Head over to Parenting.com to find out how I’m using Netflix to reprogram my children.
This is How We Roll
After less than two months, Baby Daring, aka Wanda, aka Baby Dolly, aka Baby Lolla, aka Princess Lolla Dolla, has effectively killed off any future attempts at tummy torture time.
Around our house, this is how we roll.
She doesn’t need to be coaxed by a crazy lady with a squeaky high pitched voice but I think she likes to be and I’m happy to provide that service.
I’m not sure why I’m giddy about my almost 2-month-old being able to roll over every time I put her down. My other kids didn’t do it until 3 months of age and with Magoo, I dreaded those milestones because they meant he would get into stuff sooner. For some reason, watching her do this tickles me to no end, except for the part where she smooshes her face into the mirror and cries. That is obviously totally un-fun and also un-funny. The rest is gold.
When she was in utero and she made my abdomen feel like a rubber bag full of ninjas, I sort of had a feeling she’d be a mover and a shaker. I was right. I wonder how long until she’ll be able to fix her own breakfast and get dressed on her own. The other kids can. She just needs to show a little initiative.
Who Needs New Moon?
Love the lip-biting, love the science class scene, love that it’s an “accident.”
A Note to the Witch
So there I was, writing a note to my alter-ego, excusing my daughter from the possibly harmful effects of my own parental choices. [read more at Parenting.com]
Snazzy Jammies
So things are moving along. Wanda is aging rapidly. We’ve moved her out of our room and I’ve decided it’s time to purchase some new Snazzy Jammies.
The problem is – I hate buying Snazzy Jammies. Now if you go to the Snazzy Jammie store to buy them, it’s not embarrassing because everyone in the store is there for the same reason, but who wants to spend that kind of money which only goes to pay for more of those life-sized posters right next to the kids’ play area at the mall?
No. When I’m looking for Snazzy Jammies, I usually look at Target or Kohl’s.
The problem is – Most people at Target and Kohl’s are not purchasing Snazzy Jammies. They are there looking for rain boots or a kitchen timer, maybe a roll of scotch tape. I like all of those things as much as the next person and so I usually try to camouflage my Snazzy Jammie purchase by spending way too much on sundries but, really, you cannot totally camouflage SJs. You just can’t.
A piece of Snazzy fabric may stick out from under your bag of diapers, giving your Snazzy-Jammy-Wearing ways away to curious bystanders. And at some point the checker will have to pull them out of their hiding place under the bathmat on the conveyer belt to scan them. She can either scan them discreetly or hold them up to the light, taking the hanger out with an eye-catching flourish and turning them from side to side in order to check out just how Snazzy they are. I’ve had both. I prefer discreet.
And I always feel like she’s looking at me a little too hard. Maybe she’s wondering if Snazzy Jammies should even come in the size I’m purchasing. So what if I’m wearing no makeup, have my hair in a bun and am sporting sweat pants. A woman carrying a mom-purse so big that it sets off the flashing “fasten seatbelt” light when she puts it on the passenger seat of her mini-van is still entitled to feel Snazzy once in a while. I think it’s in the constitution somewhere… or at the very least one of the amendments.
Day One – A Day of Buts
Today Dan went back to work but we all survived.
He left for work while I was still sleeping and I was sad that he didn’t say goodbye, but he called shortly after I woke up to tell me he loved me.
I got Laylee to school on time but forgot to put in her hearing aids and told her to buy lunch instead of me making it.
My baby cried a lot but when I do this:
Sometimes she does this:
The sun shone in Seattle so I took Magoo outside to play but we came back in too quickly because the baby was cold.
I made dinner for my dinner co-op but I had to ask Erin to bring me some ingredients that I’d forgotten so I wouldn’t have to wake up Wanda to go to the store.
I survived all day but I did need to call on Stephanie for help getting Laylee from the bus stop after my hip seized up and I had to lie on the couch for an hour with pain killers and a heating pad.
Laylee and Magoo were definitely in sugar withdrawals today but they never completely melted down and they even helped a ton with the wee bairn.
I voted in the election but I didn’t get my vote in until 15 minutes before the “polls” closed.
We now all use absentee ballots instead of “polls” in Washington State but there was still a sense of civic camaraderie as the hordes of procrastinators met at the library to stuff their envelopes into one of the few vote boxes scattered around the county.
It was a rough day and I couldn’t have made it through without the help of my friends and the encouragement of my family but as I drove home tonight with my music blasting and the stars shining I was happy with no buts.
I think I can do this.
Reasons I’m Glad I’m Not a Celebrity Mom
1. I would not like to claim the world record for “Celebrity Mom Hiding a Baby Bump for the Longest Time Ever Without Producing a Baby.” It seems that every issue of OK! or US Weekly shows a picture of some celebrity on the cover either “hiding” or “showing off” her baby bump. If she’s holding something in front of her abdomen… [read more at Parenting.com]
McSquidgems’ Self-Infatuation
Some might call it narcissism but I like to think of it as a healthy dose of self esteem. Our baby is in love with herself. Here she is at her one-month checkup. She screamed in the lobby and again after the appointment but the entire time she was near that mirror, she was absolutely enthralled with her own reflection. She already knows how cute she is. She is her own best friend.
Wanda cries more than my other babies did. She seems to have a sore tummy a lot and she squinches up her little face, pulls in her legs and cries. We’ve tried the Mylicon drops and this weekend I took her to a craniosacral therapist who worked on her and taught me some digestive massage techniques I can use at home.
She just has trouble pooping and digesting without pain. Her pediatrician looked at the great fatness she’s become and said he’s not worried about the fussiness since she’s thriving so well. That’s code for, “Dude. Look how fat she is. If she were really sick, would she be this squidgeable?” Indeed. Dan has nicknamed her McSquidgems and although I say she cries frequently, it’s not entirely true. She cries frequently if she’s not being held at all times and so we pretty much hold her unless she’s sleeping and sometimes even then.
We’re not sure if we’ll have any more kids and I’ve decided that there are far worse things I could do with the next year of my life than spend it holding this little person. She seems to agree. I think she’d hold herself if she could but I’m the next best thing.
Great Job!
10 points go to Jen @ The Short Years for guessing that the terror alert meant only that the teacher had grabbed another stamp. When Dan asked Laylee about the stamps she said, “Oh yeah. We get some kind of stamp or sticker for every day we bring our folder to school.” There is no method to this teacher’s particular brand of madness.
Laylee loves her even if she hates her name. Before the school year started, the teacher sent home a small picture of herself so the kids would know what she looked like in advance. Laylee was smitten with Ms. Snop’s youthfulness and beauty.
“Do you think she’s about the same age as our babysitters?” she asked.
“No. She’s a lot older,” I sort of lied. She’s older. That part was true.
“I think she’s WAY too pretty to have a name like ‘Snop’,” Laylee announced.
About thirty minutes later she approached me with a thoughtful expression, “You know? Maybe ‘Snop’ is just her LAST name.”
“Yeah. I think you may be right.”
How could any parent name such a beautiful child “Snop?” It would just be wrong. And I was worried at the beginning of the year about what to expect with a first year teacher. I wasn’t sure she’d be up to the job but I have to say, we’re loving her. She is creative in her approach to teaching, she’s full of energy and the kids haven’t broken her yet. We’ll see how she’s doing a few years from now when she’s taught a couple hundred more 6-year-olds. Maybe she’ll look more like a First-Name-Snop at that point.
First Grade Terror Alert
I recently found a calendar in the pocket of Laylee’s school folder. It’s the folder that we use to send communications back and forth from home to the classroom. Her young, fun and perky teacher is always coming up with new exciting ways to motivate and reward the kids and I assumed the calendar was part of this rah-rah go-team-ishness.
Every day Laylee’s calendar came home marked with an orange stamp that said, “GREAT WORK!” I assumed all was well. Each day I’d check the folder and each day the orange stamp would appear… for the first couple of weeks. Then all of a sudden on one day she came home with a black stamp that said “good job.”
“What!?” I asked Dan. “I don’t want to be one of those parents who’s overly involved in her kids’ schooling or who freaks out when she gets a ‘good’ instead of a ‘great’ on her report card but I want to know why she’s fallen from her pedestal on the stamp scale. She’s not even getting orange anymore. Today’s stamp was black and I want to know why. I think I’ll email the teacher and get to the bottom of this.”
Dan offered some sage words of wisdom in regards to, “Do NOT do that. If you do that then you ARE one of those parents. So she got a lower level of stamp one day. It’s really not a big deal.”
“Well, at the very least I want to know what the different stamps mean. If a teacher’s going to use a complex rating system for our kids, represented by random stamps, I at least want to know what the different levels mean.
“It’s like if the government came up with a new terror alert system but didn’t tell anyone what the different colors meant. Like if they just came on TV one day and said, ‘The terror alert level is purple,’ but no one in America knew what the ‘Purple Alert’ meant.”
“You should just ask Laylee what they mean,” Dan responded.
“That’s all well and good,” I replied, “But if I want to know what a ‘Purple Alert’ is, I’m sure as heck gonna want to hear it from the administration, not from the crazy old guy waving a shotgun outside the gates of the White House.”
“So, who exactly is Laylee in this analogy?”
“The terrorist.”