Wordless Wednesday: Even reindeer need to sleep

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I win

I’m always looking for ways to motivate Baby B to do things when her inner toddler comes out and unleashes unholy stubbornness on us and everything around her. Sometimes it’s making use of her selfishness at this age (“I want that bite of pork chop! Oh, I can’t have it? It’s yours? Fine, you go ahead and eat it”) or making up a character such as Santa Claus or the Night Fairy to inspire her to cooperate as she’s still learning the ropes regarding proper behavior in different situations.

So I’m delighted to have yet another trick in my bag, making use of her newly emerging competitive spirit. This started maybe a week ago, with her challenging us to various activities (walking to her room, for example) with her saying, “I’m gonna BEAT you! I’m gonna WIN!” A light bulb went off, and I thought, “I’ve got to use this!” We’ve tried this approach before, but at that time she didn’t quite have the competitive drive that she does now. It works like a charm right at the moment.

So how do we get Baby B dressed in the morning? “Baby B, I bet I can get dressed faster than you!” She scrambles to get her clothes and put them on faster than I put on my own clothes. Sometimes I let her win, sometimes I win for real. Either way, she usually ends up saying, “It’s okay, we can BOTH win.” I concede that, “No, you won! Great job!”

How do we leave daycare now? “Uh-oh, your friend is going to beat us out the door. Do you think we can win?” (Of course she thinks we can, even if there’s no chance whatsoever.)

How do we get her to brush her teeth? “I bet I can brush my teeth better than you!”

Of course not everything in life is a competition, but I think even at this age it’s a good thing for her to start learning about winning and losing and using the desire to “win” — even against herself, not just against other people — as motivation to excel, improve herself, and get things done.

Like it or not, competition is what drives many people in life, whether 2 or 52.

You can’t judge a teacher by her one-word answers

I’m still uncertain why, but one of Baby B’s teachers left last week and was replaced with a new teacher. (Oh good. Right before Christmas, meaning: 1) We can either be jerks and not give her anything since we don’t even know her, or 2) we can give her the nice gifts intended for the other teacher as a “nice to meet you and thanks for taking care of my kid for all of five seconds” gift. We obviously chose to go with the second option, but it’s still a bit annoying with the timing of it.)

I wasn’t sold on the new teacher at first. When I was introduced to her last week, she didn’t say much at all. I tried some general small talk, which would consist of me saying something, her answering with a one-word response, and then the conversation dying instantly until I thought of something new to say or ask. This continued for two or three days. I told The Husband that I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt because it was her first week and maybe she was just nervous. The Husband still hadn’t met her (she’s the late teacher and he usually does dropoffs), so he couldn’t really offer an opinion.

So we had Baby B’s daycare Christmas party on Thursday night. The Husband said, “Which one is the new teacher, just so I know?” We ended up standing in the line for food right behind her, and so I went ahead and introduced them to each other (even though I barely knew her myself). I was finally able to break through her shell after she mentioned that she just graduated from college with a degree in journalism and she was the features editor of the college paper. For those who don’t know, I have a journalism degree, as well, and even attended the same college as the new teacher. It’s not often in this line of work that you just happen to run into someone who has followed a similar career path, so that set us up for talking about all kinds of things, including the state of journalism, working on tight deadlines, things we’ve learned from work, and more. We finally got back to the table and when the new teacher got up for a minute, The Husband leaned over and said, “She never talks, huh?” I laughed and said, “I swear it’s not been like this in the classroom!”

So, I’m not sure how long she’ll be at Baby B’s school — she’s looking for work in journalism but likes kids and is doing this in the meantime — but it was good to see that I was right to give her a chance and not write her off just because her interaction with me wasn’t stellar at first. I definitely know that first-hand; I can seem like I’m shy or reserved at first, but once you get to know me, it’s hard to remember back when I seemed so reserved.

The good news, too, is that I’ve seen her interacting with the kids, and she seems to do well with them, so I’m certainly glad for that. That’s the ultimate goal here, so she seems to be doing fine on that front so far.

Rudolph (the very alternate version)

This is one of my favorite videos of Baby B.

Wordless Wednesday: Naughty or nice?

Caught!

Baby B has been pretty good about not getting into stuff that could be potentially messy. We try our best to keep such things locked up or put away out of reach and also try to keep an eye on her — and become immediately suspicious when she’s in another room and is being too quiet.

That streak was broken on Sunday night when I came home from work. The Husband was occupied in the kitchen making dinner for us, and Baby B called out to him to come see her in my bathroom. He went in there to find she’d decided to set up her own salon — and I arrived on the scene a few seconds later. She had found the nail polish in my bathroom drawer, managed to open it by herself, and tried to put it on her toenails because, according to her, “My polish was coming off and I wanted it to be beautiful.”

I suppressed the smile that began to emerge, reminded her that nail polish was only to be used by Mommy or Daddy, and took her to the bath to get her cleaned up — with a promise that I’d paint her toenails for real once we were done.

The damage was minimal, thankfully. She just got it all over her foot and her hands — not on the rugs or anything else. In a way, I am proud of her independence. She saw she wanted something done, so she decided to do it by herself. Of course we let her do many things by herself, but this was a good lesson to her that sometimes there are things that she can’t quite do alone yet.

The Santa Clause

Even though, for some reason, I just can’t get into the decorating part of Christmas this year, I’ve been having so much fun introducing Baby B to the fun traditions of the holiday, and that includes Santa Claus.

Basically, I guess I’m saying I’ve enjoyed lying to my kid.

Oops.

Last year,  Baby B was able to recognize who Santa was, but she had no idea the role he played in Christmas, so it’s been great to tell her the story of Santa, what happens on Christmas Eve, and why he brings presents to good boys and girls. (I should note here that we are not a religious family, so Christmas plays a secular role in our lives. At some point we will, of course, talk to her about the religious meaning behind it all, but I don’t think this is the year for that.) Since she’s so full of questions and whys, she’s always questioning us on the things we tell her about Santa and Christmas.

So the time came to go visit Santa Claus in person, after talking about him for a while and giving her a chance to think about sitting on his lap. Last year she did not want to do that, and even though she said she would sit on his lap this year, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she bailed at the last minute.

We went to the same place we went last year, and it went perfectly. We had just a couple people in front of us, then it was our turn. They gave her a stuffed reindeer to hold (which I loved because it made her more relaxed), and then just like a big girl she walked right up to Santa and let him pull her up to his lap. She smiled great for her pictures, and then Santa started asking her some questions. She still sometimes pretends she’s shy around strangers, so I expected that she wouldn’t say anything to him, but she did. And get this — she even snuggled into his chest at one point! I couldn’t believe it! I was so proud of how she did, and we’ve got great pics this year (stay tuned for Wordless Wednesday).

After that, we went into the local bookstore and went downstairs to the children’s area to let Baby B play. Turns out we caught the beginning of a children’s storytime where they had Santa come and read “The Night Before Christmas,” so we settled in for that (and happened to run into one of Baby B’s daycare friends there, so they had a good time together while we chatted with his parents).  After the storytime, Santa let the kids take turns sitting on his lap, and wouldn’t you know it — Baby B chose to stand in line to sit on this Santa’s lap, totally her decision! This time we had her sit on his lap with her daycare friend, which they both just loved!

All in all, I think this is a GREAT year for the concept of Santa. She understands the basics and can get excited about it, but her thinking isn’t quite polished enough to question some things that challenge logic — like why she saw two different Santas in a short amount of time on Saturday, or how he can fly all over the world in one night to deliver presents. Those questions will come one day, of course, but for now she’s believing in the magic of Santa, and I love it. Some people, for one reason or another, choose not to introduce the concept of Santa to their children, and that’s fine. We chose to bring Santa into our lives and have fun with it.

You know, lying to our kid and all.

My sentiments exactly!

Scare tactics

Overheard in our house recently:

Baby B: Get that down for me, please. You get that down for me — or I’LL TOOT!!”

Wordless Wednesday: Passing time before surgery

Ear-ly day

We got up early this morning and got ready, then left the house by 6:15 a.m. to head to the surgery center. It was snowing a little bit, but nothing too bad, so we made it there right on time at 6:45 a.m. We met with the billing/insurance person first to make our final payment, then sent to the waiting room, where Baby B found a great play kitchen and clubhouse to play in while we waited.

We were called back to the pre-op area after 5 or 10 minutes and asked a series of questions by the nurse and anesthesiologist. Then it was a waiting game for the doctor to come in and then be called back for the procedure. (I hate calling it surgery, even though that’s what it is, because it makes it sound so much bigger than it really is.) We had a lot of time waiting in that area — almost an hour, I think — and Baby B did great for all but maybe the last 10 minutes, when she kept wanting to leave our curtained nook. (Well, when she wasn’t almost pressing the red “EMERGENCY” button and nearly giving us a heart attack.) The Husband took her to the potty to take up some time, and wouldn’t you know they came back for us when they were gone. Just like going to the bathroom at a restaurant and your meal comes while you’re gone!

They had warned us that two-year-olds often have quite a bit of separation anxiety when it comes to leaving their parents to go to the surgery area, so I was prepared for this. She’s just so much more aware of things this time around and of course questions everything. The nurse had come to talk to us quite a bit while we were waiting, telling Baby B that she could have a popcicle for breakfast (and asked what color she wanted) and that she had a mask that smelled like cherries that she could test out. So Baby B had a chance to build up a good amount of trust in the nurse, and I was very pleased to see that she went right to the nurse’s arms willingly when it was time to go back. The Husband and I watched her as she went back to the operating room, and she didn’t even turn back once to look for us. That’s truly the only thing I’d been nervous about, but she was awesome. Our tough girl!

Baby B was taken back to the OR at 8:07 a.m. We were called back to meet with the doctor at 8:15 a.m. (Which, incidentally, is the same amount of time that elapsed last time.) The doctor said everything went well. He said there was some fluid in there that he got out (not infected fluid, but still present), as well as some wax. As before, we’ll do ear drops for five days, then use ear drops if she gets infections from this point forward. She has no restrictions other than not to stick Q-tips in her ears (which we didn’t do anyway).

We had to wait another probably 15 minutes before we could go back to see Baby B, but when we did, she was doing great. She’d woken up just fine and was with the nurse getting her promised pink popcicle. We stayed in recovery long enough for her to eat her popcicle, then we were allowed to go. She even walked out all by herself (with a very brief crying episode because she saw the playroom from outside and wanted to go back in there and play). She and I stopped to pick up doughnuts as a treat on the way home, then came home to munch on those and watch “Tinkerbell.” It’s mid-afternoon now, and she’s been acting normal all day, and even ate a good lunch. We’ll have our follow-up appointment on December 22.

So far so good. In fact, I’m not sure it could have gone much better.

Success!

Just wanted to update that Baby B’s surgery went well, and we’re home now watching some Tinkerbell. I’ll update later with more details, but so far so good!

Totally tubular

Just wanted to mention that Baby B has her tube surgery early tomorrow morning. I called the office on Friday to find out our check-in time (they do this so they can order the surgeries from youngest to oldest), and I was a little afraid that with Baby B being older this time that we’d be scheduled for later in the day, but we’re second on the list with a check-in time of 6:45 a.m.

I’ll update with more information as soon as I can tomorrow! I’m curious to see how different the experience is now that she questions everything and is much more aware of what is going on.

Parenting with style

It’s been interesting to visit The Sister-in-Law and The Brother-in-Law (parents to Niece #1), as well as The Sister and The Brother-in-Law (parents to Nieces #2 and #3) in the recent months, as it’s illustrated just how different their parenting styles are.

With Niece #1, she’s allowed to watch almost zero television. Her mother prefers natural, Waldorf-type toys. They make gluten-free brownies just for the heck of it and have a pretty rigid eating schedule.

With Niece #2, she has a **TV in her bedroom that’s turned on all the time (even if she’s not in there). I’m pretty sure the Disney Princesses vomited their merchandise all over her bedroom. She’s allowed to have popcicles just 20 minutes before dinnertime.

I’m certainly not saying that either style is inherently good or bad; obviously each style seems to be working for their individual families, and that’s what matters most. It was just interesting to note how different their approaches are from each other, and it had me wondering where we fit on the spectrum.

We prefer to limit TV exposure, but we’re not as hard core about it as The Sister-in-Law is with Niece #1 and we do let Baby B watch some programs and movies now that she’s over two years old — though not as much as Niece #2. I’m not crazy about commercial merchandising such as the Disney Princesses, but Baby B certainly reads her share of books involving popular characters, including Clifford the Big Red Dog and Curious George. We often take a “whatever she’ll actually eat” approach to eating, offering her healthy options and leaving the choice up to her whether she wants to eat.

I feel like we sort of fit in the middle of those two styles, but it really makes me wonder if I can summarize our parenting style easily? What things are most important to us when we are parenting? We want Baby B to question things around her, to never be satisfied with “that’s just how it is” or “that’s how it’s always been done” as an answer. We feel like she needs to learn consequences to her actions and understand why we’ve established the rules of our household. We feel like Baby B has a lot to gain from a wide variety of toys, both plastic/electronic and more natural — as well as from everyday objects found around the house. We don’t want to raise a brat, but we also try to choose our battles and target the most important lessons, knowing that other lessons will come with time as she matures. We have certain expectations for her behavior, but we also understand that she’s two years old and cannot be expected to act like an adult at this age (which is what much of society expects from even kids this young). We want her to know that while she might not succeed at everything in life, she’ll never know unless she at least tries. We try to be laid-back when possible, but confident and consistent when we need to instill discipline.

But most of all, we try to have FUN. We like to get out and see and d0 what’s going on in the world around us. We like to travel to new places and show Baby B new things. We like to plan things but we also like to be spontaneous at times. That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it? Making the most of the time we have with each other and giving Baby B a good foundation for the rest of her life. That’s my ultimate goal in parenting. So far I think we have a very good start.

———–

(**In the interest of full disclosure, I should note here that Baby B does have a small TV in her bedroom because her room doubles as our guest room. However, it hasn’t been plugged in since I was doing middle-of-the-night feedings nearly two years ago, so it’s not even an activity option for Baby B. I don’t mind her watching TV at times, but we decide when and what.)

Wordless Wednesday: Meeting our newest niece

Nap wrap?

As I mentioned last week, I was wondering if Baby B was dropping her nap on the weekends for us. When we were in Oklahoma, The Husband and I tried an experiment to see if she really didn’t need her naps. We decided we’d give her an opportunity to sleep if she was showing signs of being tired, but as long as she wasn’t, she was allowed to stay up and visit with her cousins. We basically felt like we didn’t want to ruin the short visit with a daily two- or three-hour struggle to get her to nap if she was doing okay without them.

The good news: She did great without a nap.

The bad news: She did great without a nap.

I think our approach on weekends will be this. We’ll institute a quiet time (need to come up with a catchy name for this to make it sound more appealing…any ideas?) that she spends in her room, and it’s up to her what she chooses to do during that time, but she must spend the time in her room. If she doesn’t sleep, no big deal. I suspect sometimes she will, other times she won’t. I just want to make sure we give her the opportunity just in case she still does need it.

My only concern is that without a nap, she’s not getting the amount of sleep that’s recommended for her age, which can start to affect things other than just mood. So we’ll just keep an eye on things and reassess our approach later if needed.

**********

Today ends NaBloPoMo, and I was once again successful!! Hooray!

Road warrior

It took 15.5 hours to get to Oklahoma (split among Tuesday evening and until dinnertime on Wednesday).

And it took 17 hours (done in a single day) to return home yesterday. (Plus we lost an hour coming home, so it was that much later getting in.)

But we survived our 32.5-hour trek in the car.

We actually did more than just survive it. It went really well.

We left immediately after work and got into St. Louis on Tuesday night around 10:30 p.m. local time, checked into our hotel (thanks for the recommendation, Sarah! It was perfect!), and crashed for the night. (I keep telling everyone this, but I was floored that the St. Louis Arch is shiny. I always thought it was made of white concrete or stone on the outside and looked much like the Washington Monument [which I have seen in person and I know is not shiny!]. My whole sense of everything I know about the world has been shaken up by this discovery!)

We got up early on Wednesday morning, grabbed breakfast for the road, and got back to it by 7:30 a.m. We had packed a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches for all of us so we wouldn’t have to make (or pay for) a lunch stop on the way, and we finally made it to my sister’s house at 5:30 p.m.

We were there to visit my sister, her husband, and my two nieces, one of whom is three months old and we had never met before. The other will be 5 years old next month, and she and Baby B were thick as thieves after mere minutes together. (This wasn’t their first time together; they had met back in January.)

We enjoyed pizza that night and then the older girls took a bath together before it was time for stories and getting ready for bed. We visited with The Sister and The Brother-in-Law for a bit after the kids were asleep, but it had been a long couple of days, so we were in bed by 10:30 p.m. that night.

On Thanksgiving Day, we spent most of the time around the house, with the exception of all of us girls going for a walk during the afternoon (they had gorgeous weather while we were there: upper 60s/low 70s and sunny) while the boys watched a boy movie. I helped The Sister prepare our Thanksgiving dinner, and we enjoyed a nice meal together, thankful for the time we were able to spend together.

We did have a bit of a nontraditional moment when we all left the dinner table to go outside and watch the space station fly overhead. It was amazing to watch because there were two lights to see this time — because the space shuttle was docked with the space station as it was flying overhead! What a unique thing to see. It was awesome to see these two lights flying fast overhead, probably a hand’s width apart if you held your hand to the sky, giving you a sense of just how big these objects really are. We also watched the space station again on Friday night — and there was just one light this time because the space shuttle had landed earlier that day. Anyway, Thanksgiving dinner was nice, and we all went to bed with full bellies.

I didn’t really expect us to do much on Friday, so I was pleasantly surprised when we found enough to do to fill up the whole day. First we got a driving tour of their area, then we went to Lake Murray and drove around and took some pictures since again it was a gorgeous day.

Then we went to lunch at Braum’s, a local chain of burger and ice cream restaurants. (My only rule for going out to eat when traveling is that it can’t be anywhere that we have at home.) We went to a local park to let the girls play on the playground, then The Brother-in-Law suggested we go to Turner Falls, so we agreed we were up for it. (Baby B didn’t take a nap either day we were there — we didn’t even attempt it and she was fine — though probably more about that later in the week.)

Turner Falls was a very pleasant surprise. We weren’t expecting a $15 admission fee (total for the seven of us), but we learned it was well worth it when we found castle ruins to explore and a beautiful area around the waterfall itself. We even stayed long enough to watch the sunset over the falls, which was spectacular. I think everyone really enjoyed our trip to the falls.

We headed to the house to eat leftovers for dinner, and then we put the kids in their pjs and we went back to the park we’d been to earlier, which has a great Christmas lights display — for free (donations accepted) — that we drove through. That was very fun and something good to do that was seasonal.

Unfortunately, we had to hit the road early on Saturday morning, and we left their house by 7:30 a.m. We took turkey sandwiches to eat the road to save time, but we decided to picnic at a rest area in Missouri so we could let Baby B stretch her legs for a bit on the playground there. We also stopped for a sit-down dinner so we could take a good break and recharge for the rest of the drive home. So, I think we could have cut some time off our 17 hours yesterday, but I’m glad we made the stops we did because it made the drive much more tolerable for everyone.

Baby B was amazing in the car. Just wonderful. On the way there, we had a two small moments (one when she needed to go to sleep on Tuesday night and one when she needed to nap on Wednesday) where she was crying for about 20 minutes out of frustration, but aside from that, she was awesome. On the way there, The Husband sat in the backseat with her for a couple hours, but on the way back, she was alone in the backseat the whole time and managed to entertain herself.

Here is a great illustration of how good she was. I’m not really a fan of resorting to DVD players in the car for kids. I think there are plenty of other ways for kids to entertain themselves, and it seems like it’s a crutch for the parents in many cases. But since we had such a long drive, The Husband borrowed a DVD player from one of his coworkers, just in case we wanted to use it. I was glad we had it as an option and would have used it if needed, but I didn’t want to have that be the first thing she did in the car.

Well, the DVD player never left the trunk. On the way back it didn’t even occur to me that we had it until Baby B was already asleep for the night.

So how did she entertain herself so well for all that time? She spent a lot of time “reading” her books. She becomes so engrossed in those and totally immerses herself in them. But mostly it was to our advantage that Baby B is fully in the “why” and question stage, so she was constantly asking questions and asking follow-up questions and asking follow-up questions to her follow-up questions. Or we would start asking her a series of questions that would lead who knows where! It really was a lot of fun, and reminded me a lot of the car trips we used to take when I was a child.

The Brother-in-Law gave us their unused, spare GPS to have after he heard me talking about them when looking at the Black Friday ads. (They had bought one and then very soon after bought a car with built-in GPS, so they didn’t need this one. And no, I had no plans to shop that day; I just like to look at the ads.) GPS is one of those things that is like the video baby monitor: You don’t need it, but it’s a nice tool to have. This is a very basic model, but it got the job done, and it helped make our trip a little more fun too. We’ve named her Maggie (since it’s a Magellan brand), and Baby B quite often would say, “Good job, Maggie!” after she would give us directions.

It was a fantastic trip, and even though I wish we’d had more time there to visit, I’m glad we had the chance to go for the little time we had. It was a long drive, but well worth it. I love that we don’t shy away from difficult trips with Baby B, and I hope eventually it fosters a love of traveling within her.

Elf Dance 2009

CLICK HERE to see our Elf Dance.

Bellies and socks

I love this video because I think it captures a lot as far as how much fun we like to have on an everyday basis. We are silly people. This was taken a few weeks ago at bedtime. (Her curling up in our laps for a story? Ha! Foreign concept in our house!)

The little things

At first I hesitated to write a post about being thankful on Thanksgiving Day, because I don’t want to give the impression that this is the only day I’m thankful. And it’s certainly not just the big things (The Husband, Baby  B, our health, good jobs, etc.) for which I am thankful.

So instead, I’ve decided to make a list (not all-inclusive, of course) of some of the smaller things for which I am thankful. Some serious, some silly, but all truthful.

Here we go:

*For Baby B being potty trained. NO MORE DIAPERS FOR HER!!!

*For a good sports bra.

*For finding purple ink pens in bulk (it’s what I use at work).

*For toffee-flavored ANYTHING. Yum.

*For networks that put TV shows on the Internet since we almost never watch TV anymore.

*For doorknob covers.

*For friends who know when to say, “Man, that SUCKS” and just leave it at that.

*For fondue.

*For awesome summer airfare.

*For a certain two-year-old who did GREAT on all our flights this year.

*All of us having swine flu already, so we don’t have to be paranoid about that now.

*For all the times Baby B lets us sleep in on the weekend.

*For all the times The Husband lets me sleep in on the weekend when Baby B wakes up earlier than we prefer.

*For finding an AWESOME babysitter.

*For lovely date nights with The Husband.

*For committing the time to keeping up with this blog and having a written history of our life with Baby B.

Wordless Wednesday: Precious cargo

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On the road again

The bags are packed, the car is loaded, and we’re ready to hit the road as soon as the workday is finished. We’ll drive the 5 1/2 hours (give or take) to St. Louis tonight and spend the night there, then get up early tomorrow and drive the rest of the 9 hours (again, give or take) to Oklahoma to visit my sister and her family for the holiday weekend. Of course, those are computer-estimated times and do not take into account Toddler Travel Time, so it remains to be seen what the actual final total will be. In any case, as long as everyone stays healthy, it should be a good trip.

I’ve made some posts ahead of time and scheduled them to post each day we’re gone, so as not to mess up my streak for NoBloPoMo.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

What’s in a name?

For a while now, Baby B has been giving names to things when we’ve prompted her to do so. Her stuffed dog is named Letter. Her fish are named Grandma and Marby (though only the latter remains with our family). She named her caterpillar Peanut Butter.

So it’s been a lot of fun to see her start naming things all by herself, without any prompting from us. Some of my recent favorites include:

• Leeleeah
• Ahleeyah
• Ibey
• Bobby

Yes, all these funny made-up names, then she tacks on Bobby to her rotation of favorite names.

One of Baby B’s favorite things right now is to give names to random characters (and items) in her books that we read. I like to try and quiz her to see if she keeps the same names for the same people, or if she switches them at random. I’m often surprised by how much she keeps the same names she assigned the first time.

She sometimes likes to pretend we are mispronouncing the name, and she makes an effort to correct how we’re saying it. It reminds me of something my sister used to do when we were little. Her stuffed dog’s name was Spng. Here’s a typical conversation:

Sis: His name is Spng.

Me: Spng.

Sis: No, not Spng. Spng.

Me: Spng.

Sis: NO! It’s Spng. Not Spng.

Me: Spng.

Sis: Exactly!

Of course I’d been saying it the same way the whole time, and it was just a game that she used to get on my nerves. (Ah, sisters!) So I just play along when Baby B does the same thing because I know all she’s really doing is playing a game with us. Her own version of the name game.

Crap. No nap?

Last weekend, Baby B nearly skipped both of her weekend naps. She played and read in her room, but didn’t go to sleep until really late, and thus didn’t sleep that long before we had to wake her up.

I thought the big reason was because she’d been away from daycare for two weeks, so she was out of her regular routine, and I was hoping that getting back on her regular routine would help. She napped fine this week at daycare, so I was hopeful this weekend would be good with naptime.

Not so much.

Yesterday she was in her room from 2 p.m. until we finally let her up at 5 p.m. because she wasn’t going to sleep. The Husband reported that she did not take a nap today, either.

Around age 4 seems to be when kids give up their nap on average, so I’m not ready to declare yet that she’s giving up her nap, but it’s not looking good based on the last few weekends.

Thing is, I’m not really freaking out about it; even if she doesn’t take a nap, we’re going to make sure she spends quiet time in her room to give her a chance to unwind. Even right now our basic theory is that as long as she stays in her room during naptime, we don’t care what she does. That is her time alone and that is our time alone.

Even when she doesn’t nap, she’s not extra grumpy or anything, and our efforts to make her actually sleep never succeed, so that’s what we’ve found works best for us. I find that, much like the food battle, the sleep battle is another that I’m not going to let myself get stressed over as long as she seems to be thriving and doing well.

Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time (right?)

A few nights ago, Baby B started crying out around 1:30 a.m., which is very unusual for her. I gave her a few minutes to see if she’d settle on her own, but her cry was pretty escalated, so I figured I’d go check on her. When I got to her room, I immediately suspected she was having a night terror. She was crying hysterically and thrashing all around her bed, lifting her hips and then convulsing her whole body after. I don’t know a ton about night terrors, but I do know enough not to wake them up. I quickly saw that touching her even a little escalated the thrashing, so I just laid there beside her and vowed to wait it out, calmly saying to her every once in a while, “Mommy’s here. Everything’s okay.”

But the screaming and crying weren’t getting any better. I knew in theory that she wasn’t sick, so I was still going with the night terror theory.

Until I looked down at her legs. Which I noticed were pinned together in one pant leg of her pajamas, making it so she couldn’t move her legs separately. Thus the thrashing around and screaming and crying.

Oh, I guess that would do it, huh?

Despite continued thrashing, I managed to get her pants off and then put them back on the right way. I asked her if that had made her scared, and she said in the saddest voice, “Yeah, it did.” She was still crying some, and she was asking for Daddy, so I went to get The Husband and he laid with her for a few minutes and she was asleep almost instantly.

So how did her legs get stuck in the pant leg? The Husband usually takes her to the potty around midnight before he goes to bed, just to make sure she stays dry all night long (and in an effort to eventually teach her to wake up on her own). He says he doesn’t think her pants were ever below her knees, but obviously they were, and he put them in the same pant leg when he pulled her pants up. He didn’t notice it then because he carries her back to her bedroom since she does the middle-of-the-night potty trip completely asleep.

Really it’s pretty funny that she ended up asking for him and being calmed by him, when he’s the one that caused the issue in the first place.

So yes, we still put our pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. We just put both legs in that first pant leg and never get around to the second one.

Car talk

Ack! This is one of those days where it’s 11:30 p.m. and I have no idea what I’m going to write about. One of those days where if I weren’t doing NaBloPoMo, I would just skip making a post.

But I have to start writing and post something before midnight. No one said it has to be an award-winning piece of writing, right?

It was nice to return to work (and daycare) for a full week this week after being off in some capacity for two weeks. We’re going to lay low this weekend, as we’re driving next week to Oklahoma to visit my sister and her family for Thanksgiving.

More than 14 hours in a car with a two-year-old?

Have we lost our minds?

Well, we tried booking plane tickets, but airfare was going to cost more than we were willing to pay for the three of us. I think Baby B is at an age where she can do this kind of trip better than, say, a year ago, so we’re going to attempt it. I actually think it will be fun. I spent most of my childhood doing long road trips with my family, and we always found ways to make the car time fun. With Baby B’s 2,001 questions (that’s just per hour, not per day), I suspect we won’t lack for things to talk about!

Toward maturity

I was struck the other day by what a difference a year can make.

Last fall/winter, we were struggling with a couple of difficult toddler independence issues, mostly with getting into her car seat and putting on her coat. Eventually, it just became part of our normal routine; something we expected to happen, awful as it was.

Then I realized the other day that we haven’t had a battle for the car seat in a LONG time. She willfully climbs right in and can even almost strap herself in the entire way. Leaving daycare is a much more enjoyable experience now that it doesn’t involve her avoiding the car seat, me crying and pleading, and then me forcefully putting her in there. I open the door for her, she climbs in and does as much of the strapping in as she can, I finish the job for her, and the whole time we’re pleasantly talking about what kind of a day she had at school and how she can help when making dinner that night.

We finally solved the coat issues last year when we taught her how to put her coat on by herself, but I was a little afraid that once coat season arrived this year, she would begin to resist it again. But so far my fear has been unfounded, as she’s usually quite eager to put on her coat either before leaving the house or leaving daycare. And she even taught herself an additional way to put on her coat, putting the hood on her head and then putting her arms in the sleeves of the coat.

Both of those things got me thinking about how far we’ve come in just a year’s time as we’ve seen her mature. Of course, mature is a relative term when you use it in reference to a two-year-old and of course she’s not a perfect angel all the time, but the fact is there: she is maturing.

She’s maturing in how she deals with difficult situations.

She’s maturing in the kinds of questions she asks.

She’s maturing in how she processes information.

She’s maturing in the decisions she makes.

I love seeing the little girl she is becoming, right before my very eyes.

Wordless Wednesday: Into the swing of things

For more Wordless Wednesday participants, click here.

Are you game?

One of the phrases heard most often in our house right now from Baby B is, “Do you want to play a game?” She’s all about playing games right now, including traditional things like throwing a ball back and forth and hide ‘n seek, but my favorite timess are when she makes up her own games.

Earlier tonight she said we were going to play The Vegetable Game. The rules of this game, according to her, were that we each picked some vegetables from the garden (the floor), then we were to take bites and spit them out. Then we had to go into the bathroom and get cotton balls and take turns cleaning each other’s faces.

At bedtime tonight, she said we were going to play The Catching Game. This was basically her version of “keepaway,” with her holding a teddy bear and running around the room while I tried to catch the bear. But once I caught the bear, the rule was that I had to hurry up and feed it honey because it was sick and needed to get better. (She got this from the fact that we gave her honey to control her cough when she was sick last week.)

Of course, being just two, Baby B often changes the rules of her games while we’re in the middle of playing, but we roll with it and even try to add our own rules to the games (at least as much as she’ll let us). I love to see some of the creative things that she can come up with as she learns to play in a more structured way.

She’s going the distance

Because [she's] racing and pacing and plotting the course,
[She's] fighting and biting and riding on [her] horse.
[She's] going the distance.

Um, so I signed up for another half-marathon.

Despite saying I had no desire to do so.

And despite saying that I can’t do winter training (primarily because of asthma that is aggravated by the cold).

And despite the fact that I’m going to have to go to work after the race (I can’t take off because it’s a pretty busy day).

But hear me out.

I learned this weekend that our city is holding its first-EVER half-marathon, which is kind of a big deal. There’s a big part of me that really wants to be a part of it, just to say I was there and participated.

I fully do not expect to equal or better my race time from Indianapolis. I’m going into this with much more relaxed expectations, to truly have fun with the experience. Of course I’ll still need to put in some good training time, which will have to be during the winter because the race is on March 28, but I’m not planning to go all out like I did before.

This is something I know I can do. I’ve done it before.

So when I paid my $50 this morning for registration, it didn’t feel like that big of a deal (but in a good way). As long as I keep the pressure off myself, I think this is going to be a good thing.

I’ll work now on coming up with some kind of modified training program to get me to race day in just more than four months.

(Wasn’t I just doing this?!)

The Door

A few days after the Great Door Experiment Fail, Baby B started asking us again to not close her door all the way when going to bed at night and for naps. She assured us she would stay in bed, so we decided to give it another chance. She’s actually done pretty well overall, usually testing the limits two or three times (and seeing that we WILL shut her door if she leaves her room, which she doesn’t like a bit) before finally settling in bed. We still close her door at night — and, again, she can’t get out because we’ve got a doorknob cover on the inside of her door — because we’re not ready for her to roam the house and come wake us up, but it’s good to see progress in being able to trust her (somewhat) with her door open just a little bit. I know the whole thing is a learning experience for her with testing her temptation and self-control, so we’re trying to be patient as she learns these skills. We just have to give her the chance to learn these skills in a controlled environment and know that she’s going to make mistakes along the way.

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NaBloPoMo is officially halfway over today. So far so good!

I got a dre-e-ess

November by the numbers

Cases of swine flu: 3

Trips to the doctor: 4

Full days at work for me: 1

Days at daycare for Baby B: 1

Times Baby B has watched Alice in Wonderland: 237 (approximately)

On the mend (part 3?)

I think we might finally be moving past all these illnesses. Again. We did keep Baby B home again today because she looks so bad, and we’ll play it by ear for Friday.

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I had a dream a couple nights ago that we’d been gone from daycare for so long that they’d painted all the walls in the rooms a new color! By the time she returns on Monday (hopefully!!), it will be two weeks since Baby B was at daycare.

Quite a pricey illness considering we still have to pay for daycare even when she’s not there.

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Baby B’s teacher called this morning to check on her, and she let a bunch of the kids take turns talking to Baby B on the phone because she said they miss her a lot. It was so sweet to hear them talking about each other and hear Baby B say, “I miss you!”

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This morning I was drying my hair and Baby B came in to get a cotton ball. She got it wet in the faucet and started to leave the bathroom. I asked what she was doing, and she said, “I’m going to try to take the polka dots off my arm.”

If only it were that easy!

Wordless Wednesday: Roseola

But wait! There’s more!

But that is not all! Oh no that is not all!

–The Cat in the Hat

We thought for sure we were sending Baby B back to daycare this morning. We were just sure of it.

Until she woke up with a fever. Again.

And taking off her pajama shirt to take her temperature revealed an extensive rash primarily on her trunk but also on her arms, legs, and face.

I was returning to work for the first time in a week, so I said to The Husband, “Can you take her to the doctor this morning? I haven’t been to work in a week. I’ll try to come home at lunch and work from home if I can.” I called the doctor when they opened, and they had an immediate opening (I LOVE our doctor; they are always so good about getting us in quickly), so off Baby B and The Husband went to the pediatrician (again) while I went to work.

The diagnosis this time: roseola. Which totally explains the high fever from Saturday. Typically the rash doesn’t come until the fever goes away, but that’s not the case this time. The doctor said that her defenses were down from the swine flu, so this found her and took a good hold. Secondary infections are quite common when people get flu. Often it takes the form of pneumonia or other bacterial infection, but can also be something like this.

I got a lot of work done during the morning and was able to leave at noon to relieve The Husband. I ate lunch then got some work done, then Baby B and I took a good nap in the afternoon. She’s definitely still acting like her sick self, but hopefully by tomorrow she’ll feel more normal. We’ll have to keep her home again tomorrow; we’ll split the day. I have plenty of sick time available but have to show up a little to, you know, actually do some work, and The Husband wiped out his sick time available with last week’s illness. So our best solution is to continue splitting the days until Baby B returns to daycare. (Thankfully The Husband’s boss has been nice and offered to let him come in this weekend to work so he doesn’t have to use paid time off for today and tomorrow. Stinks to have to work the weekend, but it’s nice to be offered the opportunity to do that because he doesn’t have to do that.)

So that’s the latest report from here. We’ve been hit hard over the past week, and I hope it eases soon.

Pillow talk

What I woke up to over the monitor this morning:

“Daddy, where are you? I’ve been waiting for you all ni-ight!”

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After Baby B’s latest fever won the two of us an extra day at home today, I’m finally rejoining society and returning to work tomorrow. I can say I’m definitely ready. With a few small exceptions (mostly doctor trips), I’ve been stuck at home for a week, so I’m eager to branch out a bit. At least if anyone gets swine flu now, I can confidently say it was not from me.

On the mend, part 2

We never had to make a trip to the ER last night, thank goodness. Baby B pretty much went to bed for the night around 6:30 p.m., and she woke up briefly once at 5:30 because she was thirsty (and drank quite a bit, which I definitely encouraged). Her fever went down signficantly as of when we went to bed, and she woke up this morning with a much lower fever (around 100). She’s acted much more like herself today, which was not the case yesterday. I’m hoping (for the second time now) that we’re all on the mend.

The other shoe? Oh, there it is

I had a sneaking suspicion that Baby B’s short run with swine flu was too good to be true. She had a bad day on Tuesday but bounced back quickly and was pretty much normal by Thursday and Friday.

Then she woke up this morning with a fever around 101.

And her cough returned.

And by naptime, it had gotten up to 103.5, with Tylenol bringing it down to only 101 by 3 hours later.

Turns out this is a common thing with swine flu, where you think you’re better and then the symptoms come storming back, sometimes worse than before.

Baby B’s temperature at last check? 104.7. Highest ever in her life.

I called the weekend pediatric nurse, who wants to see if we can get it down via Motrin and Tylenol, but if we can’t keep it below 105 with fever reducers, we should call back to go to the ER. We should also go to the ER if she has her breathing distress symptoms or if she’s coughing constantly for 2 hours. I can tell you that we may be taking her to the ER even if her fever doesn’t reach 105. I understand they’re trying to keep unnecessary trips to the ER to a minimum, but not every case can wait until the next morning.

We’re keeping a very close eye on her this evening and overnight, and I will not hesitate to take her in if we can’t get this fever down significantly. This is not something to mess with in a child that has a history of respiratory ailments.

Keep your fingers crossed that we have this under control. It breaks my heart when she says things like, “I’m so sad because I’m so sick right now.”

Recovery

The Husband returned to work today, and it looks like I will be returning on Sunday (a day late, as I was supposed to work on Saturday because it’s our busiest racing weekend of the year, but my supervisor was able to get my Saturday shift covered so I could rest an additional day).

It will be nice to join the rest of society. I wonder what I missed this week. It’s all been a blur.