It's not terribly original to say that once again I haven't been posting much because I'm tiiiired, but it's true. Lately though, it's more that I'm sleepy. I keep drifting off in the evening, and a little worrying, am having a little trouble with feeling sleepy while I'm driving. Falling asleep too easily is a problem I have never had in my life. No, whatever else you can say about lifelong insomnia, at least you don't have to worry about falling asleep at inconvenient times. But it's like someone attached weights to my eyelids and they're doing their best to clang shut.
I'm not sleeping any less than normal, and in fact probably a bit more because I keep falling asleep involuntarily, so I'm not entirely sure what's up. I would say that this sort of tiredness normally comes with the first trimester for me, but I'm really really really really sure I'm not pregnant. Really. I'm starting to wonder if we should start casting a suspicious eye towards my thyroid again (although despite a strong family history of hypothyroidism and many, many doctors taking one look at my neck and ordering thyroid tests, in my many years of problems with chronic fatigue, it has never been my thyroid), or maybe check my iron or vitamin D levels. I'm wondering if I should wait until I'm completely done breastfeeding though, to let my hormones shake out. I'm slowly drawing down to pumping three times a day, which is producing about 12 ounces. It's about half of what Alec is drinking these days, which feels fine. I'm pumping enough that I don't feel like I'm giving up, but infrequently enough that I don't feel quite so chained. I think I would like to be done by the time we drive to Michigan at the end of June, because sitting the car and pumping in the parking lot of a Burger King in Ohio, trying to keep myself covered in case of passersby getting too close was not exactly the highpoint of our trip home last Christmas.
***
I'm starting to realize that it's less than two months until my children have their birthdays. That really doesn't seem possible. I've been trying to think up gift ideas for both of them, with mixed results. I can find lots of things K might like, but nothing is standing out as IT, so it's hard to choose. I have a bunch of ideas of things I could make, but again, I need to choose which ones because I can't possibly finish them all in six weeks. I've been sewing play food, so I'll continue with that, and probably do a couple dresses, but I have more exotic ideas that may or may not work. Alec is the opposite problem - I can't think of anything for him. I'm never good at thinking of presents for one-year-olds in general, and he already has all of K's old baby toys, and all he's really interested in is K's current toys. He's played with her kitchen far more than she has the past couple weeks.
What I would love to get them is a swing set, but I don't think that's in the cards financially this summer. The only playground within walking distance of our house is across a twelve lane raod, so we don't go nearly as often as we might. I'm also thinking that the playground will be difficult when Alec starts walking, since he'll be mobile enough to constantly put himself in danger but not big enough to use any of the equipment. I've been scanning Craigslist for cheap swing sets, but there seems to be some sort of time vortex on that site that allows them to sell before they've even been listed. We also need something pretty small, so while there are any number of lovely looking wooden child Habitrails out there, I think they would stretch past our property line.
And here ends the litany of First World problems for the night. I'm off to pump and possibly start sewing a felt orange.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Rambling
First, because I know many people reading this will be interested, Stephen Sondheim was on Fresh Air Wednesday. Shows like this are the reason I love Fresh Air so much.
***
Scene from Monday:
When picking K up from preschool, I was told that she hadn't been able to think of a "W" word for the letter of the week. Trying to lead her to a word, I asked her, "K, what do you put in the bathtub when you take a bath?"
"Toys!"
"Okay...but what do you wash with?"
"Soap!"
"And..."
"Shampoo!"
I finally had to whisper "water" to her so she could give it as her word. I suppose I should have asked her what puddles are made of, but I suspect she would have said "mud."
Speaking of school, I got a flyer yesterday saying that next week is Grandparents' Day, better known as "Special days that seem like a good idea except for the people who get it rubbed in their faces that they don't have as much family on hand as most people."
Have I ever mentioned that I grew up 1000 miles away from all of my grandparents? I could legitimately be accused of being a little sensitive on this subject. We were always able to dig up someone elderly from church to go for my brother and I, but the people I know best at church are a touch young to be asked to be a substitute grandparent. I just hate the thought that K gets to experience being left out of a special day at the tender age of four.
Ah well. K can focus on the fact that my mother is visiting in a little over a month. She's going to be at Oberlin Memorial Day weekend for her 50th college reunion (Five-O. My goodness. My mother doesn't seem that old). Anyway, since she'll be halfway here already, she thought she might as well come visit us. I'm not arguing. She really wants to take K to Sesame Place, which again, I'm not arguing. Sesame Place is one of those places where it seems a shame to have little kids and not go, but it's the most egregious example around here of the "price individual tickets so high it's only slightly more expensive to get a membership" pricing structure around here. It's annoying, because I don't have the time or money to belong to dozen museums, but there are plenty of places I'd like to go occasionally (as in, less than once a year) that I don't because it's just too expensive. Sesame Place would be $150 to take the entire family, so it's never been a remote possibility. But if my mother wants to pony up the money, I'm happy to let her. And I plan to try to convince her to put the money towards a membership so we have another place to go this summer.
***
Now that I think of it, there was another conversation I had with K this week. It went along the lines of "It's fine if you want to get some mandarin oranges from the jar in the cabinet, but once you open it up, you really need to put it in the refrigerator." I'm not sure how long it sat in the cabinet merrily fermenting away, silent but deadly, but eventually I opened it up to get a palpable wave of vinegar and the sight of some rather unspeakable oranges floating in a fetid soup. Yum-o indeed. Occasionally, I'm secretly happy to discover a container is an unrecycleable plastic so I can guiltlessly toss it away without opening it up to clean it and getting personally acquainted with its rapidly evolving contents.
As I poured K's prison wine experiment down the sink, I found myself wondering if citrus is used as a base for wine. I know of alcoholic drinks where you add alcohol to orange juice (screwdriver, mimosa... and that's where my sad, tiny knowledge of alcohol dries up without additional research), but is it ever used as base for alcohol?
***
Scene from Monday:
When picking K up from preschool, I was told that she hadn't been able to think of a "W" word for the letter of the week. Trying to lead her to a word, I asked her, "K, what do you put in the bathtub when you take a bath?"
"Toys!"
"Okay...but what do you wash with?"
"Soap!"
"And..."
"Shampoo!"
I finally had to whisper "water" to her so she could give it as her word. I suppose I should have asked her what puddles are made of, but I suspect she would have said "mud."
Speaking of school, I got a flyer yesterday saying that next week is Grandparents' Day, better known as "Special days that seem like a good idea except for the people who get it rubbed in their faces that they don't have as much family on hand as most people."
Have I ever mentioned that I grew up 1000 miles away from all of my grandparents? I could legitimately be accused of being a little sensitive on this subject. We were always able to dig up someone elderly from church to go for my brother and I, but the people I know best at church are a touch young to be asked to be a substitute grandparent. I just hate the thought that K gets to experience being left out of a special day at the tender age of four.
Ah well. K can focus on the fact that my mother is visiting in a little over a month. She's going to be at Oberlin Memorial Day weekend for her 50th college reunion (Five-O. My goodness. My mother doesn't seem that old). Anyway, since she'll be halfway here already, she thought she might as well come visit us. I'm not arguing. She really wants to take K to Sesame Place, which again, I'm not arguing. Sesame Place is one of those places where it seems a shame to have little kids and not go, but it's the most egregious example around here of the "price individual tickets so high it's only slightly more expensive to get a membership" pricing structure around here. It's annoying, because I don't have the time or money to belong to dozen museums, but there are plenty of places I'd like to go occasionally (as in, less than once a year) that I don't because it's just too expensive. Sesame Place would be $150 to take the entire family, so it's never been a remote possibility. But if my mother wants to pony up the money, I'm happy to let her. And I plan to try to convince her to put the money towards a membership so we have another place to go this summer.
***
Now that I think of it, there was another conversation I had with K this week. It went along the lines of "It's fine if you want to get some mandarin oranges from the jar in the cabinet, but once you open it up, you really need to put it in the refrigerator." I'm not sure how long it sat in the cabinet merrily fermenting away, silent but deadly, but eventually I opened it up to get a palpable wave of vinegar and the sight of some rather unspeakable oranges floating in a fetid soup. Yum-o indeed. Occasionally, I'm secretly happy to discover a container is an unrecycleable plastic so I can guiltlessly toss it away without opening it up to clean it and getting personally acquainted with its rapidly evolving contents.
As I poured K's prison wine experiment down the sink, I found myself wondering if citrus is used as a base for wine. I know of alcoholic drinks where you add alcohol to orange juice (screwdriver, mimosa... and that's where my sad, tiny knowledge of alcohol dries up without additional research), but is it ever used as base for alcohol?
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Alec at nine (and two thirds) months
First, as of yesterday, he is twenty four pounds, four ounces and 30.5 inches tall. That's 90th percentile for weight and 95th for height. No tiny pygmy babies here.
I need to stop waiting so long between when Alec actually turns a month older and posting that month's update. For one thing, he's closer to ten months than he is to eight anymore. But mostly because every day I wait to update, he starts doing something new, and at this rate, I'm going to have to add "advanced calculus" and "builds small nuclear reactor" to the list.
Only a week ago, if you put him down on the floor, if you came back ten minutes later, he would have found a way to move about five feet. He was pulling up to stand and cruising a bit, but not in a very focused way. But in the past week, he's started cruising with aplomb, working his way around the room via couch and coffee table.
And he has started crawling in the past couple days. He's not very good at it at the moment - right now, he reminds me of one of those electronic dolls that crawls, lacking any sort of speed or fluidity of motion. But I have no doubt that will change quickly. Just this afternoon, I came upon him enthusiastically crawling after K, going faster than I had ever seen him. It fascinates me how he has come to crawling from the completely opposite direction as K. She spent months wriggling around on the floor, valiantly attempting to get her torso off the floor. Alec, on the other hand, has always hated lying on the floor, and his way of getting to crawling is to move forward from a sitting position onto his hands and knees as a way of stretching to reach something he wanted. Eventually, he extended it to actually crawling forward a little bit, and there's been no turning back. We are so very doooooomed. Last time we had a newly mobile baby, we didn't have an older child sowing small chokeables everywhere she roams. And every day, Alec proves that he can reach some new place that we thought was safe. It's tempting to give into my desire to toss half of the contents of the house out the window, but it's a generally unpopular solution. Instead, I'm forced to go with Constant Vigilance and perpetual cleanup.
In other gross motor developments, he can get into a sitting position from lying down.
He is eating three meals a day now, feeding himself almost entirely. A couple weeks ago, I was passing K a piece of bread at lunch, and he announced he was ready for finger foods by intercepting it. He has an excellent pincer grip and uses it to expertly pick up Cheerios and small pieces of fruit.
Socially, he has improved his flirting skills by learning how to wave. He does both the whole arm wave and the finger bending wave, which are equally ridiculously adorable. He's also doing some proto-clapping, where he does what's clearly clapping motions but his hands only meet about half of the time.
I think this is the age when babies make up for getting even more exhausting by becoming even more extravagantly adorable. Last week, he cruised over to where I was lounging on the couch and spent an entertaining several minutes playing peekaboo with me by hiding and reappearing around my legs. He's starting to turn into a little person, who communicates and interacts in a more real way.
Piccies!
I need to stop waiting so long between when Alec actually turns a month older and posting that month's update. For one thing, he's closer to ten months than he is to eight anymore. But mostly because every day I wait to update, he starts doing something new, and at this rate, I'm going to have to add "advanced calculus" and "builds small nuclear reactor" to the list.
Only a week ago, if you put him down on the floor, if you came back ten minutes later, he would have found a way to move about five feet. He was pulling up to stand and cruising a bit, but not in a very focused way. But in the past week, he's started cruising with aplomb, working his way around the room via couch and coffee table.
And he has started crawling in the past couple days. He's not very good at it at the moment - right now, he reminds me of one of those electronic dolls that crawls, lacking any sort of speed or fluidity of motion. But I have no doubt that will change quickly. Just this afternoon, I came upon him enthusiastically crawling after K, going faster than I had ever seen him. It fascinates me how he has come to crawling from the completely opposite direction as K. She spent months wriggling around on the floor, valiantly attempting to get her torso off the floor. Alec, on the other hand, has always hated lying on the floor, and his way of getting to crawling is to move forward from a sitting position onto his hands and knees as a way of stretching to reach something he wanted. Eventually, he extended it to actually crawling forward a little bit, and there's been no turning back. We are so very doooooomed. Last time we had a newly mobile baby, we didn't have an older child sowing small chokeables everywhere she roams. And every day, Alec proves that he can reach some new place that we thought was safe. It's tempting to give into my desire to toss half of the contents of the house out the window, but it's a generally unpopular solution. Instead, I'm forced to go with Constant Vigilance and perpetual cleanup.
In other gross motor developments, he can get into a sitting position from lying down.
He is eating three meals a day now, feeding himself almost entirely. A couple weeks ago, I was passing K a piece of bread at lunch, and he announced he was ready for finger foods by intercepting it. He has an excellent pincer grip and uses it to expertly pick up Cheerios and small pieces of fruit.
Socially, he has improved his flirting skills by learning how to wave. He does both the whole arm wave and the finger bending wave, which are equally ridiculously adorable. He's also doing some proto-clapping, where he does what's clearly clapping motions but his hands only meet about half of the time.
I think this is the age when babies make up for getting even more exhausting by becoming even more extravagantly adorable. Last week, he cruised over to where I was lounging on the couch and spent an entertaining several minutes playing peekaboo with me by hiding and reappearing around my legs. He's starting to turn into a little person, who communicates and interacts in a more real way.
Piccies!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
K has been into Little Einsteins lately. Despite my general antipathy for products of The Mouse, I like it quite a lot. I've come to realize that the children's programs that I really like (Little Einsteins, Backyardigans), are the ones that won't drive me crazy if the music gets stuck in my head. I like both series for introducing children to a variety of musical styles beyond Vapid Children's Pop. I love that Little Einsteins is teaching the rudiments of music theory.
But mostly, I'm vastly amused by the part of the program where we all cheer for Felix Mendelssohn.
****
We had what I would call my first Grown Up Easter this year, where I made the effort to put some sort of special meal on the table. We've done Easter baskets for K for the past three years, but most years, we've been at someone else's house for Easter, and the years we haven't, we just never got organized enough. Easter isn't a holiday B cares about, so it's always been up to me to make the effort if I want it. And mostly life has wound up being too busy.
But this year, we invited a friend over for dinner and had a lot of fun. The children were charming, I managed to mostly not dessicate the ham (it was supposed to cook in the crockpot, but it wouldn't fit. So I had to stick it in the oven, but my recipe was for the crockpot, and the instructions on the label said two hours. After a while, it occurred to me that a ham that is already cooked and is just heating up shouldn't need two hours in the oven at 350 unless you're making jerky, so I pulled it out after an hour, thankfully before it got too dry. Next year, I'm rigging some way to do it in the crockpot anyway) and we got to enjoy strawberries and fine spring weather. We skipped church because most of the family was coming down with a cold, but everyone rallied by mid-morning, so K and I went outside and had fun hiding Easter eggs and helping each other find them. I love how she's getting old enough to start making this sort of thing really fun.
****
But of course, the REALLY important event of the weekend was the new Doctor Who. We both enjoyed it quite a bit. Matt Smith has a nice zany energy that should be entertaining, but was able to bring the gravitas at the end when appropriate. He didn't have either of the two things that bugged me most about 10, which was the mopey emo and the preachiness. Tennant definitely grew on me, but after somewhere in his second season when I found myself wondering why I was so lukewarm on him in the beginning, I watched his first season again. Oh yeah. Because he was preachy and self-righteous. So far, none of that here. Okay, I wasn't incredibly fond of the bit at the very end which made it clear that the Doctor ex machina moments that feel a bit overused are going to continue, but I think that can be blamed on the writers, not this particular Doctor.
But mostly, I'm vastly amused by the part of the program where we all cheer for Felix Mendelssohn.
****
We had what I would call my first Grown Up Easter this year, where I made the effort to put some sort of special meal on the table. We've done Easter baskets for K for the past three years, but most years, we've been at someone else's house for Easter, and the years we haven't, we just never got organized enough. Easter isn't a holiday B cares about, so it's always been up to me to make the effort if I want it. And mostly life has wound up being too busy.
But this year, we invited a friend over for dinner and had a lot of fun. The children were charming, I managed to mostly not dessicate the ham (it was supposed to cook in the crockpot, but it wouldn't fit. So I had to stick it in the oven, but my recipe was for the crockpot, and the instructions on the label said two hours. After a while, it occurred to me that a ham that is already cooked and is just heating up shouldn't need two hours in the oven at 350 unless you're making jerky, so I pulled it out after an hour, thankfully before it got too dry. Next year, I'm rigging some way to do it in the crockpot anyway) and we got to enjoy strawberries and fine spring weather. We skipped church because most of the family was coming down with a cold, but everyone rallied by mid-morning, so K and I went outside and had fun hiding Easter eggs and helping each other find them. I love how she's getting old enough to start making this sort of thing really fun.
****
But of course, the REALLY important event of the weekend was the new Doctor Who. We both enjoyed it quite a bit. Matt Smith has a nice zany energy that should be entertaining, but was able to bring the gravitas at the end when appropriate. He didn't have either of the two things that bugged me most about 10, which was the mopey emo and the preachiness. Tennant definitely grew on me, but after somewhere in his second season when I found myself wondering why I was so lukewarm on him in the beginning, I watched his first season again. Oh yeah. Because he was preachy and self-righteous. So far, none of that here. Okay, I wasn't incredibly fond of the bit at the very end which made it clear that the Doctor ex machina moments that feel a bit overused are going to continue, but I think that can be blamed on the writers, not this particular Doctor.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The hobgoblin of little minds
Dear Governor Palin,
Recently, you've brought our attention to the fact that words have the power to hurt, and that we live in an ableist society where the disabled often have to hear derogatory terms for their disabilities used as insults. And despite you rather inconsistent application of it, I respect your defense of your son and the people who share his disability.
So it would behoove you to remember that there are other people with other disabilities in the world, and they don't like their disabilities used as insults any more than than people with intellectual disabilities do. I know it's hard to train ableist language out of your vocabulary, particularly when it makes such a snappy pun, but really. You can't expect the rest of us to do it if you can't be bothered to do it yourself, can you?
Signed,
The daughter of a quadriplegic who loves her mother as much you love your son, and gets just a much of a gut-punch when people use "lame" as you do when they use "retard."
(And yes, this is just the tiniest tip of the gigantic planetoid of issues I have with Sarah Palin, but most of them involve incoherent garbling rage, and this is the one that contains a point I'd like to make to a lot of people, many of whom I respect. Unlike her)
Recently, you've brought our attention to the fact that words have the power to hurt, and that we live in an ableist society where the disabled often have to hear derogatory terms for their disabilities used as insults. And despite you rather inconsistent application of it, I respect your defense of your son and the people who share his disability.
So it would behoove you to remember that there are other people with other disabilities in the world, and they don't like their disabilities used as insults any more than than people with intellectual disabilities do. I know it's hard to train ableist language out of your vocabulary, particularly when it makes such a snappy pun, but really. You can't expect the rest of us to do it if you can't be bothered to do it yourself, can you?
Signed,
The daughter of a quadriplegic who loves her mother as much you love your son, and gets just a much of a gut-punch when people use "lame" as you do when they use "retard."
(And yes, this is just the tiniest tip of the gigantic planetoid of issues I have with Sarah Palin, but most of them involve incoherent garbling rage, and this is the one that contains a point I'd like to make to a lot of people, many of whom I respect. Unlike her)
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Spring is sprung
Watching people wearing shorts coming into the library from frolicking in the park last weekend, it was hard to believe that we were closed three weeks before for a snow day. It's been gorgeous the past week (although less so the past couple days). Sunday, we found boxes of the most delicious strawberries for a reasonable price at Trader Joe's, grown in this hemisphere no less. Florida, actually, which falls in my zone of "not local, but at least within a day's drive." Better than California, at least. It was a reminder that it's not too long before we start getting good produce again locally, as the warm weather comes north.
***
I've been working on this entry for the past four days, with nothing more impressive than the above as my result. I don't know what it is lately - I sit down and the words just aren't there. I go through my days mentally crafting things to write and they go walkabout as soon as I'm in a position to type. It's always been a bit that way (I have some mental posts that I've been wanting to write since K was a baby), but it's worse lately.
I'm tired. The children have been off and sleeping badly since the time change. K has been extra... feisty lately, pushing boundaries in every direction. Alec is forcing us to be a lot more aware of baby-proofing, which is a lot harder this time around with an older child skipping around throwing up handfuls of choking hazards in her wake.
And I've been thinking a lot, about how much I hate pumping and I want to stop. I don't think I need to explain why exclusive pumping is a no-fun, very bad, extra spicy pain in the ass, do I?
Only I don't want to stop lactating. This presents...difficulties. I don't question that switching to pumping and bottle feeding was necessary, given that his suck was so weak that he wasn't gaining enough weight with a bottle with a newborn nipple. The fact that he gained 3 1/2 pounds the month after I switched to a faster flow nipple is proof of that. Even Dr. Sears says that dealing with a weak suck is very difficult and not likely to work out. I regret a bit not trying harder to get him back on the breast when he was three or four months old, when he was bigger and stronger, but still young enough that he probably could have been persuaded without too much difficulty. But as it turns out, I only have time and patience to do two out of the three: 1) take care of two small children, 2) pump, and 3) attempt to breastfeed. Since the first two weren't optional, the third is what slid off my plate more often than not.
So now I have a nine-month-old, and I'm torn between packing it in and searching the Web for any clue if it's possible to get a baby this old on the breast. Preliminary research says "Situation uncertain," although there are adoptive breastfeeding websites where people say they've managed to get an older baby to start nursing. What they don't really do is give good instructions as to how. It would be awfully nice to find some, if for no other reason than to be able to look at them and decide whether it really seems realistic or not.
So right now, I'm sitting here, not wanting to continue pumping but not wanting to stop because that would really be the end, and I'm not ready for that yet.
***
I've been working on this entry for the past four days, with nothing more impressive than the above as my result. I don't know what it is lately - I sit down and the words just aren't there. I go through my days mentally crafting things to write and they go walkabout as soon as I'm in a position to type. It's always been a bit that way (I have some mental posts that I've been wanting to write since K was a baby), but it's worse lately.
I'm tired. The children have been off and sleeping badly since the time change. K has been extra... feisty lately, pushing boundaries in every direction. Alec is forcing us to be a lot more aware of baby-proofing, which is a lot harder this time around with an older child skipping around throwing up handfuls of choking hazards in her wake.
And I've been thinking a lot, about how much I hate pumping and I want to stop. I don't think I need to explain why exclusive pumping is a no-fun, very bad, extra spicy pain in the ass, do I?
Only I don't want to stop lactating. This presents...difficulties. I don't question that switching to pumping and bottle feeding was necessary, given that his suck was so weak that he wasn't gaining enough weight with a bottle with a newborn nipple. The fact that he gained 3 1/2 pounds the month after I switched to a faster flow nipple is proof of that. Even Dr. Sears says that dealing with a weak suck is very difficult and not likely to work out. I regret a bit not trying harder to get him back on the breast when he was three or four months old, when he was bigger and stronger, but still young enough that he probably could have been persuaded without too much difficulty. But as it turns out, I only have time and patience to do two out of the three: 1) take care of two small children, 2) pump, and 3) attempt to breastfeed. Since the first two weren't optional, the third is what slid off my plate more often than not.
So now I have a nine-month-old, and I'm torn between packing it in and searching the Web for any clue if it's possible to get a baby this old on the breast. Preliminary research says "Situation uncertain," although there are adoptive breastfeeding websites where people say they've managed to get an older baby to start nursing. What they don't really do is give good instructions as to how. It would be awfully nice to find some, if for no other reason than to be able to look at them and decide whether it really seems realistic or not.
So right now, I'm sitting here, not wanting to continue pumping but not wanting to stop because that would really be the end, and I'm not ready for that yet.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Sleepless (which is to say, unattractive ungrateful parental bitching)
Oh lordy, I think somehow when we set the clocks forward Saturday night, it opened some sort of portal that allowed a horrifying demon-spirit through to possess my children. We set the clocks an hour later, so naturally they both woke up three hours earlier than normal on Monday.
One of the paradoxes of small children is that when they haven't slept enough, they don't drag around looking tired before requesting an early nap. That would be what their parents do. No, instead they became increasingly more manic and wild in a desperate bid to stay awake at all costs. Thank goodness B took the afternoon off, so together we managed to pry our children off the chandelier and collapse in a family nap.
Today, K ran away from me in the school parking lot and went outside after I told her not to, so our trip to the playground got cancelled and my evening of solo parenting was off to a rousing start. I don't blame K for being upset, since it was a beautiful day. But repeatedly defying me, and then when I sent her to her room instead running into her brother's room where he was napping and screaming wore my sympathy a bit thin. One of the most wearing things about this sort of day is that K feels the need to cling to me as closely as possible to make sure I still love her, and still defy me at every turn to demonstrate that I'm not the boss of her. I look forward to her teen years so.
Alec, meanwhile, has started sleeping like a newborn again - eating every two hours, and not sleeping well anywhere but on a parent's chest, firmly swaddled. Hello, 37 week developmental spurt, no doubt made extra piquant by all of the physical developments he's been making lately.
I am so very tired.
On the other hand, K spent part of this afternoon calling me "Princess Horse" (which is to say she was the princess and I was her horse, not that I was a horse princess) and hitching me up to her carriage so we could go looking for dragons to slay, which she would do with one mighty swipe of her sword. And Alec manages to defeat any irritation you might feel when he loses any ability to play independently by being the most gratifying child in the world to pick up. Grin, grin, press lovingly against your chest, pull back and look utterly delighted, press lovingly again, Oh! It's you! My life is complete now! Now put me down so I can go chew on that power cord.
So maybe I'll keep them.
One of the paradoxes of small children is that when they haven't slept enough, they don't drag around looking tired before requesting an early nap. That would be what their parents do. No, instead they became increasingly more manic and wild in a desperate bid to stay awake at all costs. Thank goodness B took the afternoon off, so together we managed to pry our children off the chandelier and collapse in a family nap.
Today, K ran away from me in the school parking lot and went outside after I told her not to, so our trip to the playground got cancelled and my evening of solo parenting was off to a rousing start. I don't blame K for being upset, since it was a beautiful day. But repeatedly defying me, and then when I sent her to her room instead running into her brother's room where he was napping and screaming wore my sympathy a bit thin. One of the most wearing things about this sort of day is that K feels the need to cling to me as closely as possible to make sure I still love her, and still defy me at every turn to demonstrate that I'm not the boss of her. I look forward to her teen years so.
Alec, meanwhile, has started sleeping like a newborn again - eating every two hours, and not sleeping well anywhere but on a parent's chest, firmly swaddled. Hello, 37 week developmental spurt, no doubt made extra piquant by all of the physical developments he's been making lately.
I am so very tired.
On the other hand, K spent part of this afternoon calling me "Princess Horse" (which is to say she was the princess and I was her horse, not that I was a horse princess) and hitching me up to her carriage so we could go looking for dragons to slay, which she would do with one mighty swipe of her sword. And Alec manages to defeat any irritation you might feel when he loses any ability to play independently by being the most gratifying child in the world to pick up. Grin, grin, press lovingly against your chest, pull back and look utterly delighted, press lovingly again, Oh! It's you! My life is complete now! Now put me down so I can go chew on that power cord.
So maybe I'll keep them.
Friday, March 12, 2010
I passed the test for a new online job this week. It's doing the same thing as I did last year - evaluating search engine results - but for a different company. It doesn't pay quite as well as the last job and the company is definitely less personal - the last job involved a week of training over the phone and lots of personal communication, where with this job I was sent a training manual to study and all of the e-mails I've gotten have been form letters - but on the positive side, there will be a lot more flexibility on how many hours I work and when. Really, the main sticking point of the last job and the reason I didn't go back is have to work 20 hours every week, four hours every day, was just not compatible with my other job. Either I would go to work at the library on Friday and then come home to work another four hours, making for 12 hour work days, or I would work at home all week and work at the library all weekend, giving me no days off. If I could just have worked only four days, it would have been fine. But those Fridays were killing me.
More money will make life easier in general, but my big hope for this job is that it will make it possible to afford daycare again. I know the big advantage of working at home is theoretically being able to take care of children, but I've learned through painful experience that while I can be more or less happy taking care of children full-time, and I can be happy working while my children are cared for by someone else, trying to work without the benefit of daycare makes me a dull girl, and it's only a matter of time before the ghostly bartender appears in our kitchen. Right now, our current schedule of only having one day off together every two weeks is slowly killing me. For a brief, shining moment in January, I thought I had our Gordian knot of scheduling issues surrounding daycare unraveled, only to look at our budget and realize that daycare would take everything I make and as it turns out, we really need that money for frivolous things like electricity and water. Sigh. I love my job, but it mostly pays me in satisfaction and as a filler for the gigantic black hole that would otherwise be on my resume. I could make more money with a paper route.
*****
K crawled into my lap this afternoon, and I instantly felt the toastiness of a feverish child. Before I had children, I always used to wonder how you could ever feel a fever since children feel like little furnaces all the time. But now it's just obvious, like porn - I know it when I feel it. Poor little bunny. She had another bladder infection two weeks ago and we hadn't even managed to get her back to the doctor to get a urine sample checked to make sure the infection was gone, and clearly it isn't. She spent the evening feverish and in pain, although not so sick that she couldn't roughhouse with her brother.
Of all of the things I could have passed down to her, a tendency towards bladder infections is one I wouldn't have chosen, right up there with eczema and social anxiety. It's never comfortable to see your more difficult traits appear in your children, whether physical or personality. I can empathize when she's shutting down in reaction to an uncertain situation or the godawful annoyance of your skin freaking out for no good reason, which no doubt makes me one of the best people to help her. But I'd rather spare her the difficulty entirely.
More money will make life easier in general, but my big hope for this job is that it will make it possible to afford daycare again. I know the big advantage of working at home is theoretically being able to take care of children, but I've learned through painful experience that while I can be more or less happy taking care of children full-time, and I can be happy working while my children are cared for by someone else, trying to work without the benefit of daycare makes me a dull girl, and it's only a matter of time before the ghostly bartender appears in our kitchen. Right now, our current schedule of only having one day off together every two weeks is slowly killing me. For a brief, shining moment in January, I thought I had our Gordian knot of scheduling issues surrounding daycare unraveled, only to look at our budget and realize that daycare would take everything I make and as it turns out, we really need that money for frivolous things like electricity and water. Sigh. I love my job, but it mostly pays me in satisfaction and as a filler for the gigantic black hole that would otherwise be on my resume. I could make more money with a paper route.
*****
K crawled into my lap this afternoon, and I instantly felt the toastiness of a feverish child. Before I had children, I always used to wonder how you could ever feel a fever since children feel like little furnaces all the time. But now it's just obvious, like porn - I know it when I feel it. Poor little bunny. She had another bladder infection two weeks ago and we hadn't even managed to get her back to the doctor to get a urine sample checked to make sure the infection was gone, and clearly it isn't. She spent the evening feverish and in pain, although not so sick that she couldn't roughhouse with her brother.
Of all of the things I could have passed down to her, a tendency towards bladder infections is one I wouldn't have chosen, right up there with eczema and social anxiety. It's never comfortable to see your more difficult traits appear in your children, whether physical or personality. I can empathize when she's shutting down in reaction to an uncertain situation or the godawful annoyance of your skin freaking out for no good reason, which no doubt makes me one of the best people to help her. But I'd rather spare her the difficulty entirely.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Alec at eight months
All of a sudden, we have a baby on the cusp of mobility. This is astonishing, given that he has spent the past month perfecting the ability of capturing seemingly out-of-reach toys without ever moving his butt off the ground, using techniques ranging from stretttching his torso out until it's parallel to the ground to pulling the blanket under the desired object towards him until it's in reach. A few times, he's leaned forward and wound up on his hands and knees, but he looks utterly perplexed as to what he should do next. He spends enough time attempting to wiggle across the floor before giving up and screeching in frustration that I'm no longer quite as sure that he'll just skip crawling, but I certainly don't see it happening any time soon.
But our sedentary baby has a passion for standing upright, and after a prolonged period of pulling himself onto his knees, and pulling himself to stand from his knees, in the past couple of days he's managed to put it together to pull himself completely to standing. Once there, he doesn't precisely cruise deliberately yet, but he manages to move through some sort osmosis where we look away and suddenly he's moved a foot somehow. He does the same thing on the ground as well, somehow oozing several feet over the course of a play session without ever lifting his butt off the ground.
He spends a great deal of his day sitting surrounded by toys, picking them up in turn and examining them with intense scientific interest before putting them through various stress tests. He has perfected his pincer grip, the better to pick up small overlooked objects just the perfect size for choking. He has eight teeth now, but despite happily eating as much mushy food that we will spoon into him, he isn't really ready for anything more solid yet.
We're definitely seeing some separation anxiety. He can be entirely happy playing on the floor until one of us moves into his sight, which reminds him that he's unbearably lonely and abandoned and must be held by a parent. He still happily flirts with strangers, but there are times he only feels safe doing it from my arms, and he has perfected a particularly devastating move where he hides his face in my shoulder and then peeks out at people and smiles, to universal devastation. He has an extensive fan club at all of the places we go regularly.
His personality isn't always sunny - he has a drama queen streak where the weight of his extreme woe is so great that he has to lay his head on the floor when he cries. Diaper changes having been accompanied by piercing shrieks lately for no better reason than he just doesn't like to be lying down when he could be up with a will for doing instead.
He's been doing the typical babbling and vocalizing for his age. This morning, however,B was changing his diaper to the usual strenuous protests, and when I came over to him, he said a very definite "Mama." I'm not given to trying to hear words in babbling, but since all of the other sounds he was making were more along the lines of shrieks and nothing like the sort of babbling that could be mistaken for a word, and B heard it as well, I'm going to call the first word. It's exactly the same word, at exactly the same age and same circumstances as K's first word.
It's hard to believe how fast Alec is growing and changing, both developmentally and physically. He's already starting to outgrow the 12 month clothes I just finished buying him (Dear son: if you could please wait to bust out of your clothes until warm weather hits so I only have to buy one new set of clothes, I would be ever so grateful). But he's still my little baby:
But our sedentary baby has a passion for standing upright, and after a prolonged period of pulling himself onto his knees, and pulling himself to stand from his knees, in the past couple of days he's managed to put it together to pull himself completely to standing. Once there, he doesn't precisely cruise deliberately yet, but he manages to move through some sort osmosis where we look away and suddenly he's moved a foot somehow. He does the same thing on the ground as well, somehow oozing several feet over the course of a play session without ever lifting his butt off the ground.
He spends a great deal of his day sitting surrounded by toys, picking them up in turn and examining them with intense scientific interest before putting them through various stress tests. He has perfected his pincer grip, the better to pick up small overlooked objects just the perfect size for choking. He has eight teeth now, but despite happily eating as much mushy food that we will spoon into him, he isn't really ready for anything more solid yet.
We're definitely seeing some separation anxiety. He can be entirely happy playing on the floor until one of us moves into his sight, which reminds him that he's unbearably lonely and abandoned and must be held by a parent. He still happily flirts with strangers, but there are times he only feels safe doing it from my arms, and he has perfected a particularly devastating move where he hides his face in my shoulder and then peeks out at people and smiles, to universal devastation. He has an extensive fan club at all of the places we go regularly.
His personality isn't always sunny - he has a drama queen streak where the weight of his extreme woe is so great that he has to lay his head on the floor when he cries. Diaper changes having been accompanied by piercing shrieks lately for no better reason than he just doesn't like to be lying down when he could be up with a will for doing instead.
He's been doing the typical babbling and vocalizing for his age. This morning, however,B was changing his diaper to the usual strenuous protests, and when I came over to him, he said a very definite "Mama." I'm not given to trying to hear words in babbling, but since all of the other sounds he was making were more along the lines of shrieks and nothing like the sort of babbling that could be mistaken for a word, and B heard it as well, I'm going to call the first word. It's exactly the same word, at exactly the same age and same circumstances as K's first word.
It's hard to believe how fast Alec is growing and changing, both developmentally and physically. He's already starting to outgrow the 12 month clothes I just finished buying him (Dear son: if you could please wait to bust out of your clothes until warm weather hits so I only have to buy one new set of clothes, I would be ever so grateful). But he's still my little baby:
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Edumacation, part 2
We have mostly come to a decision about kindergarten for K next year. I did some research on the public elementary school K would be going to, and it's really not that bad. We're in a fairly solidly middle-class area, so even if our school doesn't get any more money, the parents have more ability to be involved than schools in poorer areas, which can make a significant difference.* They also have an active music program, one of the areas I was worried about with public schools (she could start learning the violin in first grade!), and they have both a library and a librarian. With books. And I'm not being funny when I say that - there are schools in Philadelphia where they have a beautiful library room that was endowed, but with no books for it. And the early childhood education is in a separate building from the rest of the school, so although this school seems relatively safe, we have even less to worry about because the little kids are kept separate from the rest of the school. And as I said before, it's more the middle school and high school years that I worry more about in regards to safety. She's unlikely to get knifed in the first grade.
It doesn't look like even the cheapest Friends school will be financially feasible next year, so we'll hold off on that for at least a year, and maybe pull it out as an option if we get unhappy with her current situation. This is where I get mad at the mayor once again, because B was supposed to step up in pay in January, but since his union is working without a contract while it's in negotiations, the mayor is claiming that the city doesn't have to give step raises. That's $200 a month we could find plenty of good uses for. It should come through eventually, along with a nice chunk of back pay, but I'd rather have it now. The car is going to be paid off in August, which will free up more money. And while I don't want to go back to the online job I left in June, I found a similar one recently that has a lot more flexibility in the number of hours I would have to work and when (my biggest problem with the last job was having to work four hours a day, every day with no flexibility, which made for some exhausting days when I worked both that job and at the library on Fridays). If I could only have taken Fridays off, I would probably still be working there). So I have to take a test to qualify for that, but I'm not terribly worried about passing, and hopefully that will bring in more money.
There's a long shot compromise option - there's a nearby charter school we've applied for. Charter schools aren't necessarily better academically than regular schools here, but there would be smaller classes and involved parents. They also have a big emphasis on community building and conflict resolution, which is a lot of what I wanted from a Friends school. Unfortunately, there'a a lottery to get in, and even if we do really well in the lottery, they have sibling preference. So I would be shocked if we get in.
Of course, the real question here is when did my baby get old enough for kindergarten?
*I've realized that there's no way to talk about this without sounding like an elitist asshole who doesn't want my pwecious snowflake around those icky poor people. But as I've said before, there are my ideals - that all children have an equal right to a quality education and it feels unfair to leverage my privilege to get K in an advantageous situation - and then there's the fact that I have a real, concrete responsibility to the non-theoretical child in front of me to prepare her for the world in the best way I can. And that means not sending her to school that would give her a bad education if I can send her to one that won't. It's unfair, but so is the entire system.
It doesn't look like even the cheapest Friends school will be financially feasible next year, so we'll hold off on that for at least a year, and maybe pull it out as an option if we get unhappy with her current situation. This is where I get mad at the mayor once again, because B was supposed to step up in pay in January, but since his union is working without a contract while it's in negotiations, the mayor is claiming that the city doesn't have to give step raises. That's $200 a month we could find plenty of good uses for. It should come through eventually, along with a nice chunk of back pay, but I'd rather have it now. The car is going to be paid off in August, which will free up more money. And while I don't want to go back to the online job I left in June, I found a similar one recently that has a lot more flexibility in the number of hours I would have to work and when (my biggest problem with the last job was having to work four hours a day, every day with no flexibility, which made for some exhausting days when I worked both that job and at the library on Fridays). If I could only have taken Fridays off, I would probably still be working there). So I have to take a test to qualify for that, but I'm not terribly worried about passing, and hopefully that will bring in more money.
There's a long shot compromise option - there's a nearby charter school we've applied for. Charter schools aren't necessarily better academically than regular schools here, but there would be smaller classes and involved parents. They also have a big emphasis on community building and conflict resolution, which is a lot of what I wanted from a Friends school. Unfortunately, there'a a lottery to get in, and even if we do really well in the lottery, they have sibling preference. So I would be shocked if we get in.
Of course, the real question here is when did my baby get old enough for kindergarten?
*I've realized that there's no way to talk about this without sounding like an elitist asshole who doesn't want my pwecious snowflake around those icky poor people. But as I've said before, there are my ideals - that all children have an equal right to a quality education and it feels unfair to leverage my privilege to get K in an advantageous situation - and then there's the fact that I have a real, concrete responsibility to the non-theoretical child in front of me to prepare her for the world in the best way I can. And that means not sending her to school that would give her a bad education if I can send her to one that won't. It's unfair, but so is the entire system.
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