Less and More

Today is the first day that Petunia is away from me and I am not pumping for her.  I had intended to do this earlier, but she kept getting sick- we have had an incredible run of upper respiratory infections here at Chez Cloud, starting in early December. So I kept pumping once a day, always planning to stop when Petunia was over her latest illness.

To be honest, I have not been in as big of a hurry to drop this last pumping as I thought I would be. As it was with Pumpkin, the decision to stop pumping is bittersweet. In fact, I would probably have kept going, but I have a job interview on Thursday, and it runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Since I know one of the people who set this up, I'm sure they already know I have kids. Besides, I've never really gone in for the "don't let them know you have kids" advice for job interviews- I can see that it might apply in some situations, but I've never found the environment in biotech to be that unwelcoming. If any one company is bothered by my status as a mother, then frankly, I'd rather work elsewhere. Of course, I've never been in the situation where I absolutely have to get a particular job.

So, if I weren't ready to stop pumping, I'd ask for the time to do so. But, deep down, I know it is time to stop. It is just that I needed something to set the date. With Pumpkin, my stop date was set by the fact that she was going to move up to a room at day care that didn't use sippy cups. With Petunia, it is the fact that I have a job interview.

My baby is growing up. She's walking more now. She's talking and signing more, too. She sees birds and points at them and says "buh" while waving her hand by her face, in a very cute approximation of the sign for bird. She was slow to take to cow's milk when we first introduced it, but she's drinking it without complaint now. In fact she asks for it- "muh", accompanied by a cute approximation of the sign for milk. It is time to let her be more toddler, and less baby.

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In other news, I went to the doctor today and discovered that I've lost about 5 pounds since I was laid off, which explains why all of my jeans seem too big.  Given that this time period included Christmas, with all of its yummy cookies, I'm more than a little surprised. Now, I intended to get more exercise now I that I have a bit more time on my hands. But in actuality, I've gone for a run three times. I'm up to a whopping 14 minutes running (surrounded by about 30 minutes of walking). I doubt this minimal exercise is the reason I've lost weight. And as I mentioned above, I've decreased my milk output, so I don't think I can credit the calorie burning effect of breastfeeding. I'm left with the conclusion that I was eating more of those little miniature candy bars that were scattered around the offices at my job than I thought I was.

I hope wherever I land next just has a vending machine.

In Which Petunia Has a Good Laugh at Me

Since I had the temerity to post about how Petunia's sleep has been getting better, she decided to throw me a curveball last night. OK, rationally I know that she has no idea what I posted on my blog. But boy, was last night weird.

I went to bed at about 10:30 and was just falling asleep when I heard someone crying. I'm always pretty disoriented if I get woken up just as I'm falling asleep, so for some reason, I thought it was Pumpkin and went barreling into her room asking "what's wrong?" Amazingly, she didn't wake up. But the crying didn't stop, either. So I went down the hall and found Hubby sitting in the rocking chair in Petunia's room, trying to calm her down. She was having none of that- she only calmed down when I took her. It was only 11 p.m., but I knew that she was too worked up to settle down and go back to sleep without nursing, so I took her into our room and nursed her. I figured that she'd go to sleep, wake up again in three hours, and we'd have a so-so, but normal, night.

I was wrong. She rolled away from me, which usually means that she's falling into deep sleep. But instead of going to sleep, she lifted up her feet and kicked them onto the bed. Over and over and over. She tossed and turned. Every once and a while, she found her thumb or rolled toward me and settled down for a bit, but it didn't last, and soon she'd be back to kicking her legs. She wasn't crying, but I certainly wasn't going to sleep with her doing her workout next to me. So I'd try to snuggle her. She'd calm down for a few minutes, then roll away, and the whole thing would start over.

Honestly, it was sort of cute and would have been funny, except I really, really wanted to go back to sleep. I suspect this is related to the fact that she's recently started walking more. I've read about how babies will process new skills in their sleep, and how developmental leaps (cognitive or physical) can disrupt sleep. We saw it a bit with Pumpkin, but her baseline sleep was so bad that we never really knew if she was going through a developmental leap, teething, getting sick, or just not sleeping.

Anyway, after an hour of trying to get little miss restless to settle down and go to sleep, I got up and took her into her room, and rocked with her for about twenty minutes, after which she finally went to sleep. And slept through until about 6:30, giving me a solid five hours of sleep.

I wonder what will happen tonight?

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UPDATE: Petunia got sent home from day care with a slight fever at about 4 p.m. So she officially has the cold that I caught from Pumpkin. It was really short and mild for Pumpkin- here's hoping for the same for me and Petunia. Was the start of the cold the cause of last night's shenanigans? I doubt it, but who knows. I still don't know what to expect tonight. But it seems like Pumpkin is done calling for me, so I think I'll go to bed and just see what the night brings!

Can You Be Zen about Not Being Zen?

I think babies can tell when you are about to crack and do something that they won't like. Anyway, that is the only way I can explain the fact that every time I start to get tired enough to consider doing some sleep training with Petunia, she shapes up on her own. She had been waking up for the first time in the night as early as 9:30, which most nights is just ten minutes or so after I'm sure that Pumpkin is finally asleep, and not going to call me back in to flip her pillow over or something. The lack of time in the evening was driving me nuts. I told Hubby that I was going to start a new regime, in which I would go in to her, but not nurse her or bring her into bed with me before 11. And that night, she slept until 11:30.

I also told Hubby that I was going to start trying to delay the second nursing in the night, to see if we could get back to her old routine of waking once, nursing, and then sleeping solidly until morning. So that night, she nursed twice in quick succession, and then slept until morning. (That, unfortunately, only lasted one night, but she is stretching the time between the first and second nursing out, and I suspect that if I'm just patient, we'll be back down to one nursing soon.)

I'm struck by how I'm responding so differently to Petunia's sleep patterns than I did to Pumpkin's. I was always trying to improve Pumpkin's sleep. I always had an idea to try out, or a new plan to implement. I believed the sleep advice that told me that if I let her co-sleep we'd "never" get her out of our bed, and I was sure that I must be doing something wrong, because her sleep was so bad. People kept telling us to let her cry, but I didn't think it would work with her- the one time I let her cry at bedtime (because she woke up while I was in the bathroom, and Hubby was out that night), she worked herself up to the point that she threw up, leaving me with a wide awake baby who was now freaked out about throwing up, and a bunch of laundry. So we didn't try to let her "cry it out", but I harbored guilt about that decision. We did successfully partially nightwean her, getting her down from five wakings to one or two. She always resisted dropping that last night feeding, and we didn't get rid of it until she was about 21 months old or so, when we started partial night co-sleeping with her. It was an unorthodox but very successful method of nightweaning.

Things are very different this time around. Every once and a while, I think I should come up with a plan to help Petunia learn to sleep through the night. I might even start implementing it... but then her sleep gets a little bit better, and I get less tired, and I just drop it. I started bringing her into bed with us after her first wake up during the sleep disruption that accompanies the advent of separation anxiety at about 9 months, and she's been sleeping part of the night in our bed ever since. I actually think a cry it out sleep training method would work on her, but I don't want to use one, so we haven't. I feel no guilt at all about that, and I'm pretty happy with the co-sleeping arrangement, as long as she waits until midnight or so to wake up and join us.

Part of the reason for this difference in approach is the difference in the baby's starting point- Petunia's sleep has always been much better than Pumpkin's, since her first week home from the hospital. The situation we're at now with Petunia (waking once or twice in the night to nurse) took us a lot of hard work to reach with Pumpkin- although I wonder if we might have gotten there without the hard work if we'd just started partial night co-sleeping at ~9 months with her, too. I'll never know, and it doesn't matter.

Another factor is that a truly helpful book on sleep came out right around the time Petunia was born- Bedtiming, by Isabel Granic and Marc Lewis. The authors are developmental psychologists, and they explain the course of a baby's cognitive development, and highlight points in that development that might be particularly good (or bad) for working on sleep. Understanding why your sleep has suddenly gone to hell makes it much easier to deal with- or at least it does for me. I also use the book to guide me in picking times to try interventions. In fact, I used the advice in this book to help me decide when to finally extricate myself from Pumpkin's going to sleep routine.

But I think the biggest reason that I'm so much more laid back about sleep these days is the difference in my starting point. We followed our guts and did a bunch of things that the sleep experts label as "wrong" with Pumpkin, and things turned out OK. She moved out of our bed well before graduating from high school. She goes to sleep on her own, after an involved but manageable routine. She sleeps through the night (most nights) in her own bed now. I know that Petunia will get there, too, so I don't worry about doing the things that the sleep experts say will "ruin" her. We rock her to sleep- and most nights, I like that. I think Hubby does, too. It is nice to hold a snuggly baby! We co-sleep, and again, most nights I like it. When it works well, and I get woken up after a decent amount of sleep by a smiling baby who is patting my face and babbling, I think I'm the luckiest woman in the world. I know that she'll start sleeping through the night eventually, and she will move out of our bed eventually, and then eventually I'll miss having my snuggly baby.

I was congratulating myself on reaching this level of parenting Zen this weekend. This, of course, was a sign to the universe to remind me that I'm not as Zen as I think I am, and that I don't have this parenting stuff all figured out. I was talking to my friend after our girls finished their Chinese lesson, and she asked me if we were planning to start Pumpkin in any sports or other activities. I shrugged and said I didn't know. I hate to fill up our weekend schedule, and she's still so young. My friend agreed, but offered a cautionary tale about her older child (who is about eight). He is trying out ice hockey and is really discouraged by the fact that all of the other boys on his team have been playing since they were three and are therefore much, much better than he is. She has decided that it is best to expose her younger kids to a bunch of different sports and activities when they are preschoolers, to see what they get interested in. That way, they won't be intimidated out of doing something they really like just because the other kids have a five year head start on them.

Um, wow. I remember feeling the intimidation her son is experiencing... when I was in college. A lot of the other students at the college I went to had gone to expensive prep schools. I had gone to a so-so public school. They were way ahead of me in the introductory courses. I almost quit, but didn't, and in the end I pulled off an A- grade point average in a really tough major. I have always credited my success to the fact that I had to put my head down and really learn how to study in the first year of college. By the time we hit the more advanced courses that no one's high school had prepared them for, I knew how to study and a lot of my peers did not. Which is all well and good, but I'm not sure that applies to an eight year old who is realizing that all of her peers have been taking dance or playing softball since they were three.

Of course, my first instinct was to panic, and think about putting Pumpkin in some more activities. But then I remembered my original reason for not doing that- that it would cut into our family time on the weekends. So clearly, Hubby and I need to talk about this and figure out what our actual parenting approach should be. Whatever we do, I'm pretty sure some expert will think it is "wrong". So I guess I need to find my parenting Zen on this, too.

Kids Are Exhausting. But Also Cute. News at 11.

Today was Pumpkin's first day back at day care after the holiday break (day care is closed the week between Christmas and New Year's Day). It would have been Petunia's first day back, too, but she got a fever yesterday, so she stayed home with me.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit how happy I was to see Pumpkin head off for day care, and how annoyed I was that Petunia couldn't go, too. Some of this was because I really do need to get a job talk together- I had an informal lunch interview with the hiring manager for a job last week, and I suspect I'll be asked to have a real interview, complete with seminar, soon. Some of this was because the combination of Petunia's previous sick days and the closure of day care the Wednesday before Christmas due to rain (the roads into day care flooded) have left me feeling like my big plans for my time off are slipping away into a jumble of sick days, errands, and housework.

But mostly, I was just exhausted from a week at home with my kids. And my parents were even in town to help! I know that many, many parents are home with their kids every day. I suppose (hope?) that if push came to shove, I could make the necessary changes in my outlook and expectations to handle that well, too. But right now, my kids wear me out. One Tired Ema has a really good comment about the intensity of the under 4 set on my recent post about how intense I find parenting babies and toddlers. I think she really nails it- some kids just need your presence. I have two kids like that, and after a week of that 24x7, I want a break. Particularly since Petunia is still sleeping part of the night in my presence, too. OK, not just in my presence- snuggled right up against me. I was looking forward to a few hours when no one needed anything from me. I did not get that today. Maybe tomorrow.

In an attempt to make myself feel better about the sudden change in my plans for today, and my less than gracious response to that change, I spent some of the three hours Petunia required me to hold her for her nap thinking about the cute and wonderful things my kids have been up to lately. (Petunia, who usually takes a nap in her crib without trouble, insists on being held for naps when she is sick. Which is sweet. Until you need to pee or its lunchtime or something like that.) Anyway, in no particular order:

• Pumpkin, who mostly says words properly these days (ah, how I miss the days of "bobbin" for "bottom"), still says "stank you" instead of "thank you" about 50% of the time. I think this is adorable.
• Petunia will applaud any achievement, no matter how dubious. I find this impossible to resist. So we applaud stacking blocks and putting blocks into buckets. We also applaud climbing onto chairs, even though I'm really thinking "oh my God, child, you are going to give me a heart attack or break your head open or both."
• Pumpkin likes to read stories. She will get one of Petunia's picture books- you know, the kind with a picture and maybe three words on each page- and tell long, involved stories about tigers saying "hi" to zebras and asking how their days are going. 
• Petunia has graduated from her little walker to her sister's doll stroller. She's pretty good with it, but every time I see her I think of those little old ladies whose heads are barely visible above the steering wheels of their cars.

• Petunia's preferred walker is actually a person- she likes to grab your index fingers and steer you around. (She is very effective at steering.) This is hard on adults' backs, but Pumpkin has been eager to help out. Recently, Petunia finally consented to that, and my heart just about melted when I saw them walking down the hall together, both grinning from ear to ear.
• Pumpkin came out after my mom gave her a bath one day last week, and asked if she could sleep with just underwear, no pull ups. She's been waking up with a dry pull up for awhile, so I took a deep breath and said "yes." And who would have thought it would be that easy? She's yet to have an accident in her bed. Actually, she hasn't been having accidents anywhere recently. After all the angst about potty training her, that is pretty amazing.

There, I feel better. 

Christmas Wrap

Christmas was great this year. Pumpkin was excited to find the light pink bike with the bumblebee on the basket under the tree (good listening, Santa!) and Petunia was so taken with her wagon that she refused to get out of it for most of the morning.  Pumpkin was also thrilled with the train set we got her (good listening, Mommy!), with the little cupcake box her Nonna and Poppa sent her from New Zealand (a perfect place to store the Silly Bands that she got in her stocking- good listening again, Santa!) and the "wedding dress" (a floor length lavender dress with sparkles) that my Mom sewed for her and included in her gift of dress up clothes. I'm dying to see her in the cow girl outfit my Mom made, but she really only wants to wear the "wedding dress" so far. So I'm being patient. Petunia has enjoyed her new blocks from Mimi and Boppa, and she likes to sit on the Little People Farm that we bough her. We think that she thinks it is a ride on toy of some sort, and plan to take a good look at day care to see if we can tell what might be giving her that idea. The biggest hit for her, though, was the little toy baby bottle that came with the stuffed monkey from her Aunt. She sucked and sucked on that thing, and then stopped and grinned, and then sucked on it some more. It was pretty funny.

You can't really predict which toys/gifts will be favorites over the long term, and everything they got was pretty darn good. Pumpkin, in particular, was so happy opening her gifts, that it would have taken a very Scroogey person not to love Christmas right then.

The girls got some great books, including the latest (and one has to assume last) installment of the Knuffle Bunny books, Knuffle Bunny Free. I think it is my favorite of the Knuffle Bunny books, and I've liked them all. We also got some new books from New Zealand. I'd strongly recommend that anyone traveling there stock up on kid's books- they have some great ones that we can't get here.

And don't even get me started on all the wonderful new clothes the girls got. Those were really like gifts for me- sparing me from shopping for new clothes while also ensuring that my girls look really cute.

As for me... well, I love my new Crocs. My parents got me the Mammoth Clogs, which I wear as slippers. They are not all that attractive, but they are warm and comfy, and they keep my feet and legs from hurting if I spend a lot of time standing on our hard flooring. And I can run out the the garage to swap the laundry over without changing into shoes.

My sister brought us all great things from Nepal. My kids are going to look very wordly wearing their new t-shirts. And our new yak wool blanket is a perfect match for our living room. I plan to retire our less than perfectly matched afghan soon, but Pumpkin is resisting the change.

The biggest surprise was definitely NOT my gift for Hubby. I took Pumpkin shopping with me, and despite the long talk we had about it being a surprise and how we shouldn't tell Daddy what we bough, she came home and walked up to him and said "Daddy! We got you a watch!" Oh well. At least he likes it. He managed to completely surprise me, though, despite buying me the one thing I had specifically said I wanted- a Kindle. When I got laid off, he had said that he didn't think we should spend so much money on our gifts to each other this year, and I believed him. Sucker! I was completely surprised when I opened that box. So far, I'm really liking it- but I have the next two months' of book club books in the old-fashioned paper format, so I won't be giving it a really workout for awhile. I'll probably tell you all about it when I do.

My sister made the dinner this year, with some help from my Mom, and a tiny bit of potato peeling from me. It was delicious, and I loved that I didn't have to make it! I did make a pie, which tasted great even if it looked a little funny. Let's just say that next year, I need to ask for a 9 inch pie plate for Christmas. I have an 8 inch and a 10 inch, and the 10 inch was definitely too big for the chocolate custard filling I made. We topped it with mint whipped cream and crushed candy canes, which hid the vast expanses of bare crust fairly well. I was pretty proud of that idea, frankly. I wanted a chocolate pie so that Pumpkin would like it, since she's been asking about pies. But I wanted something Christmas-y, too. This worked perfectly.

The girls are out of day care for this entire week, and Hubby is back at work. My parents are staying at least through Thursday, because I have an informal lunch meeting that day with the hiring manager for one of the two jobs that are looking most promising. (I had an informal phone interview for the other one last week- so things are moving over the holidays, albeit slowly, which is nice.) Even with my parents here helping, today was exhausting. Trying to keep up with my kids all day positively wears me out. And once again, I chuckle a little (in the nicest possible way, of course) at the people who think that being a working mother is hard. As I've written before, I think the truth is that being a parent is hard, if you're doing it right. And I think that for me, being a working mom is what makes me happiest. Or at least, less exhausted.

I have to admit, though, that having me at home and the kids at day care has made things a little easier, although I'd like to point out that losing my job did not, in fact, make me suddenly like housework. I still hate it. So even if it were financially feasible to continue this set up over the long run (it is not), it would not be a good idea to do so. I think it would result in me either going insane or becoming a hopeless daytime TV addict. Or both. So let's all think good thoughts about the jobs I'm working on right now!

On Intensity and Insecurity

Last night, I went to a networking event in my industry. When I wrote earlier about the effects of job insecurity on my life, I mentioned that keeping up with networking events was one of the (few!) career-related things that has suffered due to motherhood. It is just too hard to go out in the evening right now, particularly since most networking events fall right around dinner time.

I realized two things last night: how true this is and how soon it will get easier. The event started at 6 p.m. in a part of town that is a 15-20 minute drive away from our house.  The first hour of the event was set aside for informal networking. At 7 p.m., a speaker would give a presentation. I really wanted to see that presentation, but I needed to network, too. So I asked Hubby to try to get home early. If we had dinner at 5:45, I could probably leave our house by about 6:00 or 6:10 and get 30 minutes of networking in before the talk.

This worked perfectly.... but I could tell that Petunia was upset that I was leaving so soon. She is always so happy to see me at the end of the day. She holds out her arms for me to take her, and then she puts her little head down on my shoulder and gives me the sweetest hug. Eventually, she lifts her head up, gives me a big smile, and starts signing "more", which in this context means "give me my dinner now, please!" She was still eating her dinner when I got up from the table and kissed her and Pumpkin good-bye. Pumpkin waved bye-bye happily, content with my promise to be home before lights out (and I was). But Petunia looked confused. When I got home later, Hubby said that she wouldn't really take her bottle before bed, and that it had been hard to get her down for the night. She woke up earlier than usual in the middle of the night- this was probably due in part to the lingering effects of her cold. But she gave me another one of her big, sweet hugs when I went in and picked her up, instead of just starting to paw at my shirt to indicate that she wanted to nurse, which is what she usually does. I suspect she had missed me.

This particular event was worth the hassle, especially since I need to talk to as many people as I can right now as I look for my next job. But most events, I skip. It just messes with our bedtime routine too much, and that usually leads to consequences in the middle of the night. However, as I snuggled with Pumpkin before she went to sleep, I realized that it won't be long before Petunia will be able to handle my occasional absence as well as Pumpkin does. This period of time during which these "career maintenance" sorts of tasks are hard to accommodate is quite short- probably about five years, all told. I have been in the work force for more than ten years already, and I expect to be working for at least twenty-five more years. That is a long time. Five years of less than optimal career maintenance doesn't seem like a terrible thing when I look at it from the long view, even though right now, I am feeling a little bit stressed by the fact that my network could be better cared for. My stress is alleviated somewhat by the fact that despite the relative neglect to my network, I already have one very strong job lead from it, and I haven't even started working seriously on networking during this search.

All of this leads me to a new piece of advice I'd give a young woman (or man, really) starting out in her career, and wondering how best to balance a career and motherhood: invest the effort in building a good network early, before you have kids. Then you can maintain it with a minimal amount of effort during those five years or so when you have a baby at home who won't really understand why Mommy needs to go out before bedtime tonight, and still reap the benefits of being well networked. Yes, I know that older kids still need a lot of attention, and I'm aware of the people who argue that parenting gets harder as the kids get older. I am not discounting those views- I won't really know until I get there, right? But I do think that older kids can handle the substitution of one parent for another a little easier. At this age, when she still nurses before bed and is forming her strong attachment to her primary caregiver, it is hard for Petunia to accept Daddy instead of Mommy for some parts of her routine. Pumpkin, on the other hand, usually accepts it fairly well, particularly if I promise some special Mommy time later.

Kate, at One Tired Ema, has written about how her style of parenting really young children (under the age of three, I think? I can't remember her cut off age) is very intense. That is the perfect word to describe this age. Babies and toddlers need a lot of attention, and in my view, they deserve to get all of the attention you can stand to give them. I hope that the time and patience invested now, in stacking blocks on the floor, reading mind-numbingly dull books 10 times in a row (Petunia's current favorite is a bunch of pictures of babies, with one word describing their emotion underneath) and handling sleep issues gently will pay off in an older child who knows that her parents will always be there for her when she really needs them. I think I'm starting to see that in Pumpkin now. Maybe it would have turned out this way even if we'd parented differently- but any other method of parenting wouldn't have felt right to me.

So I will continue to give Petunia the intense parenting I think she deserves. My career will be OK over the long term, and over the long term is just how I think I need to look at things now that I'm a parent.

On to Other Things

To expand on last night's quick update: Petunia had no fever at all last night or this morning, so she went to day care today. She was pretty happy while she was being strapped into her car seat. I think it really does make her sad to be left behind. She definitely now has a bit of a cough and a runny nose, which is different from the last round of fevers, which had no other symptoms at all (that we could see), so I'm feeling better about the "this is just a cold" hypothesis.

I talked to the managing director at the day care center, and they have indeed noticed that little "B" is developing into a bit of a "queen bee". But they are monitoring it, and they have a rule that the kids aren't allowed to tell another kid that  she can't join their game. "B" has gotten in trouble for that a few times- she gets sent to play on her own for awhile when they catch her. However, Pumpkin does have friends she plays with- in addition to "E", there is a little girl "K". We've had playdates with "E" (and are friends with her parents), but not "K". Her parents seem nice, too, so maybe we'll try to arrange a playdate with her. Anyway, now I have more information about what is actually going on and I can talk to Pumpkin about how to respond.

So, I can move on to other things. This is good, because I really need to work on my job talk. The job I have the strongest lead on reports in to the science organization, and therefore will have a traditional science interview. This is an all day affair. I'll talk to about 6 different people, and I'll give an approximately 45 minute talk, which will be open to everyone in the company. I haven't had to give a job talk in almost 10 years, so I need to create one! Luckily, I just gave a talk at a conference (the week after I was laid off- that was fun), so I have a starting place.

While procrastinating on the job talk, I put together a calendar using some of my favorite zenbit pictures. I was originally just going to order one for myself, but then I decided to publish it. Why not? The pictures are already public, since I've posted them here. Here it is:

Zenbits 2011 Calendar by wandsci
See more Travel Calendars

It is fun to let my creative side have a little more free reign. But first, I'd better work on that job talk. I'd have to sell a lot of calendars to replace my salary!

A Quick Update Because I Know My Parents are Worrying, Too

Petunia's doctor could find nothing wrong with her, except for a slightly runny nose. So we're going with the hypothesis that this is a standard day care illness, that she just reacts to most illnesses by getting a high fever, and that it is nothing to worry about. If her fever isn't gone by Wednesday or if she gets sick again next weekend, we're probably going to go see an ear, nose, and throat specialist.

Pumpkin reported playing with her friend "E" and a little boy "A". She and "A" apparently dug in the sand with one of the littler kids, and "threw sand up in the air". That last bit is usually a big no-no at the school, so I'm guessing it was more vigorous digging than actual launching of sand into the air. But who knows. Hubby says it was a really rough drop off, though, because only "B" and another little girl were there. Pumpkin didn't want to let go of Daddy, and one of the teachers had to come hold her for awhile so he could leave. So a mixed day. No word yet from the managing director. If she doesn't answer my email tomorrow, I guess I'll just have to call. They had the Lions in today doing vision testing, so she was probably pretty swamped. (Pumpkin's vision is excellent, in case you're curious.)

Pumpkin was in a pretty good mood tonight, as was Petunia, so I'm off to bed feeling a little less worried. I'll share one last thing:

That is Santa in his sleigh, being pulled by his reindeer.

Worry

Petunia is sick again. She developed a fever on Friday night, and had a fever all weekend, except for when she was under the influence of acetaminophen and, inexplicably, for the few hours around the time I took her to the after pediatrics clinic. The doctor at after hours peds must have thought I was nuts- Petunia seemed fine and healthy there. Her fever spiked again in the afternoon, though, and went up to 103. She was pathetic and clearly miserable, and ended up going to bed at 7 p.m.

She seems to be feeling fine today. She's been happy, except when Pumpkin and Hubby drove off without her. She doesn't like being left at home when she's feeling well. She's playing with several cars that make noise right now. The girl loves a button she can push to make noise!

I probably wouldn't think anything of this illness, except she had a very similar illness last weekend. And I probably wouldn't think anything of that if she hadn't had a run of fevers earlier this year. So we're going to our regular doctor today. I don't expect to learn much, but maybe she can help me figure out when I should actually start to worry. I am, of course, worrying now.

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Meanwhile Pumpkin told us this weekend that "no one" will play with her on the playground at day care. Closer questioning revealed that it is likely that the truth is that no one who is playing with the most popular girl in the class (let's call her "B") will play with Pumpkin. Her little friend "E" will always play with her, and "R" will play with her if she rides bikes,  and "M" will play with her "except if she's playing with B". Still, hearing her talk about it just about broke my heart. She's the child of two geeks- we expected to have to deal with something like this eventually. But we didn't expect it at the age of three.

Of course, she is only three, and while she's very verbal, she may not really be able to express what is happening. Or a rare occurrence may be getting amplified into something that happens all the time. I've sent an email to the center's managing director, asking for a time to call and talk about this, so that they can help us figure out what is really going on. And then we'll have to figure out how to respond.  In the meantime, I'm worrying.

Anyone want to try to convince me that Petunia doesn't have some weird, rare disease and/or that Pumpkin isn't doomed to the life of a social pariah? Or, you could just tell me a story or leave me a link to take my mind off all of this!

Scenes from a Bath, the Baby Edition

Tuesday night was bath night for Petunia. She usually loves her bath (maybe the love of baths runs in the family), so I gladly volunteered to give her a bath rather than take out the trash. No brainer, right?

Well, this Tuesday, she did not want to get in her bath. She locked her little knees and screamed when I tried to put her in the tub. I don't know why, but when I took her out to let her calm down, I sat her on her sister's old potty. She was thrilled. She reached behind her and played with the lid. But mostly, she just wanted to sit on that seat and play with her shoes. I asked her if she was ready to get in her bath. She solemnly shook her head "no" and continued to play with her shoes. I waited awhile and asked her if she was ready to get off the potty. She shook her head "no", and when I reached my hands out to her, she clamped her arms by her side.

She was pretty cute sitting there, and I was curious to see what she'd do, so I sat there and watched her play with her shoes for awhile. Every once and awhile I asked her if she was ready to get in her bath, mostly because the round little "o" she sometimes makes with her mouth when shaking her head is so darn cute.

Then Hubby came in from taking the trash out, rolled his eyes at me, and took over her bath. She did scream when he put her in the tub, but not for long at all.

And then Pumpkin came and reminded him that he'd promised to build something with her, so I took over again. I asked Petunia if she was ready to get out of her bath. She solemnly shook her head "no", clamped her arms by her sides, and screamed when I lifted her out and wrapped her in her towel.

Kids are weird.

True Mom Confessions: The DVD Edition

I was home yesterday with Petunia, who was recovering from some sort of illness. Maybe croup? It is hard to tell with her, since she doesn't get the telltale "cross between a barking seal and Darth Vader" cough. She gets a fever and a sore throat, and gets clingy and cuddly and just wants to hang out in some adult's arms and watch TV.

So that's what we did, because I was tired- she hasn't let me have a good night's sleep since last Thursday- and I hurt my foot on Saturday, possibly by serving as her human walker for one hour too many, so a long walk (another favorite of hers) was not an option.

Even when she's not sick, Petunia gets more screen time than Pumpkin did at her age. I could make a lot of excuses about not wanting to have Pumpkin associate her little sister with new restrictions on her TV viewing, but the truth is that I'm just a little more laid back about it. Hey, it is a cliche for a reason.

We don't really watch much actual TV. Pumpkin watches Dora (and so does Petunia, because she's there, too), and we occasionally watch some shows on PBS Kids- Sesame Street, Curious George, Sid the Science Kid, and the show with the weird gang of word nerds who go around fixing stories.  But mostly, we watch DVDs. Petunia's favorites are the Signing Time DVDs- both the original and the Baby Signing Time DVDs. So far, the only sign she knows is the one for "more", which she uses to mean "give me a cracker" as well as "more".

When she gets a little older, I suspect she'll be as enamored of the Noodlebug DVDs as her older sister was.

Pumpkin has moved on- she tolerates Signing Time and Noodlebug for her little sister, but when she gets to pick she chooses one of the Leap Frog DVDs (we have Letter Factory, Talking Words Factory, and Word Caper, and I swear they've taught her more about phonics than anything else has) or one of her Chinese DVDs. She is learning Chinese with a teacher, but we find the DVDs help reinforce the vocabulary, especially since we don't speak Chinese ourselves. We have most of the available Chinese DVDs at this point- I wish someone would make more that would teach some new words. Our favorites are the two Follow Jade DVDs and the The Adventures of Walker & Ping Ping DVD (we have the one with both the Great Wall and Chinese Market stories).

I used to feel a little guilty for our use of DVDs. We certainly know plenty of people who have sworn off TV altogether. But I'm over it. The DVDs and Dora help me get dinner on the table with a minimum amount of crying. They are a great non-food reward for Pumpkin. I truly believe that they have taught Pumpkin useful things- from sign language to how to sound out words to how to count to ten in Chinese. Presumably, they will teach Petunia useful things, too. And really, it would take a hard heart to deny her a snuggle and a show when she is sick. She points at the TV, and looks at you with her big, hopeful smile, then looks back at the TV, then back at you.  I should consider myself lucky that all she wants is a Signing Time DVD!

What about you? What are the favorite DVDs/shows at your house?

A Cold Night

I blamed the cold for what I did last night, but really it is time, or more precisely, the fleeting nature of time.

Petunia cried out at about 10:40. I'd really rather she sleep a little longer before I bring her into bed with us, and some nights she does. Some nights she wakes up even earlier. She steadfastly refuses to settle into a routine. It makes it hard to catch up on the shows on our DVR.

Anyway, I went into her room, and saw that she was still half asleep, on her tummy in her crib. I went over and patted her back, and she found her thumb and whimpered a bit, and started to settle back to sleep. I could tell that she would eventually go back to sleep this way, and I knew that would be a good thing in terms of my goal of getting her to sleep longer in her crib before joining us in our bed. But I could also tell it was going to take a while, and it was cold. My toes were cold, despite the socks I had on. My face was cold. We've been having beautiful clear, sunny days, and beautiful clear, frigid nights here recently, and our 50+ year old insulation just isn't up to the challenge. Every winter, during the week or two that is really cold (by Southern California standards), we say that we should get that fixed, just like every summer, during the week or two when it is sort of hot we talk about getting a whole house fan. But we never do either of these things. (I predict the insulation will get fixed first, because it offends our green sensibilities to know that we're running our heater more than we have to, but it isn't going to get fixed while I'm unemployed.)

So I reached into Petunia's crib, lifted her out, and took her back to bed with me. I told myself that it was because I was cold, and she probably was, too. But really, it was because she is getting so big. She is taking a few tentative steps on her own, and zipping around the place with her little walker/baby stroller. She signs "more" while saying "muh, muh" and giving us her winning smile (this girl's smile is going to be trouble, let me tell you. It is irresistible.) All the signs are telling me that my baby- my last baby- is turning into a toddler. I look at Pumpkin and I can hardly believe that it was only a couple of years ago that she was zipping around the house with her walker, and saying "buh" while she pointed to the birds in our backyard. Now she likes to show me how she can hop, and her vocabulary amazes me. She still snuggles me- she insists on it as part of her bedtime routine- but not in that intense baby way, where you'd swear the baby is trying to reintegrate into your body. I'm tired, and I want more sleep. And yet, before I know it, Petunia will be sounding out words and delighting in her ability to do dot-to-dots, and I won't have any babies left to snuggle right up against me at night.

It was cold. But if I shivered, it was because I felt the passage of time, saw the impending end of our baby years. They aren't easy. They aren't even my favorite stage. But they are sweet in a way that no other stage is.

Scenes from a Bath

I used to love to take long, luxurious baths. Since becoming a mother, I typically settle for a nice hot shower instead. Leaving aside the obvious logistical issues with having a relaxing soak with children running or crawling around, the proliferation of bath toys in our bathroom further detracts from the soak-worthiness of a tub that is essentially too shallow for a good soak, anyway.

However, I've been having trouble with muscle aches lately. My back, neck, hips, and legs all ache. I can't decide if I have some sort of bug that is causing this- I did have a cold, complete with shiver-inducing chills, last week, and I had another bout of chills last night. (Or maybe I was just cold because the heat doesn't blow into our bedroom that well. It is hard to say.) I took my temperature this afternoon, and it was normal, though. Maybe the aches are from our mattress, which I have suddenly realized is going on 10 years old and showing its age. I've told Hubby that when I get a new job, I'm going out and buying a nice, new mattress. He points out that no mattress is likely to be comfortable if you spend half of the night sleeping on the very edge because your baby is trying to occupy the same exact space as you are and you refuse to learn that moving away doesn't actually help. But still. I think there is a Tempurpedic in my future. I'm sick of feeling springs jut into my hips.

Of course, the aches could also be due to pent up stress from the unpleasant last month at work, the fact that I haven't been to a yoga class in over a month (and my gym membership was one of the casualties of the lay off, so I don't really have a yoga class right now), or the wear and tear of picking up a 22 lb baby and a 30 lb preschooler everyday.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Anyway, I decided that I'd have a bath tonight to see if that would help my muscles. Hubby was happy to watch the kids- if I go away, Petunia will actually play with him instead of just crawling over to me. I dug out my Muscle Soak bubble bath, and ran a nice hot bath.

I discovered that our tub is indeed too shallow. I had to choose which set of muscles to soak at one time and alternate. I also discovered that the base of our frog bath toy holder actually does a fine job of cradling my head while I soak. I hadn't bothered to take it down- I just removed the frog's body that holds all the toys.

I could hear the kids playing with Hubby while I soaked- our house is not that big. I heard Hubby start the CD my parents had made for Pumpkin. She loves it, so I'm guessing she asked for it. Or maybe he decided to put it on because Petunia likes the music, too. He keeps trying to win Petunia over, but she is oblivious, and if I'm in the room, she keeps crawling over to me. Poor Hubby.

There were the usual sounds of playing- Pumpkin was narrating some elaborate story involving a lot of cars crashing into each other- until "Wimoweh" came on. Then Hubby started laughing, and I heard him say "she's dancing before she can walk!" I gathered that Petunia was showing off her dancing skills. I'd seen them earlier in the day. She holds onto someone's hands or her walker, bends her knees, and bobs her little bottom up and down in time to the music. Wimoweh is one of her favorite songs; it will almost always get her moving. I hadn't told Hubby about it, and I'm glad I didn't. He sounded so happy. Petunia's current mommy-centric phase is hard on him. She will often turn her face into my shoulder, clutch onto my shirt for dear life, and scream when he tries to take her from me. I know that he understands that it is just a phase, but still.... He sees her snuggling into me, and I know he is a bit jealous. (Whereas I see him going potty without an entourage following him down the hall, and I'm a bit jealous. The grass is always greener.) Anyway, I'm glad he got to dance with Petunia tonight. He showed me after I got out of the bath, and she has actually added some steps to her repertoire. I may be biased, but I think it is incredibly cute.

So I didn't get a peaceful soak in a deep bath- but I don't think that is on offer anytime soon. For one thing, there is absolutely no way that we can remodel our bathroom and put in a deep bath. Even if we had the money, there just isn't the space, even if we took the step stool and the little potty out. Our house was built in the 50s, and that was apparently not a time in which Americans felt like they needed a lot of space in their bathrooms.

My muscles felt better while I was in the bath, but are aching again now. I'm not sure if that tells me anything, other than that I can't cure this with a bath. I'm going with the "yoga makes all aches feel better" theory, and am planning to try a good long yoga routine tomorrow- without the help of Pumpkin, who usually joins me for my yoga on the weekends. I'm jealous of her ability to do a good downward dog without any props, and while her questions about the DVD are thought-provoking ("But why is he sitting on the beach, Mommy? And why does he have a ponytail? Boys don't have ponytails. Why isn't he wearing a shirt? Isn't he cold?"), they tend to detract from my ability to focus on the poses. I do the yoga anyway, though. Motherhood is all about learning how to fit what you need into the little bits of space your kids leave you.

Not Funny, Universe

On Thursday night, Petunia started sleeping like a champ. Hurray! The universe heeded my request!

Ha. Not so fast.

Saturday morning the diarrhea started. Poor Petunia has never had a tummy bug before, and she is not at all impressed with the experience. And my plans to start tapering off pumping? On hold until her stomach is all better.

She seems to be feeling better now, but her diapers are still not "day care quality", so she is home with me today. I still have errands to run and chores to do to get ready for Thanksgiving. This morning, she helped me sort through the bags of hand me downs and find more clothes for her to wear. Then she came shopping to Trader Joe's for our Thanksgiving turkey and associated needs. She had a blast- the girl loves to shop. Actually, I think she just loves to go out on trips. She got very excited when she saw me putting my shoes on, and she giggled as I strapped her into her car seat. She was a huge hit at the store, charming everyone who caught her eyes. She does have an irresistible smile...

She's napping now. Maybe we'll get some play time in after lunch. But now, I think I'll take a nap myself. Because last night? She woke up every two hours.

The Beginning of the End, Round Two

I'm slowly tapering off pumping for Petunia. I've been down to twice a day for a while now, and next week, I will probably drop down to once a day. I suspect that by the new year, I'll be done pumping altogether. Just like with Pumpkin, I have mixed feelings about this. I certainly don't love pumping, but it also is an indication that my little baby isn't so little anymore.

With Pumpkin, I pumped past the one year mark because she was not very good at eating solid foods. Petunia is a different story. She hasn't really taken to dairy, but she eats a lot of other things really well. I made my carrot cake pancakes last week and they were a huge hit with Petunia- she polished off her first one and then pointed to the plate for more. She eats strawberries, pasta, bread, and tonight she tried chicken nuggets and liked them. (Why is it easier to get toddlers to eat chicken if it is breaded? We've had no luck with "regular" chicken yet.) I'm fairly confident that she'll start drinking more cow's milk as the amount of breastmilk available to her during the day is decreased, and if she doesn't, we'll probably be able to find her another source of calcium. So I'm not sure why I've kept pumping. The initial delay in introducing cow's milk and tapering off breastmilk during the day was due to the antibiotics that cleared up the mystery illness- I didn't want to miss any tummy problems from the cow's milk because of the inevitable tummy problems from the antibiotic. But now... I think I'm just having a hard time admitting that my little Petunia, my last baby is getting bigger.

Strangely, the lay off may actually move things along faster than they would have otherwise. I find pumping at home to be a pain- unlike at work, where I had a little room where my pump was out of the way (for obvious reasons...), at home the best place is on the sofa in the living room. This inevitably leads me to turn the TV on while I pump and then BAM! I've lost two hours to some stupid cop show.  (Sneaky move, cable channels, putting the same show back to back to back....) If I do that twice a day, my day is pretty much over, and I haven't accomplished much at all. Also, I'm trying to meet up with people for networking lunches and coffee breaks and the like, and my pumping schedule is getting in the way. Suddenly, I'm ready to be done.

Tonight, I watched Petunia playing after dinner. She was happily stacking her Little People Blocks and looking more like a toddler than a baby, really. They'll be moving her up to the "older baby" room at day care soon- she visited that class today, and apparently had a great time. It is time that I face it- Petunia's babyhood is almost over. It seems to have gone faster than Pumpkin's did, somehow, despite the fact that I was sure that I would stop and appreciate things more this time around!

Short Stories

Tonight, I'm so tired that I don't even remember the fourth (and final) song in Pumpkin's bedtime routine. I am very well trained, though, because I woke right up when the fifth song on the CD started, and popped out of Pumpkin's bed to turn the CD off. I should be doing the dishes so that I can go to bed, but Pumpkin whined and didn't want me to leave. She's been doing that a lot lately, and I often indulge her and stay another minute or so. Tonight, I was afraid I'd fall asleep if I did that, and wake up sometime later, with my contacts half-gluing my eyes shut and a horrible crick in my neck.

So I told her I had to go, but promised to go type in the guest room for "a lot of minutes" before I started the dishes.

So here I am.

It is not Petunia's fault that I am tired- she has suddenly switched to a routine where she only wakes up once in the middle of the night to nurse. Occasionally, she wakes up again at about 5, but often she sleeps through until 6:45 or so, which is when she usually wakes up for the day. I don't know if this is due to the end of the 9-12 month separation anxiety period- her day care drop offs have gotten a lot easier, too, and she is a lot less clingy in general, so I think that period is over. Or it could be because she's fighting something of or getting over her 12 month shots- she was running a fever again this week. (It was a weird one- she got sent home from day care on Tuesday, so we flew my Mom over to take care of her. Then Wednesday and Thursday she was fine all day, but spiked a mild fever of about 100 or 101 at bedtime. The fever was gone by morning.  Tonight, there was no fever. I don't know what to think. This all started earlier than the post-shots fevers would normally start. She got both the MMR and the chicken pox shots a week ago today, and either of those could cause a fever starting about 7 days after they are given. It could be she just reacted a little differently than most. Or it could be a virus from day care. Or it could be a relapse of the fevers that I thought had cleared up with the antibiotics. I don't know. I guess it is a good thing I enjoyed my few days of not worrying about Petunia's health!)

Anyway, I can't blame Petunia for how tired I am, since I generally do pretty well if I'm just woken up once in the night. No, this is Hubby's fault. Last night, he would not stop talking when he brought Petunia in to me. I was nursing her, and trying to stay half asleep so that I could go back to sleep quickly, and he kept going on about I can't remember what. Interestingly, he can't remember either, and claims he wasn't fully awake. Well, by the time he was done, I was fairly awake and it took me almost two hours to get back to sleep. Ugh.

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My Mom took a video today that perfectly captures the difference in personality between Pumpkin and Petunia. When Pumpkin was learning how to walk and toddling around with her walker she would often run into a wall or door frame. When she did, she would repeatedly bang the walker into the obstacle, as if she were trying to make that inconvenient thing move out of her way. Petunia is now learning how to walk and toddles around with her walker. She ran into a door frame while my Mom was recording her. She just backed her walker up, steered around the obstacle, and continued on her way.

I love this. Both of my girls are a bit obstinate, but they are obstinate in different ways. Pumpkin will plow over any obstacle, full of sound and fury. Petunia will acknowledge the obstacle, and the calmly move around it and keep on her way.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this difference plays out as they get older.

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Petunia loves music. She will crawl over to the CD player/clock we have in her room and babble at us meaningfully until we turn some music on her for her. And then she will either sit back on her heels or stand up, leaning on the box that is still passing for a bedside table for her, and sway to the beat. She'll look over her shoulder at us and grin. And then she'll start pushing buttons on the CD player. Occasionally, she'll push a button that makes the music stop. And then the routine starts over: the earnest words that aren't words until we start the music, and then the dance party resumes.

Good times.

You Can't Send Patience, So Please Send Beer

I took the girls out for their "nap walk" today, and three different people stopped me and told me how precious they were. And they were- at that moment, sound asleep in their double stroller. Petunia had reached over and was holding on to Pumpkin's blanket, and it would have taken a very hard heart indeed not to think they were cute.

But a mere 30 minutes earlier, Hubby and I were struggling to deal with a clingy 1 year old who screams if I hand her to anyone else, including her Daddy, and a 3.5 year old throwing a whopper of a tantrum over our insistence that if she is not going to use the potty, then she at least has to change herself out of her wet pants. This tantrum went on for at least 45 minutes. She finally accepted that we weren't going to change her pants for her and got into her new underwear on her own, but then she had another accident before she could get her pants on- because of course, she hadn't sat on the potty after her first accident. We're trying yet another new approach to the potty issue around here. In this one, we don't remind her or push her to go potty. We reward her if she sits on the potty and we have her change her own clothes after accidents. This is day one of the new regime, so it is too early to say whether it is going to do anything other than add a bunch of tantrums to our life.

My ability to deal with the potty issues and the other tantrums that come with being three and a half years old is severely compromised by my lack of sleep- Petunia's sleep went all to Hell during the 6 weeks or so of recurrent fevers, and we haven't gotten it back on track yet. Some nights, she does fairly well- even sleeping 5 hours in a row sometimes. And then there are nights like last night, when she wakes up every two hours.

Now, I could feel really bad, because here I have one kid who won't sleep and another who won't pee in the potty. But I actually think we're doing better than that summary implies. At her check up yesterday, Petunia was judged to be developing well, and was pronounced a smart little baby. (I know, they say that to all the mothers. But I still think she IS a smart little baby!) She is a delight to play with, and although I think it is too early for us to claim responsibility for any of her good traits (like being such an easy baby to take to restaurants), at least I don't think we've messed anything up yet.  The clinginess is normal for her age, and I suspect it will pass once she learns to walk and decides that she wants to explore more on her own. I also believe that the best thing to do is to give her the attention she wants now, to lay a solid foundation of attachment from which she can explore later. Pumpkin was an even clingier baby, and is not clingy at all now.

And despite her infuriating three-and-a-half-ness, Pumpkin is a pretty amazing little girl, too. She doesn't always eat all that well when we go out to eat, but she almost never disrupts the meal (and I do claim some credit for this- Hubby and I ate many tag-team meals as we followed through on our promise to take Pumpkin out of the restaurant if she didn't behave). She can throw an impressive tantrum, but she is also quick to come and give me a hug and tell me that she loves me. When she chooses to argue rationally instead of throw a tantrum, she makes a good argument. She's very logical, and will catch us in any inconsistencies. I am not too proud to admit that I've lost more than one argument to her! She loves her Chinese lessons, and is also delighting in learning "pre-reading" phonics- she can tell us what letter most words start with, and is starting to get the hang of sounding out an entire word. I know that the tantrums and stubbornness are normal for her age, too, and will pass. Or at least, the tantrums will. I suspect she will be stubborn, um, I mean persistent for life. Let's just say that I see a lot of her Daddy in her in that regard.

So, I think I just need to come up with the patience to get through this difficult phase without compromising my parenting beliefs- or at least without compromising them too much, too often. Which brings me to beer. I think I should drink a beer more often- one beer tends to make me mellow and more patient. To the people who think that a nursing mother shouldn't drink (and for the one or two readers I have who aren't mothers, yes, people think this and no, they won't hesitate to tell me what they think)- I say: consider the alternatives. Cheers!

The Absence of Worry and Other Good Things

Petunia's one year check up was today. She was in a great mood for the doctor, and showed off her babbling skills as well as her winning smile. She has adorable dimples when she smiles.

It was a crying intensive visit, despite her great mood- she got all of the vaccinations on offer (MMR, chicken pox, hepatitis A, and flu), and she also had to have blood drawn to follow up on her recurring fevers. We'd had an ultrasound done last week, which showed no problems, and she got so much happier after a day or two on antibiotics that we all pretty strongly suspected that the health scare was caused by a bacterial infection of some sort. However, the doctor ordered follow up blood tests, just to be sure. She called earlier this evening to let us know that the sedimentation rate test, which was the test that was most worrisome the first time around, came back completely normal. So yes- it was an infection, and that infection is gone now, thanks to the antibiotics. Phew! I hadn't realized that I was still worried until suddenly, I wasn't anymore.

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After the doctor's appointment, I took Petunia for a little walk in our neighborhood. I happened to be walking past the school down the street from us when the parents were arriving to pick up their kids. It is a public school, but it is a Spanish immersion magnet. We're thinking about trying to get Pumpkin in there for kindergarten, but haven't really decided yet. So I asked some of the parents what they think of the school. They all loved it- but they told me that this year, there were 300 applicants for 100 kindergarten spots. However, they also told me that there are a couple bilingual programs in the district, including one at a school that wouldn't be too far out of the way for us. So Hubby and I have some research to do. 

I've been reading Bad Mom, Good Mom's education posts with interest (here is her latest: Economic Integration of Schools), because she is sending her daughter to public schools in LA, and knows a lot about the California education system. Her posts give me hope that we can figure this out and get our children good educations in our local public schools. In fact, I suspect that our kids would do just fine if we just sent them to the "default" public school for our area. It is really just the lure of having them become fluent in a second language that is making us look at other options. Well, that and the fact that the Spanish immersion school is only a few blocks away, while our "default" school is many more blocks away, and down a fairly steep hill. If we want to have our daughters walk to or from school in elementary school, we'd better get into the Spanish immersion school. Either that, or they'll be very, very fit from walking up that hill every day!

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In other news, I have finally updated Pumpkin and Petunia's book list post.
Pumpkin doesn't attach as strongly to particular books as she used to, but Petunia definitely does!

Happy Birthday, Petunia... Just a Little Late

So, Petunia's one.

Things have been a little hectic here, with her health scare and preparations to get our house tented for termites, so this post is late. I do have a reputation for sending my birthday cards late, so maybe the tardiness has nothing to do with the circumstances and everything to do with the author... who knows?

Anyway, I wanted to write a short post about some of the things Petunia's been up to, since one of the reasons I blog is to try to capture the things in my life and my childrens' lives that I don't want to forget.

But where to start? In her very first photo (which I can't show you, because Hubby and I have agreed that there will be no faces on this blog), Petunia had an expression that can only be described as suspicious- as if she were looking at her Daddy and the bright lights of the OR and wondering why she had been unceremoniously yanked from her cozy home for this?

She still treats us to a suspicious or quizzical look from time to time- it is one of her "trademarks"- but overall, she's a very happy baby. She is quick to give us a big grin (especially now that she seems to be feeling better). She has a wonderful belly laugh that she uses frequently. She plays a mean game of peekaboo. She waves me off to work every day with a big grin, and a big, full arm bye-bye wave. Some times, she even says "buh", too. (Hubby gets the accusatory, "you're abandoning me" tears at day care. I get the big, "glad to see you!" grins at pick up. I definitely have the better end of that bargain... until I get home and try to make dinner. But I digress.)

My parents gave her a walker for her birthday, and the smile on her face when she realized that she could walk with it was beautiful. She definitely enjoys it, but is still finding her walking legs. She often kneels to push it around, and when she really wants to go somewhere, she abandons it and crawls away:

She loves to swing...

... and to play in the water, whether that is in the bath, at the beach, or in the paddling pool in our backyard.

She loves all toys that have buttons she can push to produce music. She bops along to the music, and looks around with a big, expectant grin, waiting for everyone else to dance, too. We always do. It is not clear if she loves the music for its own merits, or because when she produces it, she can make us all react. We don't really care- we love this, and both our gift for her and Pumpkin's makes noise. Yes, we, her parents, bought her TWO noisy toys for her birthday. The force is strong in this one.

Pumpkin's gift was a baby computer, because Petunia has been trying for months to get her hands on the toddler computer we gave Pumpkin for her 3rd birthday. About a week before Petunia's birthday, though, Pumpkin relented and said that Petunia could play with her laptop. ("I don't matter if she plays with it" is how she phrased that- the misuse of the "doesn't matter" phrase is one of the few cute malapropisms Pumpkin still has- that girl isverbal. But this post isn't about her.) Pumpkin loves to make her little sister happy. Usually.

Petunia rewards her sister (an her parents) with sloppy, wet kisses. Or she could be teething on us- its hard to say. She has a mouthful of teeth, which she seems willing to use to try out some non-pureed foods. She like graham crackers best, but also eats bread and strawberries with gusto. She won't touch cheese yet. Cooked carrot sticks were an early favorite, but lately, they get unceremoniously tossed to the floor. She had her first taste of piklets, a New Zealand specialty that is similar to a pancake (but smaller and a little sweeter) and liked them. She also likes french fries (of course she's had these- she is the second baby, after all), so she seems to be embracing both her Kiwi and American heritage.

She's not really talking or signing yet, but she seems to be getting close. She's tried out some sounds to indicate that she wants a cracker, and tonight, she may have tried a sign- but she is also very good at communicating with just a meaningful look. She's quite persistent, and usually gets what she wants. She seems like a very mellow baby, but already we can tell that she isn't going to be pushed around. She is very determined when she wants something, and won't be easily distracted. She usually doesn't throw a big tantrum when we prevent her from getting what she wants. She protests briefly (but loudly), but then seems to allow herself to be distracted... but as soon as she gets the chance, she crawls right back to her original target.

She's growing fast, as babies do. Sometimes I look at her next to her sister and am struck by how quickly it is all going. Before I know it, there will be no baby in my house- no baby to chase around taking leaves and rocks away from before she eats them. No baby to play peekaboo with. No baby to nuzzle and rock to sleep. So on the night of her birthday, I rocked her a little longer than I had to before I put her down, and I got a little misty-eyed looking down at her sweet, sleeping face. Happy birthday, Petunia. It has been a wonderful year.

Not Really an Update

So, for anyone who didn't notice my comment on my last post: the tests are indicating Petunia has an infection, not cancer. We don't know where the infection is (or was), and we may never know. We're supposed to take her in for an ultrasound to look for an abscess or other GI problem (bowel obstruction? I'm guessing) but they haven't called us to schedule it yet, so I guess that isn't considered urgent. We'll call them back on Monday.

Petunia is much, much better after the antibiotic shot and a few days of oral antibiotics. This may be a coincidence, but I'm taking it as further evidence that the problem was a low level infection somewhere. Whatever the reason, she is playing and giggling and screaming at us if we don't let her down fast enough again. Which is wonderful.

Thank you all for your kind words and good wishes. Some "real" posts will be coming soon. In all this excitement, though, I missed writing a post for Petunia's first birthday, and I'm not sure I'm going to get a chance to do one. I'll try, because there are so many little things about Petunia right now that I want to remember. In the meantime, here is a picture from her birthday trip to the beach- her birthday happened to be the one day last week that she didn't have a fever and was sort of happy. She had a blast playing in the wet sand.

It was a reasonably warm, but gray morning, so we had the beach to ourselves.

That little spec in the distance is Pumpkin.

So, even though I had a frustrating week at work, and we found out on Thursday that our house needs to be tented for termites.... Times are good.