Tag Archives: toddlers

A Bedtime Chat

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I got home from a church meeting in time to say goodnight to Hank. I caught the end of his bedtime story, gave him hugs and kisses, and said Goodnight. As Penelope and I were leaving the room, he said, “You need to snuggle with Mumma.” Because I’d hardly seen him all day, I couldn’t resist, so I turned out the light and climbed up beside him on the Big Boy Bed.

He reached over and grabbed my nose.

“What are you doing?” I asked, gently removing his grasp and making a mental note to trim his sharp little nails.

“Mumma has nostrils.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“Ma has nostrils. Hank has nostrils.”

“Yes, love. People have nostrils.”

“You are a children,” he said (struggling, as ever, with pronouns).

“You are a child, yes.”

“Children have nostrils.”

“Right,” I told him. “Children are people; people have nostrils.”

“Monkeys have nostrils, too,” he noted, holding up his lovey, Ugly Monkey, to show me its embroidered nostril holes.

“So they do,” I agreed.

“You don’t eat monkeys. Monkeys are not food.”

-C.

Big Boy Bed

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Our new (old, as in circa 1850) house has three bedrooms upstairs: ours, another one connected to ours by an adjoining door, and one across the hall. The first two are plain white with some ugly faux wood paneling, in need of some paint, but plain and inoffensive. The room across the hall has ancient textured blue and white wallpaper, painted petal pink, which is cracking and peeling and water stained due to an old roof leak. The roof has been repaired, the room, not so much.

Knowing that Baby’s arrival will soon mean that Hank will move from his current room to the one across the hall, we had plans to renovate. My dad is coming for a few days next month to put up new drywall, after which Penelope and Grammy will paint (Hank chose red–we’ll see). In the meantime, though, the room is pink, and in rough shape–as you can tell from the photo.

Tonight, unexpectedly, Hank asked to sleep in “the big bed” (ours) instead of his tent. I told him, “Did you know we have a big boy bed of your very own in the pink room, when you’re ready?”

“You need to see it,” he said (he struggles with pronouns), so we went across the hall and he lay down on the twin bed that Penelope’s Grandpa made for her when she was a kid.

I thought he’d take a look and then opt to stay in his own, familiar tent, but he surprised me by pulling at the covers. “You need to get comfy cozy in the big boy bed,” he announced.

“Really?” I asked, looking askance at the peeling walls and barren decor. This was not going according to plan.

“Yes,” he said firmly.

Penelope and I shrugged. We weren’t ready for this, but we made do. We don’t have a safety rail yet, but we pushed the bed up against the wall and barricaded the other side with furniture so he won’t roll out. I gathered up the nighttime loveys from the tent. We read a story, gave him goodnight kisses, and shut off the light… all the while thinking he’d change his mind. He didn’t. He fell asleep singing himself a happy little song about being comfy cozy in the big boy bed in the pink room.

We spend so much time waiting for childhood milestones, noting with nervous anticipation as our kids get closer to crawling, first steps, first words, first sentence. As parents, we wait and coax and urge and even push for progress, when our little one might not be quite ready. Sometimes, though, milestones just happen, without warning or time to prepare. Sometimes, a kid knows when to leap to the next level, and suddenly we parents are the ones scrambling to catch up.

-C.

Muddy Waters

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Hank loves water. He’s never shown the slightest fear, which is a bit of a problem now that he’s mobile and fast. When we take him to the beach or the pool (and to him, all water is either “tubby” or “pool,” even if it’s a river, pond, lake, or ocean), if there are bigger kids playing in the water, Hank will charge toward them, never mind that he’s only so tall and there’s only so far he can go and still keep his head above water. He doesn’t care; he’ll keep going, and then get mad at me or Penelope for hauling him back. He doesn’t realize we’re trying to save him from drowning, of course: he thinks we’re just meanies who won’t let him play with the kids. Fearless. Crazy. Scary. Fun.

Swimming in the Sea of Uncertainty

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Last month, when Penelope and I put an offer on a new house in the middle of the two week wait after my IUI, we had in the back of our minds the idea that buying a house might prove a good and necessary distraction from the interminable wait to see if I’d get pregnant. And yes, when my period arrived several days early (indicating it probably had been a bum cycle from the get go), the fact that we had a new house under contract softened the blow a bit. I wasn’t pregnant, but we had good things happening in our lives. I didn’t have much time to dwell on my disappointment: I had to schedule the home inspection and gather the mountains of documents required by the bank for financing.

The yard that may soon be ours: +/- one acre, level lot, with fruit trees and plenty of room and sun for a garden.

This month, though, all the uncertainty is dragging on me. I am drawing near the end of another two week wait. Gut instinct tells me I have had no better luck this month, but then again, Penelope was dead certain she’d just gotten her period when the nurse called with the news that her second IVF transfer had worked. (She’d had some bleeding that morning — in retrospect, it was probably implantation spotting.) UPDATE 6/18/12 – My gut instinct was not wrong. No luck this month — harrumph!

Porch #1 (open). The house is a 2,900 square foot New England farmhouse, circa 1850ish, with attached garage/barn. 14 rooms, including 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. (Yes, that’s a lot of space for the three of us, but there will be a mother-in-law apartment for Penelope’s mom, and besides, it might not be “just the three of us” for long!)

As for the new house, the inspection went fine. It needs some insulation and the barn roof needs patching, and there are plenty of cosmetic changes we’ll want to make, but for a 160+ year old house, it’s in great shape.

Porch #2 (enclosed) — hot tub not included in sale, which is fine with us: Penelope and I both think hot tubs are a bit skeevy.

Here’s the hitch: the sellers agreed to have the septic cleaned before the closing, and when they did that, they learned that the leach field was failing. They (the sellers) have some relative who they thought would be able to do some kind of ‘quick fix’ for just $1,000, but we didn’t think that would fly with our bank, and we didn’t want to wind up buying the house and having to replace the leach field two weeks later when the ‘quick fix’ failed. For a while, it seemed like this would derail the whole deal, but eventually we negotiated a new agreement: they will put in a new leach field, designed by a real engineer, and we will pay half the cost (but only if the sale goes through).

Nice, bright kitchen that might be ours. The cabinets aren’t even ugly! (Every house we’ve looked at — and we’ve looked a lot — has had ugly cabinets.)

Now that we’ve settled that, we still have to wait for the results of the bank appraisal (which was done on Thursday), which is the last hurdle we need to clear in order to get our mortgage.

Dining room that might be ours. I’m a sucker for French doors.

What about the house we already own, you ask? Good question. It’s been on the market forever, with very little interest — not because it’s not a nice house, but because the housing market in our present town is one of the most depressed markets in the whole state. But the rental market is booming, and we’ve had a lot of interest in our Craigslist ad, so that’s the plan: to rent it until the market improves enough to sell it. We’ve had a few prospective tenants in to see it, and we have two more families coming on Tuesday, so we’re confident we’ll be able to find tenants.

Enormous living room. The fireplace is in the middle of the room, so this photo only shows about 2/3 of the space.

Here’s the other big hitch: We want this move to disrupt Hank’s life a little as possible. That means not starting to pack until we are 100% certain it’s actually going to happen. Initially, we thought the inspection would be the decision point, and that was scheduled within 14 days of going under contract, but we extended that deadline when the leach field problem was discovered.

Wide center hallway between the living room and dining room. Not the best use of space, but definitely period appropriate. We’re thinking we’ll put the piano in here, and maybe a big ol’ antique hall stand, if we can find one. Plus, we always need space for our many, many bookshelves.

Now here’s what I’m worrying about: the contracted closing date, while not set in stone, is on-or-before July 13. That is now less than a month away. UPDATE 6/18/12 – It’s going to take longer to get the new septic system than anticipated, so it looks like the closing will be pushed back by about 2 weeks.

One of three upstairs bedrooms. (One, not pictured, is a terrible pink that is sort of cross between Pepto-Bismol and that dreadful “dusty rose” that dominated grandmotherly decor in the mid-late 1980s.)

Tonight at dinner, I made lists of things that need to be done in our present house before we move out, and things that will need to be done in the new house before (or shortly after) we move in. (Hank sometimes takes a long, long time to eat, and we try to stay at the table with him until he finishes, so it’s good to have something to do to pass the time.) Both lists were intimidatingly lengthy, and the tasks on each list were both time-consuming and expensive.

Downstairs bedroom. This room, the attached bath, and several other of the downstairs rooms will be a mother-in-law apartment for Grammy, if all goes well. It will be so great to have Hank’s babysitter under the same roof.

Here’s my fear: All the stars will align, the septic system will get fixed, the appraisal report won’t make the bank balk, we will get our official closing date, and we will have a mere two weeks to get everything done. Penelope and I moved seven times in the first decade of our relationship, so we have packing down to a science… but that was before we had a baby. As every parent knows, it’s hard to get anything done with a toddler nearby, especially if the task in question involves putting things into boxes: toddlers like nothing better than to pull things out of boxes so that they can look at them, play with them, carry them around, and hide them/flush them/break them/eat them.

And if my gut instinct is wrong, and ALL the stars align, toddler-patrol might be the only job I can do, since many of the things on the lists (painting, insulating, heavy lifting) are not safe for pregnancy. I should be so lucky, right? But if I am, will Penelope ever forgive me?

-C.

Sickie

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Grammy e-mailed me this afternoon to say Hank seemed a little under the weather. He hadn’t eaten much, was restless during his nap, was a little bit fussy, a little bit warm, and he once pointed to his belly and said, “tummy” in a way that might have been a complaint and might have been, you know, a mere statement of fact, as in, “Here’s my…”

The thing about Hank is that he’s such a good natured kid that even when he’s really feeling crummy, he’s still fairly chipper and active and raring to go outside and romp around. It’s only obvious he’s sick when he spikes a fever or when night falls and he’s too uncomfortable to sleep. Otherwise, we’re looking for more subtle cues, like being a little bit cranky, a little bit restless, not as hungry as usual, especially in combination. One of these things alone may be nothing, but a little bit ‘off’ in a few different ways generally means Hank is feeling quite a bit ‘off.’

So, in today’s recounting of blessings, I am so grateful for Grammy, who is able to watch Hank while we are at work and be attuned enough to these subtle signs in order to alert us. I’m sure most daycare placements would never be able to be so alert to such barely-perceptible hints of illness in an uncomplaining toddler. I am grateful that my job is flexible enough (unless I am in the middle of trial) that I can leave early to take care of Hank when he needs it (though he’s in great hands with Grammy when I can’t get away). I am grateful that Hank has such a sunny disposition that, even when he feels crummy, he remains cheerful and affectionate. Finally, I am grateful to infant’s acetaminophen, which will hopefully help him sleep well and wake tomorrow feeling all better.

-C.

On Bath Toys and Potty Triumphs

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This ugly little beast is one of Hank’s squirty bath toys. It’s one of a set of ten similarly goofy looking plastic critters, and Hank’s favorite, or at least his favorite of the day. This morning during his bath, I started singing “Rocky Raccoon.” (I would not have believed there was anyone in this country who does not know that song, but one of my college friends tells me she’s never heard it, so this YouTube video is for you, Christine.)

It’s not the most toddler-appropriate song, but I grew up listening to this, and the Who’s Tommy rock opera (which features child sex abuse as a pivotal plot point), and the Grateful Dead’s Casey Jones (about getting high and crashing a train), and look how well I turned out. Anyway, Hank loves it. Interestingly, he did not latch on to the catchy refrain, but rather the part where Rocky says, “I’ll be better, I’ll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able.” Only Hank spent all day saying, “I’ll be back, I’ll be back,” like a little tiny Terminator. So funny!

And on the potty training front, he’s had huge success today: he’s gone on the potty five times in one day. Something must have finally clicked in his brilliant little mind, since this is miles and miles better than his once-every-day-or-so potty successes up to this point.

-C.

Monkey at the Montshire

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I’ve been meaning to take Hank to the Montshire Musuem of Science for awhile, since my nieces love it and it’s nearby. I wasn’t sure he’d be old enough to get much out of it, though,so today was our first trip. I am glad to report the visit was a success.

Many of the indoor exhibits are for bigger kids, but Hank enjoyed the aquariums full of local species of fish and turtles.

He enjoyed playing in the fountains outside the most. If I’d brought a swim diaper, he’d have happily spent the whole day in the water.

We went for a walk on the nature trails around the museum, and saw many chipmunks and heard lots of birds. We also heard (but did not see) a helicopter, and Hank very carefully said “hel – E – copter” rather than just “copter,” as he usually does.

I hoped the busy afternoon would wear him out and he’d nap in the car on the drive home, but no luck. Now it’s probably too late to bother with a nap, so maybe he’ll at least go to bed early tonight.

Cousin Charlie doesn’t think it’s too late for a nap!

-C.

Time to Unplug

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Hank and I drove home tonight in a deluge, wipers slapping at their highest speed, rain pounding on the roof and windows, puddles sloshing against the wheel wells. I opted for the back roads rather than the highway so I could take my time, and I’d long since turned off NPR so I could concentrate on getting us safely home.

Hank started talking in the backseat, but against the roaring storm and the road noise, I couldn’t hear him. -And suddenly I caught myself with my thumb on the Volume + button on my steering wheel, trying to turn him up. I was actually trying to turn up the volume on my toddler.

Yes, it could have been worse. I might have been trying to turn him down, or trying to turn up the radio to drown him out. I suppose I can take some comfort in the fact that I was trying to listen to him even in the midst of my white-knuckled driving distraction. But it got me thinking: I now turn to gadgetry to solve every day issues in a way that is so automatic, so reflexive, that I don’t even think about it… and maybe that’s not such a good thing.

“Phone” was one of Hank’s very first words, and he knew how to flip through photos on my iPhone before he knew how to walk. I’m not proud of that. We derive a certain amount of smug satisfaction from living in a TV-free home, but the lack of a TV doesn’t stop us from logging too much screen time. This very instant, I’m blogging at the dinner table while I supervise Hank’s meal. (Penelope’s out at our home inspection tonight: more on that another time.) Penelope is addicted to the New York Times Crossword app on her iPad. I check Facebook on my phone the very instant I wake up, most mornings.

I definitely notice that with all the time I spend plugged in to my various gadgets and digital distractions, the less activity there seems to be going on in my mind, even when I unplug the external noise… and that can’t be a good thing, no ‘maybe’ about it. So while I’m not ready to cut my digital umbilical cord and swear off the internets entirely, I am going to try to seek a better balance. I can’t turn up the volume on my toddler, but maybe if I unplug the noise, I can turn up the volume on my own thoughts.

Wish me luck.

-C.