brigid | Entries tagged with toddler

I don’t even know how long Niko’s been sleeping in his own bed at this point. Two weeks? I think it’s something like two weeks. Or three? I have no idea. Part of this is because when he wakes up at night he is all OH GOD FREAK OUT I AM ALL ALONE OH HELP ME THERE IS A TIGER and someone has to go in and settle him down again which is fast, but internets?

I have insomnia.

I have a hard time getting to sleep.

I have a hard time staying asleep.

When a panicky toddler wakes me up at 2am because his pacifier fell out of his mouth and is wedged between his neck and his shoulder and he cannot FIND it and he NEEDS IT and I have to get out of my nice warm soft bed and walk across the creakiest floor in the world and come fully awake? I’m up for at least an hour after that. And at his peak of waking, he wakes up 4-5 times a night. That’s kind of eased off as he’s gotten more used to sleeping by himself but I? Am tired. So tired. It’s a little like having an infant again, only I’m not fumbling with formula in the darkness.

Thank God.

So on the one hand, I can sprawl out in bed and nobody is scratching me or kicking me or shoving me onto the floor; on the other hand I’m exhausted from waking up all the time.

Although that’s getting better!

What’s not getting better is some of Niko’s behavior is regressing. When we initially weaned him off daytime pacifier use he panicked and started clinging to his pacifiers, sleeping with one in his mouth and one (or more) in each hand. He’s started doing that again. He’s jumping on the furniture again, getting into the bread flour and dumping it on the floor again, scrubbing the sink drain with my tooth brush, and other behaviors that seriously we halted these behaviors months ago WHAT IS GOING ON. Fear and insecurity is what’s going on, also possibly he’s cutting his third molars. No, not his third YEAR molars, he’s got what looks like an additional (third) set of molars pricking through his gums.

I am not entirely surprised by this because while Niko seems to have a normal sized mouth and normal sized teeth (I have a small mouth and large teeth) he seems to have my cyclone crooked teeth, including a bunch of teeth just like slanting sideways, like what is even up with that, is your head crooked or something? So he’s got my dental drama going on, apparently including extra teeth. Although mine were premolars, not molars. Haha! Fun.

ANYWAY. Before you get all jellus on me because my toddler sleeps in his own bed, making him a high achieving prince among toddlers, let me tell you our other problem. Namely, his room is DIRECTLY off the kitchen, and he sleeps with the door open. Which means when he’s napping (for a 2-4 hour chunk of time a day) or asleep (and I put him down at 7:30) I have to curtail my kitchen activities. In other words, the only time of day I am toddler free, I can’t do my toddler-free chores like wash dishes or make bread or make noise in the kitchen because Niko will take that as his cue to strike up a conversation and delay sleeping.

We’re considering swapping his bedroom with what is now the office. The office flanks the living room, which means if we wanted to watch tv after he went to sleep we’d have to keep the volume down LOW; and it means if we had guests we’d have to provide everyone will ball gags to shut them up. However, we also want to carve out a mini pantry that would butt into his room (the kitchen has VERY little storage space OH GOD IT IS TERRIBLE) (but not the worst kitchen I’ve had; that one had no counters other than a drain board on the side of the sink, and you couldn’t open the fridge door all the way OR the oven door all the way AND the oven was plugged in with an extension cord. That kitchen had a pantry that was sweet as hell, though.) and if that room was an office instead of our precious baby boy’s bedroom I’d feel way less guilty about hogging space for my cookbooks, microwave, and huge bins of flour.

Do I even need to stay that swapping an office with two computers and a bunch of books and papers and general junk and guitar stuff with a toddler’s room is a lot of work?

Because it is.

On the other hand, his closet is extra deep, so we could put shelves all along the back for storage AND hang coats in front, because this apartment? Does not have a coat closet (or a linen closet or a pantry or a broom closet). There’s a lot of stuff I love about our vintage (1930s) Chicago 2-flat. Lack of storage is a problem, though.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

SOMEONE has been teaching my kid habits that are UTTERLY BUGFUCKING HILARIOUS but which I have to formally, as a mom, disapprove of. This is perhaps the hardest part about parenting, having to keep a straight face and say “no” sternly when really I want to laugh loudly and encourage my kid. If this were someone else’s kid I’d probably do just that because I’m a huge jerk and I wouldn’t have to personally live with the behavior, but in our household? This is behavior I want to nip in the bud.

When he has a runny nose, Niko runs up to someone and rubs his nose/face against their arm/chest/whatever while shouting BOOGY BOOGY BOO over and over. If he were doing this without the runny nose it’d be cute and funny, but it’s poor policy to encourage your kid to use other people as snotrags. Also: I get enough snot on myself as it is, I don’t need someone purposely putting more snot on me. He also comes up to people and announces that he has “a boogy” and then asks them to pull it out. Which I guess is better than picking his own nose, but really, that request should be saved for his parents and possibly grandparents. (he gets huge freakin’ boogers up in there, too. Like, how does a dude this small get boogies this big? It’s like he’s fertilizing them.)

One of my favorite comicers is Erika Moen, who published a long running webcomic called Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary that features one comic that made me laugh so hard I had an asthma attack. (I should note that her comic, her work in general, tends to be very not safe for work.) What I’m trying to say is, I’m totally down with dick and fart jokes. But I’m also old enough, experienced enough, to understand that there is a time and place for dick and fart jokes. Toddlers? Not so much.

So, in general, we’re trying to keep a lid on dick and fart humor in our household.

It is hard. I mean, I have a kid who loudly proclaims that he doesn’t need a new diaper because he only “did a big pee and some toots, no poop!” and who asks to walk around “in my diaper” when he wants to be almost naked or “in my kitza (penis)” when he wants naked time. Kids are basically walking dick and fart jokes. I know that eventually we’ll lose the battle and the dick and fart genie will be out of the bottle. But until then? I try not to snicker when Niko farts and says “Oh! I tooted! It was loud!” and I encourage him to excuse himself.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Nikola has been sleeping in his own little bed (his new bed! with the Thomas (the tank engine) sheets!) in his own room for about a week now. It hasn’t exactly been a smooth transition and for awhile we were getting up every two hours or so to help him settle back down in bed because he’d wake up, panic, and cry. Naps go more easily than bedtime, possibly because his room is better lit and he can hear me moving around. When he wakes up, he runs out of the room screaming I’M AWAKE I’M AWAKE I’M AWAKE I WAKE UP NOW just to make sure we’re all on the same page vis-a-vis his sleep/wake cycle.

Settling him down continues to be an issue, however. While he no longer screams and sobs and begs us to “sleep with me… just a little bit, ok? just one more time, ok?” or to “put your head riiiiiiight here… in this spot… riiiiiiiiight here” while patting his pillow invitingly, he has figured out that he can totally play with toys and put off actually sleeping. On the one hand, he’s 2 1/2 so he pretty much is awful at things like “stealth” and “playing quietly” (he’s recently learned to whisper, but it’s a VERY LOUD whisper and usually involves him whispering I AM QUIET. I AM SO QUIET. I AM BEING VERY QUIET. which is like a red flag for “hey, look at me! I’m doing SOMETHING and you should probably find out what.”

So while he isn’t very good at being quiet, he still manages to put off actually going to sleep for awhile. And I’m never sure how long that while is. And that makes me kind of nervous because that is the sort of controlling person that I am.

Another downside is that we haven’t turned on the heat on yet and he’s really, really warm and I kind of miss having 30 pounds of toasty toddler curled up at my back. Things I do not miss: having 30 pounds of toddler scrape his toenails along my abdomen; having 30 pounds of toddler punch me in the face; having 30 pounds of toddler yank fistfulls of my hair out by the roots every time he rolls over. It’s a mixed bag.

We continue to discover just what constitutes a security object for Niko. His love affair with Carl the Elephant and Baby the Baby Doll continues, but he no longer REQUIRES them to sleep. He seems to cycle through sleep loveys, and his must-haves have included the following:

a fuzzy blue blanket
a talking book with hard plastic pages
a rock
a different rock
a wooden magnet train
a plastic mold-a-rama train with a snapped-off funnel we got at the Museum of Science and Industry
a sock monkey
a toilet paper tube
an unwound, knotted, colorful ball of yarn with a duplo window tangled in it
a stick

His consistent needs, though, include a night light, a flashlight, and the door being open. The last is inconvenient because his room is directly off the kitchen and also very close to the bathroom, which means after I settled him down tonight I took a shower and heard, as I turned the water off, a tiny voice piping out “are you all clean mama?” Then the clatter of a rock being dropped and the worried requests to come find said rock, which is not really what I want to hear while I’m dripping wet and naked at 9:30 at night.

Other than that, though, things are pretty groovy.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

When I say “how do you teach animal safety,” I’m looking for specific stuff YOU PERSONALLY have done to teach children how to be safe around animals. I have some basic ideas, but I also want to teach my kid to be WARY of strange animals and CAUTIOUS around strange animals, without being terrified of them.

Here’s the sitch. We don’t have any pets. None. My in-laws, who live five minutes away from us, have no pets. We don’t really visit people who have pets. So Niko doesn’t really see animals except at the zoo or on t.v. or when he’s walking with us and the animals are on a leash and the situation’s pretty controlled.

When he encounters animals THAT way, we (the adults with him) touch base with the people with the animals, say hello, admire the animal (ok, the dog. It’s always dogs.), and then ask if Niko can say hello and pet them. People either say yes, or they say no. If they say yes, we encourage Niko to come closer to the animal. He hesitantly touches them, adorableness happens, the end.

So far so good, right?

We were visiting some friends of ours, and they have cats. Some of the cats are totally cool with ANYBODY touching them, petting them, hauling them around, etc. They’ll rub up on you for hours. Others are… not so much. One of them bit Niko. Not a bad bite, not at all, didn’t even break the skin, but it alarmed him at the time and he’s been talking about it nonstop ever since. (he’s also claiming a kitty kissed him, and that he played megablocks with a kitty. So, you know.)

On the ride home, Nesko and I talked with Niko about how sometimes animals are scared so they bite or scratch. So when he meets an animal he needs to be careful and not touch the animal unless he asks first. We want him to be careful, but we don’t want him to be AFRAID. Does that make sense?

How do you handle this? What do you recommend?

Technorati Tags: parenting, pets, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

On the one hand, it’s foolish to say that a particular processed food will never be filled with poison that leads to sickness or death.

On the other hand, Dr. Oz is a fear-mongering jackass for stating that apple juice is full of deadly arsenic.

Because, generally speaking, it isn’t.

As the FDA stated in a letter to him:

September 9, 2011

Ms. Barbara Simon
Producer, The Dr. Oz Show

Mr. Terence Noonan
Supervising Producer, The Dr. Oz Show

VIA EMAIL and FAX

Ms. Simon:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is aware that EMSL Analytical, Inc. has obtained and tested 50 samples of retail apple juice for total arsenic content on behalf of Zoco Productions. It is our understanding that, based on these test results, you will assert during an upcoming episode of The Dr. Oz Show that apple juice is unsafe because of the amounts of total arsenic found in the samples.

We appreciate that you have made the results of these tests available to us. As we have previously advised you, the results from total arsenic tests CANNOT be used to determine whether a food is unsafe because of its arsenic content. We have explained to you that arsenic occurs naturally in many foods in both inorganic and organic forms and that only the inorganic forms of arsenic are toxic, depending on the amount. We have advised you that the test for total arsenic DOES NOT distinguish inorganic arsenic from organic arsenic.

The FDA has been aware of the potential for elevated levels of arsenic in fruit juices for many years and has been testing fruit juices for arsenic and other elemental contaminants as part of FDA’s toxic elements in foods program. The FDA typically tests juice samples for total arsenic first, because this test is rapid, accurate and cost effective. When total arsenic testing shows that a fruit juice sample has total arsenic in an amount greater than 23 parts per billion (ppb), we re-test the sample for its inorganic arsenic content. The vast majority of samples we have tested for total arsenic have less than 23 ppb. We consider the test results for inorganic arsenic on a case-by-case basis and take regulatory action as appropriate.

The analytical method for inorganic arsenic is much more complicated than the method for total arsenic. You can find the method that FDA uses to test for inorganic arsenic at this web address:

http://www.fda.gov/Food/ScienceResearch/LaboratoryMethods/ElementalAnalysisManualEAM/

ucm219640.htm1

The FDA believes that it would be irresponsible and misleading for The Dr. Oz Show to suggest that apple juice contains unsafe amounts of arsenic based solely on tests for total arsenic. Should The Dr. Oz Show choose to suggest that apple juice is unsafe because of the amounts of total arsenic found by EMSL Analytical, Inc.’s testing, the FDA will post this letter on its website.

Sincerely,

/S/
Don L. Zink, Ph.D.
Senior Science Advisor
U.S. Food and Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

To sum up, the FDA told Dr. Oz:

Your methodology is wrong
We’ve told you that your methodology is wrong
You don’t seem to understand basic science and chemistry
You are being irresponsible and misleading
We’re already monitoring apple juice for arsenic and other contaminants

Dr. Oz is a dangerous media presence, one that, like Dr. Phil, we can thank Oprah for. He pushes homeopathy (magic water), faith healing, spiritualism (literal talking to the dead), and other magical thinking that really… doesn’t work but is expensive.

CAM (complimentary and alternative medicine) and anti-vax folks talk shit about “Big Pharma” and how doctors and scientists and pharmacists are “only in it for the money.” Well, Dr. Oz and the people/products/services he’s pushing aren’t doing what they’re doing for free. Their snake oils and patent medicines, their tv shows, their books, they all rake in the dough and many of them are straight up harmful.

“Big Pharma” is the enemy not of “little people” or common citizens, but hucksters and anti-science proponents who see it getting in the way of them making a buck. The next time you hear someone yelling long and loud about some basic tenet of medicine or science being secretly bad for you, look closely at them and also what they are selling. How are they profiting by spreading fear? How are they preying on you? How are they manipulating you?

It’s easy to purposely mis-read test results and claim that a seemingly innocuous thing is going to OMG KILL THE CHILDREN! And it’s incredibly unethical, slimy, and gross to do so. Dr. Oz is a medical doctor, someone who once upon a time entered a field dedicated to saving and improving peoples’ lives. Now he peddles fear and dismay. That’s low. That’s really low. And it’s pretty depressing, too.

Technorati Tags: CAM, dr. oz, parenting, science, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Let me get this out of the way before I say anything else.

If your objection to a book is OH GOSH THERE ARE HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE AND THEY ARE TREATED AS HUMAN BEINGS then I don’t want to know you. If you think including gay couples and persons of color in a book is “political correctness run amuck,” then you’re welcome to find the door. Not surprisingly, most negative reviews of “Everywhere Babies” by Susan Meyers, which portrays families that are not composed entirely of apparently white apparently straight people, pick just that to complain about.

“Everywhere Babies” is a rhyming book about babies. The text is gentle and lively and the babies are adorable and do a lot of different things (walk, run, eat, sleep, smile, cry). My 2.5 year old loves this book. He likes the text, he likes the rhythms of it, and he LOVES the babies. He identifies some of the babies (fat babies versus thin babies, for example; crying babies versus happy babies), he narrates what the babies are doing, he makes up stories about the babies. It’s a pretty solid hit with him, something he requests re-reads of.

As mentioned– as, I think, it’s known for– the book depicts same-sex couples parenting babies/children as well as just walking around, and there are black-looking babies, Hispanic-looking babies, Asian-looking babies, etc. along with the white-looking babies. There are also what appear to be mixed-race families. So if that’s something you’re looking for in a book, this one has it, and not in an OBVIOUS way. It’s not “Heather Has A Black Mommy And A White Daddy,” it’s not the SUBJECT of the book, it’s just there. Not commented on. Treated as normal. Another thing treated as normal is the idea that male-appearing people will do child care duties without female-appearing people around. It’s not all mommies and babies. There’s a lot of dads and grandpas taking babies on walks, feeding them, etc. So there’s a hearty dose of gender balance as well, which I haven’t seen touched on as much in reviews (except, again, someone complaining on amazon that OH MY GOSH BABIES NEED THEIR MOMMIES and shouldn’t leave the house before they’re a full year old. Say it with me. WHAT.)

In summary, it’s a good solid book with well written text, a high readability level, and lush artwork. We checked this out of the library but I’d rate it as a “buy” quality book, and one I’d give to other babies as a gift.

Mirrored from Thoughtful Consumption.

I cannot stop sniffing my child. He smells so good. I have no idea what’s going on, but he just smells super tasty. Maybe it’s the cherry-lime fruit twist he ate (warning: contains no actual fruit). Maybe it’s the playdough he’s been playing with, or the strawberries and (home made, buttered) toast he’s been eating. But I just keep sidling up close to him and sniffing him. What’s that? Time to cuddle up and read a story together while I sniff you? Peace out. Let’s do this thing.

That is all.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

We had a routine checkup at the pediatrician’s yesterday. In the past six months, Niko has grown 1 inch and gained 2 1/2 pounds. His asthma is doing better, his possible-allergies are doing worse. We came away with refills for his albuterol (and instructions to use it only when he’s coughing), and a prescription for singulair. We also arranged for a blood draw to do an allergy panel. Let me tell you, it’s just not a good doctor’s visit unless I’ve found a way to stick needles into my kid.

After the checkup, our pediatrician offered Niko a sticker and a sucker (after first checking with us that he could have them, something I appreciated). Niko had never had a sucker before, or any kind of hard candy. I held onto it until he was in the lab for his blood draw. In the lab, Nesko sat down with Niko on his lap, and Niko started eating the sucker. It blew his tiny mind. It was such an experience that he hardly noticed the needle slipping into his tiny vein. He said something like “Oh! That is a little pinch!” when it went in (we told him he might feel a little pinch) and then happily chatted about the cars on his shirt (“that one red one! That one is…. BLACK!”) and ate his sucker (“Oh! It’s a nice tandy! It tastes like RED tandy!”) and 3 vials of blood later we were done and he had a bandaid on his arm and we went to the library.

When he talks about his day yesterday he mentions the doctor and he mentions the library, but the blood draw doesn’t seem to have made any kind of impression at all. He has asked for more candy, though. Frequently. Enthusiastically.

Once home and fed he took a nice long nap and then went to his grandparents’ house… where he asked to pee in his potty, something he successfully did.

This is the first time he has peed in the potty. I was stunned when I heard.

So I’ve been chasing him around all day. Do you have to pee? How about now? Want to pee in the potty? How about now? Now? Look, here’s your potty! Want to put some pee in there? I’ve gotten a big fat no overall, although at one point he gamely sat down on his potty… and made pee noises with his mouth. Pssh, pssh, pssh.

In an ideal world I’d corral him on the tile floor of the kitchen and let him run around pantsless, rushing him to the potty at the fist sign of urine. But it’s really cold today and will be so for… uh. The next 8 months or so. I’m not entirely certain how we’re going to handle this, but candy and stickers will probably be employed.

Not crying at a blood draw! Being excited to go to the library! Peeing in the potty!

The next thing you know he’ll be sleeping in his own bed. Which, I’m pleased to say, he’s been doing a bang up job of getting to sleep by himself after I’ve put him down for naps and bedtimes lately, albeit in our bed. He’s only dragged every single thing out of the closet ONCE. I’m pleased! If this keeps up, we’re going to try and settle him down in his own bed starting on Monday.

Wish us luck.

Technorati Tags: parenting, pediatrician, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Here are five totally ridiculous things my 2 1/2 year old says, that wouldn’t sound ridiculous coming from an adult, but seriously, he’s 2 1/2.

Surely not!
Can you come here for a minute?
Good bye! Have a good day!
Despicable!
I’ll be riiiiiiiiight back!

Now, those of you with young kids might recognize “despicable” as something James says on “Thomas and Friends.” The rest? Apparently stuff he hears us say a lot. Luckily for us he’s picked up on adult-sounding conversational phrases and not cusses. I have no idea how we dodged that bullet.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Some of you might remember a few months ago when I agonized over whether or not Niko had asthma and whether or not I should mention it to his pediatrician and then over whether or not I was a shitty parent for not addressing the situation, and his asthma, earlier.

We started treating him with children’s claritin and albuterol and after a few months we eased up on the albuterol because he was doing a lot better. Well, it’s allergy season once again, and we need to start dosing him again.

If you’ve ever wondered what an asthmatic kid sounds like when he’s having a little trouble breathing, I’m embedding a video of Niko singing and playing with his trains. The little breathy grunt gaspy thing he does? That’s a sign of asthma. If you hear your child (or an adult in your life) making that noise? Time for a doctor’s visit.

As you can see, he’s not in DISTRESS. He’s playing and singing and happy. You might not even be able to hear the grunt he’s making. But it’s there, and it’s unhealthy, and it can be treated.

If left untreated, asthma can severely affect a person’s quality of life, leaving them more open to illness and respiratory infections. The pathways of the lungs can literally reroute themselves, reducing the body’s ability to intake oxygen. When properly treated, people with asthma can lead totally normal, healthy, productive, active lives.

Technorati Tags: asthma, parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I’ve got a dual Friday Five for you, involving some of Niko’s favorite foods.

First up, we have his five favorite healthy foods:

Apples
Plums (even though they have A SEED)¹
Carrots ²
Strawberries (both fresh and dehydrated)
Corn

Now, so you can feel superior to us and our food choices, his five favorite unhealthy foods:

Fruit Snacks ³
Pretzels
Popcorn ⁴
Chocolate Raisins
M&Ms, also known as NEMINEMS

He mentions this every time he eats a plum, juice dripping all over his face and chest and hands, and he also asks us to “take out the seed” of fruits that don’t have seeds. Like seedless grapes. ↩
Sometimes I cut them into carrot sticks, sometimes he just wants a giant carrot. He chows down handily on them. ↩
He has three varieties: small fruit snacks (what you think of, when you think fruit snacks), big fruit snacks (a peel-apart fruit snack bar), and new fruit snacks (a long stick). He doesn’t handle fruit leather well. ↩
Choking hazard? What choking hazard? He’s always closely supervised while eating it, and sitting down. Yes, that means when he’s eating other foods he generally 1) isn’t closely supervised 2) isn’t sitting down. ↩

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

My father-in-law, who owns the property we live in, has been concerned with the state of our sidewalks for a while, especially as some of the them slant toward the building and funnel water inwards. The building’s settled over the past 90 years or so, you see. So there have Been Plans for over a year that didn’t quite come to fruition… then on Sunday we were told not to park in the back of the building because there was going to be big machinery and a team of dudes ripping up the old sidewalks and then pouring new. Hooray!

Sure enough, when we got home the sidewalks were all gone, which was a really weird experience. The grass is in great shape, it’s just… dirt where sidewalks once were. It seriously looks like someone crept up when we weren’t paying attention and made off with our sidewalks. Just rolled ‘em up and ran.

Nesko brought Niko home later and apparently Niko was Very Concerned about the sidewalks and couldn’t figure out where they had gone. After some questioning on our part, he decided that the sidewalks had been thrown away in the garbage because SOMEBODY had dropped them and broken them. Who dropped the sidewalk? Tata. No, DJEDO.

How naughty!

I’m looking forward to the new walks. I wonder if they’ll be finished by the time I get home today?

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I paint my nails fairly regularly, and Niko’s pretty entranced by the process because look! Color! Painting! He’s seen Nesko paint the ceiling/walls, he remembers when our bathroom used to be a different color, and my in-laws hook him up with old paint brushes and a bucket of water at their house so he can “paint” the sidewalk. It’s great! And mama does it TO HER NAILS! They are red/blue/green/orange/whatever. He asked me to paint HIS nails on Saturday and I agreed.

He wanted green but I don’t have a fast-drying green, so I offered him red or blue. He chose red, and I painted his toenails.

It was an incredible mistake.

Just like red cars go faster than non-red cars, and red shoes make you walk faster, those red toenails made him SUPER SPEEDY. It was hard keeping up with him.

We had specific plans for Saturday that we engaged a baby sitter for, and then those plans were cancelled on account of someone involving coming down with food poisoning (the horror!) so Nesko and I decided to see a movie but then couldn’t find a movie we wanted to pay money to see, so instead we… ran errands. SEXY! The babysitter took Niko to the zoo, where apparently he ran laps for most of the time he was there. Because red toenails!

She brought him back home in the evening, and he demanded (politely) that his shoes and socks be removed so he could look at his “red paintings.” I removed his footwear and he was thrilled and kept showing off his toes to everyone.

I swiped his nails with nail polish remover Sunday night so as not to shock and horrify Nesko’s parents, but the polish didn’t come off that easily and his toes look kind of gruesome now… like his toenails have been bleeding. He’s not as fast as he was, though, so that’s good.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

One of the search referrers bringing people to my BLAWWWWWG is people concerned about their babies/toddlers having tiny heads.

As you can imagine, a child with a tiny head potentially has all sorts of issues and will possibly experience a host of developmental delays. You have google! You have an imagination! I’m sure you can picture every single thing that could possibly go wrong with a small headed child.

Those things probably won’t happen.

While it’s important to keep your eyes on weird looking child-related measurements, some kids are at the bottom or top of the growth charts. And some kids have tiny heads. Some adults have tiny heads as well; I’m one of them. And it can be hard to accurately measure a squirmy infant or toddler’s head. Errors in reading head circumference are really, really common.

So what do you, as a parent, do?

First of all, is your child’s head growing along the same curve as the rest of his body? For instance, does it increase in size at a steady rate, making a jump (or lagging) when their height/weight makes a jump (or lags)? If your child’s head circumference stagnates or goes down when their height/weight goes up, that’s a sign of a potential problem. If it increases really really rapidly, more quickly than other readings, that’s a sign of a different potential problem. And also a sign that readings at some point were wildly inaccurate.

Secondly, how’s your kid handling milestones? While they aren’t totally exact, if your kid’s in the general ballpark of developmental milestones, you can relax a bit.

Thirdly, what does your pediatrician say? In theory, your pediatrician has the time to listen to your concerns and takes them seriously, and knows your kid fairly well, and has experience with telling when a tiny headed child just has a small head versus has an actual problem, and can advise you accordingly. If you feel your pediatrician doesn’t take the time to listen to you or dismisses your concerns, consider switching practices. I know that can be hard with different insurance plans, availability of doctors, etc but we’re on our second pediatrician now and like her way better than our first (who wasn’t bad, just really rushed). Because I feel that she respects me as a parent and listens to me, I brought up asthma concerns, and she paid extra attention to Niko’s breathing… and prescribed medication for him that worked really well. If we didn’t have that respect, that rapport, I might not have brought it up because oh gosh I’m just so neurotic and worry about everything and a cough that’s lasted for months can’t be THAT bad, right?

So. It’s possible your small headed child has microcephaly or Seckel syndrome or something else you’ve googled and convinced yourself that OH GOD THIS IS IT AHHHHHHHHH, just like I googlediagnosed a mystery rash as fifth’s disease, scarlet fever, measles, septicemia, and a strawberry allergy until it cleared up entirely on its own as quickly as it came (it was none of those things) (maybe the strawberries) (but probably not). But probably it isn’t. That sort of thing usually gets caught by alert pediatricians.

But what if it IS something serious?

Talk to your pediatrician first. They should have good recommendations on what to do next. Does your child need interventions to help them progress in motor or verbal skills? Some kind of therapy/ies? Your pediatrician is your first line of defense and should be able to help you hook up with those folks. You can also find information and support groups online, like the Foundation for Children with Microcephaly.

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

We did our usual bed time routine last night, which Niko tried to drag out by changing his mind halfway through his second story. “Not that one!” he claimed. “A different one!” but then I was unable to pin him down as to which story he DID want, so offered him the choice of finishing up the one we were reading or putting the book away. I am ~~cruel~~ firm but fair. After finishing the second story, he threw a fit because he wanted another story and I’d read the wrong story to him. OH NOES! So I offered to tell him a story, which he accepted because he likes my stories ok. This is the story I told him.

“Once upon a time, there was a pretty kitty. His name was Roy, but he was such a Pretty Kitty that everyone called him Pretty Kitty. He had red ears and red paws and a red tail and red hair and a red nose and red hair and a red tummy. He was red all over. He had a best friend named Ninuta ¹–”

“Noooo! Funny mama!”

“Oh. So what was his best friend’s name?”

“He name… NINUTA!”

“SO one day, Pretty Kitty called Ninuta up on the telephone and said ‘Hello hello! I am calling you! Are you there? It’s me! Do you want to ride on the train?’ and Ninuta said ‘Yes, I love to ride the train!’ so Pretty Kitty came over and they packed some snacks. They packed some goldfish crackers, and some pretzels, and some apples, and some carrots, and some apple juice, and some dinosaur yogurt, and some raisins, and some chocolate milk, and some train track cookies, ² and they went for a walk and got on the orange line.”

“The orange train!”

“That’s right. Where did they go?”

“They go to the AIR PORT.”

“That’s right. So they got on the train and it went puff puff puff… chug chug chug–”

“No, mama!” Niko laughed. I mean, he literally was laughing at me. “THAT’S A DINOSAUR TRAIN!” ³

“Oh. That’s the sound the Dinosaur Train makes?”

“Yeeeeah.”

“What sound does the Orange Line make?”

He looked at me intently and silently.

“Is it very quiet?”

“Yeeeah.”

“So they got on the very quiet Orange Line and rode alllll the way to the airport. They got hungry and ate some apples on the train, and then they were at the airport! They watched the trains landing and taking off, and then Pretty Kitty said ‘Ninuta, I have a surprise for you!’ ‘Oh boy,’ said Ninuta. ‘What is it? Is it ice cream?’ ‘No, it’s better than ice cream! We are going to fly on a plane and see Trina!’ ⁴ Ninuta was very glad to hear that. So they got on a plane that was headed for Rhode Island. It took off and they flew and flew and flew. They were up so high. They were higher than buildings and higher than trees and higher than birds. They were even higher than clouds, way up high above them! After flying for a while they landed and got off the plane and went to find Trina. She was very surprised to see them, and gave them grilled cheese sandwiches and grape juice and whumchucks ⁵ and they played with some cars and then they went back to the airport and flew in a big plane back to Chicago. Then they got back on the very quiet orange line and rode home, where they had some chicken and rice and some ice cream for dinner and then they went to bed. The end.”

I looked over at Niko at that point. He smiled at me.

“That a WUNNERFUL tory mama,” he said, and curled up to sleep. Later in the night he kicked me so hard it both woke me up AND knocked the wind out of me, so that was exciting. But it was a pretty wunnerful story.

“Ninuta” is how Nikola says “Nikola.” ↩
In case you couldn’t guess, these are some of Niko’s favorite foods. ↩
“Dinosaur Train” is a kid’s show on PBS about dinosaurs who ride a train. Yeah. ↩
Trina is my best friend. She came to visit us a few weeks ago and slept in Niko’s “new bed!” in his room. He likes her very much and has been looking for her ever since she left. ↩
A whumchuck is like a big swinging hug that eventually devolves into tickles, and you say whuuuuuuuuuuumCHUCK while doing it. ↩

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Thanks to Leah from Tin Roof, Rusted for giving me the heads up about the upcoming Day Out With Thomas. Our tickets are purchased (Nesko’s a huge softy and got some kind of super deluxe package thing plus limited edition this that and the other) and we’re going tomorrow afternoon. It is A Big Secret, although Nesko keeps hinting at it to Niko, which is kind of… why bother? He doesn’t know that Day Out With Thomas exists! But Nesko is sooo excited and can’t wait to blow Niko’s tiny toddler mind.

Our sneaky plan is to pile Niko into the car around noon-ish, run a bunch of REALLY REALLY BORING ERRANDS (like grocery shopping, maybe I’ll buy a bra at the fat lady store, IDK) and then while Niko’s lulled into a false sense of tedious security, head toward the museum. It’s like an hour away so hopefully he’ll nap in the car and be refreshed for our arrival. I’ll let you know if that works or if we just wind up with an exhausted overwhelmed over stimulated jerkass toddler.

Speaking of Thomas, one of Niko’s favorite Thomas episodes is called “Rusty and the Boulder.” I think I’ve mentioned this before, how it simultaneously entrances and terrifies him, how he re-enacts the episode, how his new favorite train game involves rolling a basketball around the train tracks while yelling “OH NO! BOULDER! YOIKS!” etc. One of the things I love about the internet, and about youtube, is that people put up videos of themselves/their kids re-enacting episodes of Thomas with their own trains etc. One of these is called “Rusty and the Boulder and Evan.”

Evan is adorable as fuck, and apparently is British? He says “boulder” as “BOUL-DAH!” and Niko specifically requests to watch “Rusty anna boulder an EVAN!” And lately he’s started saying “OH NO! BOULDAH! YOIKS!” and otherwise imitating Evan.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

Waldo, Niko’s non-family caregiver, suggested that maybe part of his irritability lay in the fact that Niko was working on new teeth… 2 year molars, to be precise. And that was a good suggestion, because teething’s pretty horrible, and while he went through molar teething almost half a year ago, it only resulted in one molar. While I don’t think it caused the fever and puking, I do think it caused the irritable behavior and clinginess. It probably didn’t cause the rash, but maybe it did, because teething is a dark mystery that H. P. Lovecraft might have written about, had he had more exposure to children.

Yesterday, Niko basically ate the world, and when Nesko checked in his mouth today, he had more teeth than he did a week ago.

I was doing laundry when my in-laws brought Niko home last night. When I got outside, he was already running around the yard and hollering happily, apparently trying to get in through the front door. I heard him yell MAAAMAAAAAA and I yelled NAANOOOOOO and he came pelting around the apartment screaming I FOUND YOOOOUUUUUU, and then he ran around the gangway that leads to the back, into the back door, up the stairs, and into the apartment with no prompting. So I’m guessing he’s feeling better, if he’s pelting around hollering happily and eating, you know, food.

Usually he’s at the in-laws Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Waldo minds him on Tuesday and Thursday, but she has a job interview today (ONE MILLION GOOD LUCKS TO YOU) so my sister-in-law is toddler wrangling. On the drive over, Niko happily chatted away about riding the brown train, and how Waldo was going to take him on the brown train, and then the red train, and he loves the brown train. Nesko responded that SIL was going to watch Niko today, but maybe SHE would take Niko on the brown train and Niko said “No! Waldo take it the brown train!” and then he got Very Serious and said “Tata take it the baby brown train. Tata brown train! Today!”

I hate refusing the kid. This isn’t the first time he’s requested we play hooky and ride the trains with him (not that he knows what all his request entails). We have tentative plans to do Something Fun this weekend, maybe ride downtown. Frankly, we could just hop on the brown line, which loops around the downtown and comes back, and not get off anywhere or do anything but ride the train, and he’d be happy. He is a cheap date! We still have our membership to MSI, so maybe we’ll do that.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I’m on google+ and you can find my profile here if you want to follow me on + or reader or whatever.

One of the current issues with google+ is that google is only allowing profiles with names that are “real” or that sound real. So you can’t, for instance, be assmaster46 or Papa Smurf or William Shatner (they banned Cpt. Kirk for being fake; he took to his authenticated Twitter account to complain). One of the guidelines is that you can use a name you’re commonly called, and they cite examples like a Charles being called Chuck, a William called Bill, a Robert called Rob or Bob.

When we were anguishing over what to name our child, my mother-in-law threw up her hands and said it didn’t matter WHAT we called him, everyone was going to call him something else. So we have Nikola, who is called Niko, Nano, Nilo, Nikac, Bud, Buddy, Nicky, and Boo. And Nano-saggy-britches, but that’s only under certain specific conditions (when his britches are saggy). At this time, almost everyone calls him Nano or Nikac, and he’s been actively rejecting the name Buddy in favor of Shiny (Shiny, Tiny, Don, and Buddy are characters on “Dinosaur Train, you see).

So if he grows up to be called Shiny, say, or Nilo, how would he prove to a place like Google+ that everyone knows him by that name? Because one of their corroborative methods involves sending them a scan of your state-issued ID, something that doesn’t normally include nicknames.

Anyway, my mother-in-law was totally right about him being called something other than his name. And now that we all have, for the most part, settled on a common name for him he’s calling himself by designations he makes up, which include:

Bug Baby

Spider Baby

Water Baby!

Fruit Baby

Pretty Kitty

Roy

Shiny

Ninuta

Oddly enough, my father-in-law had the nickname “Rusty Jones” when he was younger, because his mustache was rust-red. ↩

Technorati Tags: nicknames, parenting, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

I went from being the parent who was ALWAYS home, the one who give Niko ALL THE FOOD, and ALL THE BATHS, and MADE ALL THE TRAIN TRACKS, and READ ALL THE STORIES and SANG ALL THE SONGS to being the parent who was also never home. The first week I worked full time, Niko shunned me. He wouldn’t look at me or talk to me. It got better after that, and we have some fun times, but Nesko and I went to pick him up from my in-laws the other day and it didn’t go well. I went into the house, where Niko was, while Nesko lingered outside to talk to his dad. Niko was all psyched for Nesko to pick him up, and greeted me with shouts of NO NO NO and BAD MAMA and I NOT LIKE MAMA. That is not exactly encouraging, you know? Nesko came in and tried to set things right by asking Niko if he was “just foolin’” (one of Niko’s fave expressions right now, along with “No, No, Indeed!” and “IF YOU SAY SO!”) and Niko said he was, but I know the truth!

I’m almost done with my fifth week of full time work, and it’s very stressful. I’m exhausted all the time, I’m very freaked out by the messy state of our apartment ¹ (which is exacerbated by the fact that SOMEONE thought our bedroom could TOTALLY fit a Queen sized bed, and it can’t, so a bunch of stuff that was IN the bedroom is now in the dining room and OH MY GOD OUR DINING ROOM LOOKS LIKE IT STEPPED OUT OF “HOARDERS: BURIED ALIVE” RIGHT NOW WHAT IS THIS I CAN’T EVEN), and even though Niko spends his days with people who love him, adore him, dote on him, and do incredibly fun things with him… I still worry that it’s not enough, that he needs more ME (and more Nesko, but that’s something I’ve been fretting about for over a year now).

And I feel like a total jerk, because how many people are out of work right now? TOO MANY. And the money coming in is GREAT (and is, you know, why we were ABLE to get our way too large for the space bed, and bedding (bliss!), and a bed for Niko that apparently strikes terror into his heart if he considers actually SLEEPING in it). And frankly, I’ve been looking for work for two years now. TWO YEARS. Two of them. But the whole time? I was looking for part time work. Full time is too much for me, too much for us.

Anyway. I’ve been here for about five weeks, and at my best guess I have 4-6 weeks more to go². So until that time is up, I need to find ways of connecting with my boy. We’ve been doing lots of cuddles and singing songs ³ and reading stories, especially stories from this giant Thomas and Friends collection I splurged on at Border’s which has a huge amount of the original Awdry Railway Series stories ⁴. So we read 2 train stories before bed, and I cover up Niko and tickle him through the blankets because he’s SNUG AS A BUG! SNUG AS A BUG IN A RUUUUUUUUG! and that’s, you know, that’s funny to a baby ⁵ and then we practice our train noises. I say POOP POOP POOOOOOOOP in a big voice like Gordon the Express Engine and he says PEEP PEEP PEEEEEEEEP like Percy the little green engine and then I say Lako Noche (good night) and he says it back and then I say Volim Te (I love you) and he says it back (which is technically wrong, he SHOULD be saying ye te volim, but he is two so I’ll let it slide) and then we snuggle up and go to sleep. It’s good times, but I find myself sometimes trying to delay actual sleep for more talking and cuddles because they’re so great and… the kid needs to sleep.

So.

It’s not like everything is terrible forever, but I miss spending time with my kiddo, and I’ll be glad when I’m able to spend more time with him.

The sound you hear right now is the muffled laughter and/or exploding heads of almost everyone who’s known me for any length of time. You guys, I’m shocked too! But I’ve gotten more tidy as I’ve gotten older, and now clutter and disorder oppress me much more than they used to. Or else I just notice the negative effects on my mood more. ↩
I don’t have a set end date, and I’ve been unable to nail one down. I need to talk to my agency and make it clear that 6 more weeks is as far as I can go. ↩
His djedo taught him a Serbian pop song from the 70s that is UTTERLY ADORABLE, and he also sings “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” at the drop of a hat (itty bitty pider uppa pout down rain pider ow uppa sun rain itty bitty pider up aden YAY!”) and the theme song to the show “Dinosaur Train,” although that mostly consists of him yellsinging DINOSAUR TRAIN dinosaur train in a loud/deep then high/soft voice. ↩
Which are pretty effed up. At one point, a train is bricked up in a tunnel because he’s afraid of rain, and LEFT THERE for an unspecified period of time, just walled up and alone. ↩
He likes to specify WHO things are funny to. When I laugh at something, he says “that funny to a mama!” when I say something funny, he laughs and says “that funny to a baby!” ↩

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler, working mom

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

So, Nikola apparently has an imaginary friend.

His imaginary friend is sometimes named Boy or Roy, and is a Pretty Kitty. He is a RED Pretty Kitty.

He likes the following:

Watching Meerkats
Eating Fruit Snacks
Eating Fruit Snacks With Meerkats
Going In Tunnels
Eating Bananas
Eating Bananas With Too Many Monkeys
Riding Trains
Playing With Trains
Playing With Blocks
Butterflies
Taking a Bath

He also likes playing “Rusty and the Boulder” which, coincidentally (and like everything else on the list) is something that Nikola also likes. “Rusty and the Boulder” is a game based on the Thomas and Friends episode “Rusty and the Boulder,” and consists of Niko making a very long train on his wooden train track (or lining up a bunch of stuff on the floor to make a train) and then saying OH NO! BOULDER! while he rolls a ball toward the train and knocks everything around.

He will do this for hours.

In other news, we thought we had a mattress for Nikola’s “big boy bed” so instead of getting a toddler bed, we bought an actual bed (from IKEA), only to find out that 1) the mattress was extra long (even though more than one person measured it and thought it was normal length!) and 2) someone else (a family member) had “dibs” on it. So now we have a bed and sheets even, but no mattress. We bought one, and it’ll be delivered tomorrow. Niko loves his bed so far, though, especially because he can drop things between the wooden slats that will eventually support the mattress, then open up the storage drawers to retrieve the things dropped through. Fun times!

His sheets are Thomas sheets. He even has a Thomas comforter. Spoiled? What?

In actuality, this is STRATEGY. We’re hoping that the allure of A! New! Bed! (with fun drawers!) and Thomas! Sheets! (we let him pick between those or “red car” (lightning mcqueen) sheets) will make sleeping in his own bed something to look forward to, and maybe I won’t get kicked in the head quite as much all night going forward. Maybe Pretty Kitty can help us out.

Technorati Tags: child care, imaginary friends, parenting, sleep, toddler

Mirrored from Now Showing!.

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One Thousand Words

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Entries tagged with toddler

Sleeping: Solved! BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA Only Not.

It’s hilarious but I have to disapprove

The downside to sleeping alone

Advise me: How do you teach animal safety?

I promise you, your apple juice is (probably not) full of poison.

Everywhere Babies

I can’t stop sniffing my child.

My little guy is growing up. sniffs, wipes away tear

Friday Five: Ridiculous Things My Kid Says

The sound of asthma

Friday Five: Food

AHHHHHHH! SOMEONE STOLE OUR SIDEWAAAAAALKS!

Well, that was a mistake.

Tiny Heads

It’s Storytime!

We’re going to Toddler Train Nerd Heaven Tomorrow

Show me your teeth

Would a rose by any other etc.

This working thing…

Wordy Wednesday: Have you met Pretty Kitty?

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May 2025

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