Confession #13: It Finally Happened

 
The trees in NYC have finally started to bloom!  It may still be overcast, rainy, freezing winter coat and hat weather out there today but we have flowering trees so that gives me some hope. Ah, New York in spring..., but, that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened that I’m really here to talk about...

Arden jumped!  It was so cute.  Instead of just bending her legs and doing all the movements of a jump but not having her feet leave the ground like usual, her feet actually defied gravity.  It’s so much fun to watch her do things I so take for granted for the first time.  One of those joys of parenting that keeps us reproducing.  But, that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened either...

Arden walked up and down stairs without crawling, scooting or holding on to anything!  We were hanging out at Athens Square (Astoria, Queens is still home to the largest contingency of Greeks outside of Greece) and right in front of the statue of Aristotle, she just started marching up and down, back and forth. It was too funny because as soon as I pointed it out to her, she started crawling up and down the very same stairs.  Sometimes analysis is paralysis. But that’s not the thing-that-finally-happened either... It must be obvious by now that I am stalling.

I am about to find out who actually reads my blog because I don’t think there is anyway you can read this and not have something to say about it. Okay, here it goes.

I’ve been dreading this since Arden was a baby.  It’s a hazard of living in NYC and a hazard of living in an apartment building.  It seemed like it was only a matter of time before it happened.  I think it was more likely to happen now since she is a bit older but still puts so many things in her mouth.  We had just come home from the store and entered the foyer (if you can call it that) of our building.  In the 1.5 seconds it takes me to fold up our stroller Arden found a dead roach on the stairs, picked it up and took a bite.  Although her back was to me, as soon as she turned around, I knew what happened...mostly from the “OMG, Mom what did I do” look on her face and the roach legs on her bottom lip. I went a little nuts. 

“ARDEN! That’s why I'm always telling you not to pick up stuff off the floor and eat it!!! UGH! BLECH! Why did you bite it?  Did you think it was a piece of chocolate?” To which she responded, “Yes.”

I wiped the body parts off her face as fast as humanly possible and made her stick out her tongue so I could wipe that clean as well.  Honestly, we got lucky.  She hadn’t swallowed anything and the roach was dead, after all.