I've said it before, and I'll say it again: teething sucks. Big time. I hear from friends that some babies aren't bothered by teething, most are only bothered by the first few teeth, and even more are only bothered for a day or two. LL is not one of those children. When he's sprouting a tooth, he is a screaming no-sleep mess for weeks. (He's still charming during the day, for the most part, though the never-ending sleep disturbances all night long for weeks at a time do take a toll on even the most cheerful toddler.) I'm not sure if it helps us or hurts us, but LL also tends to get his teeth in waves. He got the last six of his eight incisors all during two tumultuous months. After a brief break, he is now working on molars and canines. In the last month alone, he has sprouted four of them, and two more are threatening to break the surface any day now. One the one hand, that is an awful lot of pain for a little guy to handle all at once. On the other hand, I suppose it will be nice to get it all out of the way.
As a total aside: on the advice of my dentist (who was shocked when I told him that LL is 13 months old and already has 12 teeth) we bought LL a normal toddler-sized toothbrush, instead of using the fingertip infant brush that seemed to just give LL a reason to bite us every day. He loves it, and is getting very good at brushing his own teeth.
LL is still waking up every single night. We dose him with Motrin before he goes to bed, and like clockwork, he wakes up six hours later when the medicine wears off. The Motrin seems to dull the pain enough for him to sort of fall asleep, but it clearly leaves enough pain that he's sleeping very lightly. He's normally a deep sleeper, but lately, he wakes to every noise and then wants company while he tosses and turns and chews on his hand and moans slightly as he tries to go back to sleep. Though we had never really done it before, we've started co-sleeping after he wakes in the middle of the night. I figure, if he's going to want one of us to keep him company until dawn, we might as well all be horizontal. This strategy is leading to an increased quantity of sleep for everybody, though a decreased quality of sleep for me and S. But I'm so horribly sleep-deprived at the moment that I'm willing to take quantity over quality, at least for a while. Maybe just until the last four canines and molars come in.
In happier news, LL increased his vocabulary this weekend. His repertoire had included: all done, mama (or rather, "Mom-Mom", which I find charming), dada, dai (Russian for "gimme", approximately), dah (Russian for "yes"), no no ("nah nah!"), and when he's feeling particularly communicative: again. (Sadly, it's sometimes hard to distinguish "all done" and "again," leading to a very frustrated LL.) Many children say "dog" early on, but instead, whenever LL sees or hears a dog, he barks. It's a very obvious "arf! arf!" sound. He also does a fairly convincing "ee! ee! ooh! ooh!" sound when he sees a monkey. Either we've been spending too much time making animal sounds and not enough time actually identifying the animals by name, or LL is just a born performer. Either way, in a move towards providing names for the animal kingdom, LL has now added the word "bear." Between wall paper, pictures, books, clothing, and stuffed animals, our house has approximately 8 billion bears in it, so LL is getting lots of opportunity to show off his new word.
LL has also suddenly developed a taste for exploration. For a long time after he learned to crawl, he refused to do it outside. If we put him on a blanket in the grass, he stayed on the blanket. Which was kind of handy, actually. Now, he has discovered that sidewalks are fun. If I set him in the front yard, he takes off for the sidewalk, then proceeds to visit all the neighbors. If I can just teach him to stop trying to take headers off the curb, he'll be ready for his own paper route or something.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Perfect Storm
We have a lot going on right now. I'm almost done with a huge experiment at school, hopefully the last big one that I'll need to do for my dissertation, and I'm almost ready to start analyzing data and writing up results. I'm half-heartedly looking for a post-graduation job, which I should really be doing whole-heartedly but, um, I'm not. S just had a project canceled at work, followed by a big reorganization, so his work life is in chaos. And in less than six weeks, S's entire extended family (~20 people) are descending on our house from out-of-state for an entire week of Thanksgiving merriment. Thanksgiving is a HUGE deal in S's family, and hosting the festivities is such a big job that they rotate it around from year to year. We've only hosted once before, and it's our turn again. Hosting Thanksgiving involves planning all meals and entertainment (including several prepared games, shows, and craft projects) for every day of the week. And the meals are all elaborate productions involving many traditional American, Hawaiian, and Japanese dishes. Last time we hosted, I started all the planning and prep work in early October, but this year I've done nada, nothing, zip so far. Which has me a little bit panicky.
Normally, finishing a dissertation and looking for a job and planning a week-long holiday celebration for twenty in-laws would be plenty to both fill my time and stress me out. But instead, they're all taking a back seat to LL and this I am Toddler, hear me roar! clingy temperamental sleep-is-for-babies-who-haven't-yet-turned-one "thing" he's going through.
We seem to be facing a perfect storm of circumstances for LL over the past month. There have been a lot of disruptions and new things for him to deal with all at once, starting with the daycare change. You may remember that a month ago, Natasha's mother was in a bad car accident, and Natasha flew home to be with her. Sadly, her mother never awoke from her persistent coma, and has passed away. Natasha has had a devastating several months, after losing her father back in February. She is now back, she reopened her daycare this week, and she seems relieved to be back with her children. LL is definitely thrilled to be back with her and all his daycare friends after more than a month of a rotation of new care providers.
In addition to all of the daycare changes, LL also reacted poorly to his 12-month shots. And his growing brain has clearly made a bunch of new connections all of a sudden, as he has suddenly figured out how to climb, how to better manipulate small objects, and how to participate in conversations. (He only knows a few comprehensible words, but that doesn't stop him from babbling nonstop. I ask him a question, and he responds with entire paragraphs before pausing and looking expectantly at me, waiting for my response before continuing the conversation. He totally gets the give-and-take of verbal interactions. All he's missing is the speak-an-understandable-language part.) He's also gone through an amazing growth spurt -- tables that he could stand underneath just a week ago are now a source of frustration, since he stands up and smacks his head on the underside. He's also mid-transition between two naps and one. (Good lord, nap transitions are a pain in the butt!) And he sprouted at least three more teeth this week (two incisors and a molar on the bottom, possibly more on the top but he won't let me check).
Any one of these factors (daycare changes, brain development, growth, teeth, vaccines, dropping naps) would individually be enough to disrupt him a bit, but all at the same time? He's a clingy, sleepless mess. He seems to want to be independent yet simultaneously attached to me, and we haven't quite figured out how to achieve that. He crawls to me and begs to be picked up, but doesn't actually want to be in my arms. When I return him to the ground, he throws a temper tantrum. If I sit on the floor with him, he does not want to be in my lap, yet he claws at my shirt as if he wants to be held. When he's in this mood, the only thing that works is for me to lie down in the middle of his play area and let him crawl back and forth over me, which he finds endlessly amusing. (He also loves being tickled and he loves being chased and he loves chasing me, but he has to already be happy before engaging in any of those activities.)
He's waking up at least once almost every night. Usually he wants to be held for a little while (and to have a middle-of-the-night chat -- like I said: nonstop babbling) but two nights so far, it's been night terrors, which are horrible to deal with. (For the uninitiated: night terrors are when children start screaming and thrashing around in the middle of the night. They're not awake, but it looks like they are. They don't react to your presence and usually cannot be calmed down no matter what you do. And apparently, children are totally unaware that it's happening.) Some night terrors are just random, but apparently all those disruptions mentioned above can trigger them in toddlers. We're hoping that they'll go away soon, as things start to settle down. And we absolutely need to get him sleeping through the night again, because S and I are walking around like zombies these days. (We were both sick last week, too. Sleep deprivation probably made us easy targets.) S is lobbying for some cry-it-out experimentation, but I'm hesitant to do it while LL is in a separation anxiety phase.
So, um, that's what's going on in our house right now. Both the dissertation stuff and the job stuff probably deserve their own posts. There's also starting to be this lingering second-child question, which seems like a ridiculous thing to even bring up in light of everything else, but it's there nonetheless.
Normally, finishing a dissertation and looking for a job and planning a week-long holiday celebration for twenty in-laws would be plenty to both fill my time and stress me out. But instead, they're all taking a back seat to LL and this I am Toddler, hear me roar! clingy temperamental sleep-is-for-babies-who-haven't-yet-turned-one "thing" he's going through.
We seem to be facing a perfect storm of circumstances for LL over the past month. There have been a lot of disruptions and new things for him to deal with all at once, starting with the daycare change. You may remember that a month ago, Natasha's mother was in a bad car accident, and Natasha flew home to be with her. Sadly, her mother never awoke from her persistent coma, and has passed away. Natasha has had a devastating several months, after losing her father back in February. She is now back, she reopened her daycare this week, and she seems relieved to be back with her children. LL is definitely thrilled to be back with her and all his daycare friends after more than a month of a rotation of new care providers.
In addition to all of the daycare changes, LL also reacted poorly to his 12-month shots. And his growing brain has clearly made a bunch of new connections all of a sudden, as he has suddenly figured out how to climb, how to better manipulate small objects, and how to participate in conversations. (He only knows a few comprehensible words, but that doesn't stop him from babbling nonstop. I ask him a question, and he responds with entire paragraphs before pausing and looking expectantly at me, waiting for my response before continuing the conversation. He totally gets the give-and-take of verbal interactions. All he's missing is the speak-an-understandable-language part.) He's also gone through an amazing growth spurt -- tables that he could stand underneath just a week ago are now a source of frustration, since he stands up and smacks his head on the underside. He's also mid-transition between two naps and one. (Good lord, nap transitions are a pain in the butt!) And he sprouted at least three more teeth this week (two incisors and a molar on the bottom, possibly more on the top but he won't let me check).
Any one of these factors (daycare changes, brain development, growth, teeth, vaccines, dropping naps) would individually be enough to disrupt him a bit, but all at the same time? He's a clingy, sleepless mess. He seems to want to be independent yet simultaneously attached to me, and we haven't quite figured out how to achieve that. He crawls to me and begs to be picked up, but doesn't actually want to be in my arms. When I return him to the ground, he throws a temper tantrum. If I sit on the floor with him, he does not want to be in my lap, yet he claws at my shirt as if he wants to be held. When he's in this mood, the only thing that works is for me to lie down in the middle of his play area and let him crawl back and forth over me, which he finds endlessly amusing. (He also loves being tickled and he loves being chased and he loves chasing me, but he has to already be happy before engaging in any of those activities.)
He's waking up at least once almost every night. Usually he wants to be held for a little while (and to have a middle-of-the-night chat -- like I said: nonstop babbling) but two nights so far, it's been night terrors, which are horrible to deal with. (For the uninitiated: night terrors are when children start screaming and thrashing around in the middle of the night. They're not awake, but it looks like they are. They don't react to your presence and usually cannot be calmed down no matter what you do. And apparently, children are totally unaware that it's happening.) Some night terrors are just random, but apparently all those disruptions mentioned above can trigger them in toddlers. We're hoping that they'll go away soon, as things start to settle down. And we absolutely need to get him sleeping through the night again, because S and I are walking around like zombies these days. (We were both sick last week, too. Sleep deprivation probably made us easy targets.) S is lobbying for some cry-it-out experimentation, but I'm hesitant to do it while LL is in a separation anxiety phase.
So, um, that's what's going on in our house right now. Both the dissertation stuff and the job stuff probably deserve their own posts. There's also starting to be this lingering second-child question, which seems like a ridiculous thing to even bring up in light of everything else, but it's there nonetheless.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Separation Anxiety
I'm an idiot. Seriously -- a complete moron. Why do I ever write things like "LL never went through a clingy phase"? What was I thinking when I wrote that in my last post? Haven't I learned by now that putting statements like that in writing is the surest possible way to guarantee that they stop being true?!?
LL is now completely 100% no-holds-barred in a clingy separation anxiety phase. He climbs all over me as soon as I pick him up in the morning. He cries and clings to fistfuls of my clothing (or hair) when I try to drop him off at daycare, or to hand him to someone else. The clinging is accompanied by a look of pure terror and pitiful wails. (In true toddler fashion, he stops crying and goes happily about his day 30 seconds after I leave, which is great for the daycare but sucks for me, because I hear his whimpering and sniffling in my head for the rest of the day.) It's slightly better if I try to hand him to someone he knows very well, but even then, as soon as he's comfortably settled in that person's arms, he turns and reaches for me to take him back again. (If I don't take him back immediately, he proceeds to the pitiful wails.)
When I pick him up from daycare at the end of the day, he insists on being attached to me for the rest of the day. If I try to put him down, even if it's just to play with him on the floor at home, he screams and grabs at me until I take him back into my arms. He doesn't want to go down for naps. He doesn't want to go to sleep at night. And for the past two weeks, he's been waking up around 11pm and screaming and sobbing until we go in to get him, and then he stays up for hours at a time. (We discovered a few nights ago that he goes back to sleep better if S goes to him instead of me, but he's still up for at least an hour.)
It's clear that LL is exhausted -- he has little bags under his eyes, and when he's awake in the middle of the night, he puts his head down and whimpers. I'm certain that he wants to be asleep. But he seems so full of anxiety that he can't fall back asleep. Baby insomnia. And none of our regular tricks are working -- milk, fresh air, rocking, singing, walking around the house, patting his back.... He just can't calm down enough to go back to sleep.
My friends tell me that these phases usually only last a month or so before they fade (and then reappear, and fade, and reappear, ...). I hope so, because it's both mentally and physically exhausting. I also think that it has been made worse by all of the daycare changes, and I think that it's also being compounded by teething (yep, fairly certain those molars are on their way). I can't take much more. I have a new baby carrier (a lovely mei tai that LL seems to really enjoy riding in) and it's the only thing keeping me sane in the afternoons. As soon as we get home, he goes into the mei tai and stays there until dinner, because otherwise my arms would fall off from carrying him. But even with the best carrier in the world, 22+ pounds is a lot of active toddler to be carrying around for hours every afternoon.
I know that almost all babies go through a separation anxiety phase at some point (or multiple points) during the first two years. But the "oh my goodness, my mommy is abandoning me, I can't believe I'm about to be left all alone in the world, if I can't see her and touch her I will surely perish!" thing is bringing on a horrible bout of mommy guilt. All of which is made worse by the fact that I'm hating school right now, and I'm hating the process of looking for a job after I graduate, and I feel like there's absolutely nothing that I want to do professionally right now, so why in the hell am I abandoning my child if I'm not even enjoying what I'm abandoning him for? But that's probably the renewed sleep deprivation talking. Right?
LL is now completely 100% no-holds-barred in a clingy separation anxiety phase. He climbs all over me as soon as I pick him up in the morning. He cries and clings to fistfuls of my clothing (or hair) when I try to drop him off at daycare, or to hand him to someone else. The clinging is accompanied by a look of pure terror and pitiful wails. (In true toddler fashion, he stops crying and goes happily about his day 30 seconds after I leave, which is great for the daycare but sucks for me, because I hear his whimpering and sniffling in my head for the rest of the day.) It's slightly better if I try to hand him to someone he knows very well, but even then, as soon as he's comfortably settled in that person's arms, he turns and reaches for me to take him back again. (If I don't take him back immediately, he proceeds to the pitiful wails.)
When I pick him up from daycare at the end of the day, he insists on being attached to me for the rest of the day. If I try to put him down, even if it's just to play with him on the floor at home, he screams and grabs at me until I take him back into my arms. He doesn't want to go down for naps. He doesn't want to go to sleep at night. And for the past two weeks, he's been waking up around 11pm and screaming and sobbing until we go in to get him, and then he stays up for hours at a time. (We discovered a few nights ago that he goes back to sleep better if S goes to him instead of me, but he's still up for at least an hour.)
It's clear that LL is exhausted -- he has little bags under his eyes, and when he's awake in the middle of the night, he puts his head down and whimpers. I'm certain that he wants to be asleep. But he seems so full of anxiety that he can't fall back asleep. Baby insomnia. And none of our regular tricks are working -- milk, fresh air, rocking, singing, walking around the house, patting his back.... He just can't calm down enough to go back to sleep.
My friends tell me that these phases usually only last a month or so before they fade (and then reappear, and fade, and reappear, ...). I hope so, because it's both mentally and physically exhausting. I also think that it has been made worse by all of the daycare changes, and I think that it's also being compounded by teething (yep, fairly certain those molars are on their way). I can't take much more. I have a new baby carrier (a lovely mei tai that LL seems to really enjoy riding in) and it's the only thing keeping me sane in the afternoons. As soon as we get home, he goes into the mei tai and stays there until dinner, because otherwise my arms would fall off from carrying him. But even with the best carrier in the world, 22+ pounds is a lot of active toddler to be carrying around for hours every afternoon.
I know that almost all babies go through a separation anxiety phase at some point (or multiple points) during the first two years. But the "oh my goodness, my mommy is abandoning me, I can't believe I'm about to be left all alone in the world, if I can't see her and touch her I will surely perish!" thing is bringing on a horrible bout of mommy guilt. All of which is made worse by the fact that I'm hating school right now, and I'm hating the process of looking for a job after I graduate, and I feel like there's absolutely nothing that I want to do professionally right now, so why in the hell am I abandoning my child if I'm not even enjoying what I'm abandoning him for? But that's probably the renewed sleep deprivation talking. Right?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Happy Birthday, LL!
Time moves in odd ways when you have a baby. The old saying goes something like, "The days are slow but the years are fast." I don't think that I ever really internalized that sentiment until LL was born. But this weekend, faced with the fact that I now have a one-year-old, I couldn't help shaking my head at how quickly the year has gone, yet how far away the time before LL seems. Being pregnant was ages and ages ago, yet surely he was a tiny squawking newborn only yesterday. For the last few weeks, I've been working on putting together LL's baby book, covering his whole first year. Going through old photos month by month has been fun, but seeing the passing of time lined up in front of me has been startling. It really hits home how much he has grown and changed. His face is different, his hair is different, his eyes are different. No longer helpless, he can now move where he wants and reach for what he wants and smile and wave and share toys and share hugs to show us that he loves us.
This past month alone, he has developed so many new skills. He pulls himself up on every piece of furniture in our house, and has begun tentatively taking steps as he cruises along. He loves opening drawers and cabinets to discover hidden treasures. Faced with a room full of toys, he ignores every age-appropriate thing around in order to play with drink coasters and shoes and tupperware and VHS tapes. After a week or so of pinched fingers, he has learned how to properly close drawers without hurting himself. He is growing increasingly adept with a spoon, and insists on feeding himself a few spoonfuls of food at each meal. And his random babbling is starting to become remarkably ordered, organized into sentences with beginnings and endings, intonation and emphasis, with real words occasionally shining out from the randomness. After a week of babbling the same syllables over and over and over, we discovered that he was actually saying something in Russian, phrases that he picked up at daycare and uses in context-appropriate ways. We wonder now whether he has even more words than we think, split among English, Russian, and Spanish.
He has always been a very social baby, and continues to love large parties and being among friends, both old and young. He crawls after babies his own age, he tries to imitate the behavior of toddlers and preschoolers, he happily shares toys with kids of all ages. He never went through a real "stranger danger" clingy phase, but he has started crawling over to me and just resting his head against my leg for a few moments when he feels overwhelmed. After a brief mommy recharge, he goes back to playing. When I walk into a room, he immediately gives me a giant smile and crawls over to say "hello!" before returning to his activity. I love that he is social, that he immediately started playing with his grandparents when they arrived even though he hadn't seen them in five months, but deep down it also warms my heart to know that he knows I'm his mommy, and that he sees me differently than he sees everybody else. It's great that he'll let new people feed him and play with him, but he knows that I'm Mommy. We're not all interchangeable after all.
He is increasingly aware that people bigger than him have the ability to do things that he can't do yet, and has begun asking for help when he wants to do something beyond his capabilities. He hands blocks to me, pointing at a tower to indicate that he wants me to keep building it bigger. He loves the buttons and levers on his activity box, but doesn't quite have the dexterity to turn the nob, so he gently takes my hand and places it on the nob with a "dah!" command, requesting that I turn it for him. He hands me his caterpillar pull toy, then giggles and gets into crawling position, waiting for me to start pulling the caterpillar around the room so that he can chase it.
He had a wonderful birthday weekend, playing with grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. At his party, he happily ate a collection of his favorite foods: kiwi, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, cheerios, cheddar cheese, and crackers. He was enthralled investigating his first helium balloon, and clapped when he saw the "Happy Birthday!" banner. He wore a birthday hat without complaint. And the highlight, his first dessert, provided all the smiles and giggles and mess that I had hoped for. I made him a vanilla cake with lots of gooey frosting, and he happily ate some and played with some and mashed some and rubbed some into his hair.
LL had a great visit with all of his family, and is spending this whole week with S's parents. (When they found out that we were having daycare problems, they made plans to stay the week to help out. They were very very excited to have him all to themselves for the whole week, so when we solved the daycare problems and didn't need them anymore, they were crushed. So, we told them that they could stay anyway. I love my in-laws, but having them in the house for the whole week is stressful, and it's only Tuesday. But LL is loving all the attention.) He had his one-year check-up, where he weighed in at just over 22 pounds, maintaining his below-average weight class. He shot up in height, though, to the 85th percentile, which means that he has officially outgrown his infant carrier. And he still has a big head.
Most important: he's healthy and happy and learning and growing. He eats and he sleeps and he plays and he laughs. My baby is one year old.
This past month alone, he has developed so many new skills. He pulls himself up on every piece of furniture in our house, and has begun tentatively taking steps as he cruises along. He loves opening drawers and cabinets to discover hidden treasures. Faced with a room full of toys, he ignores every age-appropriate thing around in order to play with drink coasters and shoes and tupperware and VHS tapes. After a week or so of pinched fingers, he has learned how to properly close drawers without hurting himself. He is growing increasingly adept with a spoon, and insists on feeding himself a few spoonfuls of food at each meal. And his random babbling is starting to become remarkably ordered, organized into sentences with beginnings and endings, intonation and emphasis, with real words occasionally shining out from the randomness. After a week of babbling the same syllables over and over and over, we discovered that he was actually saying something in Russian, phrases that he picked up at daycare and uses in context-appropriate ways. We wonder now whether he has even more words than we think, split among English, Russian, and Spanish.
He has always been a very social baby, and continues to love large parties and being among friends, both old and young. He crawls after babies his own age, he tries to imitate the behavior of toddlers and preschoolers, he happily shares toys with kids of all ages. He never went through a real "stranger danger" clingy phase, but he has started crawling over to me and just resting his head against my leg for a few moments when he feels overwhelmed. After a brief mommy recharge, he goes back to playing. When I walk into a room, he immediately gives me a giant smile and crawls over to say "hello!" before returning to his activity. I love that he is social, that he immediately started playing with his grandparents when they arrived even though he hadn't seen them in five months, but deep down it also warms my heart to know that he knows I'm his mommy, and that he sees me differently than he sees everybody else. It's great that he'll let new people feed him and play with him, but he knows that I'm Mommy. We're not all interchangeable after all.
He is increasingly aware that people bigger than him have the ability to do things that he can't do yet, and has begun asking for help when he wants to do something beyond his capabilities. He hands blocks to me, pointing at a tower to indicate that he wants me to keep building it bigger. He loves the buttons and levers on his activity box, but doesn't quite have the dexterity to turn the nob, so he gently takes my hand and places it on the nob with a "dah!" command, requesting that I turn it for him. He hands me his caterpillar pull toy, then giggles and gets into crawling position, waiting for me to start pulling the caterpillar around the room so that he can chase it.
He had a wonderful birthday weekend, playing with grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. At his party, he happily ate a collection of his favorite foods: kiwi, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, cheerios, cheddar cheese, and crackers. He was enthralled investigating his first helium balloon, and clapped when he saw the "Happy Birthday!" banner. He wore a birthday hat without complaint. And the highlight, his first dessert, provided all the smiles and giggles and mess that I had hoped for. I made him a vanilla cake with lots of gooey frosting, and he happily ate some and played with some and mashed some and rubbed some into his hair.
LL had a great visit with all of his family, and is spending this whole week with S's parents. (When they found out that we were having daycare problems, they made plans to stay the week to help out. They were very very excited to have him all to themselves for the whole week, so when we solved the daycare problems and didn't need them anymore, they were crushed. So, we told them that they could stay anyway. I love my in-laws, but having them in the house for the whole week is stressful, and it's only Tuesday. But LL is loving all the attention.) He had his one-year check-up, where he weighed in at just over 22 pounds, maintaining his below-average weight class. He shot up in height, though, to the 85th percentile, which means that he has officially outgrown his infant carrier. And he still has a big head.
Most important: he's healthy and happy and learning and growing. He eats and he sleeps and he plays and he laughs. My baby is one year old.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
L'Shanah Tovah
This month is my last first day of school. Sort of. There are a whole host of reasons why that is not technically true. If I decide to go into academia, I'll have lots of future first days, but as a professor instead of a student. LL will start school some day, and I'm sure that the first several of his first days will have a huge effect on me as well. I'm also likely to take a class on ... something ... again someday, so that will technically have a first day of school. But this month is my last traditional it's September and I'm a student and school starts today! day. Weird. After preschool, kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, college, and grad school, I'm going to finally be done. That's 25 years of education there. I've crammed in just about all the book learnin' I can handle for now.
Honestly, I don't know if I'll even be able to convince myself to get through the next several months. I am ready to be DONE, and the academic year has barely started. Nine months to go....
LL's new daycare is working out great. LL even made a new friend! They sit on the floor vaguely near each other and play (separately) with toy cars. Then they both crawl over to the big basket of blocks and lean on it at the same time to make it tip over. In one-year-old terms, I think that means that now they're BFFs. (For one-year-olds, the bar is pretty low. "You didn't steal my crackers?!? You're my new bestest friend!")
My entire extended family is flying into town tomorrow for LL's big birthday bash on Sunday. Our theme for the party is "Stuff LL likes." We're serving yogurt and oatmeal and watermelon and crackers. Everybody will play with cars and blocks. There will be regularly scheduled dramatic readings of Sandra Boynton's Barnyard Dance! Then, we will all take a nap. Truly, a party for the history books.
Honestly, I don't know if I'll even be able to convince myself to get through the next several months. I am ready to be DONE, and the academic year has barely started. Nine months to go....
LL's new daycare is working out great. LL even made a new friend! They sit on the floor vaguely near each other and play (separately) with toy cars. Then they both crawl over to the big basket of blocks and lean on it at the same time to make it tip over. In one-year-old terms, I think that means that now they're BFFs. (For one-year-olds, the bar is pretty low. "You didn't steal my crackers?!? You're my new bestest friend!")
My entire extended family is flying into town tomorrow for LL's big birthday bash on Sunday. Our theme for the party is "Stuff LL likes." We're serving yogurt and oatmeal and watermelon and crackers. Everybody will play with cars and blocks. There will be regularly scheduled dramatic readings of Sandra Boynton's Barnyard Dance! Then, we will all take a nap. Truly, a party for the history books.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Oy!
I love being a mom. But let's be honest, there are a lot of things to dislike about the job. Keeping LL safe is hard work, especially now that he's mobile. Finding nutritious things for him to eat can be tough, considering my limited time to shop and cook and prep food. Trying to find the right balance of encouragement and discipline is getting trickier as he gets more capable and more aware and more curious and more defiant. Reading the same kids book dozens of times a day, with the proper voices and sound effects, can get boring. Sleep deprivation over a long enough time period does weird and horrible things to the mind and body. Repeating "Gentle! We don't pull Mommy's hair!" over and over and over is unbelievably annoying. But you know what my absolute least favorite aspect of being a parent is? Child care. I can deal with everything else, usually happily, with a giant smile on my face, but when problems arise with child care, my life completely falls apart. Completely. Finding decent child care consumes me. I worry about it constantly, and once the problem is "solved," I continue to worry about it. And as soon as everything seems okay and I trust my new child care provider, it falls apart again. Good lord, I hate dealing with child care.
Thanks for all the suggestions of nanny-share and craigslist and relying on stay-at-home friends. Sadly, we have no friends, none at all, that use a nanny. All of the working moms I know use daycares. We are big craigslist users, but the majority of the crappy daycares that we've visited have been found through craigslist. And I really do mean that we've seen some crappy daycares. Recall: Baby Factory, Total Wackos, Lila's Place, Piper.... (We found Natasha through craigslist, too, so it hasn't been a total loss. But the hit rate has been depressing.) As for stay-at-home friends... we have LOTS of stay-at-home friends. Tons. I can count on one hand the number of my mom friends that actually work outside of the home. But when I sent out a "please please please help us!" plea to the stay-at-home friends, we got a deafening silence. Followed by a few offers to maybe take LL for half a day sometime at the end of the month. To be fair, I do understand the reason: all of my stay-at-home friends have one child, and every single one of them is currently stressing about whether to have a second child. They're all agonizing over whether they can handle taking care of two children at once. When faced with the prospect of trying it out, using LL as the stand-in for child number two, I think that they all froze in panic and decided that they're really not ready. One of my friends felt so guilty about coming to that conclusion that she offered to leave her own two-year-old child with her in-laws while she cared for LL, thereby helping me out without needing to care for both children at once.
The good news: we seem to have found a decent solution, for now. One of my friends recently started her son in an in-home daycare, and because of several job-related relocations, the daycare happens to have several immediate openings. The woman who runs it agreed to take on LL on a temporary basis, knowing that he'll probably only be there for a month or two. (I didn't want to mislead her.) We know two children at the daycare, one of whom has been there for almost two years. The parents and children all love it there, and it's been open for over 20 years. Everything about it is perfect (except the location, which is a pain in the ass, but really, if everything else about it is great, I can deal with the horrible commute for a month or two). LL started there today. Fingers crossed that everything goes well, and that this place can carry us through until Natasha returns.
In happier news, the Packers beat the Bears on Sunday. I had the highest score in the league for fantasy football this week. LL's vocabulary is growing, in three languages. Lots of family members are flying in later this week to celebrate both LL's birthday and Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year). And I have officially reached my pre-pregnancy weight. (I have a little more to go to reach my pre-fertility-treatment weight, but I'm taking baby steps, so to speak.)
Thanks for all the suggestions of nanny-share and craigslist and relying on stay-at-home friends. Sadly, we have no friends, none at all, that use a nanny. All of the working moms I know use daycares. We are big craigslist users, but the majority of the crappy daycares that we've visited have been found through craigslist. And I really do mean that we've seen some crappy daycares. Recall: Baby Factory, Total Wackos, Lila's Place, Piper.... (We found Natasha through craigslist, too, so it hasn't been a total loss. But the hit rate has been depressing.) As for stay-at-home friends... we have LOTS of stay-at-home friends. Tons. I can count on one hand the number of my mom friends that actually work outside of the home. But when I sent out a "please please please help us!" plea to the stay-at-home friends, we got a deafening silence. Followed by a few offers to maybe take LL for half a day sometime at the end of the month. To be fair, I do understand the reason: all of my stay-at-home friends have one child, and every single one of them is currently stressing about whether to have a second child. They're all agonizing over whether they can handle taking care of two children at once. When faced with the prospect of trying it out, using LL as the stand-in for child number two, I think that they all froze in panic and decided that they're really not ready. One of my friends felt so guilty about coming to that conclusion that she offered to leave her own two-year-old child with her in-laws while she cared for LL, thereby helping me out without needing to care for both children at once.
The good news: we seem to have found a decent solution, for now. One of my friends recently started her son in an in-home daycare, and because of several job-related relocations, the daycare happens to have several immediate openings. The woman who runs it agreed to take on LL on a temporary basis, knowing that he'll probably only be there for a month or two. (I didn't want to mislead her.) We know two children at the daycare, one of whom has been there for almost two years. The parents and children all love it there, and it's been open for over 20 years. Everything about it is perfect (except the location, which is a pain in the ass, but really, if everything else about it is great, I can deal with the horrible commute for a month or two). LL started there today. Fingers crossed that everything goes well, and that this place can carry us through until Natasha returns.
In happier news, the Packers beat the Bears on Sunday. I had the highest score in the league for fantasy football this week. LL's vocabulary is growing, in three languages. Lots of family members are flying in later this week to celebrate both LL's birthday and Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year). And I have officially reached my pre-pregnancy weight. (I have a little more to go to reach my pre-fertility-treatment weight, but I'm taking baby steps, so to speak.)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Running a Daycare
Holy crap! How is it possible that there are so many horrible daycare providers out there?!? We brought LL to Natasha's yesterday, to see how it would work out with Piper filling in for Natasha. I hadn't exactly gotten a positive impression of Piper on Tuesday, but S had met her before and liked her, so we decided to go together and talk to her and get some more concrete information from her, and give her a day as a trial run. When we got there, the two children were in the middle of destroying the house, total chaos. And the television was on, something that is absolutely not done when Natasha is there. And she kept saying things like, "He'll be fine as long as he doesn't try to crawl anywhere." Huh? Or he picked up a toy and started chewing on it, because that's what babies do, and she grabbed the toy away from him and said, "Don't chew on things! Gosh, I hope that he doesn't keep doing that." Again, huh?!?
When I picked up LL, Piper told me that LL cried for much of the day, which is completely out of character for him. I don't know how much of it was the strangeness of a new caregiver, or the fact that the caregiver kept taking toys away from him and not letting him do anything. I asked how his naps were, and her response was, "I assume that he slept okay." What the hell does that mean? "I put him in his crib, and he cried for ... at least 30 minutes, but I'm not sure how long. Then he was quiet for a while, so he must have been asleep."
She let him scream for 30 minutes, after he had clearly already been upset by the change in caregivers. Crap. I hate her so much right now, I want to strangle someone.
To top it off, I had this conversation with her:
ME: So, could you please give me a few references, preferably for clients that were around LL's age?
PIPER: I've run my own daycare for many years. I have lots of experience.
ME: Yes, I understand. That's why I assume it won't be a problem for you to give me a few references.
PIPER: Oh. Um... well, I don't actually take care of infants at my daycare. Just preschoolers.
ME: You had given me the impression that you took care of infants. Okay, well then I'll take references for the children that you do take care of.
PIPER: Um, I'd rather not.
ME: Excuse me?!?
PIPER: You know, I run my own daycare.
ME: Yeah, you've mentioned that. Could I please have some references?
PIPER: That's kind of a problem, because I haven't told any of my clients that I'm not going to be there for the next month. I left my assistants in charge, but I didn't tell any of the parents. If I give you their numbers and you call them, they'll find out.
ME: So, you're lying to all of your current clients? Interesting. Um, okay. In that case, why don't you give me some references from past clients, for whom your absence won't be an issue?
PIPER: Well, but I don't want them to know, either. I'm not really comfortable with that.
ME: Is there some reason why you're unable to give us any references?
PIPER: No, I have lots of references! It's just... see, my assistants sort of interact with the kids more than I do, so if you call the parents, they're not really going to tell you anything about me, just about my assistants, so I'm not sure that it will help.
ME: You run a daycare, but you don't interact with the children?
PIPER: But I have lots of experience! So you don't need to worry.
ME: Well, I am worried, because it sounds to me like you're refusing to give me any references, which makes me think that you're unable to provide any.
PIPER: Oh. Um, okay, fine, here are two names, but I really do need you to lie to them for me about why you're calling.
Needless to say, we're not going to bother with the references because we won't be using Piper. I'm having a hard time believing that this woman runs a successful childcare business. Our current theory is that she likes preschoolers, but didn't want to have to bother taking care of an infant, so she was doing a passive-aggressive thing to convince us not to bring LL back. If so, it worked.
When I picked up LL, Piper told me that LL cried for much of the day, which is completely out of character for him. I don't know how much of it was the strangeness of a new caregiver, or the fact that the caregiver kept taking toys away from him and not letting him do anything. I asked how his naps were, and her response was, "I assume that he slept okay." What the hell does that mean? "I put him in his crib, and he cried for ... at least 30 minutes, but I'm not sure how long. Then he was quiet for a while, so he must have been asleep."
She let him scream for 30 minutes, after he had clearly already been upset by the change in caregivers. Crap. I hate her so much right now, I want to strangle someone.
To top it off, I had this conversation with her:
ME: So, could you please give me a few references, preferably for clients that were around LL's age?
PIPER: I've run my own daycare for many years. I have lots of experience.
ME: Yes, I understand. That's why I assume it won't be a problem for you to give me a few references.
PIPER: Oh. Um... well, I don't actually take care of infants at my daycare. Just preschoolers.
ME: You had given me the impression that you took care of infants. Okay, well then I'll take references for the children that you do take care of.
PIPER: Um, I'd rather not.
ME: Excuse me?!?
PIPER: You know, I run my own daycare.
ME: Yeah, you've mentioned that. Could I please have some references?
PIPER: That's kind of a problem, because I haven't told any of my clients that I'm not going to be there for the next month. I left my assistants in charge, but I didn't tell any of the parents. If I give you their numbers and you call them, they'll find out.
ME: So, you're lying to all of your current clients? Interesting. Um, okay. In that case, why don't you give me some references from past clients, for whom your absence won't be an issue?
PIPER: Well, but I don't want them to know, either. I'm not really comfortable with that.
ME: Is there some reason why you're unable to give us any references?
PIPER: No, I have lots of references! It's just... see, my assistants sort of interact with the kids more than I do, so if you call the parents, they're not really going to tell you anything about me, just about my assistants, so I'm not sure that it will help.
ME: You run a daycare, but you don't interact with the children?
PIPER: But I have lots of experience! So you don't need to worry.
ME: Well, I am worried, because it sounds to me like you're refusing to give me any references, which makes me think that you're unable to provide any.
PIPER: Oh. Um, okay, fine, here are two names, but I really do need you to lie to them for me about why you're calling.
Needless to say, we're not going to bother with the references because we won't be using Piper. I'm having a hard time believing that this woman runs a successful childcare business. Our current theory is that she likes preschoolers, but didn't want to have to bother taking care of an infant, so she was doing a passive-aggressive thing to convince us not to bring LL back. If so, it worked.
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