book that was on the bookshelf under the examining table. That’s Not My Kitten is a book that Chiara also owns, but her book has slightly different colors and illustrations. I opened to the first pages and spoke to Chiara, who loooovvvveeesss this particular book. “Hey, do you see a mouse?” Chiara pointed her tiny little index finger at the mouse and looked up. “Mouse,” she said.

Then I asked, “Do you see flowers?” And Chiara pointed at the stem of the flowers and said, “Flower.”

Finally I asked, “Do you see a bee?” Chiara looked at the page and I could see her eyes looking right at the bee. But she didn’t move her finger. She just stared at the page for a few moments. I thought to myself that there are no bees in her version of this book, but there are other books she reads that have bees in them, however, the style of the illustration is different and the colors are different (her Hugs book has pink and yellow bumblebees. Go figure.) I tried again. “Chiara, I think I see a bee, do you see a bee?”

She stabbed her finger on the bee and practically shouted, “Bee!”

I can hardly stand it, how amazing human development is. She’s learning at such a rapid pace, and half the time we don’t even realize that we’re teaching her anything.

My mom was here today while I was at work and she vouched for the fact that Chiara is speaking in full sentences, albeit in Korean. Luke thinks it’s funny because her Korean sentences are only about four syllables apiece, but anyway they are complete and grammatically correct. She says, “Give me more food;” “Food is all gone (there are no articles in Korean);” and “There is food.”

Given how central food obviously is in Chiara’s life, it was shocking to learn that despite how much Chiara eats, she gained just one pound in the last 3 months. Ahjuma, Chiara’s nanny, thinks the nurse didn’t weigh Chiara properly. i agree that Chiara seems noticeably heavier to me, but the doctor wasn’t concerned so I didn’t care. The bare facts are, Chiara is 34 inches tall (95th percentile) and weighs just 24 pounds (47th percentile).

The only unpleasant part of the visit was the innoculation. Chiara got two shots today. The doctor asked me to hold her hands and next thing I knew the deed was done. Chiara made a small sound, but didn’t cry. She seemed startled. Then, she turned to look at me and had this expression on her face of complete betrayal. She was so unhappy that I helped the doctor inflict pain on her. She knit her brow, pursed her lips, and stared me down while mewling in a whiny, indignant way. Luke and I call this her fake cry. No tears, and it sounds like a half-strength cry. She kept this up for about 5 minutes as I put her clothes back on. I’m sure she would have kept it up longer if Ahjuma hadn’t shown up to take her back home right then.

We have no recent photos! Hard to believe we’ve slowed down so much!

I had another one of those unforgettable experiences trying to put chiara to sleep last night. i turned out the lights and, exhausted as i was, stretched out on her bed as she performed her usual routine of walking around the bedroom, opening books and turning pages as though she could read them in the dark, walking to the bed and crawling in, then immediately turning over and climbing down and repeating this over and over again.

Finally, she climbed into bed and decided to stay for a while. In the faint light coming over the transom, I could make out her face as she leaned close and kissed me. Mwah! she said. Then she kissed me over and over again. What a sweet, affectionate baby. At one point, she pressed her forehead against mine, and looked into my eyes, and then shook her head back and forth making Mmm Mmm sounds. This reminded me so much of my own mother, I’m sure Chiara picked it up from her.

Chiara kept repositioning herself on the bed, at one point her feet were on her pillow and he head was on the turned down sheet and comforter. from this position she could gaze at me from about arm’s length. She touched my head and said, in Korean, “mori (head).” Then she pointed her little index finger gently at my eyelid and said, “neun (eye).” Next she pointed at my mouth, “ipe (mouth),” she said. Then she pointed at my chest, “Booby (booby).”

Next thing I know, she looked right at me and said, “Bye bye booby.”

“Bye bye booby.” Wow. What an insight. Yes, the booby is going bye bye as Chiara is turning 18 months in two more days and she doesn’t really need to nurse anymore. She eats really well, and seems to like the foods that are good for her, too, so I’m not so worried that she can’t get what she needs from the foods we fix for her.

But it’s taking a long time to wean. At this point it’s not much of a burden on me as I only nurse her once a day, early in the morning before I’m even fully awake. So I’m not pushing too hard, but I’m also not letting her backslide. The momentum is toward shortening the amount of time she spends nursing, until she’s completely over it. I think Chiara is telling me that she knows what’s going on and that was reassuring. The end is near!

Here’s a recent photo of Chiara giving me a kiss while taking a bath. Luke played with her hair

Chiara went to her very first class today, the pre-toddler class for 16- to 20-month olds at the Children’s Aid Society. She showed up looking very cute in a Yankees t-shirt with “Jeter” on the back. One of her teachers, Thomas, slapped a sticker with “Chiara” on it just below.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this class may be more for me and my peace of mind than for Chiara. Chiara loves to interact with adults, but she’s possessive and competitive with other children. I know this is normal, and I was reassured by the teachers again today that this is normal 16-month-old behavior, but I still would like her to hang out with other kids on a regular basis so that she can learn some more polite interactive skills.

One of the bummers of the class — one hour a week on Tuesday early afternoons — is that it is timed almost precisely when Chiara is likely to be napping. So for instance today she arrived asleep in her stroller and woke up for the class. Then she was so wired afterward that she didn’t nap again.

When I got home this evening, Chiara fell asleep nursing in my lap.

Luke and I debated what to do. It was a full hour and a half before her bedtime, and she hadn’t eaten her evening meal yet. So I put her in her high chair and were I not holding her head, she would have face planted on her tray. Luke called his mom who said, “let the baby sleep.”

When Chiara goes to sleep, she quite literally surrenders. She lifts her arms like goalposts next to her head. Her legs are usually splayed, too. She kind of looks like she’s making a snow angel in her bed.

As I watched her passed out on her bed tonight, I wondered whether I would always remember what she is like as a baby. Does my mother remember the way I slept as a baby? The way I used to talk and walk? I don’t mean, does she sometimes remember an incident or a moment, but when she’s talking to me, does she remember the baby I used to be? And will I see this beautiful baby when Chiara is the age I am now, hopefully with a fulfilling, challenging, interesting life, and perhaps if she wants one, a family of her own.

All i write about now is Chiara! I’m not sure how I feel about this complete hijacking of my thoughts and creative energies, but she is so fascinating that I can’t stop myself. I guess she’s become my muse.

While I was feeding Chiara dinner tonight, she gestured to a grocery receipt just out of arm’s reach. I gave it to her and she clenched it in both hands, pulled, and handed me a finger-sized piece that she had torn off. Then she did this again, and again. The pieces got larger, thankfully, or we would have been sitting there until she was ready for college! Then we got down to a piece only about two inches long by a half inch (the original intact receipt was about 10 inches or so).

I started to think about Zeno’s paradox, not sure if I have the right name, where if you tear a piece of paper in half and then tear one of those pieces in half, you can continue to do this to infinity. Theoretically, it has no end. How would this end with Chiara?

She has such incredible dexterity for a 16-month-old. She tore and tore her little piece of paper, handing each piece to me, until it could no longer be torn because it was too small for her itty bitty fingertips. Then she stared at her little shred, about the size of the tip of a pencil eraser, and she handed it to me. The end.