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CommuterGirl and I are planning a trip. We’ll be gone for 6 six days, staying with my Aunt and Uncle and visiting with my grandmother. My mother is going to be flying with us, so I’m not too worried about CommuterGirl management. What I am thinking about is all the stuff. First on my list, the car seat. Last time we did this trip (about a year ago) I brought the car seat with me. I bought a backpack attachment and carried it on the plane – strapping it into the seat, and dragging it around on my back during our layover – not an ideal situation. It was nice to have a seat for CommuterGirl (she was only 1 ½), but after the pilot and two flight attendants had to help me try to unbuckle the thing from our seat at the end of one of our flights, while I was trying to manage CommuterGirl on one of those little planes that only have about 30 seats and you can barely stand up straight, I vowed to never do that again. The pilot promised I wasn’t the first person who had a problem, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better. So, now I have to figure out how to get a car seat to my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Should I just check ours and cross my fingers that it doesn’t get mangled, or worse…lost in the baggage compartment? I heard that you can rent things like that, but I don’t know where to even start looking for something like that. Help….
Who would have thought I’d be able to tell what kind of day my daughter has had in child care in two seconds flat just by looking through the window? It has nothing to do with smiles or tears, shouts or laughter. She’ll have plenty of all of those on good days and bad ones. No — for my reflux-prone baby, it’s all about the clothes. On the rare occasion she’s in the same outfit at the end of the day that she was when I dropped her off, I consider it an unmitigated success. I know it sounds lame, but it really makes a difference. I’ve seen the mom of another spitter in the class with the same gleeful grin when she greets her son on the days he’s still sporting his morning wardrobe. I’ve been so excited to see the season’s worth of class pictures they post on Snapfish, only to be a little crestfallen because NewGirl is wearing a protective bib in almost every one of them. Of course, I’ve endured my share of spit-upon clothes myself. It never fails, of course, that NewGirl shares her spit-up with me just as I give her that one last kiss — just as I’ve let down my guard, and I’ve run clear out of time to do anything about it before my first meeting of the day. Just today, a friend suggested I try Burp Armor. They’re heavy duty burp clothes designed by a Dad. They seem a little pricey, but if they save on my dry cleaning bills, it may be worth it. Plus, their Web site says they give 5 percent of thier sales to Children’s Hospital Boston. That’s definitely a cause I can support.
CommuterGirl has what many people call a lovey, we call it “bear.” Bear is an amazingly soft little blanket with a bear head. We own five. One is usually in the laundry basket, one goes to school every week for naptime, one is in her crib, and another two in a drawer as reserves. If you had asked me if I would ever consider digging through dumpsters or going on craigslist trying to replace a lovey two years ago, I would have laughed and said you were crazy. But, it happens. As a full-time working mom I cherish the limited time I spend with my daughter. The last thing I want to do is deal with a meltdown because she doesn’t have bear. We’re lucky, CommuterGirl’s security blanket is small and inexpensive, and you can find replacements very easily. Now, for some reason she keeps insisting on a “clean” bear…I guess we’ll be doing laundry every five days.
I had my worst moment as a parent yesterday. My eyes are welling up just writing about it now. But here it goes. My child care center and my office are in the same location — the center is sponsored by my company. But parking can be tough. So, even though there are a dozen well-plowed, salted, and de-iced parking spots right in front of the center reserved for child care drop-off and pick-up, I typically choose to park father away, in a spot where I can leave my car for the rest of the day, and I carry NewGirl in from there. That’s what I was doing yesterday when, walking at brisk full speed, I slipped on the ice, down on my knees, and my little baby girl fell back and whacked her head on the asphalt and ice. I was paralyzed for the few seconds it took before she started screaming, and then I was grateful and horrified all at once. I was so happy to hear her howling, conscious, alive — and I was frightened, guilty, and terrified about what could have been. I brought her into her classroom, and I know I tried to open my mouth to explain what happened, to ask them to pay special attention to her, to let me know if she fell asleep unusually early. But instead I had to shove her into her teacher’s hands, turn around and leave the room without uttering a single word. My daughter was fine. I was a wreck. I’m not usually prone to crying, but here I was, bawling, completely unraveled. It took me a good 15 minutes to compose myself just enough to go back in the classroom, talk to the teachers, explain it all, and give my daughter a huge hug and kiss goodbye. The center was wonderful. They called the property manager to complain about the icy parking lot, the teachers called me later in the day tell to me what a great day NewGirl was having and suggest I come down to see for myself. And the Director called me at the office just to see how I was doing. The answer is: I’m not sure. I’m relieved and have my wits about me again, yet I can’t help but doubt myself as a mother. It’s not the accident itself — I understand those things happen. But when my daughter could have needed me the most, I had to pass her into the arms (and albeit loving care) of someone else, because I didn’t have the strength to pull it together. That will live with me for awhile, I think. At least, I’m not the only one.
Like most toddlers, CommuterGirl’s diet consists of mac-n-cheese, chicken fingers, waffles, plain turkey meatballs, yogurt, and any fruit she can get her hands on. We try hard to buy all-natural or organic versions of those foods so that at least she is getting healthy chicken fingers…but there is no variety in her diet. And no, she won’t eat sandwiches. I recently bought Deceptively Delicious. For those of you who don’t know, the idea behind the recipes is to cook and puree vegetables and “hide” them in the foods your child loves. For example, add spinach into your brownies, cauliflower to your mac-n-cheese. Great idea…but who has time to cook and puree all those vegetables, let alone cook the mac-n-cheese and brownies from scratch every night? Is it really worth the small amount of veggies it will add to her diet? I did have a great discovery over the weekend. I was making green juice and CommuterGirl was watching. The carrot juice spitting out of the juicer caught her eye and she was intrigued. She wanted to try some of Mommy’s juice…she drank a whole glass. I may be on to something, green juice for both of us. CommuterGirl’s Green Juice
1 apple
½ cucumber
2 - 3 handfuls spinach
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
½ peeled lemon
½ inch peeled ginger
Help! It’s winter, and I can’t get out. It’s been snowy, icy, and bitterly cold, and I need ideas of things to do with NewGirl. I feel like winter has held us hostage in our own home. We do take walks whenever possible, but it’s been too snowy or bitterly cold even for walks lately. I’ve been to the mall more times than I’d like to count. NewGirl loves it — she loves watching people, the lights, and moving billboard ads — but it’s driving me crazy. We’ve visited friends and family, and make an event out of a routine trip to the grocery store, but I still need winter activity ideas with my baby.
All the organized types of activities, like Gymboree, seem to reserve their weekends for older children. Classes for infants are held only on the weekdays when I’m at work. I suppose we could go to the aquarium, museums, and the like, but it seems a waste of the admissions fee just to do what amounts to people watching. I have found one local toy store that has a music hour on Saturdays, and I’ve done that whenever it doesn’t conflict with naptime, but does anyone else have ideas for good indoor baby fun?
I took CommuterGirl to Barnes and Noble last weekend. She loves to play with the trains in the children’s section. Once she tires of the trains we spend a lot of time looking at books. I decided it was a good day for a special treat — both for Mommy and CommuterGirl, so we went to the Starbucks Café in the bookstore. We got in line and CommuterGirl immediately spotted the case with juice and asked for apple juice. The line was moving slowly, but she was being pretty good so far…then it happened. CommuterGirl started running around the tables. Next thing you know, I’m balancing her apple juice and my wallet in one hand and trying to keep her from running into people with the other. I got her to stop long enough to tell her that she had two more chances to be a good girl and stand in line with Mommy or we were going to put her apple juice away and go home. Then she had one more chance. It didn’t take long before her chances were up and we had to put the juice away and go home. Needless to say, CommuterGirl was not happy and cried for apple juice the entire ride home. Is it wrong that I was proud of myself? I didn’t give in. I gave her a warning and backed it up. Can someone tell that to the people who saw me leaving the bookstore with a screaming child?!?!
I said I’d never do it. I was warned to never do it. NewDad and I agreed firmly on this point – not once, not ever. It wouldn’t happen in our house. And then I did it. I brought the baby into our bed and slept there with her all night. Correction: she slept most of the night, I slept for maybe a couple hours, but not in a row. In the weeks just after NewGirl was born, I would wake up with a startle from the sensation that I had brought my baby into bed and rolled over on her. I would have to get out of bed and peer into her car seat (where she slept from weeks 3-10 to alleviate reflux problems) to reassure myself that, in fact, I hadn’t crushed her. But then she got sick, and by the third night of not allowing us to put her down without major protest, I caved.
It was probably the smartest thing I ever did. Because, while I only got a couple hours of sleep in the bed with her, it was more than I would get sitting in a chair, and it reassured me I wouldn’t make a habit of it. I don’t know who coined the phrase “sleep like a baby,” but until I brought her into bed, I never realized how much she squirms and turns, flops and kicks throughout the night. “Co-sleeping” may not be for me, but I now have a newfound respect for those who get a good night’s rest in the “family bed.”
The other day CommuterGirl was singing away in her car seat when I realized she was singing a song I hadn’t taught her. That had happened once before, but that time I knew the words and jumped right in to sing with her. This time I felt really left out. The impact of being a working mother really hit me. I have a wonderful relationship with her caregivers. They send home daily sheets (what she ate, how long she slept, did she use the potty, etc.), we write in a shared journal, and I make a point of talking with her teachers at drop-off and pick-up. But they can’t tell me everything they do during a day…every song they sing, every book they read, and every game they play. I love being a working mom. I love my job, and I don’t think I would be a very good stay at home mother. But, hearing “Mr. Sun” coming from the back seat did make me stop and think for a moment.
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