maternity leave

I find myself increasingly tired as I become more pregnant and I find my son increasingly energetic as he gets older.  So I no longer have the time or inclination to keep writing on a daily basis.  I might start again next year depending on how I feel.

Wish me luck.

Bye.

Long car trips

Taking a child on a long car trip is an adventure that depending on the age of the child and the length of the car trip could be a hellish endeavor not worth attempting or a way to force family to spend quality time together with minimal distractions.

For children two-years-old and younger a long car trip is an hour or two and is best survived if you begin the trip around the same time that you would normally begin nap time.  That way your child falls asleep in the car (hopefully early into the trip) and with any luck stays asleep for the entire trip.  When all goes to plan you have a sleeping baby and the car ride can be pleasant.  But be warned if your child wakes up during the car ride you will have problems.

First thing my diaper clad son does when he wakes up is pee.  Which is cool for potty training purposes, he wakes up I sit him on the potty, win.  This is a lame deal when he wakes up in the car.  He wakes up, pees his diaper, and cries.  So then we need to take the next exit find a good place to park and take him out of the car seat and change his diaper.  So far so good.  But once he is freed from the car seat, he has no interest in returning to his car seat.  He will cry and do everything he physically can to make it difficult to buckle him back into his seat.

So great now we have a crying baby and many miles still to go.  This sounds bad. (It feels bad.)  But then you remember, babies have a short attention span.  And if you can make a sufficient distraction your baby will forget why crying was a thing and maybe wiggle to the music instead of being miserable.  Which I feel makes the whole car ride better for everyone involved.  Just remember getting angry at your child is likely only going to make the situation worse.  Your kid was unhappy you don't want to make them scared in addition, how will the crying ever stop?

Be happy, have a good time, and with any luck your child will follow your lead.

Older kids while still not enthusiastic about long car rides can be given diversions to help make the ride more bearable.  You knowing your child(ren) know best what to hand them to make happiness a reality.  As your children get older, car rides can get longer, but remember children have smaller bladders than adults.  I recommend a rest stop every two hours or so.  Of course you would pull off sooner if your child requests a bathroom break.  Nobody wants to be in a car were an accident took place.

Babysitting

It's hard to say who babysitting  is harder on when it's the first time you let your first child enter the care of someone else while you go off to do what ever it is that you couldn't really bring a baby along for. (Especially if you are a stay at home mom.)  You and your baby have an understanding of sorts, the baby needs things and you do your best to fulfill these needs.  When some one else is left in charge, your baby is going to have to deal with the fact that you are not there!

As a baby, that has got to be scary, if you have no command of language and don't understand why mommy is gone!  You need things!  And now there is some one else trying to give you what you need?  Nooooooo! Mommy or Daddy do these things!  Why is some one else trying to do the things that Mommy and Daddy do?  I want my Mommy! I want my Daddy!

You get the idea.  It's not easy on the baby who's world you've just given a paradigm shift.  Guess who else it's not easy on.  The baby sitter!  Baby sitting is not generally thought of as a hard job.  I remember as an older child taking care of younger children with out incident.  But there is a big difference in being in charge of someone who you can have a functional dialogue with and a baby.  Yes you can tell the baby what's going on, and explain that mom and dad will return after their movie is over, but the baby will not understand.  The baby will be upset.  And it can be stressful spending a couple hours with someone who is vocally unhappy with the situation and needs constant distraction to keep the tears at bay.

The first time I let my son be babysat, I had my mother and brother tag team the babysitting game.  My son was in the capable hands of not one but two adults that he had spent time with before.  (Granted I was also there but at least he knew these people.)  My husband and I went to see a movie, by the time the credits began to roll I was a ball of nervous energy.  I physically could not make myself sit through the credits,  I had to get home to my baby.

He had just woken up moments before our car rolled into the driveway and we could hear him crying through the door.  Delirious happy is how my son could be described when he saw me come in the door.  And quick as a flash I had him cuddled up in my arms his tiny hands gripping my shirt with all their might.

Since then babysitting has been easier on everyone involved.   My son is happier to spend time with his extended family while I'm away, and I don't worry so much while he is out of my sight.  He still doesn't really want to take a nap without me, but then again he doesn't really want to take a nap while I'm home.  I'm just able to out last an obviously tired child in a battle of wills.

So take heart new parents, dates with your spouse can still happen even once you've entered the realm of parenthood.  You just have to plan ahead a little more than you used to.

Maternity Clothes

Maternity clothes tend to have an impressive amount of fabric and/or an impressive amount of stretch.  But when do you actually need to make the switch from your normal clothes to the maternity collection?  Well for me, I noticed the bones in my hips shifting before I started "showing".  And so my first pregnancy I had to deal with inane questions from my mother in-law like "Why do you need maternity pants?  You're not showing!" (said like an accusation).  Well I need maternity pants because even though you don't see a bump, there is still no way in hell my regular pants are going to button up anymore which is why I'm out shopping in yoga pants.

It is a mistake to go maternity shopping with anyone who is going to be less than kind about the sensitive subject of weight.  If your pregnant you don't need anyone around who is going to make you feel fat, the baby to be is doing enough of that and does not require assistance in that field.  That said, no you are not fat, you are pregnant, some people show sooner than others, some moms carry "in" while others carry "out" and then there is high or low.  Basically what I'm saying is there is a lot of variation in the realm of healthy and normal.  So even if you and your best friend got knocked up on the same night, you would not be guaranteed to look equally round through the course of pregnancy.

Don't feel bad if you need to jump into maternity clothes relatively early in your pregnancy.  And don't feel jipped that you don't get to wear your cute new maternity clothes for very long  if it takes you longer to get to the point where you need to wear them.

Basically you know you need maternity clothes, when the clothes you have begin to feel uncomfortable.  That said once they do start to feel tight go shopping right away, or you may find yourself making unusual clothing choices out of necessity when you finally do go clothing shopping.  Your husband's sweat pants may be fun to wear around the house, but do you want that to be your only option for walking out the door when you are going out into public?

Though how nuts you go with your maternity clothes shopping might be influenced by how many times you think you are going to be pregnant, I still recommend at least two different sets of maternity pants, two dresses and a handful of shirts to keep you decent.

And on the other side, postpartum, don't let anyone tell you when you need to stop wearing these big comfy clothes.  It took a while to gain the weight, it will take some time to lose it.  You gain more weight than the baby so that you can remain healthy while you breast feed.  I found my appetite drop significantly after the baby came out.  But that said a week after the baby was out I looked at my self and thought "well I look less pregnant".  Don't get me wrong I did lose the weight, it just wasn't over night.  If you're breast feeding the baby will literally eat your excess calories.  And that can make you more tired than a trip to the gym, which is fine because if you breast feed you are burning more calories than you probably would have at the gym anyway.

Foods and nonfoods

Small children seem to have a love of putting anything but food into their mouths.  Much to the dismay of moms everywhere. I want him to eat a nice steamed carrot, he wants to eat a nice red crayon.  I want him to eat a muffin and some eggs he wants to eat a book.  And on and on it goes.  When we had a birthday party and I offered him a cupcake, thinking we could take some cute messy photos, he wanted nothing to do with it.  I mean yes he poked it and flipped it upside down but out of all the things he tried to do with this cupcake, tasting it wasn't on the list.

It sometimes feels like kids have this innate backwards understanding of what to put into their mouths.  If it's food it will not pass the lips.  If it is not a food a solid effort will be made to chow down.  He tries to eat paper, I tell him no.  I try to feed him an apple slice, he tells me no.

Now I feel like the subject of Edvard Much's famous painting The Scream.

I'm not saying that my son doesn't eat solid foods, he does... sometimes.  He's just exceptionally picky, even by my pregnant-lady standards.  Needless to say meal times have become difficult in this house.  At least we can still both agree on butternut-squash-soup, but I refuse to let that be the only thing we eat.  I need a little more variety than that.

And what really gets me, is when I make food for him because I've seen him happily eat it a few days ago, and he will not even try it today.  This whole food thing bothers me to no end.  If we didn't need it to survive I would have washed my hands of it long ago.  Who needs this level of aggravation three times a day, everyday?

I don't feel like playing twenty questions every meal to find out what my son will take a few bites of and then lose all interest in.  And why is the food on my plate more interesting to him than the food on his plate?  It's the same food!  I just wanted eat something without my son playing with it first, is that so much to ask?  Apparently it is.  Some days I wait to eat until he's taking a nap so that I don't have to deal with his need to play with my food while I eat.

This sadly isn't always an option as there have been days where he skips his afternoon nap, much to my dismay.  I'll put him in his day bed, and do the whole naptime ritual with him, and he will look like he's about to fall asleep, for about half an hour.  Then he bounces up and wants to play or have a snack and what ever I was planning on doing during his normal two hour nap is now not going to happen.  Which is extra lame when I was hoping to use the time for food preparation.  Because now what are we going to eat?!!?!?  Ugh, I guess there is always cereal.

A little percussion

We took a trip to visit my father over the weekend and we looked at my son and thought, hey he's finally old enough to play with some of the musical instruments in the house.  (Now we didn't point him at the guitar or violin, we are not that crazy.)  My father pulled down some of the percussion section from his top shelf and placed it on the floor.

I handed my son a drum stick and had him sit in a semicircle of instruments that he could hit.  There was a gong, chimes, a tambourine and a bongo.  I gave him one brief demonstration of how each thing could be hit with a drum stick and let him go for it.  He had the idea right away and spent the next fifteen minutes hitting the instruments as he had been shown in a random order.  This went over better than I thought it would.  Fifteen minutes feels like an incredible amount of time for a small child to have focused on a single task without additional parental encouragement.

Of course it was only a matter of time before he felt the need to explore the items beyond the parameters of the initial demonstration.  He picked up the bongos and turned them upside down and tested out what happens when you try to put the drumstick inside.  Then the tambourine was turned over, this was a little more exciting than turning the bongos over because he flipped the tambourine back and forth a few times before investigating it while it was upside down with the drum stick.  He was clearly unimpressed when he flipped the chimes over.  And it was not physically possible for him to turn over the large wall mounted gong so he settled for simply pushing it into the wall.

After this he handed me the drumstick and wandered off.  Apparently it was time to chase my sister's cat.  (Thankfully the cat chose flight over fight when it came to dealing with an over enthusiastic toddler.)

It's weird.  After hiding from toys that make noise I feel oddly compelled to seek out more musical instruments for my son to play with.  I like to think that it's simply because these things are not electronic noise makers that once activated go on for a miniature eternity with electronic "music" that I have more patience for them.  But I think the real reason is that I have more interest in playing with musical instruments myself, than baby toys that make noise.

I miss sleep

If there was a way to cash in all the naps I intentionally skipped over the course of my life I would be one well rested mama.  I was the kid who didn't want to nap, the teen who didn't sleep in, and the adult who couldn't nap if I wanted to.

But pregnancy can disrupt sleep in a way that I find more frustrating than the way a baby disrupts my sleep.  At least when a baby wakes you up something important needs to be done for someone you love.  When you are pregnant waking up in the middle of the night to pee feels grossly unfair (especially if you still occasionally have to wake up at night to assist your baby who has just peed).

I frequently find myself wanting just one more hour to sleep.  And only when I am really lucky does that happen.  I find my self anticipating my son's naps and feeling unreasonably sad when he skips one.  It makes me wish that hiring help was an option for my family.

It's frustrating when people who are not parents act like being a stay at home mom isn't work.  All I can think is, are they insane?  It is a 24/7 job with no breaks.  And if you have anything less than a good attitude the world assumes you are a terrible person.  If the baby cries people look at you like you are doing it wrong.  And if you cry their are only condescending looks to be spared.

Which makes being a mom who has one child and one on the way a sanity sapping struggle.  When I was pregnant the first time around I occasionally found myself crying for no discernible reason.  Now that I'm taking care of some one else all day pregnancy induced emotional episodes seem selfish and even more out of place than they did the first time around.

At least when I was pregnant with kid number one, if I felt emotionally out of it, I didn't have to deal with people.  I could just go hide in my bedroom and no one would bother me.  Hiding is no longer an option.  And sympathy for how hard it is to be pregnant is significantly less the second time around.

People seem to think, "well you asked for it" to which the only reply is "shut up!" or possibly "I hate you!" because if you are the kind of jerk who is going to tell me "You asked for it" while I am having an emotional struggle you can go die in a fire or play on the freeway for all I care.

Yes I want to be a mom.  Yes I knew it would be hard.  Yes it is hard.  No I don't wish I had made a different decision... Unless you are talking about choosing a friend who would eventually be an asshole to me while I was pregnant, in which case, yes I wish I had the foresight to know which friends would be awesome to have while doing the mom thing and which ones I would feel happier never interacting with ever again.

Because I've got to say, nothing shows you who your real friends are like going through a life changing event.  And really I only have time to deal with people who will be cool with a sleep deprived me.

Some Assembly Required

So many things that we buy for our children are in fact 3D puzzles for adults before they look like the picture on the box.  And as your child gets older they will be more interested in the assembly process.  They're desire desire to be included will begin far before any ability to be "helpful" in the making things go better and faster sort of way.  But as long as your child can't choke on the pieces they grab or otherwise hurt themselves, it may be worth the decrease in efficiency to let them feel included.

The game of can you hand me that, is actually a lot of fun for small children.  And they would love it if you would explain what you are doing as you do it.  Whether or not they retain the information is not even relevant.  You are doing something different and interesting with your child.  (I mean generally speaking you only have to assemble any given object once.  So each adventure into the land of some assembly required is a unique experience.)

Now that said, don't be offended if you are trying to show your child how things work as you put their new piece of gear together, and your child starts playing with the box.  Boxes are fun and safe to play with.  And if your child is playing with the box, you are able to put the new thing together with fewer requests for the next part you need.

Even if you have just completed building a new toy for your child.  Don't take it personally or as some form of offence if your child is happily playing with the box it came in or anything else they might have taken an interest in while you were diligently assembling their new toy.  Your child is not belittling your work, or less grateful than he or she should be for the time and money spent on their behalf.  Rather your child is simply engaged in the task of being a kid.  Kids will play, it is how they have fun and how they learn.

So go ahead make the thing that you were going to make.  Then play with your child.  Whether it's with the new toy, or the box, or any other thing you might have laying around the house.  Be in the moment, and engage with your child on their level.  They will grow up soon enough.  And then you might find yourself missing the days when you could put your child in a cardboard box pushing it across the floor while making race-car sounds.

Don't eat that!

If you are pregnant there is a list of things you should not eat that makes sense once you think about it, but might not jump to mind when planning meals.  Basically you want to avoid anything that has a risk of giving you food poisoning.  For though you can vomit up the nasty germs making you sick, a baby in utero can not throw up.  And since this was bad enough news that your body thought the best best bet would be to expel the contents of your stomach, how do you think a baby who isn't fully formed yet will fare fighting against these germs?

No raw or under-cooked meat: that's right no sushi, and you want your steak (or any other meat product) well done.  These foods may host bacteria, viruses, and parasites.

No raw eggs: that's right be patient and cook the cookies I don't care if you like them better raw it's still a bad idea.

No unpasteurized dairy foods and no hot dogs or deli meats unless they are steaming hot.  Listeria monotonousness can cause miscarriage, stillbirth or other serious health problems.

No pâté or meat spreads, or smoked seafood or jerky.

No large fish: we are talking things like swordfish, king mackerel, tile-fish and shark.  You want to keep your mercury count low.  Seafood recommendations can be found here.

Also it is recommended to limit the amount of liver you eat as it has excessive vitamin A content which can cause birth defects.

Even unwashed fruits and vegetables can be a problem hosting a parasite called toxoplasma which can harm your baby in the making.

If you would prefer your information in a visual medium I found a slideshow on web MD that might interest you here.

With all these foods taken off the list of things to eat the ones I miss most are sushi and Caesar salads (the dressing contains raw egg).  Feel free to comment with what forbidden foods you missed while pregnant.

Crying babies

At some point or another if there is a baby the baby will cry.   When out in public there is nothing quite as mortifying to a parent or annoying to everyone else than a crying child.  And if it's not your baby, you can only speculate as to why the crying is happening.  Please don't do so out loud.  You are probably wrong and will be hated forever by the parent of the offending child. (You probably don't care, you hate them for having a child crying in public.)  But seriously if you see a parent dragging a crying child away from a store, it's probably because the child was misbehaving in the store.  The parent is not working on removing the child from public, so unless the kid says "Help, this isn't my mommy/daddy!" stay out of the way.  The noise will pass, and you being a jerk about it helps nothing.

But what if I think someone else's child is crying because of the way their parent is holding their arm?

Then you are wrong.  Believe it or not parents don't go out of their way to make their kids miserable in public.  Chances are a firm grip on the child's arm is in fact the parent attempting to save the child from throwing themselves bodily on to the floor for an impressive face plant.

No way! Why would a kid do something to hurt themselves?

You are asking me to peer into the mind of the overly dramatic children of the world.  But ok, here we go.  No not all kids are this dramatic (at least not intentionally so).   However  I must say there have been occasions when I told my son "No" for what ever reason and he threw him self head first at me, or at the couch or at a wall or even the floor.

Wait this is about parents setting limits?

Yes!  You don't want spoiled children running around in public, but you would love for parents to give their children whatever it is that will make them stop crying....  See how these things don't go together all that well?  I tell my son "No" you can't have the random thing on the shelf.  He cries because he is not getting his way.  Fine whatever.  He needs to learn crying will not get him what he wants.  Now a random passerby looks at me like I'm a terrible person.  I don't need this kind of aggravation! He's still crying so to better make my point I remove him from the store. He throws all of his weight into getting back to the forbidden items, which is still not enough to change the direction we are going.  Then I feel it through his arm, his muscles are tensing in the way they do just before he launches himself.  I lift him by the arm, (no way am I letting you do that here!)  Of course he's still crying and now I hear a random know it all say "she's hurting his arm." Like hell I am! I would tackle a wild animal if I thought that would keep my son from harm!

Of course once we get to the parking lot he can't remember what he was crying for.  I tell him he's all right and he believes me. The crying stops.  And there is no way, we are going back in there today.

So what is the take away from all this?  If you see a crying child, chances are you are also seeing a good parent.  Being a parent is hard enough without random people on the street trying to tell you how to do your job.

The age of discovery

It could easily be argued that as soon as you are born you are discovering things.  As an infant my son seemed very thoughtful, wide eyed and absorbing everything.  But I feel there is a difference in discovering you can move your arms and legs (which was at the time very exciting) and later discovering your belly button.

In the beginning a lot of what your child is actively experimenting with is there own body, to try and answer the question: how do I operate this crazy contraption?  "coo" did I make that sound? That's funny! Hehehe! The sound of laughter is even funnier! (As an infant my son was easily amused and would laugh at almost anything.

Then there is the discovery of locomotion. Being able to transport oneself from one part of the room to the next is big news too.  But it is only after the self discovery does the magic of the rest of the world truly seem to call.

When I take my son for a walk, he wants to pick up everything.  He'll pick flowers, grab sticks, pick up rocks, pet the fire hydrant, and hug street signs. He'll squat by the dirt and wave his hands through it if given the chance, and every puddle is beckoning tiny feet to do a stomping sort of dance.  Even when we are walking in the mall he will run to the potted plants to touch the leaves, and hug the columns that support the building.

And then the shy excitement of seeing other children or small animals.  His whole being seems to shout "I want to touch it! I don't know if it's a good idea but I want to touch it!  Mommy are you going to stop me? Because I'm going to touch it!"  He has a little dance where he looks at what he wants to touch then back to me then back to it, sometimes he pushes me towards what he is interested in if he's unsure, as if to say "Hey mommy, there is a thing, and it's cool, you go first!"

Other kids seem to be the most interesting and most confounding, to my son.  He has figured out that little girls like it when you hand them flowers, but doesn't really understand that once he gives them the flower, they are going to want to keep it.  Luckily flowers are plentiful and generally I can quickly replace the one he has given away with a new one.  So far most other things he hands children (like books at the library) the other kids seem to be willing to receive and give back.  So we are learning about sharing! Fantastic! We are also working on saying please and thank you, but you know, one thing at a time.

Playgrounds

Once your child is old enough for playgrounds you get a chance to sit back and hyper vigilantly observe your child.

Finding the right playground for your child could make the difference between your child being bored, having fun or getting hurt.  Most of the playgrounds in my area are aimed at ages five and up, with the exception of the baby swings.  My son loves the swings, but eventually he will feel done and want to slide down slides.  Which is really only safely manageable for someone his age when the other kids are not crowding the slide.  Which circles me back to the fact that this playground was not really made with toddlers in mind.

Surprisingly the best toddler playground in my area is at the mall.  Not only is it climate controlled, which is nice, but it only has play structures that appeal to kids his age and maybe a few years older.  A seven year old would be bored here.  Which is perfect because comparatively big kids just don't mix well with toddlers.   The difference in running speeds alone can make for painful collisions.  And then factor in that bigger kids like to jump off of play structures, without necessarily making sure that the way is clear of toddlers.  It's enough to make the heart leap out of the chest of every adult near by.

Which leads back to the previous point.  It is important to find a playground that is age appropriate to your child.  There are wide differences to be found  in playgrounds.  And it's just not worth the hassle of trying to assist a child in playing on a structure that is clearly meant for older kids.  And your child will quickly grow bored and begin misusing equipment if you take them to a play area for children much younger than they are.

As the parent it is up to you to make a judgment call on where you want to let your children play.  Don't feel bad if and when you have to change which part of the park to play at.  And while it's good to give your child some space to play and explore, always keep an eye on your kids.  The heartbreak of something bad happening to your child while they were supposed to be on your watch is to be avoided regardless of how inconvenient it may feel to do the parent thing, and keep an eye on your child.

Beach Safety

In coastal areas when you think summer, you think surf and sand.  The beach can be a lot of fun or a parents worst nightmare.  So here are a few tips to make the beach (or swimming pool) less dangerous than it otherwise would be.

Sunscreen: no one likes being burnt, but how often do you have to reapply to keep your skin happy?  I'm rather fair of skin and burn easily so I go for a minimum of SPF 30 and reapply every hour and a half - or two hours if I'm not actually in the water.  These sunscreen breaks are good not only to keep skin from going lobster red but they also give you a chance to check in with your children and see how they are doing?  Are they still full of energy or are they about ready to fall asleep where they stand?  Kids don't pay good attention to their energy levels and if allowed would likely bounce in a bounce house until they were no longer physically able.

Lifeguards: they are not babysitters but they do make playing in the water dramatically safer.  So unless you feel abundantly confident in your ability to be your child's personal lifeguard, stick to bodies of water with a lifeguard on duty.  (Yes that means you might have to do some research to find out when and where the life guards will be.)  Because though you may be lifeguard certified at a pool or beach, that does not necessarily mean you are aware of all that is going on below the water at a random beach with with no lifeguard present.  Sometimes the reason for a lack of lifeguard tower is more than economic, some beaches are flat out not recommended to be on.  (Generally there are signs and people ignoring said signs, but it's up to you to keep your family safe.)

Buddy system: water can be dangerous. You never know when you might experience an unexpected cramp or any number of other things that would ruin your day (or equal your last day) if you had the misfortune of experiencing them alone.   Do your part when you are in a group and keep each other safe.

Safety point: if you have small children one rule that can keep things safe and fun is "don't pass the adult" or "stay near an adult" basically saying your kids can't go deeper than the nearest adult  (from your group).  This also keeps them close by so you can protect them from a sudden large wave, random animals, or strangers.  The beach is a terrifying place to lose a child, don't let it happen to yours.

Non-swimmers:  If your child doesn't know how to swim the message of safety point goes double.  If you are going to let a non-swimming child near the waves, I recommend holding his or her hand(s).  That way if a wave comes that would be too high for your child, you can easily pick them up and keep them from getting a mouth full of sea water.

I want to touch it: get your child to let you know what they want to pick up before they pick it up.  Rocks and empty seashells are cool, broken glass and jellyfish are bad bad ideas.  Basically if your child isn't old enough to have some sense about what they pick up, make them ask you first or tell them not to in general.

using words

I understand that as children approach their terrible twos they will push limits and test boundaries. What I wasn't expecting was my the screaming.

It was about an hour before my husband and I wanted to wake up when my son decide bed time was over.  He asked for his favorite DVD and we told him he would have to wait for daddy to get dressed for the day.  He cried, and I said, "No, crying will not make anything go faster."  He didn't just scream, because I didn't cave.  He fussed until the act of fussing made him violently ill.  I still did not bend.  I held him and hugged him, and told him he needed to use his words.  Finally he calmed down, looked up at me and asked for milk.  Ok. Since you used your words, you may have milk.

Now you might be asking why the drama? Why did we give ourselves this headache? What's wrong with letting the boy watch a DVD while the parents sleep?

Well to start with, I'm not afraid of my son and his ability to cry.  Second, I don't want to encourage this nonsense.  Babies cry for what they need, my son was crying for what he wanted.  Big difference.  No one has ever been harmed by lack of time in front of the television.  We are going to have to live with the way we raise him, so I need to make it clear who is in charge.

Now I would mention that unless you count not doing what my son wants as quickly as he wanted it as a form of punishment, we didn't punish him.  I just didn't start giving him what he wanted until he calmed down enough to use his words and ask for it properly.

I know future me will be glad I did this, but the me of right now just wants a tall glass of water, something to make the headache go away, and maybe a nap.

Emotional Distress (food edition)

Being pregnant can sometimes feel like being on mood elevators, this also applies to the way food is perceived.  (selective taste-bud amplification?)

When you crave a food nothing tastes better.  And nothing is worse than having the food you crave in your reach only to see it tumble to the floor.  It is enough to make a grown woman openly weep.  To have been so close only to fall so far from the goal.  It's devastating... Until a replacement is made and eaten at which point... Oh man, I'm so sorry, I must have seemed like a crazy person just then.  Oh wow this food is good.  That is of course assuming anyone was there to observe this mini culinary soap opera.

My day had gotten to a rough start, arguably I was just too tired to even be attempting food preparations, but I was hungry.  So instead of napping while my son napped, I was in the kitchen heating up leftover taco in the microwave.  Beep! Food's done.  I pull out the plate, and it's not even like I have the excuse of it being hotter than I thought it would be.  Temperature-wise the plate is fine, I got to set it down on the counter and... miss.  Gravity takes effect and the plate of food does a half rotation before splatting horribly onto the floor.  The taco somehow managed to open itself up completely and landed shell up. The plate broke neatly into two pieces.

I cried.  I had not gotten hurt. I sobbed.  I didn't even care about the plate.  I openly wept.  The taco!  I hadn't fully realized how badly I had wanted to eat it until after it had become a greasy mess on the floor... The last taco... gone... un-salvageable... heartbreaking...

All this happened while my son napped.  Oblivious to the turmoil and drama just down the hall.  I thought to myself... "I need to stop crying so I can go buy more tacos!" but even with an incentive as strong as the tacos it was hard to calm down.  I started packing the diaper bag, and checking to make sure I had bus fare.  Just as I start to ponder how I feel about waking my son for the sake of tacos... I love when he sleeps... I need tacos... He woke up.

Soon we are on our way.  Though taco places exist both up hill and down, I was only thinking of the up hill tacos and the down hill bus had just passed while I was still a block and a half from the bus stop.  So up the hill.  Just as I near the cross walk to get to the bus... it passes... not even stopping to let off passengers... If all of this could have happened two minutes faster.  I would have made the bus.  Luckily the bus goes every twenty minutes or so.  So the wait only felt like an eternity to a stomach that was resenting not having had a taco fifteen minutes ago.

Finally we get to the place of tacos, and there is a line.  And my son is fussing.  But we finally manage to place our order.  (I ordered way more food than I was going to eat, but it was a to go order so they gave us bags.) I ate one taco there, offered some food to my son who snubbed it, and then packed it all up and went home.  Thus bringing the taco adventure to a close. 

Rules

As a parent it falls to you to make rules.  Rules to keep your child safe.  Rules to establish healthy patterns of behavior.  Rules to help maintain sanity (for parents, children and strangers).  But who are we trying to get to follow these rules?

In the beginning you have an infant, who will cry, eat, sleep, and excrete.  Not much direction is required here.  Rules in place are mostly for how you want other people to deal with your child when they visit.  Examples:

• Wash your hands before you hold the baby
• Support the baby's head while holding the baby
• Don't shake the baby
• Talk nicely too the baby
• If the baby cries give him back (mommy or daddy will take it from here)

As your child gains mobility and comprehension they get rules too.  Mostly in the form of baby proofing admittedly.  But boundaries are set. And gravity acts as the harsh boatswain. Examples:

• Don't open the cabinet (because you can't I locked it)
• Feet first when getting down off the couch (it's a rule that is learned quickly when gravity takes effect)
• Use your words (you get what you want faster if I know what you want)
• Touch nicely (gentle examples help convey what you want here)
• No means No (this rule is as much for adults as kids, if you cave you teach your child to ignore you)

And on it goes.  More rules will be made as the need arises, both for your child and the people you allow to interact with your child.  Rules most easily enforced when in your own home. "My House, My Rules" being a relatively universal concept.*  Though as your child gets old, it becomes harder to directly influence the behavior of others toward your child.

*That my mother-in-law still does not want to understand

Restaurants

Going out to dinner with a small child can feel more like juggling random dangerous items of constantly shifting weight than a relaxing night out.  Going out to dinner while pregnant is not for the weak of stomach, as the smells of everyone else's orders bombard your overly sensitive nose.  Going out to dinner with both conditions in effect can be dangerous.

Ordering macaroni and cheese plus steamed vegetables for my son, and my old favorite off the menu looked like a good idea on paper... but sadly was less ideal than we might have hoped.  Yes I succeeded in ordering food my son would eat, however he did not eat all of it before he got bored with feeding himself and thought he would give feeding me a go.

And it wasn't until he started waving his cooked broccoli in my face that I realized the magnitude of my mistake.  The smell of his broccoli was enough to send my pregnant stomach reeling.   And being a persistent sort, he was not dissuaded from his goal of helping mommy eat regardless of what method I employed.  I have been informed that the look on my face trying to avoid the broccoli (a food I normally like) was priceless.

I was not amused.

And then to make matters worse the food I ordered for myself wasn't exactly sitting as well in my stomach as I would have hoped.  I resorted to munching on breadsticks while eating about half of what I normally would have done with the food I ordered.

I was really miffed when the bill came and while I was distracted with that the bowl of breadsticks was whisked away!  WTF?!?!?  I was eating that!  It was the only thing I was still capable of eating on the whole damn table!  And it was gone.  Though at this point it felt silly to demand they come back as we were getting ready to leave.

All and all, it was an experience I don't feel compelled to repeat.

Book!

As my son becomes more of a toddler and less of a baby, he of course has become more expressive, and more definite about what he wants.

There I am sitting on the couch, when my son walks up to me, small board book in hand, and says "Book!" and presents me with the book, climbing up onto the couch and looking at me expectantly.  I give him a smile and read him the book.  When I get to the end I place the book between us, he picks it up, looks up at me and again, hands me the book.  "Book!" I scan our general area and note that all the rest of his books are on the other side of the room, so I smile and read the same book to him again.  We get to the end of the 8 page story and before I can put the book down his hands are on it pressing it back toward me.  "Book!"  I can see he's not going to let me put it down.  So I read it yet again, while my son beams at me.

After reading and rereading this book (an unreasonable number of times) I take a chance.  I step up from the couch, to my son's immediate protests, cross the room and grab a hand full of board books and return to my now distraught son.  As soon as I sit on the couch, books in hand, his face brightens.  Now we have a small stack of books that I can, and do read to him, cycling through the stack three times.  Before he notices that there are perfectly nice toys he could be playing with.  And I am relieved of my book reading duty.

So not only would I recommend having copious amounts of baby friendly books in your house, but have small piles set up anywhere you might stop to rest so that you always have some books on hand.  How you get these books is irrelevant.  You could buy them or get someone else to buy them for you (though they are not cheap for what you get) or you could borrow them from your local library.

Because lets face it, it's hard to be content reading the same small book on repeat ad infinitum.  I got bored anyway, and it seems likely that most adults would too.

Pickles

When I need pickles, there is no food or drink substitution that will satisfy my craving.  It is often said that pregnant women crave foods to fill nutritional gaps in there diets.  And it is suggested that water salt and electrolytes are the reason behind the need for pickles.  But if that's true wouldn't a sports drink do the trick?  Many claim to be filled with carbs and electrolytes!  However I would like to state the obvious, sports drinks are not pickles.

Speaking from experience I must say, not only do sports drinks fail as substitutes for pickles, but the stupid sports drinks don't even taste good to me while pregnant.

My advice, if you're pregnant, don't run out of pickles, you might not need them every day, but on the days you want them, you need them.  Because lets face it regardles of the cause* when you are pregnant you need what you need, and now.  And why you need it doesn't really feel like a question worth pondering when you have the more urgent question on hand.  That being: where is the food I crave? And can I have it now?

Personally I enjoy sweet pickles above all others, though I may be an anomaly when it comes to favorite type of pickle.  Most of my pregnant friends seem to be interested in gerkins, though one of my friends is not even the slightest bit picky about what type of pickle, as long as it's a pickle it wins.

Just follow your heightened sense of smell and it will lead you to the good stuff; while repelling you from the food that will make you sick.

*Suggested causes for food cravings include hormonal changes, temporary nutritional deficiencies and emotional needs.

Toys with noise

Toys that make noise (electronically or otherwise) are well and good while they are actively entertaining your child.  However they feel more like landmines than toys when your child has finally fallen asleep, and the toys are strewn haphazardly across the floor.  Even if you had the foresight to turn off the toys that have off switches before nap time.  You are still faced with the problem off all the toys that, for whatever reason have no on/off switch.  So as you try to use ninja like stealth to leave the area where your child has fallen asleep, the noisy toys lay in wait.  One false step and a musical cacophony erupts, your heart leaps out of your chest, and you hold your breath looking at your child, hoping against hope that this sudden burst of sound will not wake them.

So let us better explore how these legal boobietraps work.

There are your standard old school baby toys, with noise making bits inside.  Mostly these are rattles that have a low risk of waking your sleeping child.  There are also the toys with horns or squeakers built in.  Which has always seemed inane to me,  they look like infant toys but really your child needs to be at minimum 18 months to stand a chance of having the strength required to compress the toy enough to make noise.  Where as an adult stepping on one will produce the loudest sound the toy is capable of making every time.

Moving on to toys that actually require batteries.

There are the type that blessedly have an on/off switch and then there is the hellish variety that does not have any means other than battery removal to be silenced.  Now of these two types there is a feature that some have and most don't; I'm talking about volume control.  I prefer to minimize the volume on all the toys that have this as an option.

However there is one toy that my son loves to turn on and off again rapidfire because that's the easiest button to push.  This toy has a volume control electronically built in, but it forgets that you turned the volume down whenever you turn it off.  And whatever genius was in charge of developing the toy thought maximum volume was a good idea for the default setting.

Of the noise making toys the ones I like the least are the ones that play a long musical piece off of one button push.  These are the worst to accidentally activate when your child is sleeping for obvious reasons.  And I would just like to go on the record saying that the vast majority of noise making toys my son has are toys that were given to him from friends and family.  I was not so foolhardy as to buy these musical landmines for my son, and yet here they are.

new sleep patterns

I have always been the sort of person who wakes up in anticipation of the the alarm clock.  It's a big startling sound and I don't want it to be the thing that actually wakes me up.  So traditionally I would wake up about a minute before the alarm so I could turn it off before it has a chance to.

Babies are not constant alarm clocks.  Just when you think you are getting used to your baby's sleep schedule, it changes.  Which is cool to begin with as the change starts out by meaning they wake up less often and you get more sleep.  But once your child is only waking up once a night, a shifting night time wake up call can be extremely disorienting and it can leave you feeling drained in the morning (even if you had as much time in total for sleeping).

This shift in night time wake up calls is especially hard for some one like me, (who wakes to anticipate the alarm) to deal with.  Waking up a few seconds before you baby wakes up can be helpful when it comes to keeping the baby calm and getting everyone back to sleep quickly.  Waking up an hour before the baby (and subsequently having a hard time going to sleep again for lack of doing what one woke up to do) is not even in the same planet as helpful.

And to complicate matters further changes in the night time sleep cycle sometimes are predicative of changes in the daytime nap schedule.   After getting used to a three nap a day schedule (one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening) it can be hard on a mom to see the morning nap evaporate, only to have the afternoon nap lengthen. 

It has a big impact on how you plan your day, and the first few days of a new sleep pattern are hard to plan anything for, as it's not a firm routine yet.

Craving Carbohydrates

When morning sickness kicks in carbohydrates become your friend.  You feel nauseous, you may find food in general to be repellent, but eat a few crackers (or whatever your handy snack carb of choice is) and the nausea will lessen.

Throughout the day, don't wait to feel sick, stick carbs in every meal, and keep some crackers or cereal or whatever in a nearby plastic bag to snack on as needed.  While fruit is good for you, I don't think I was ever able to eat enough apricots to feel full while pregnant (and I have access to a tree full of them).  

And only while pregnant have things like plain pasta and dinner rolls tasted so good.  I mean yes I could put tomato sauce on it and not be repelled, but it tasted better without any toppings at all.  From rice to rice-crispy-treats, toast to french-toast.  The call of the carb cannot be denied without feeling physically ill (in the most stomach turning way).  

Ease your misery and have the foods you crave while pregnant (they will never taste better than when you crave them).  Hungry? Don't want to deal with food, because food is yucky? Try a small amount of ice cream and see if that helps satisfy your need for food while nothing sounds good.

It can be hard to achieve a balanced diet when large swaths of your normal diet make you sick just thinking about them.  Rotisserie chicken has got to be one of the foulest foods (no pun intended) I have ever suffered the presence of while pregnant.  I didn't eat it, but the food truck was there and the smell wafted a good distance.  Ugh.

That said don't forget to take your prenatal vitamins every day.   My doctor suggested starting the prenatal vitamins three months before attempting to become pregnant to ensure the right vitamin levels for a freshly conceived baby.  Which seems reasonable enough to someone like me who planned the whole baby escapade.  But not everyone plans their lives out as thoroughly as I endeavor to.  So if the baby to be is a happy surprise go to the store and pick up some prenatal vitamins and make your first prenatal appointment with your doctor.   And for the sake of your child follow through with all the follow up prenatal appointments.  This can (worst case scenario) be a life and death thing not only for baby but for mommy as well.  So play it safe, see the doctor regularly. 

Toothpaste is NOT a toy

So I have three tooth paste stories, only one of which I was in the room for, but that's not the one that truly sends the message home.  So instead of focusing on the stories that involve adults being stupid / extremely stupid with toothpaste, (if you really want to know what the adults did read the foot note, but I warn you after the 1st boring story it goes down hill fast) I will share a story of children and toothpaste with the hope that you will find a safe way to convey to your children that toothpaste is only for teeth.

Three little girls are in the bathroom brushing their teeth before bed.  They have done this many times before with out incident so no one is worried or watching them.  Then one little girl takes the tube of toothpaste, squeezes some out onto her hand and *splat* one of her sisters gets it in the face! Laughter erupts and quickly all the girls are covered in toothpaste.  The toothpaste gets a few seconds to start doing what toothpaste does (aid in the dissolving of things not teeth).  All the girls are screaming!  This stuff burns!  Needless to say it was suddenly time for a quick shower to get rid of the horrible mistake that toothpaste on the skin is.

So please make sure your children and maybe even your more playful adult friends* understand toothpaste is not a toy, and should not be left on skin.  It will burn! It will burn!!  IT WILL BURN!!!!!  And for the person with toothpaste on their skin it will not be funny! I don't know if I can say this clearly enough, but please for the love of humanity DON'T DO IT!!!!!

Ok I got a touch dramatic there, but please don't let that take away form the seriousness with which I am trying to stress this point.  So until you are sure that your little darlings are going to give themselves an exciting adventure with toothpaste, please keep an eye on them while they brush their teeth.

*2/3rds of the toothpaste horror stories I know involve adults so don't assume that only children might feel playful without understanding the consequences.  When the adults I know had their misadventures with toothpaste, the horror was self inflicted.  In college I saw a girl attempt to use toothpaste on her face when soap wasn't immediately available.  She quickly realized her mistake and had a rather miserable time removing it.   The other story involved a a guy who thought it would be funny to dick slap his girlfriend in the face with a toothpaste covered penis.  Well his plan didn't get past applying the tooth paste before he realized the error of his ways.  Long story short, it was a bad idea.

Fireworks part 2

My old elementary school puts on a small scale fireworks event every year on the 3rd of July so as not to conflict with the bigger shows on the 4th of July.  So we took my son to go experience the festivities.  He was so excited seeing all the other kids and the new play structure that he ran himself ragged before the show.  He fell asleep just as the band started playing.  He managed to sleep through the up tempo brass instrumental and more surprisingly he slept through the fireworks. Though regrettably he did stay wake for the entire car ride home.
I guess it's because he fell asleep just as things were getting really loud that the fireworks didn't bother him.  He seems to need the noise level to remain constant while he sleeps with what it was when he was falling asleep.

I've made the mistake before of turning the music down after my son fell asleep only to have the lack of sound wake him up.  So noise or no noise as long as the volume stays about the same my son will stay asleep.

Today we plan on sticking to the day time festivities and watching the big fireworks from home.  I figure he's young enough that we don't need to have two nights in a row where we stay out late in the cold and the wind.  I mean we had him properly bundled up, I just don't feel like pressing our luck.  I want to keep things fun.

The parade should be good time.  And it will be my son's first time interacting with small scale midway games.

High Tech

My son is drawn to cellphones, laptops, the television, basically anything with a screen that lights up and makes sounds.  My husband and I have observed the curiosity and need for discovery that seems to be inately part of our son.  We just don't want him to make random phone calls.

As my son gets taller more of our home enters the area of his reach, and his ability to climb is rather impressive to me.  The dinning room table used to be as safe a place as you could hope for if you were looking for a place to set something down out of reach of our son.  Now the top edge of the table is within his reach. If we forget to push in our chairs when we are done he will climb on a dinning room chair and then climb onto the dinning room table.  The top of the table is so enticing to him that nothing I have said or done has yet to persuade him to cease his attempts to crawl on the table.

That said it has become more of a challenge to keep our cellphones away from our son.  On more than one occasion he has put his hand in my pocket to retrieve the forbidden device. And I can't decide if this is cute or annoying, maybe a little bit of both.

And though we try to be careful, my son not yet two years old has grabbed his father's cellphone, used it to take a picture, and then sent me the photo as a text (granted my number is the default for sending photos on my husbands phone) and while the photo itself wasn't anything worth mentioning, I was impressed with how quickly he did this.  It's not like we showed him how to use the phone.

The power of trial and error has tested my son's patience and probably increased it, as he is determined to make things do what he thinks they should do.  Though I'm still amused whenever he hands me something he's been working on, with a look in his eyes that says "make it work mommy" I can't help but smile.

Hours in the day

They say when your baby is sleeping, you should sleep to.  And this is fantastic advice.  Because, let's face it: with a baby as your alarm clock, chances are good that you are not getting enough sleep at night, and there is no way you are going to get a nap while your baby is awake without recruiting some one else to watch your offspring.

And off course when your baby is awake, you need to feed, diaper, play with and teach your little bundle of joy.  Failing to keep your child actively engaged in an activity can lead to your child finding any manner of trouble to get into.

So if you are sleeping when your baby sleeps, and doing baby activities while your baby is awake, when are you supposed to find the time to do any of the other things you might expect to get done in a day at home?

Well high chairs come in handy when it's time to cook.  I set up my son's high chair in the kitchen and proceed to give him the "Mommy Cooking Show" where we go over such culinary secrets as the names of utensils and why you shouldn't touch things that are hot.  Basically it's cooking like you normally would, with the addition of a running commentary on all your actions, and an explanation of each item that you put in your hands.  Think of it as kitchen show and tell.  At the end of which your child gets a chance to sample the food that has been featured in today's show.

Fantastic! We got food preparation and consumption covered.  What about cleaning?  Are you serious?  Speaking from experience, it is not humanly possible to put toys away faster than my son will pull them back onto the floor.  Attempts at making a room tidy while my son is awake tends to end in a bigger mess than we started with.

So when are you going to get things like laundry and house cleaning done?  Well if you're clever and lucky you will have given your child an earlier bed time than the one you your self observe.  Once your child is down for the night, it's time to do the mad dash of household chores that you couldn't get around to during the day.

And like most things with baby, this tends to work, except for when it doesn't.  Don't beat yourself up over it.  If a clean house is really that big a priority to your baby-including life, and you have the means, hire help.  I personally don't hire help, but I know families that started having kids later in life than myself who are established enough that this is a viable option.

It is Known

Ok this one is going to be less on the literal side, and more on how it feels to be a sleep deprived mom.
and (hopefully obvious) disclaimer

The universe knows when I could really use a good night's sleep; and uses my baby to make sure that on these nights, I get as little rest as humanly possible.  These are the nights when my son will start teething, have night terrors, get sick, or just want to play.

Last night was one such night.  My son's bed time starts a few hours before mine, and that's normally just fine.  Last night pregnancy symptoms were making me want to curl up into a little ball and retreat into the warm embrace of sleep.

As soon as I got as comfortable as I was going to get, my son awoke crying for milk.  Ok fine, we get him a bottle and try to get back to bed.  As soon as he is done with his bottle he climbs out of his bed and into mine.  He is awake and ready to play... at 11pm.

Still nauseous I have to deal with my son wanting to use me as a jungle gym.  My husband, sweet heart that he is tries to rescue me by picking up our son; who immediately starts crying because he can sense that he is not going to be getting his way tonight.

We try letting him play in his play pen.  He doesn't want to be in there (with all his toys) and cries like he has been abandoned on a desert island.  But we did not maroon him.  We bring him back to bed, and he asks for more milk.

My husband and I know that this is a bad idea.  We have seen this one before.  If my son is allowed to over eat or drink, he will do so until he is sick and throw up.  So we said no.  And he cries most piteously.

This nightmare continues until my husband and I are guaranteed to get no more than 3 hours of sleep, by the time my son finally submits to sleep.