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NewGirl is wonderful, happy, and peaceful, except for every two to three hours when she has to eat. She’s a spitter — a huge spitter, and she clearly has something wrong with her stomach. Almost every single bottle is a struggle. She’s now on her second medicine and third formula — from regular to soy to hypoallergenic, but nothing seems to help for more than a couple of days at a time. We have an appointment with a gastroenterologist next week, and hopefully we’ll get some answers. She’s gaining weight well, but she’s just so clearly in distress when she eats, yet even the pediatrician says it isn’t colic. While we still have more than a month before I’m due back at work, I’m a nervous wreck about the prospect of putting her in a group care setting if her feeding issues aren’t resolved. I’ve talked to the center about it, and they assure me that they’re accustomed to new babies needing a lot of extra attention for a variety of issues when they first start. But at the same time I can’t help believing that they don’t understand just how tough her feedings are. I’d love any thoughts from anyone who has gone through something similar and how they dealt with the feeding issues in child care.
Generally speaking, it’s my practice to give back when given to. If someone invites my family for dinner, I plan to host the next time. Bring me chicken soup when I’m under the weather? I’ll be there with flowers when you’re feeling blue. But now I find myself on the receiving end of a deal that’s feeling uncomfortably one sided. As a working mother, my children are used to fairly long days in child care or after-school programming. And, of course, one of the great things about my child care center is that it caters to working families, so except for national holidays, the center rarely closes. Not so with public school. In fact, my son’s school has announced that every Thursday for the next eight weeks (yes, eight weeks) will be an early release day. Enter my guardian angel neighbor. Lo and behold she has two kids in the same predicament and since she’s available to pick them up, why not let her pick up my son as well and have him come to their house for a play date for the next eight weeks. (Yes, eight weeks.) That works … it’s fabulous, in fact. But how in the world can I reciprocate? Does my profound gratitude and repeated thank-yous suffice? Should I offer to host her children at my house for eight Sunday afternoons, or is that over the top? If it’s “an eye for an eye,” doesn’t it stand to reason that it should be a play date for a play date?
On Saturday morning CommuterGirl sounded like she was starting to get a cold. We gave her some juice, made sure she got a good nap, and crossed our fingers. Sunday morning she seemed ok, but by lunch she was a mess. She had a mild fever, her nose was runny, and she had started to cough and sneeze.
We called the pediatrician. With all the news lately about cold medicine recalls we knew our options were limited. We got the standard answer – its probably a virus, you’ll just need to give it time to run its course. Give it time?!?! Here’s what happens at Dr. Brewer's House (Wall Street Journal).
The next challenge on Sunday: figure out how we were going to cover Monday – CommuterGirl was going to have to stay home from child care. Oh, and now CommuterDad says he’s starting to feel sick. Welcome to the cold and flu season.
OK. I admit it; I’m a stroller loser. After spending months and months during my pregnancy checking out every stroller on the market, hemming and hawing over the Zippy and the Zooper and the Pliko, the Phil and Ted and Bob, I gave up and got the Graco. It was $199 WITH the car seat, it was purple, it was light and it wasn’t hip, but it seemed just fine. I was really perfectly happy with it, or so I thought, until I went to Boston.com and saw this article by Kate Jackson, Coveting Thy Neighbor’s Stroller . I think I’ve been outed. I’ve never met Ms. Jackson and am not mentioned by name in the article, but I swear she must have a window into my soul.
Because, just as I thought I felt confident and smart about my practical and cost-effective purchase, I read her story and realized she was talking about me. I can’t take NewGirl on a walk without eyeballing every other stroller that passes us by. I wonder how much more exciting and fulfilling their lives must be when moms and dads breeze by in their Bugaboos and Bertinis. Those must be the people whose babies sleep through the night, never spit up, and find a diaper change to be a blissful experience. Equally embarrassing, I really check out the families that have the same stroller we do. What do I think the stroller says about them? How cool — or not — do they seem? And just as I am about to drown in my own stroller insecurities, I have a brilliant strategic plan. I’ll recommend in gushing glory our Graco Metrolite stroller car seat combo package to every hip pregnant woman I see. Seriously — it’s the perfect stroller for you. I promise!
It’s not the ghouls or goblins. It’s not the thought of having my house egged. It’s not the idea of asking strangers for candy, or even the things that will undoubtedly go bump on that night. The thing that really gets me nervous about Halloween is coming up with the right costumes for my kids. My daughter is relatively easy. After all, at 2 and a half, while she excels at telling me what she doesn’t want (“no, mama, no!”), she’s not quite as adept at expressing what she does want. So I’ll attempt to put her in the store-bought costume of the ladybug or the dragonfly. She’ll either let me or she won’t, and that will be that. My 5-year-old son, on the other hand, is another story entirely. In the last three days alone, he’s told me he wants to be Darth Vader, a gingerbread man, a police man, and a leaf. Not being the craftiest gal in town, I was hoping he’d go for something simple…like a ghost. (I have plenty of extra sheets, and how hard can it be to cut two eyeholes?) Now I find out that not only will he be wearing his costume for trick or treating, he’s also supposed to wear it to kindergarten for a school-wide parade. That means that all the other moms and dads will see just how not-so-crafty I am. It means “no accessories are allowed,” (no light saber?) and that he’ll be on display for hundreds of kids and parents in his new school community. If you can think of a clever and simple costume, please let me know. In the meantime, I’ll hold out for Thanksgiving, where all I have to be scared of is burning the turkey.
CommuterGirl is very interested in the potty. At school she goes with the older toddlers in her class to the potty every day…she sits…she “tries”…but nothing yet. At home she likes to follow me to the bathroom and see what’s going on. I really think she just likes to pull the toilet paper off of the roll. So, now what? CommuterGirl is 22 months old. We bought her a potty seat; do we keep sitting her on it and just wait until she does something? How long do we let her sit there doing nothing? Five minutes, 10? Do we wait until she asks to go potty or do we decide when she goes potty? I’m going to have to make a visit to the bookstore sometime soon to do some reading. Maybe we should have tried to raise a diaper-free baby. Although, as a working mom, I have no idea how we could have attempted that one. Talk about an unrealistic request in a group care setting!
I have to admit it. I’m the proud new mom who can’t wait to show my daughter off to my coworkers. It’s a fairly common practice at our office for new moms — and dads — to make the rounds with their new babies. In fact, it’s not at all uncommon for crowds to gather around “oohing” and “ahhing” and wanting to hold, kiss, and cuddle the baby. Here’s my concern: While we’ve had plenty of friends and family visit, we’ve always kept visitors to about two or three at a time. There’s no particular reason for that — we just haven’t had the opportunity or need to have dozens of people visiting at once. While every experience with the baby now is new, I’m just concerned about how she’ll react to the big crowds that might gather in the hallway for the first time — at the office.
Maybe she’s too little to notice at all. I just don’t know. Does anyone have experience with exposing a very young baby to crowds for the first time? Is it something to worry about or not? Does anyone have recommended strategies to prepare for the visit?
Here’s the dilemma as I see it: my children are in school all week, highly programmed from dawn to dusk. It seems to me that weekends ought to provide a respite from the rigorous structure of the school week. The kids want to spend two hours building a fort (which they’ll undoubtedly knock down in 2 minutes)? So be it. If they want to take a detour from our walk to sit and watch the ants scurrying in and out of their ant hole for 15 minutes, who am I to stand in their way? And yet, I have friends whose kids play soccer and take swimming classes on the weekend. One friend sends her daughter to hip-hop class and another’s 3-year-old is taking violin lessons. I want my kids to know how to swim and play soccer, too. Violin and hip hop…why not? I know that these kinds of activities help build self esteem, teamwork skills, and healthy habits, not to mention the friendships they encourage and the talents they uncover. I just don’t want my kids to feel like they’re constantly being pulled this way and that. I want them to have time to smell the roses (and not just when they’re running to get an out-of-bounds soccer ball). I want them to be able to use their imaginations to come up with their own activities and diversions, to be able to take it easy some of the time. Are those desires mutually exclusive from a weekend packed with extracurriculars? What’s the right balance?
With the weather turning to Fall, CommuterDad is determined to go to every outdoor festival or activity he reads about in the paper or online. We’ve been to the Book Fair, the local Farmer’s Market, the State Fair, the Town Fair, a corn maze, the petting zoo, and even the 90th birthday celebration for marshmallow Fluff. My favorite was the apple picking. We picked a ton of apples, drank apple cider, ate cider donuts, crunched through the leaves and enjoyed the weather. Its amazing to me how many apples you can pick in half an hour…since then we’ve made pie, apple crisp, baked apples, and applesauce – CommuterGirl loved helping. Happy Fall! Applesauce 3 pounds apples, peeled, cored, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1 cup water
1/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon Combine apples, 1 cup water and brown sugar in heavy medium saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until apples are very tender, about 25 minutes. Uncover and simmer until almost all liquid in saucepan has evaporated, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in lemon juice and cinnamon. Cool 30 minutes. Using fork, mash apple mixture until coarse and chunky. Serve at room temperature or refrigerate until cold. (Applesauce can be prepared 3 days ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.)
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