It's March now, and around this time every year I become obsessed with the concept of spring cleaning. Note that I didn't say I actually clean. I just obsess about it, then feel guilty when I realize it's July and too late for it to count as spring -- it's just cleaning. Then it turns 100 degrees in the Valley for three months and I can barely be arsed to get off the couch, much less clean the house top to bottom.
This time around, I'm giving myself a couple of projects. Scott leaves for a month next Monday, and I'm trying to be realistic about what I can accomplish while he's gone. So much about daily life when he's away is just about maintaining -- maintaining my sanity, maintaining Sadie's daily schedule, maintaining my own health and medical needs and occasionally, my eyebrows and bikini line. Those last two are the first to go if anything goes wrong.
This week, the project I've committed myself to is converting the old, ugly card table in our kitchen into a crafts table for Sadie. She's discovered the joy of Play-Doh and coloring, and Ana is the one who discovered that if you put her in her high chair and adjust the height to the level of the card table, it makes a perfect surface. Today I'm going to Lakeshore Learning to buy a cheap plastic tablecloth, some coloring and stickerbooks, watercolor paints and brushes. I'm also hoping to find some flat, wide shelving units to hold books and paper, and maybe a couple of bins for art supplies. I know she's too young right now to use things like scissors and glitter (I shudder to imagine, actually), but that time is right around the corner so I'd like to be prepared for it. I'm also hoping to find some sort of shelving unit or board that I can use to display her finished work.
One reason Ana, our nanny, is so great is because she has crazy amounts of energy and is always driving me to find new ways to entertain Sadie. Other nannies would march her to the playground every day, or sit on the floor with her toys and play with her on the play mat. With Ana, I'll come home to find them making animals out of Play-Doh or using wooden blocks to learn her ABC's. That's the biggest reason why I want to get this crafts table done -- I think Sadie's going to surprise me by how quickly she'll be ready to start using it and how much fun she's going to have with it.
Today we had a tiny triumph: usually I hide in the house if Sadie and Ana are also home, so she doesn't see me and yell for me. Today by accident I walked into the living room while Ana was there by the door, holding her. I told Sadie I was going to work and kissed her goodbye, and naturally she learned into my arms saying, "Up!" But after Ana explained that I was leaving, and I told her I'd be back later, she seemed to understand that. She even said "bye bye" to me as I left, and didn't cry at all. It made my heart so glad to know that she's past the phase of being upset by my leaving her, at least with Scott and Ana.
If I get really ambitious during Scott's absence, I might even try to tackle touching up the paint in Sadie's room. There's a really ugly gash on the wall where her crib is, which is from her damn animal nightlight. I don't know why Fisher Price designed this thing to have an arm which sticks out four inches from the side of the crib, but it does and so we can't put the crib flush against the wall; this stupid gap exists there and eats up many, many pacifiers. And the arm rubs away the paint on the wall.
This is part of a larger project of reconfiguring Sadie's bedroom. Currently we have a guest bed in there, which -- I don't know why it's in there. It never gets used. Awhile back we bought a pillow-top for the mattress to give it padding, but it has no way of staying on the bed, so when you sit on the bed the pillow top sloooooowly slides off onto the floor. I don't use it to sleep on, because Sadie and I wake each other up if we sleep in the same room, and we don't often have houseguests, so it just sits there and takes up space. This weekend we're moving the bed into the garage and transferring the rocking chair from the family room into the bedroom. I plan to put it in the corner next to her bookcase, add a pillow or two, and make it a nice cozy reading nook.
This is necessary, because Sadie has decided that she no longer wants to go to sleep. I'm surprised it took her this long to figure out that going to bed sucks, but now that she knows it, she screams her fool head off for at least two or three minutes once we put her in there. I've begun easing her slowly into a bedtime frame of mind by taking her into the bedroom and reading some books with her with the lights dimmed and her nightlight on. This would be a lot easier to do if we didn't have to worry about constantly sliding off the bed onto the floor.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Age of Reason
As Sadie grows more certain of what she does and doesn't want, and more inclined to battle it out when faced with an unpleasant task, we've had to adjust our own ways of dealing with her in order to maintain order and sanity.
When she was younger, the solution was easy: distraction. If she fought over getting into her stroller or having her diaper changed, a toy dangled over her head or an airplane passing overhead would instantly snap her out of stubborn mode and before she realized it she'd already be doing whatever it was we wanted her to do.
Nowadays she's far too smart for that. Give her a toy and she'll bat it aside with a look that says, "Do you expect me to forget that you just rubbed my wet hair down with a towel when you KNOW I hate that? How stupid do you think I am?" Try to put her in her stroller when she's determined to play at the park for another 20 minutes, even though it's 60 degrees outside and we're both freezing, and she'll scream loud enough for everyone at the park to whip their heads around to see what poor child is being tortured.
Fortunately, we've discovered that with a lengthened attention span and greater clarity and force of will comes another skill: the ability to reason and to be reasoned with. This is truly a surprise to me; I never would have thought a 17 month old kid would be willing to bargain or negotiate. But as I'm quickly learning about my daughter, she's nothing if not attuned to her own best interests.
It started with the eyedrops -- I began showing them to her before applying them, explaining what they were and what their purpose was. Once she understood, she began to tolerate them, albeit reluctantly. I soon began applying this to other things, combining them with another tactic: allowing her to process what it is I'm asking of her and letting her come to her own decision about whether or not she's okay with it.
So now, instead of forcing her into her high chair at mealtime, we get the food ready while she's watching Sesame Street, then show it to her and say, "Sadie, would you like to eat some dinner?" We might offer her a piece of food, just to show her what the goods are. After a minute of consideration, she's MUCH more likely to acquiesce and move to the high chair on her own than she would be if we just grabbed her hands and tried to walk her over.
This worked well at the park yesterday, too. I gave her her usual five minute and two minute warnings that we were going to leave, and then, when the time came, I asked her if she was ready to go home. She paused, considered, then actually replied, "Yes." Miracle of miracles!
Even more impressive, Scott has successfully bargained with her. ("When you finish dinner, then you can go snuggle with Mommy.") I plan to try this tonight with her bath. ("If you'll get out and let me dry your hair, we'll sit down on the couch afterward and watch Elmo's World. Maybe this will be the episode where he successfully matures beyond his irritatingly narcissistic existence and develops the ability to refer to himself in something other than the third person!")
When she was younger, the solution was easy: distraction. If she fought over getting into her stroller or having her diaper changed, a toy dangled over her head or an airplane passing overhead would instantly snap her out of stubborn mode and before she realized it she'd already be doing whatever it was we wanted her to do.
Nowadays she's far too smart for that. Give her a toy and she'll bat it aside with a look that says, "Do you expect me to forget that you just rubbed my wet hair down with a towel when you KNOW I hate that? How stupid do you think I am?" Try to put her in her stroller when she's determined to play at the park for another 20 minutes, even though it's 60 degrees outside and we're both freezing, and she'll scream loud enough for everyone at the park to whip their heads around to see what poor child is being tortured.
Fortunately, we've discovered that with a lengthened attention span and greater clarity and force of will comes another skill: the ability to reason and to be reasoned with. This is truly a surprise to me; I never would have thought a 17 month old kid would be willing to bargain or negotiate. But as I'm quickly learning about my daughter, she's nothing if not attuned to her own best interests.
It started with the eyedrops -- I began showing them to her before applying them, explaining what they were and what their purpose was. Once she understood, she began to tolerate them, albeit reluctantly. I soon began applying this to other things, combining them with another tactic: allowing her to process what it is I'm asking of her and letting her come to her own decision about whether or not she's okay with it.
So now, instead of forcing her into her high chair at mealtime, we get the food ready while she's watching Sesame Street, then show it to her and say, "Sadie, would you like to eat some dinner?" We might offer her a piece of food, just to show her what the goods are. After a minute of consideration, she's MUCH more likely to acquiesce and move to the high chair on her own than she would be if we just grabbed her hands and tried to walk her over.
This worked well at the park yesterday, too. I gave her her usual five minute and two minute warnings that we were going to leave, and then, when the time came, I asked her if she was ready to go home. She paused, considered, then actually replied, "Yes." Miracle of miracles!
Even more impressive, Scott has successfully bargained with her. ("When you finish dinner, then you can go snuggle with Mommy.") I plan to try this tonight with her bath. ("If you'll get out and let me dry your hair, we'll sit down on the couch afterward and watch Elmo's World. Maybe this will be the episode where he successfully matures beyond his irritatingly narcissistic existence and develops the ability to refer to himself in something other than the third person!")
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Eye Don't Even Know
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!
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!
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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