Hanging in

I feel heartless sometimes, admitting it, but now that dh is safely in the-land-far-far-away I’m feeling much better. I can think of a long list of painful things I would rather do than relive that last week.

The dutchkid handled it better than I had expected. Then again, I had no idea what to expect. She cried a lot the night he left, and continues to talk about missing him on a daily basis, but overall she seems like her happy self.

Me? I’m fine during the day but evenings are always when my paranoia about being alone kicks in. It’s not that I’m lonely, it’s that my twisted psyche is convinced that someone is going to break into my house. I think I need to take a self defense class, it might help me relax a little (and sleep more). My first Netflix movie should arrive this week. I’m hoping something to look forward to after the dutchkid heads to bed will help.

I’m continuing on over here, as well. It’s been cathartic in a big way. Thanks for all your kind words about it. You guys are the best.

overactive imagination

My baby is sick today. She’s had a fever since last evening, and while I think she’s going to be fine (she’s eating and drinking ok) it’s one of those situations where I wish I could turn my nurse brain off.

You know, the nurse brain that has been retired for so many years it only dredges up irrelevant and scary possibilities. Like the “mom radar” people talk about, only mine is haywire. (It’s meningitis! No, it’s Leukemia! Let’s constantly check her pupils, her respiratory rate, her temperature…)

Thankfully, I can usually recognize it and forcibly shut it off. Either that, or I call my mom to talk some sense into me.

I hope you have a wonderful and illness-free weekend. I have a feeling we will be spending lots of time on the couch watching Tom and Jerry.

Time flies

I know everyone says that, but darn if it isn’t true.

I am now the mother of a newly minted 4 year old. Looking at my last post, I just can’t believe that.

My mom arrived this past weekend and it was great to see her. The dutchkid was thrilled. I am happy to report that I won the birthday party discussion after all. Mostly by default. Dh was gone on TDY last week and we had been waffling for so long I finally decided to just make a decision. It worked out really well, we had just a few friends over for some cake and ice cream, balloons and a pinata. Totally low stress, but enough party to feel like we celebrated. Perfect.

However, I did have some self-inflicted stress because I have been glued at the hip to my sewing machine. I don’t know why all of my ideas showed up last minute, but it must be how my creativity works. I’ll share more about the projects later when I get pictures uploaded (or just plain taken. Dh was in charge of the camera and he did not pay enough attention to the crafty stuff!) I’ll be back. Hope you’re having a good week so far!

How bad is it…

to seriously consider backing out of throwing your kid (your only kid, mind you) a birthday party?

Look, I know that’s not going to win me mother-of-the-year, but here’s the thing. The dutchkid got a lot of presents for Christmas. My mom emailed me today to ask me what suggestions I had for her upcoming birthday and I really had a hard time coming up with things. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to shortchange her just because her birthday falls a few weeks after Christmas. But is it really wrong to NOT feel compelled to share the day of my precious daughter’s birth with lots of other kids, loads of plastic-y gifts and grab bags? Maybe it’s because my family didn’t do birthday parties every year, mostly we just celebrated with family. I think I’m starting to realize, too, that I don’t want to take on something where the expectation is going to be “bigger and better” every. single. year.

My dh feels differently, which means he will probably win this one out of sheer guilt and we’ll have a party as originally discussed. Sigh. Cupcakes with just a few friends and singing happy birthday was sounding pretty good to me. I guess that makes me the party pooper.

I wanna be sedated.

No, really.

The dutchkid’s dental visit marked a new parenting milestone for me today. Not only was the visit a complete FAIL, but it ended with me being irrationally angry with my sweet child. I don’t mean irritated, I mean completely pissed off.

It began well, she sailed right through the shot of novocaine and coping with the nosepiece for the nitrous oxide. I thought we were in the clear, and then she decided to have a total freak out about the rubber dam (sometimes called a “raincoat”, a rubber piece that isolates the tooth in question). I tried being in the room, I tried leaving. The dentist was very kind and very patient and tried six ways from Sunday to calm her down.

He didn’t even get to the drilling. The decision was made rather than strap her down and really traumatize her, we would try again at another appointment. Next time with conscious sedation (oh goody, my favorite).

While it was happening, I wasn’t angry, I was just trying to keep it together. As my mother pointed out, the dutchkid’s reaction was probably from being a little claustrophobic, and you just can’t help that. You are forced to breathe through your nose with that rubber dam on, and that can be scary.

But afterwards? Then I was just plain mad. Why couldn’t she just behave long enough to let them do their job? Why do I have to now pay even more money to have this done? (like hundreds of dollars more!) I don’t want her to suffer, but the teeth have to be fixed. And I’m angry with myself too, why couldn’t I have done a good enough job with her teeth to prevent this? And then to top it off I said some not very nice things to her.

Thank you, Universe, for making me feel like a parenting failure today. The dental nightmare just never ends

Just when you think

your kid isn’t paying attention…

Today, the dutchkid sat down at the piano, with “music” she had written herself. She had already illegally scribbled on some sheet music of mine, so I figured that was what inspired the composing. But then as I was listening to her random song from the kitchen, I heard the telltale beep of the metronome! Monkey see, monkey do. In my family, music was a big part of growing up. Someone was always playing something. I used to worry that the dutchkid wouldn’t have that exposure to music. It may not be the variety of music I heard as a kid, but guess I can cross that worry off my list!

In other music news, I met my piano teacher yesterday for my first lesson. It went pretty well. I managed to play my prelude and fugue for her without any major memory lapses even though I was nervous as all get out. She was very encouraging and I think we’ll get along great…although she’s contemplating making me relearn all my scale fingerings (groan) because my old teacher had me learn them with his own system. The curse of switching teachers, I guess. Now I’m glad I’ve been neglecting them all summer.

Fashionista

She’s 3. Already she has her own sense of style. Sometimes it feels like I have given birth to a blond version of my sister… the epitome of hip, self-confident cool. Who is traveling around Europe right now. What? me, jealous? No…

3 steps forward, 2 steps back.

I think that we have finally turned the corner on the potty learning.  I’m blogging this somewhat reluctantly, in case I jinx myself,  but I decided to write about it just in case somebody finds my blog and has a kid like mine.   It always makes me feel better to read that someone else didn’t have the potty prodigy who trained early and easily. 

I did not think this would be as much of a challenge as it has been… which goes to show you that I have much to learn about being a parent.  You would think after 2.75 years I would know better.   No one warned me how potty learning can be a long process, although after I started to complain a bit then I began hearing other parents say that they had a child who monkeyed around as well. 

Kids always seem to be out to prove they are one of a kind.  The dutchkid is no exception.  She was pooping on the potty shortly after she turned a year old and I thought we were well on our way to getting rid of diapers early.  Everyone I talked to said that peeing in the potty was the easy part.  Not my kid.  Only in the past few months has she had the awareness of her body during play and other distractions to say, “I need to go”.  Otherwise we would fall into a routine of me trying to cajole her into using the potty at regular intervals, which she immediately picked up on as something I could not make her do.  Try as you might, you can’t make somebody urinate on cue.  Even when you try bribery. 

I know I am fortunate that I haven’t changed very many poopy diapers in the past year, but wet pants, wet panties, wet car seat, and random wet furniture get OLD after a while.  I’ve been thankful that we have wood floors in this house (and laminate in our last one).  More importantly, I hated the power struggle that it had become.  So after we moved here I really laid off.  I figured that the transition of moving would throw her for a loop anyway (which it did). 

And finally, finally she started staying dry.  And going willingly when I asked without pressuring.  And then her teachers at preschool said they thought she was ready to wear panties to school (yay!).  I’m sure we will have several more accidents before she is super reliable, but I feel like the worst is over. 

So take heart, parents of reluctant pee-ers.  I am here to remind you that everybody uses the potty like a big girl (or boy) eventually.

Like a sponge

My mother-in-law called this morning and she is sick, and decided not to make the long drive to see us this weekend.  I felt guilty that I am mildly relieved. 

The dutchkid was kind of bummed about it, although I think she was thinking it was going to be my mom because it brought up whether we were going to see Grandpa too (and my father-in-law is no longer with us).  I was looking forward to the visit just in that it’s fun to show off your kid to someone who thinks she is as brilliant as you do.   My dh had her all ready to show off her verbal skills.  He’s determined that she’s a genius because she does have a good memory and can “read” books that we have read often together. 

For example, we have been reading the lovely book called Over in the Meadow by Ezra Jack Keats.  We borrowed it from the library, but I think I’m going to add it to our permanent collection.  It’s a very sweet rhyming and counting book.  She can ”read” up until about number five.  It goes something like this:

Over in the meadow, in a hole, in a tree
Lived a mother bluebird and her little birdies three.  
“Sing!” Said the mother
“We Sing!” Said the three
So they sang and were glad in the hole in the tree.

I think that’s normal for an almost 3 year old, but it sure is cute.

Unexpected

While I was pregnant with the dutchkid, one of my unrealistic “what it will be like having a child” fantasies was how much she would love music. I played the piano a lot and at that time was still singing with a symphony chorus. I thought all of the exposure to music she would have in utero would give me a little one who would love music from birth. I envisioned myself playing for her to stop her from crying (I’d read that before that classical music often soothes colicky babies).

Enter reality. She was colicky, but music didn’t soothe her. She began crying when I tried to sing or play for her. Sometimes I could get away with humming, but all those lullabies I’d practiced? Evidently I was torturing her in utero. I thought it was just me, but she cried when my mom sang, too. As she got a little older, I began teaching piano lessons and I soon realized that she equated the sound of the piano with separation from me. While I taught, the mothers of my students watched her for me while their children had their lesson. Eventually they had to take her outside of the house, because the moment she heard the piano it was all over. When she started to talk, she began to shush my dh and I when we would try to sing songs in the car: “STOP singing”.

One day after we moved here, we were in the car listening to the classical music station. Suddenly she declared: “Mama, listen to that pretty music! It’s like Barbie and the Dancing Princesses!” (don’t even start with the judgments about letting my child watch that movie, how Barbie is bad for little girls’ self image…it’s all my dh’s fault. He downloaded it). She didn’t want to get out of the car. Seizing the moment, I assured her, that *I* could play pretty music, too.

That was several weeks ago, and the piano has gotten a lot of use along with her “princess” shoes for dancing. She prefers sonatinas it seems and can ask for several pieces she likes by the composer: Clementi and Beethoven. Unfortunately, she is quite the critic and I have a very limited repertoire that meets her approval. If she does not like what I’m playing she will declare authoritatively, ‘No, Mama, play the pretty music”. I’ve tried to tell her that it’s ALL pretty music, but I’ll take what I can get.

I can’t tell you how much it makes my heart sing to have her ask me to play the piano. And to think I owe it all to Barbie and the Dancing Princesses. Behold the power of the cartoon.