As I mentioned in a previous post, Sadie has become particularly pissy with me recently. That's a daily headache, since it means I can either cater to her every whim (and believe me, she has a LOT of whims), or steel myself for enraged, tearful screaming every time I have to deny her something she wants.
Like to continue to play with plastic bowls when dinner has been cooling on the counter for 20 minutes. Or to use me as a stepping stool so she can climb onto her bed, just so she can slide back off and then demand to climb back on again. Or to NOT get into her carseat. Or her stroller. Or her highchair. Or onto her changing table. Or out of the bathtub.
Sigh.
Last night Scott told me, "I'm sorry she's so rough on you," and I told him it was okay, and a second later I realized something: I'm a Martyr Mom now.
"It's okay that she punches and hits me when she's frustrated. I ONLY CARRIED HER IN MY BODY FOR NINE MONTHS."
"It's okay that she screams at me when I try to stroke her hair and shoves me hand away. I ONLY ABANDONED MY OWN SAFETY, VANITY AND SANITY THERE ON THAT DELIVERY ROOM TABLE."
I guess I really do understand that this is a part of it -- that this, like everything else, is a passing phase. I'm reading a really good book that a friend of mine loaned me, T. Berry Brazelton's "Touchpoints." It covers the emotional phases of kids from infancy to the age of 3, and it's allowed me to see that what Sadie's going through now is common to most kids of her age. She's beginning to understand that she's a separate entity from her parents. She has her own wants and desires, and she wants to enforce that independence -- even though she's still heavily dependent on us.
Knowing this makes it a lot less confusing when she's bestowing kisses on our noses one minute and shoving us away the next.
(No less aggravating, but less confusing, at least.)
So anyway, yesterday morning the tantrums were worse than usual. She woke up in a foul mood and stayed that way. I canceled the play date she had scheduled with Sam and waited out the worst of the storms, and when she finally seemed to have calmed down some around 10am, I took her to the library for story time, which she always loves. Miss Barbara, the children's librarian, alternates reading aloud with singing songs.
Usually Sadie gets really active during story time, standing up with the other kids do and crawling back and forth to flirt with various people. But this time she mostly wanted to stay in my arms. She took a long nap when we got back, and I finally had to wake her up in time for toddler group, and let me tell you, she was NOT happy about getting out of bed. That should have been my first sign, but I got her dressed anyway and drove to school.
When we got there, she was rubbing one eye, which looked red. I wondered if she'd gotten something in it, and then I wondered if she might be having some kind of allergic reaction to the peanut butter in the sandwich I'd given her for lunch. Whatever the reason, it seemed to be itching her but not otherwise bothering her.
We went inside and she began playing on the floor with the other kids...and a minute later, one of the moms said loudly to me, "What's wrong with her eye?"
(As an aside: what kind of person expresses concern about a child's health by yelling "What's wrong with her eye?" I kind of hate these moms.)
When I looked at her, I noticed that the redness had grown worse. She looked like me after I've pet a cat, all puffy and watery and pink. I took her into the bathroom to wash her hands, in case there was some sort of irritant on them, and by the time we came back in, her other eye had grown as red as the first. At this point, if it had been socially acceptable for the other moms to make the sign of the cross and hurl holy water on us, that's what they would have done. Instead, they all studiously avoided eye contact while the school director gently suggested that I take Sadie to the doctor or anywhere else far, far away from the other kids.
So damn it, I took her to the doctor. And guess what? She has pink eye. Guess what you do for pink eye? You put antibiotic drops in the eyes. Three times a day.
Guess how that went over with my already cranky child? If you guessed "Not well," you're close.*
*I thought about ending this entry here, but I wanted to end it on an upbeat note. After literally having to wrestle Sadie to the ground to put the drops in her eyes last night, today we tried a different route: explaining it to her. I showed her the drops, telling her that it was "medicine for her eyes" and that it was going to make her all better. She seemed to get it, and when I put the drops in just now after lunch, she squinted and whined a bit but seemed otherwise resigned to it, and afterwards she earnestly explained to me, in Baby Babble, that she had allowed me to put the drops in her eyes only because she understood there was no other choice. Progress!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Language Burst
Dude, when the parenting books warned us that around 18 months the language burst happens, they weren't kidding. In Sadie's case it arrived about six weeks ahead of schedule, and she's been going full bore ever since.
Aside from experiencing the beauty and excitement of realizing that everything in this world has a name, she's also beginning to remember the names for things that we've taught her in the past and is eager to show us that she knows them. So in one week she began to imitate horses, sheep, goats, birds, and all the animals she's been seeing in her picture books. She points at a bird on a telephone wire and yells, "tweet!" She points at flowers, balloons, a bottle, and says the correct word. When Jamie asked her what the kitty cat says, I was about to respond that she hadn't learned that one yet when Sadie assertively answered, "Meow."
"Mama" has become a command, of sorts. More comically, it's become a complaint: if we do anything that she doesn't like, such as taking her off the changing table while she's trying to look out the window or taking too long to put her jacket on, we get a litany of indignant "Mum mum mum"s.
Speaking of indignation, this is kind of her general attitude these days. Which is a nice way of saying that she's being a shit head. I'm sorry, but she is! The baby books call this a "negativistic" phase, and I see why. Oscar the Grouch is her role model -- she now enjoys being contrary just on principle. If you pick her up, she wants to be put down; if Daddy holds her she reaches out for Mom; if Mom takes her she squirms for the floor and if you put her down she cries piteously while reaching back up sgain. All of this is accompanied by what just might be THE MOST ANNOYING SOUND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, EVER. There's no way to approximate it in text form but it sounds something like this:
"Eh Eh EH EH EH MU-HU-HU-HU-MUM EHHHHHHHHHHH."
The only person she reliably behaves for is Ana, her nanny. This past weekend she really put us through the ringer, but despite her moods we did have a really great holiday weekend, going to the park and taking Sadie to a wedding shower where she sat in one spot and studied some flowers on a branch for like forty-five minutes. Typical stuff. Scott cooked us breakfast in the mornings, making me even more sad about his upcoming 3 week business trip, and after Sadie went to bed we caught up on the new season of "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena." It's not really baby-friendly, that show. But it sure is fun!
No walking yet, but she is standing independently for longer and longer periods of time. My trick of praising the hell out of her every time she stands up seems to be working, because now she'll push off, look at me and be like, "See, Mom? Where are your squeals of joy??" Right now I'm trying a new strategy of teaching her to stomp her feet, to get her used to shifting her weight from one leg to the other, instead of just standing in place. It paid off last night when Scott and I watched her move her leg one teeny tiny step forward and then regain her balance.
Aside from experiencing the beauty and excitement of realizing that everything in this world has a name, she's also beginning to remember the names for things that we've taught her in the past and is eager to show us that she knows them. So in one week she began to imitate horses, sheep, goats, birds, and all the animals she's been seeing in her picture books. She points at a bird on a telephone wire and yells, "tweet!" She points at flowers, balloons, a bottle, and says the correct word. When Jamie asked her what the kitty cat says, I was about to respond that she hadn't learned that one yet when Sadie assertively answered, "Meow."
"Mama" has become a command, of sorts. More comically, it's become a complaint: if we do anything that she doesn't like, such as taking her off the changing table while she's trying to look out the window or taking too long to put her jacket on, we get a litany of indignant "Mum mum mum"s.
Speaking of indignation, this is kind of her general attitude these days. Which is a nice way of saying that she's being a shit head. I'm sorry, but she is! The baby books call this a "negativistic" phase, and I see why. Oscar the Grouch is her role model -- she now enjoys being contrary just on principle. If you pick her up, she wants to be put down; if Daddy holds her she reaches out for Mom; if Mom takes her she squirms for the floor and if you put her down she cries piteously while reaching back up sgain. All of this is accompanied by what just might be THE MOST ANNOYING SOUND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, EVER. There's no way to approximate it in text form but it sounds something like this:
"Eh Eh EH EH EH MU-HU-HU-HU-MUM EHHHHHHHHHHH."
The only person she reliably behaves for is Ana, her nanny. This past weekend she really put us through the ringer, but despite her moods we did have a really great holiday weekend, going to the park and taking Sadie to a wedding shower where she sat in one spot and studied some flowers on a branch for like forty-five minutes. Typical stuff. Scott cooked us breakfast in the mornings, making me even more sad about his upcoming 3 week business trip, and after Sadie went to bed we caught up on the new season of "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena." It's not really baby-friendly, that show. But it sure is fun!
No walking yet, but she is standing independently for longer and longer periods of time. My trick of praising the hell out of her every time she stands up seems to be working, because now she'll push off, look at me and be like, "See, Mom? Where are your squeals of joy??" Right now I'm trying a new strategy of teaching her to stomp her feet, to get her used to shifting her weight from one leg to the other, instead of just standing in place. It paid off last night when Scott and I watched her move her leg one teeny tiny step forward and then regain her balance.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
A Good Email
To make up for the shitty email I posted a few weeks ago from Lisa the Nanny Who Was Not to Be, I thought I'd post an email I got today from one of the moms in a play group I'm in, that made me smile all afternoon.
Thanks for setting my mind at ease, Kelly.
"Hey Amanda
I saw Sadie today at the playroom with her new nanny. I just
wanted to write and say I think you picked a good nanny she
seemed very attentive to your daughter. It looked like they
where both having a ton of fun. -kelly"
Thanks for setting my mind at ease, Kelly.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Catching Up
I haven't posted in so long not because there isn't a lot going on, but for the opposite reason. Every time I think of something I want to mention here, I wind up not having the time to do it and then within a few days Sadie's moved on to a completely new set of skills and bragging about a now-outdated accomplishment seems pointless.
So, ack! To sum up: in the past two weeks we interviewed somewhere around 8 nanny candidates and finally settled on one. No more broke post-grads, no more college kids looking to plug up their schedules, and DEFINITELY no more semi-retired suburban moms. We went the real deal this time and got ourselves a professional. Her name is Ana, she comes three days a week, and I don't want to jinx anything but so far she is the shit.
We share Ana with another family that uses her Mondays and Fridays, so we get her on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which has been a little difficult to get used to. Today, for instance, I've been running ragged trying to get everything done around the house that might need doing this week, since for the next three days I'll pretty much be out of the house. (Sadie's much better about letting me come and go without losing her mind when I walk in the door and then out again, but we'd still rather not tempt fate). Five loads of laundry, plundering the garden for salad greens, straightening up, scheduling an upholstery cleaner because our couch smells suspiciously like a dog's butt -- these are all things I've spent my Monday doing. Times, they have a-changed.
Last week I responded to a request from my grandfather, who lives up in Napa, to send him a list of words that Sadie can now say. Now, one week later, that list is completely outdated. This should give you an idea of how quickly her vocabulary is growing. It used to be that getting her to learn a word meant using that word over and over again, saying it clearly and endlessly until, a few days or weeks later, she finally came up with an approximation: "nana," "apple," "otay," or "woof."
Now, she sometimes needs a word spoken no more than once to pick it up. This morning as she pulled herself on her changing table to look out the window, I taught her the word "window," and now all morning she's been happily chanting "wennow, wennow, wennow." Her repertoire of animal sounds has doubled -- and the weird thing about that is that she knows what sound a monkey makes. How does she know this? None of her puzzles or picture books have monkeys on them. Where did she pick up the ability to imitate one? It's a mystery.
Although she still isn't walking, she's now tantalizingly close. When she began standing by herself for a few unsteady moments at a time, I pledged that I would encourage this by making "stand up" as fun an activity as I possibly could. So now when she's standing by herself, we play games like "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands," or I give her instructions like "stretch your arms up to the sky." These mini-challenges give her something to focus on other than the fact that she's standing without support, and the longer she stands, the more confidence it gives her. Perhaps even more importantly than the standing, she's learned how to plop down onto her butt or forward onto her hands and knees without getting discouraged and starting to cry.
If Scott's around, we'll sit cross-legged a few feet apart and encourage Sadie to "walk" back and forth from his lap to mine. She'll try every trick int he book to avoid the actual act of taking steps without one of us holding her hand -- reaching out for us like she's on a boat trying to fetch a hat that's floated away, or falling forward into my arms instead of walking two whole feet -- but last night we actually did get her to take one or two steps on her own. Nobody has told me this, but I already know in my heart that the key to getting her to learn how to walk, to get her to want to walk, is to make it fun -- to cheer her on and praise her and make it seem like she's just utterly blown us away.
Toddler group seems to be a key part of all of this, as is having her be around other kids at the park or the mall or anywhere where there is activity. Sadie has had two toddler group sessions so far, and seemed to really enjoy them both. For the first 30-40 minutes the kids have free play -- there's a play-dough table and a musical instruments table and a kitchen area and dress-up clothes. Most of the kids run around from one area to the next, but some are shy, and Sadie, in typical fashion, is perfectly fine with all of it as long as she's allowed to sit in her own corner studying a toy or a book with nobody bothering her.
The only part she really doesn't like is clean-up time, and for that I have only myself to blame -- I'm terrible at making her clean up her toys, so she thinks that when all of the toys go into the toy bucket, it's so she can pull them out again. She got annoyed at me last Friday when I insisted she throw her plastic cow toy in with the other farm animals and wouldn't let her take it back out, but the other nice thing about toddler group is that there's so much going on (and the teachers are really, really good at distracting kids from tantrums) that she quickly got over it.
After free play, we all sit in a circle with our kids on our laps and sing songs while Shelley, one of the teachers, plays her guitar. There's something about the guitar that utterly mesmerizes them. There are songs meant to encourage the kids to get up and dance or jump, but most of the kids don't do this yet, and Sadie, of course, prefers to sit on my lap and watch the action.
My favorite part of group so far is snack time. We walk to the bathroom to wash our hands, and Sadie loves this -- I hold her hands and help her step up onto a stool and then she holds her hands under the sink while we soap them -- and then we come back into the room, where the kids sit on tiny chairs at tiny tables to eat tiny pieces of watermelon and Cheerios, and drink water out of tiny cups. The first time Sadie was all, "What the hey is this?" and ate like two pieces of melon and dumped the water out of her cup onto the table and was done. But the second time, she'd caught on, devoured two helpings of snack, and even drank from the cup without spilling.
After snack is yard time, which Sadie and I are both pretty meh about -- she's too intimidated to climb on the equipment, and I don't like how all the moms have to sit in a circle and socialize for half an hour while we ignore the kids. Sadie isn't hot on that idea either -- last week she gave me about ten minutes before crawling over, covered in dust and sand, and pulled up on my leg, yelling, "Hi!" But I'm hoping that as the weeks pass and she gets braver and more comfortable, she'll care less and less about my presence there.
Okay, I think that's all for now. Enjoy the video below, especially the part where I almost knock over a two year old and hastily apologize.
So, ack! To sum up: in the past two weeks we interviewed somewhere around 8 nanny candidates and finally settled on one. No more broke post-grads, no more college kids looking to plug up their schedules, and DEFINITELY no more semi-retired suburban moms. We went the real deal this time and got ourselves a professional. Her name is Ana, she comes three days a week, and I don't want to jinx anything but so far she is the shit.
We share Ana with another family that uses her Mondays and Fridays, so we get her on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which has been a little difficult to get used to. Today, for instance, I've been running ragged trying to get everything done around the house that might need doing this week, since for the next three days I'll pretty much be out of the house. (Sadie's much better about letting me come and go without losing her mind when I walk in the door and then out again, but we'd still rather not tempt fate). Five loads of laundry, plundering the garden for salad greens, straightening up, scheduling an upholstery cleaner because our couch smells suspiciously like a dog's butt -- these are all things I've spent my Monday doing. Times, they have a-changed.
Last week I responded to a request from my grandfather, who lives up in Napa, to send him a list of words that Sadie can now say. Now, one week later, that list is completely outdated. This should give you an idea of how quickly her vocabulary is growing. It used to be that getting her to learn a word meant using that word over and over again, saying it clearly and endlessly until, a few days or weeks later, she finally came up with an approximation: "nana," "apple," "otay," or "woof."
Now, she sometimes needs a word spoken no more than once to pick it up. This morning as she pulled herself on her changing table to look out the window, I taught her the word "window," and now all morning she's been happily chanting "wennow, wennow, wennow." Her repertoire of animal sounds has doubled -- and the weird thing about that is that she knows what sound a monkey makes. How does she know this? None of her puzzles or picture books have monkeys on them. Where did she pick up the ability to imitate one? It's a mystery.
Although she still isn't walking, she's now tantalizingly close. When she began standing by herself for a few unsteady moments at a time, I pledged that I would encourage this by making "stand up" as fun an activity as I possibly could. So now when she's standing by herself, we play games like "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands," or I give her instructions like "stretch your arms up to the sky." These mini-challenges give her something to focus on other than the fact that she's standing without support, and the longer she stands, the more confidence it gives her. Perhaps even more importantly than the standing, she's learned how to plop down onto her butt or forward onto her hands and knees without getting discouraged and starting to cry.
If Scott's around, we'll sit cross-legged a few feet apart and encourage Sadie to "walk" back and forth from his lap to mine. She'll try every trick int he book to avoid the actual act of taking steps without one of us holding her hand -- reaching out for us like she's on a boat trying to fetch a hat that's floated away, or falling forward into my arms instead of walking two whole feet -- but last night we actually did get her to take one or two steps on her own. Nobody has told me this, but I already know in my heart that the key to getting her to learn how to walk, to get her to want to walk, is to make it fun -- to cheer her on and praise her and make it seem like she's just utterly blown us away.
Toddler group seems to be a key part of all of this, as is having her be around other kids at the park or the mall or anywhere where there is activity. Sadie has had two toddler group sessions so far, and seemed to really enjoy them both. For the first 30-40 minutes the kids have free play -- there's a play-dough table and a musical instruments table and a kitchen area and dress-up clothes. Most of the kids run around from one area to the next, but some are shy, and Sadie, in typical fashion, is perfectly fine with all of it as long as she's allowed to sit in her own corner studying a toy or a book with nobody bothering her.
The only part she really doesn't like is clean-up time, and for that I have only myself to blame -- I'm terrible at making her clean up her toys, so she thinks that when all of the toys go into the toy bucket, it's so she can pull them out again. She got annoyed at me last Friday when I insisted she throw her plastic cow toy in with the other farm animals and wouldn't let her take it back out, but the other nice thing about toddler group is that there's so much going on (and the teachers are really, really good at distracting kids from tantrums) that she quickly got over it.
After free play, we all sit in a circle with our kids on our laps and sing songs while Shelley, one of the teachers, plays her guitar. There's something about the guitar that utterly mesmerizes them. There are songs meant to encourage the kids to get up and dance or jump, but most of the kids don't do this yet, and Sadie, of course, prefers to sit on my lap and watch the action.
My favorite part of group so far is snack time. We walk to the bathroom to wash our hands, and Sadie loves this -- I hold her hands and help her step up onto a stool and then she holds her hands under the sink while we soap them -- and then we come back into the room, where the kids sit on tiny chairs at tiny tables to eat tiny pieces of watermelon and Cheerios, and drink water out of tiny cups. The first time Sadie was all, "What the hey is this?" and ate like two pieces of melon and dumped the water out of her cup onto the table and was done. But the second time, she'd caught on, devoured two helpings of snack, and even drank from the cup without spilling.
After snack is yard time, which Sadie and I are both pretty meh about -- she's too intimidated to climb on the equipment, and I don't like how all the moms have to sit in a circle and socialize for half an hour while we ignore the kids. Sadie isn't hot on that idea either -- last week she gave me about ten minutes before crawling over, covered in dust and sand, and pulled up on my leg, yelling, "Hi!" But I'm hoping that as the weeks pass and she gets braver and more comfortable, she'll care less and less about my presence there.
Okay, I think that's all for now. Enjoy the video below, especially the part where I almost knock over a two year old and hastily apologize.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Third...Er...Fourth Time's the Charm?
When I hired nanny number three -- oh eff it, it's just call her Lisa, since that's her name -- I thought I'd scored a major coup. We set a start date for a few weeks down the line and in the meantime I boasted to everyone that we'd found the next Mary Poppins. Seriously, that's how great she seemed! We stayed in touch over phone and email, and she'd breathlessly tell me how she couldn't wait to start watching "darling Sadie," that she felt it was important to make connections with families, and that she'd felt as soon as she walked in the door that we were the perfect match. It was fate! Kismet! The stars had aligned!
And then, last Sunday, I received the following email:
Huh! Funny, that. The whole reason I hired her was because she'd said she had no interest in full-time work. Lisa was a liar. Lisa, frankly, can suck it. The one favor she did was to quit a week before her assigned start date, giving me seven days in which to find her replacement. Thanks a ton, Lisa. Also, kiss my ass.
So...guess what we've been doing for the past seven days? And guess how much crying I've done in the meantime? Here's a hint: every time the topic of hiring a nanny comes up, Scott now knows to cringe, hurl a few Girl Scout cookies in my direction, and bolt for the door.
I'm exaggerating a little bit. The process is going well, and I hope to have good news to report soon.
Today is Sadie's first day at toddler group, and I'm truly excited to go. It's Scott's old preschool that she's going to, and the toddler group class is slightly different from a standard Mommy and Me in that while parents are present, they work to help the children grow less dependent on them and make the eventual transition to preschool easier. For someone like Sadie, who tends to get very wiggy in unfamiliar situations when I'm not right nearby, this sounds like a valuable thing.
And then, last Sunday, I received the following email:
Hi Amanda,
I'm sorry to tell you but I have been offered a full time job that I have accepted. I realized that I need to work full time.
I wish you all the best.
Lisa
Huh! Funny, that. The whole reason I hired her was because she'd said she had no interest in full-time work. Lisa was a liar. Lisa, frankly, can suck it. The one favor she did was to quit a week before her assigned start date, giving me seven days in which to find her replacement. Thanks a ton, Lisa. Also, kiss my ass.
So...guess what we've been doing for the past seven days? And guess how much crying I've done in the meantime? Here's a hint: every time the topic of hiring a nanny comes up, Scott now knows to cringe, hurl a few Girl Scout cookies in my direction, and bolt for the door.
I'm exaggerating a little bit. The process is going well, and I hope to have good news to report soon.
Today is Sadie's first day at toddler group, and I'm truly excited to go. It's Scott's old preschool that she's going to, and the toddler group class is slightly different from a standard Mommy and Me in that while parents are present, they work to help the children grow less dependent on them and make the eventual transition to preschool easier. For someone like Sadie, who tends to get very wiggy in unfamiliar situations when I'm not right nearby, this sounds like a valuable thing.
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