The only thing bruised is my ego . . .

Soooooooo, I fell on the ice today. I was walking home from work, and I feel obligated to confess, talking on my cell phone. Now, after last weeks icy storm, I had gone to EMS on my lunch hour and bought Tom and myself Yak Traks. But had put them on after today's icy storm? Nooooooooo. So, I am walking by 3 youth on my way home, and bam, I hit the pavement. And one of them walks over and courteously says, "Do you need help getting up, Ma'am?" And I, admitting defeat, answer yes, yes I do need help getting up. Oh the indignity of it all.

In other news, it has been horrendous lately to get Miss Alice to sleep. She prefers to be walked or strolled to sleep, but as that is now impractical (not to mention unsafe!), we have been attempting to get her to go to sleep in her crib. We have tried rocking her to sleep in the past, but she hasn't been into rocking--even her foster mother Ana said she didn't like to be rocked. Well, I called my mom, who suggested trying to rock her again. I had observed that she liked to have some kind of repetitive motion, like having her hair stroked, or kicking/shuffling her feet, to help her fall asleep while in her crib. I mean, she obviously likes the motion, so I have never understood why she didn't like being rocked. Well, out of desperation I decided to rock her to sleep last Thursday. I put her in a giant bear hug, sat down, and rocked like a maniac. And for anyone who knows this rocking chair, I picked it out based on its looks. It is very creaky. And the way I was rocking, boy was it creaky! Who cares though, because it worked! That was Thursday. Tonight (count 'em: 5 days later) she took her bath, pulled the plug on the tub, looked me in the eye and said "Nite Nite." So we went upstairs and got in our jammies. I brought her back down thinking, no way, it was too early, so we'll read a book. I picked a going to bed story, and at the end there was a child sleeping in the bed. Alice looked at the picture, said "Nite Nite" again, and tilted her head to the side, as if to indicate lying down. So up the stairs we went, into the rocker, and . . . Blast Off! No sissy rocking for us. By song 5 on her Latin lullabies cd, she is asleep in her crib. No more struggles, just a warm head snuggled against my neck. Life could not get better.

One more amazing thing Alice did today. Every morning we ride the train to daycare, and as we come up the steps, I say the same thing:

"Are you going to see your friends today? Are you going to play with toys? Who are you going to see?" And then I list everyone's name. Well this morning, Alice answered me! When I asked her who was she going to see, she answered, "Ana!" Ana is her primary caretaker, and she is a lovely woman from Guatemala. Our girl is really starting to talk.

As my dad pointed out, given how much Alice babbles now, she should be a big talker. I guess he should know, having raised me! Point taken, Dad!