{"id":554,"date":"2011-01-14T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T19:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/friday-january-14-2011\/"},"modified":"2011-01-14T14:04:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T19:04:00","slug":"friday-january-14-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/friday-january-14-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday January 14, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winter is here. I can tell. My brain is dead. Things feel listless and lifeless. The world is nearly monochromatic. I take that back. There is the grey of gravel and pavement and the sky and the drab, lifeless greyish, green brown of tree trunks and grass and shrubs. When the sun shines, it looks cold. When the sun doesn’t shine, it looks even colder. <\/p>\n

Going out means wearing enough clothes to make a small child feel five pounds heavier. Staying in means throwing more wood on the fire and trying to keep your feet warm.<\/p>\n

In early November I resolved that this year, I would learn to enjoy winter. Not just tolerate it. Celebrate it. I would notice the beauty of snowflakes. I would revel in small delights like hot chocolate and story time. I would count the days and realize that it is only two more months til the weather begins to warm up a little and I would rationally think to myself, “this is not so bad.” <\/p>\n

And then it actually turned into winter. And I cannot find the beauty. When the leaves dropped this fall, I counted months for the first time ever and realized that we live without leaves and green for just over six months of the year. Is it any wonder that looking outside is depressing? I started looking for tiny snippets of color along the school route. The main thing I found was a green real estate sign and yellow curvy road caution signs. Ah, art does add so much to my life.<\/p>\n

What do you LIKE about winter? Seriously. Snow does not count. This is one of our barren years. (Not that I actually mind after being snowed in for way too long last year.)<\/p>\n

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\"Nov<\/a> <\/p>\n

How well do you speak toddlerese? Liam lacks consonants as badly as I lack joyfulness about winter. The other day I stopped and listened to him. Really listened instead of just instantly interpreting his words in my head. He sounds hillarious! He is expressive enough to make up for everything he doesn’t say and I don’t get stuck very often. Only because I talk to him all day. And when I get stuck, I can ask Adam. <\/p>\n

Two of his most common phrases:<\/p>\n

“Dat make me deel doe ‘appy.” (That makes me feel so happy — comes in response to anything I answer yes, too, even something as simple as “yes, you may have milk.”)<\/p>\n

“Me may eat dat?” No. “Dat make me dick?” Yes. “My dummy i not dong enough.” (I may eat that? … That will make me sick? … My tummy is not strong enough?) or “Me nont die ‘ill bit dees.” (I want to try a little bit of cheese … and yes, I’ve started cheating and giving him a bite or two here and there. It worked til I gave him half a piece at dinner one night AND half a piece at lunch the next day. He cried out with that horrible shrieky cry three times during his nap and finally called me frantically saying “my dummy ‘urts.” So we’re being good again.)<\/p>\n

I love the way he says, “danks” (thanks) after everything for even the simplest things. It’s not something I remember teaching him; he’s just a grateful child. But the best part is hearing him tell stories. Here is the latest story by Liam. This one was traumatic enough in real life to give him a nightmare during his nap. Can you figure out what happened?<\/p>\n

“Mommy pi Do-di up. Mommy ba dow nil. Mommy died and died. Den Mommy bin. Den Mommy died and died. Den me otch in nindoe. Den mommy died and died. Den Mommy made it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter is here. I can tell. My brain is dead. Things feel listless and lifeless. The world is nearly monochromatic. I take that back. There is the grey of gravel… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-8W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}