Great Book

An article that tells it like it is

I think this is a must-read...

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=4205

Toddler Eating Habits

* While eating pasta shells with tomato sauce for lunch, you stuffed one in each ear. I have no idea why. I do know that the old adage about not forgetting to wash your ears was made for you.

* You REALLY like Sunchips in Garden Salsa flavor. In order to get you in the bath this afternoon (in order to clean the tomato sauce out of your ear) I let you eat the chips in the bath. You were delighted. You enjoyed dipping them in the bubbles. And letting them drop into water and fishing them back out. It was really gross.

* Before eating a grape, you like to squish it with your foot.

Odessa, 19 months old

Wow. Life with a toddler is complicated. So many things to do and people to be and never enough time to be or do it all.

Reading through last months post is so nice because I can clearly see all the things that have changed in the past 30 or so days. And when you realize how much has changed in such a short period of time, it is no wonder that I feel tired, and anxious, and irritable.

I think that you are entering the "pre potty-training" phase but it all really depends on what books you read. The latest research seems to recommend potty training later vs. earlier. It is that pendulum swinging back the other direction. With so many families requiring two incomes, and daycare centers and preschools requiring potty-trained babies, the push to train early was intense.

So my point is that you notify us every time that you have to go "poo-poo". It is so funny because I didn't know that you even knew that word until you begin saying it to me in context. Yesterday we bought you a potty chair. Then you opened the lid and proceeded to put both feet in the bowl to stand up on it. I don't think you get the idea just yet.

You watch cartoons almost every morning. I admit it.

You will also turn off the TV when you are done and walk away. It is as if you are saying, "mom, haven't you read the latest research which documents the negative aspects of too much TV watching?" My reply is: "Yes, darling, but have you read the latest research that documents if mamas don't get their morning cup of coffee they slip slowly into insanity?"

I have realized that the characters on Disney cartoons often ask their audience a lot of questions, like "Do you see the blue ball?" It is hilarious because you have begun to answer back by saying "No." Yesterday, Mickey Mouse asked "Are we smart enough to solve this problem?" in his high-pitched annoying voice and you quickly respond back with an adamant "No".

Pre-baby I was sure that I would never let my kids watch all the annoying tv that is on. Now that I have a baby, The Wiggles and Jo Jo's Circus have become my allies in Operation Keep Odessa Entertained.

Now I am worried that people will ready this and judge me as a bad mama. So, let me just say that I do spend a lot of time interacting and playing with the poodle and I only turn on the tv when I need to get something done (shower, vaccume, go the mall, whatever).

You are back into wanting mama and daddy (and whatever other adult is nearby) to read books to you. At night-time, your all time favorite lately is "Mama Mama" and "Who are you, Baby Kangaroo?" You also love all the Dr. Seaus books too.

When you just want to sleep, you will flip through all the books really fast while I attempt to speed read them to you and then throw them on the floor. Then you will say "na-na" or point to the light and say "hep (help)" so that we can lay down to nurse and fall asleep. What is really funny is that the bedtime book routine is for your enjoyment, not some task which must be accomplished before we can go to bed for the night. Those are tacked up to the refrigerator door.

5:30 a.m. seems to be your preferred wake up time. Could be a lot worse so I am not going to complain. Okay, just a little bit... We have nowhere that we need to be getting to at that hour. This is the time period in your life where you should sleep in -- you have many years to come of having to wake up before the sun to get to work or school or whatever.

Additionally, you sleep 8-10 hours in a row. I know a lot of babes that sleep 12 hours straight at night (or so their parents claim). Parents are able to put their babies to sleep and then have a couple of hours to themselves before needing to go to sleep -- I think that is how people with kids get anything done or resume their sex lives (so you can only blame yourself for not getting a sibling :) But because you aren't going to sleep for 12 hours, I feel like I need to go to sleep when you do in order to get 8 ish hours in a row. Hmm. I am sure that this will change with time or we will find another way to adapt.

While eating at at restaurants, we usually will put you in a booster chair in between daddy and I. A few weeks ago, we were at a restaraunt eating breakfast with some friends and their baby. After you got bored with eating and attempting to climb the wall, you proceeded to stuff packets of sugar down my sweater and into my bra. After you would get five or six in there, you would proceed to dig them all out. And then you would start this process over. It was really funny but also a little awkward.

Another huge change is that you recently started at playschool two days a week. I have mixed feelings about it. I really think that you have a fun time there and I am really happy to know that you are somewhere safe and fun while I go to work. When I start to feel down however, all these guilt feeling creep over me and I worry that it isn't your benefit. And the kicker is this, I will not ever know whether what I am doing is beneficial for you or not. I just have to make a decision and trust my instincts.

Time for me to go. I need to remove your breakfast from your high-chair tray before you let me know that are done eating. Very clearly. By throwing the food onto the floor.

I adore you. I hope that I am making all the right decisions for you, or at least most of them. Or at least the big ones.

Clean hair and conditioned teeth

Yesterday I was in the bathroom getting dressed. Odessa was "helping" to "organize" our bathroom drawers while brushing her teeth. She pulls out a bottle of hair conditioner and attempts to open the lid so that she can squirt it on her toothbrush. When that attempt proves futile, she looks up at me and says "Mama, hep (help)". "I am sorry baby, that is not toothpaste. That is conditioner, for your hair". She looks back at the bottle of hair conditioner, pretends to squirt it onto her toothbrush and proceeds to run the toothbrush through her hair.

Finger-painting gone terribly wrong

Mother Earth is a Tease

Last weekend we had one day that was very sunny and warm and beautiful. It makes me excited for the longer days and warmer weather ahead.

Blue Eyes and Broccoli Face

She must have gotten both attributes from Larry -- a love of broccoli and blue eyes. Either him or the mailman.

The web should be disabled when I am sick...

As I am reading back through my posts from the past few days, I must say that I really shouldn't combine codeine and internet-publishing. Too much like "drunken-dialing", ya know.

And I have made quite a few Ebay bids on baby clothes that looked super-cute through the opiate haze.

I also wrote an email to my friend that essentially said "Lets start exercising together! We should eat soy cheese pizza tomorrow! We should open an ant farm in Australia!"

An Observation & Day Four at School

1) This blog is quickly becoming less about Odessa and more a personal journal for me. Which I am finding really nice. Plus, I guess, anything that is going on with Larry and I is going on for little miss O too.

2) I think I have referred to Odessa's daycare as "daycare", "preschool", and "playschool". I really don't know what the difference is. I do know that her day at school is filled with play in a somewhat structured manner and that they have a schedule. First it is free play, then morning snack, then inside playground (gym) or outdoor playground if it is nice outside, then lunch, then quiet play/story time, then afternoon snack. And at some point in there they do art projects playing with clay, paint, markers or whatever. I really think that she likes it there but all the same I am filled with mama-guilt (me anxious, what?!?)

Addendum to previous post

Addendum to previous post

How many times do I have to learn the lesson that I cannot take cough medicine with codeine? It is great because it lessens the cough which means that I can sleep (the coughing is what is keeping me up) BUT, and it is a big BUT, codeine totally makes me "high". I get super motivated and very much not sleepy. And really I haven't found anything w/o codeine that lessens coughs. Hmmm.

So tonight I am again taking cough meds but also taking some benadryl so I hope it does the trick. If not, that is why God made caffeine.

One thing or another + Day 3 at Playschool

If it isn't one thing it is another, ya know? So, no, I am not anxious and I am not feeling the insomnia. But I have a cough that wakes me up until I finally really get up, take cough medicine and wait for it to start working. This isn't the first time we have been sick this year and, although it isn't serious, boy is it annoying!

Today was Odessa's first "full" day at Play School. I dropped her off at about 8:15 a.m. We go into the classroom and hang up her coat and hat and then I spend a couple minutes there talking to her teachers. I picked her back up after work at 2:30 p.m. When I walk into the classroom, I just watch to see what she is doing until she eventually spots me and runs up to give me a hug. She was just about to climb onto one of the toddler-size chairs at the toddler-size table when she saw me.

Her teachers say that it is one of the smoothest transitions into school they have ever seen and that there were no tears all day! Plus she did really well with nap time, going straight to sleep on the mat with the special blanket that Grandma gave to her. I am having a hard time believing that they are talking about my kid! So I have a couple theories: 1) they are pumping "special" air into the room filled with serotonin, 2) when I leave to go to work, my baby is replaced by an alien baby, and 3) the lunch is spiked with benadryl.

It isn't like I think O is a bad kid but she is intense and would have cried at home at least one time during the day. I have read that some toddlers won't release that kind of energy (crying) unless they feel very safe and comfortable so they often "save it up" for their parents. So that is probably it. Now I WANT her to cry at Play School.

Her teachers wrote on her take-home note that she is very explorative and has investigated every part of the room. She also has taken a liking to a little boy named Max who follows her around trying to make her laugh. How adorable! I told Larry about Max and immediately in a stern, dad-like voice he said "How old is this Max?" What did he think, like this baby boy in playschool is, like, 30 0r something?

So another successful day of play school. And, honestly, I don't think that I have felt this happy in the past 19 months. Just knowing that she can be okay in that kind of a situation and that I can pursue some other interests...

Odessa fell asleep relatively early tonight -- 8 p.m. It was nice because it gave Larry and I a chance to just sit on the couch and talk. Sadly, something that we have a hard time finding the time to do since O.

We talked about our days -- he was telling me something about wood products and I was half-listening and reading a magazine article. Then I told him about a new plan I thought up at 3:30 a.m. yesterday (which is the time that all the first-rate plans are produced). The plan is this: we start up regular family meetings which we take minutes at. We discuss items and create action plans. And then we follow-up on that item/action plan at the next family meeting -- just like at work! He seemed less than excited. But families can be run like businesses, no?

And then I diagnosed him with Dysthimia and PTSD. That is pretty much when he announced that he was going to bed. I will add "talk about mental health" to the family meeting minutes.

Anxiety, an unwelcome visitor

Man, do I have a problem with the big A word. I think all of the changes in my life recently have really prompted some major anxiety with me. A few of the big ones: O starting at daycare, the drama in my family (one would think I would be used to that by now), and the surreal, out-of-body experience you sometimes get with a virus.

I am on xanax now (I just couldn't get my mind to quiet down enough to sleep) so I have clarity at the moment, albeit drug-induced clarity. So Tomorrow The Big Goal is to get back into my routine of reducing my anxiety through non-pharmacological ways. So basically I need to start walking again and also doing my yoga. I know that it sounds so clique but it is so true!

A tee-shirt that I HAVE to buy for Odessa...

Weather outside: warm and sunny; Weather inside: snotty and drippy

We caught The Cold that has been going around. I knew it was just a matter of time. I have all the typical cold symptoms, Larry just has a raging headache, and Odessa seems perfectly fine. I hope that it is all those good breast-milk antibodies and not the fact that she is the next to go down. Nothing is worse than having a sick kid to take care of. Their non-sick needs are so intense that if you add anything onto that, it is just crazy.

And, on a side note. I went back through the 2007 posts and we were totally all sick this time last year too. I guess mid-February is not good for us.

Playschool: Day Two

Day Two went great as well! I had a lot of anxiety that Day One was just a crazy fluke and that Odessa would be dragging on the floor holding onto my leg as I limped for the door. She did cry when I left. But, she does that when I leave her with Grandma or Daddy too. So, of course, I walk out and hide from view to listen. She cried, literally, for less than a minute. It is just like they say in all the damn books.

So I go to work. Larry picks her up four hours later (right before nap-time). He said she looked like she was having fun, just running around with the other babes. When she spotted him, she ran up to him smiling and that made him feel really good.

Larry took O to his office where I met them to pick her up and go home. She was sitting on his lap, helping with some computer related tasks. Of course, I asked Larry what the teachers said about how the day went, but he just didn't have enough elaboration so I called the school myself. The teachers said that she did really well, no tears, but seemed to be teething quite a bit (yeah, tell me about it). And that she made them all laugh because whenever one of the other kids would laugh, she would do her "fake" laugh which sounds SO not natural and she throws her head back for full effect.

So, all is good. Except for the fact that leaving her at play-school takes up most of my income. Which I am still working on how to justify but will consist of examples such as: the decreased earning power of women who "broke" from the workforce to care for their kids, my sanity which is greatly helped by going to work, and the importance for me to meet some of my non-mama related needs (that last one could also work as an excuse for hiring a prostitute, except maybe the "mama" part).

On another front, my mom has spoken to me in days despite my attempts at reconciliation. I think that she really believes that I did this to punish her, when in fact, it has nothing to do with her. It is all about Me. My mom would respond that I think everything is about me. And, actually, if I think about it, how else can one view the world but from the perspective of how everything else effects them?

It's three a.m. and I am awake again...

I am feeling very positive (although scared and nervous) about some changes coming up in my life. Fear holds me back. In fact it paralyzes me. But not with everything. A couple examples would be 1) leaving baby O with anyone other than my mom or her daddy 2) GRE -- I am so scared of that damn test and I need to figure it out in baby steps. Even if I never go to graduate school, I don't want that fear to hold me back 3) new places and new things: it takes me a lot of talking myself into it before I can go -- I have recently starting getting better at that as I am pushing myself way beyond my comfort level and I come out on the other side unscathed 4) finances -- the mere thought of money and I start panicking. Maybe I have PTSD? But from what? That one time my allowance was taken away? When a commercial comes one for debt reduction or banking or buying cars I switch the channel immediately. I know, not healthy, but I am working on it.

1) Odessa and Playschool: I have been thinking of starting Odessa at play-school part time (that really just means daycare but I think that “play-school" sounds better and that is what they call it in many other countries. So, in this instance alone I am European. That and when I don a fake English accent.

My fear of her potential sadness has held me back considerably. I never thought I would be one of those moms and here I am, a classic example. Here is the only way I can explain it: when you feel that your child could be sad or hurt or scared or confused, it just feels like someone is ripping your heart out with their bare hands.

Well, my jump into the pool of daycare, ahem play-school, was prompted by one of my mom and I's continual arguments. And when I do anything or say anything that she doesn't like, she refuses to watch O while I go to work. It is just not good to mix work and family like that. And this is probably the sixth time it has happened in a year or so.

Bottom line, it is just not a good dynamic. Reasons for my mom not to watch O while I work: 1) not good for the family dynamics of mom and her adult daughter (me), and myself and my young child. 2) my moms health is not up to par and it would be better for her to not have to take so much responsibility for O's welfare. 3) now when Larry and I want occasional date night (which we have found is very helpful for our marriage), I would feel less guilty about asking mom and she would likely be more enthused as she hasn't already had baby for two almost-full days.

So, yesterday I took Odessa to her first day of school (after taking two xanax for the feeling that my heart was going to beat out of my chest)! I hung out there with her for about an hour showing her the toys and books and other fun stuff. Then it was lunch time so I helped Odessa get comfortable in her seat, gave her a kiss, and said "mama is going to go for a little while and I will be back soon". She watched me leave but was really more interested in the food and all the little kids sitting at the table along with her.

I told all the teachers and the supervisor to call me for ANY reason at all. I will be just a few minutes away. From there I was trying to kill some time to give Odessa an adequate opportunity to experience a few hours of play-school. So I went to Starbucks and some baby re-sale shops and then finally to Target. I thought the three hours was NEVER going to end. I checked my phone constantly and even bought a car charger in case by some freak accident I lose what’s left of my battery before I get back to my baby. Side note: Another side effect of anxiety and xanax: shopping. Its not like I went crazy but I definitely bought more that I "should" have. I got some very cute clothes for O for this Spring and Summer, a couple new books, and a second car seat. Larry and I have been wanting to get a second car seat for a long time and it will be imperative if Larry is going to be able to drop off/pick up O sometimes.

So, I finally return to the play-school. After they eat lunch, it is story time, and then nap time. When I peaked into the room she was totally asleep on the little mat right next to another little girl’s mat. I couldn't believe it!

So I filled out a bunch of paperwork there and looked through their handbook because I was not going to wake her up. The next time I peaked in, all the kids are sitting at their cute, toddler-size tables with their afternoon snacks in front of them. Odessa is laughing and gabbing with a little girl next to her! I came in and she seemed happy to see me, although not ecstatic. We walked over to the chair in the corner for a one-minute na-na session and then she wanted me to read some books. So I did, and the other toddlers swarmed over to hear as well and put in their opinions on the book selection. Soon, Odessa climbed off my lap and went to play with some other toys. SO there I am reading to a bunch of kids who are not my own. "Time to go bye-bye Odessa" -- she begins running in the opposite direction -- she actually wanted to stay! (I hope that this is a sign that she is "well-attached" and secure and knows that I will always come back for her.) We waved "bye-bye" to all the little kids and we were off. It went better than I would have ever dreamed.

What a relief. And what a sense of freedom: I can go to the gym once in a while, or run a few errands without O, or whatever. Just knowing that you can't do those things is an awful feeling.

Tomorrow she goes again for four hours while I go to work. My phone will be glued to my hip. And maybe there will be tears at some point -- tomorrow or down the road, but at this point I feel so much more confident to handle any emotional challenges that come my way. I really do believe that this change is going to be good for all of us: my marriage, our family unit, Odessa, Grandma, me -- I now know that I can pursue some of my goals. It is possible. Some moms love to stay at home with their kids all the time -- I am not one of those moms. I have career, educational and personal growth aspirations and I don't want to think that I have to "shelve them" because I had a baby. It is just a matter of finding a balance that works for your family.

Reassurance

This is an article from kellymom.com that I have read more than once. And I should put it on my "to-do" list at least once every couple weeks. I spend so much time worrying and stressing and second guessing and listening to other's opinions when what I really need to do is just BE.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by your child's intense needs?

But how much intense parenting they need, possibly including frequent nursing, in the second year depends for the most part on their inborn timetable for emotional development. As parents we can slow down emotional growth by leaving needs unmet. But there is nothing extra we can do to speed it up. ...your investment in your toddler who seems to be 'always attached' will pay off when the time for independence does come. -- Norma Jane Bumgarner in "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler"

Older babies and toddlers can get really clingy at times. Sometimes it seems as if your child has been nursing all day (or all night), or has been clinging to your leg all day long (even when you go to the bathroom) and you really just need a break.

These "velcro days" usually have a cause (even if we only know after the fact): teething, illness, a developmental advance. But even when you know the reason behind a clingy episode, it can still be very frustrating, particularly if you had something you expected to get done or if you were simply anticipating some time to yourself.

Do know that each of us gets overwhelmed from time to time. Remember - these moments pass, even though it may seem like forever when you're in the middle of one of these days.

I've gathered a few tips for dealing with these "velcro" days, but I'd like to get your suggestions and experiences, too.

Alarm Clock

I bought an alarm clock last night at Target. I figured this would save me from having to get out of bed just to determine which course of action I should take: 1) it is 3 a.m. and I should be trying to get Odessa to go back to sleep or 2) it is 6:30 a.m. and her normal wake-up hour and I have no chance in hell of getting her to go back to sleep.

What I discovered last night is that it takes me about two hours to fall asleep once I get into bed. I didn't feel like I was having an unusually dificult time falling to sleep so I think this is pretty much my average.


So, I am finally falling asleep when Odessa wakes up for the first time in the night if she is teething, or growth-spurting, or has any other developmental thing going on (which is more nights than not). Then I am back to trying to fall asleep. Luckily this doesn't take as long the second time around.



Then Odessa wakes up one more time sometime in the night/early morning before she gets up "for real" at 6:15 -- 6:30 a.m.


What this also means is that I am getting less sleep than Larry is even though I go to bed much earlier than he does. So I get less "me" time and less sleep. Life is so not fair.

Reflections