Learning to speak, scary noises, validations, a tired beans

I'm trying an experiment right now. Lucy and I are outside on the front porch, hanging out. Not going for a walk, but not staying cooped up inside. We live on a busy street, so I can't let her go too far. Thus far, it has not been a problem. The neighbor next door is using his lawnmower and it's slightly freaking her out.

She's handling it sort of well, except she keeps looking more and more upset and it standing dutifully next to me, as I sit on this bench here. And constantly is saying, "Scary," "It's okay," "Scary noise," "noise," etc. She is really fearful of noises, especially the vacuum. And "hug," while she lays her head on my arm. Now she's climbing on the bench with me, still nervous, still talking, still parroting what I say, inaccurately, and I only get a chance to type little bursts between validations.

She needs lots of validation at this stage in her life. Learning to talk needs lots of reassurances.

To put it one way.

Much of the time I'm telling her when she says something correctly or incorrectly; other times she says, "Need help?" and I say, "What do you need help with?" and she grabs my hand for me to follow her. Or she actually says what she needs "help" with, and half the time it's not something I'm going to get my lazy ass off the couch for. And also, she's the only kid in this house (for the time being). She has no other good friends. I'm always hesitant to take her over to my friend Todd's daycare cooperative, cause we get sick every fucking time. It's total bullshit. I'm sick of getting sick, and I'm also sick of Lucy not having other kids to play with. So I don't know what to do. Thinking of exploring online ads for playdates. Is that sad?

Now we've gone inside, and mama has come home on her lunch break. Nonetheless, Lucy's mood is ruined. Also, she cries at her mother whenever she comes home. And I tell her not to, and then she cries for real, but she's faking it the whole time. I scare her when I tell her not to do stuff, and not in a yelling voice, but an authoritative one.

Which makes me laugh to myself and say, "Good."

Mama just said, "You crying now? Now that dada called you on your b.s.?"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Also, today Lucy got ahold of a red pen and now she has red ink all around her mouth and part of her nose. I'm willing to bet a little of it got in her mouth, too. Just playing the odds.

Now she's sitting next to me on the couch, eating her pbj, and I get to rub her 39-weeks-pregnant belly, with an at-least-6-lb baby in there. Lucky me. That thing is really rolling around in there.