Children – Page 21 – My Truant Pen

Gabriel

Spending my lunches at daycare (theoretically nursing Thane, but in reality just giving both of my boys big hugs and playing with them) has reminded me of Grey’s first year, when I did the same thing. There was a little boy at daycare name Gabriel. (Long “a”, like “Gah-briel” not “Gay-briel”)

Gabriel was about three at the time. The age Grey is now. He had big, dark eyes and curly dark hair. He also had behavior problems and didn’t talk. He would throw violent, inarticulate fits. He grew to really like me, and I to like him. He would stand next to me when I nursed Grey, and I would talk to him. I would ask him questions and, unfamiliar with child development, be contented with the few words he gave back to me. His face lit up when he saw me. I was afraid for him. Rubertina does her best, but children need parents, not just daycare providers and ladies who come for 15 minutes a day to feed their babies.

After a while, things got unsettled for him. His mom changed his name from Gabriel to Vince (not really sure about the story there). His mom got pregnant, and then wasn’t again. (Again, there is a story there I don’t know.) He was often at daycare late into the night because his mother was at parties. I remember that one of the last times I saw him, he shouted my name and ran up to me for a hug. His mother was there and shocked that he could say my name, that he knew my name.

Grey’s age. Grey can almost spell my name.

A few days later, when I came to daycare, I asked where Gabriel (I was NOT calling him Vince) was. Rubertina said that his mom had just moved him one day. That she thought maybe she had gone to Florida. There was no chance to say goodbye — for him or for me. There was no keep in touch. There was no forwarding address.

I have wondered, since, what he is doing. He would be six. The direction of thoughts is not a happy one. I wonder if he has just trailed after her since, unattended to and left too long with paid care providers — not all of whom are as good as Rubertina. I wonder if he was enrolled in school on time. I wonder if anyone has addressed his learning delays and behavioral issues. I wonder if that open face with its transparent joy to see me has been totally closed down by neglect and hard life.

What I really wonder, though, is whether anyone keeps track of kids. There is no one who knows where he went and would know if he was ok. Is there some sort of registry where if children don’t show up, someone notices? What if there are no friends and family? No concerned grandparents or Sunday School teachers? What if no one expects to see a child anymore because they’ve moved across country? I don’t know what check or balance there is against that. And I worry about Gabriel.

Wherever he is, I hope he is ok.

Gabriel is the boy holding the red chair

It’s the glamour that keeps me coming

I keep looking for a way to write about something else. How about, uh, the book I’m reading? Oh yeah, right. It’s “What To Expect: The First Year” while Grey was playing before bedtime (“By four months, your child should be able to play a Chopin sonata at tempo”). I had a fantastic weekend, but I don’t have anything pithy to share about it. It was just lovely and enjoyable. (Except for the bit where Grey threw up on one of our guests…) And the highlight of yesterday was buying more paper towels at Target.

So I guess I just have to get this out of my system. (Heh.)

Poop. Poop poop poop. I thought that parents who talked and thought excessively about poop were micromanagers or prurient. Or maybe their children were so tediously boring that they had nothing else to talk about.

I’m here to tell you the truth. We can’t help it. A huge amount of our time, attention and concern revolves around what goes into and out of our children.

A week ago Saturday we started Thane on solid foods. See prior post including cute oatmeal smear on eyebrow. I wasn’t too surprised that the oatmeal didn’t appear at the other end right away. A day passed. A few days. A week. Over a week.

Thane got really, really uncomfortable. Very squirmy. I think this is directly related to his new trick of rolling onto his belly and sticking his arms through the bars of his crib. He just keeps moving in an attempt to get comfortable, and he can’t. Although still very good-natured, he spent the weekend SQUIRMING. There are more comfortable things for a breast-fed baby to do.

I finally called his doctor. I was pretty sure it is at least rare to die of constipation, but you start to worry, you know? Happily, Thane likes prunes. He went through an entire jar in one sitting last night. And finally, things began to move. Even more happily, they did so in a good, Presbyterian, duly-and-in-order sort of way, instead of, er, explosively. Thane seems much happier and relaxed than he did this weekend.

Tamisha, Thane, Grey and Spiderman at daycare

A wonderful weekend on Worcester

We had a wonderful weekend. Saturday is kind of a blur. Hm. Oh yeah, I slept in. Then my husband went to aikido followed by Watchmen and I took care of der kinder. The boys have it in for me. Thane, for once, took a great nap. Grey, on the other hand…

Thane’s big news of the weekend was that he ate his first solid foods! Organic brown rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, for the record. Followed by squash that evening and green beans last night. He’s a champ at eating. His tongue-thrust has almost entirely disappeared. He seemed ready and happy to be joining us in dining upon real food. Not that it has seemed to in any way reduce the amount of nursing the dear child does.

Sunday we woke up and the weather was gorgeous — like 55 degrees. We’d lost an hour’s sleep to daylight savings. I hadn’t realized just how dire time changes are when you have children. I thought to our morning and church and couldn’t come up with any obligations we had this week, which is a rarity. Inspiration seized me. I suggested to my husband that we could go to the Higgins Armory in Worcester (http://www.higgins.org/). I’ve been meaning to go there since before Grey was born.

The boys were spectacularly good the entire trip and all day long. It was fantastic.

I’m also about ready to pronounce Grey day-trained. A car trip and a strange place and an unusual day, and still he had no accidents. He’s started realizing he need to go and going without our prompting. This is not to say that our long quest is over: there’s still night-training to undertake and there will undoubtably be accidents but … a week can go by and we do not have one!

For your enjoyment and edification, I have uploaded pictures. A few notes:
– There are rather more videos than usual. If you have limited time, I greatly recommend the “Grey sings the welcome song” and “Grey and Thane on a quiet afternoon”.
– The pictures that there are of me are largely ones taken by Grey. He will demand his turn when I’m photographing the boys. They aren’t bad, for all that. (I have removed the ones that are blurry images of my left thigh, etc.)
– The ones where Thane’s head is really close? That’s nursing view. That’s more less what you see when you are feeding a baby. They came out compelling, but odd.
– Yes, Grey has pink kitty cat pajamas. They are some of his favorites. Wanna make something of it?
– The one of Thane and me in the snow is a self-portrait.
– The kids at daycare are: Gigi, Pablito, Tamisha, Thane and Grey
– Grey built that block tower all by himself
– Disposable bibs are da bomb.

http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/March2009/index.html

What he must eat

I’ve learned a lot by sending my sons to a daycare where many of the families are served by public services. In my white, middle class, privileged world we might get suggestions on what we should do for our children from our pediatrician, or Oprah, or our parents. But in this other world, there are all these mandates that come down from on high to try to help less educated, poorer people treat their children appropriately. Frankly, when you’re on the receiving end of these, they sound bossy. You wonder if you’ll get in trouble if you don’t follow them. It’s as though there are far more rules there than there are in my world.

Case in point.

I was feeding Thane today (actually, I was bouncing him on my knee because he wasn’t hungry) and I mentioned that I was thinking of starting him on solids. The daycare lady looked relieved and brought me over a sheet she had been given by the folks who control her all-powerful license. It was a rule sheet that said all children 4 – 7 months of age MUST be given cereals at breakfast and at snack (3 tablespoons) and an additional fruit or vegetable at lunch — in addition to fortified formula or breast milk. Must.

What a spot to put my care provider in. Defy her licensers? Defy me AND provide cereal if I decided to wait until 6 months to give him solids? Sneak past me? Sneak past them? Tell me I also MUST follow these guidelines and start him on solids, even if I thought he wasn’t ready?

I can understand why they do it. The folks who promulgate these policies aren’t bad, or even wrong. My pediatrician also says 4 months is a good time to start thinking about solids. I guess the difference is that I am given information and possibilities and expected to use my judgment. In some ways, this daycare provider and women like her are a conduit of information from our government to poor parents, saying “This is what you ought to do in order to raise a healthy child.” I am simply unused to being on the receiving end of those pronouncements, or being told what I MUST do.

In this case, it’s not a big problem. I think Thane is ready for some real food this weekend. I’ll send some cereal and food with him on Monday. But it is still an odd feeling.

A big day

Yesterday was a big day.

First, let me announce the engagement of my son Grey to Tamisha. The wedding will take place once Grey is “big”. Tamisha will wear, according to the groom, “A beautiful pink dress”. (Note: Tamisha really is lovely and would look beautiful in a pink dress.) Sadly, the nuptials will be interrupted by an attack of monsters, from which Grey will be forced to rescue his bride with “Fire and Ice!”

I will attempt to get a picture of Tamisha. She’s a really sweet young lady. She’ll be headed to kindergarten next year. But there is something very sweet about that first love. Actually, when I was 4 or 5, I was engaged to a boy named Gregory. It didn’t occur to me until my son was much older to wonder if I have always had a positive association with the name due to that early romance. (In perhaps another telling sign of things to come, one of the things I remember doing with Greg was playing board games.)

The next piece of critical news regards my youngest. Oh, my bright bonny boy. What a joy he is. Every time I think of him my heart wells up. He is so consistently joyful and cheerful. He burbles and talks with such good nature.

Anyway.

Last night was bath night. (I would pretend my kids get baths more than twice a week, but why bother? They get baths twice a week.) I had Thane getting some preciously scarce naked time on a towel while I washed Grey’s hair. While I watched, Thane rolled onto his side aaaaaand …. ROLLED OVER! Back to front! He uses his legs extensively in this feat, so I think it helped that he was unencumbered by clothing. He came really close to doing so clothed earlier in the evening. But I think when he’s all dressed for night, he is less likely to be able to roll.

But still! My big boy!

Also, I’ve taken to doing the “Baby food torment”. For those of you unfamiliar with the ritual, babies learn to eat better when they watch you eat. I’m preparing Thane for solid foods. So last night, I made sure he watched me eat my entire dinner, with sort of the exaggerated “yum yum!” faces you made at your siblings when YOU got Mac and Cheese and THEY had to eat the leftover corned beef hash. Thane attempted to stuff everything he could find into his mouth. Toys, fingers, his brother’s hand… He looked at me wide-eyed, with the puppy dog look that asked how I could be so CRUEL as to eat in front of him when he was STARVING and didn’t I know that those fat rolls around his thighs were actually STARVATION BLOAT?!?!?

So I take back what I said before. He is getting ready. I think I’ll wait until my mother in law comes out in a fortnight to make the introduction. Mostly because it will take me that long to assemble: disposable bibs (world’s greatest invention!), baby spoons, baby bowls (ok, disposable plastic containers), some baby food (I already have rice cereal), locate my baby food mill (for show — I think I used it once?), and a blast shield.

How fast the time flies. It seems like just yesterday that Grey was the one finger-painting with rice cereal.

Thane at four months

Ask not for whom the baby smiles; he smiles for you

I brought Thane to the doctor for his four month checkup this morning. Statistically, he is doing wonderfully. He’s holding steady, percentage-wise. Thane is 14 pounds and 15 ounces (50th percentile), and 25 3/4 inches long (75th percentile).

At his four month checkup Grey, whom I always considered to be a bonny big boy, clocked in at 13 pounds 13 ounces.

Grey was also born at a pound heavier than Thane.

So to sum up, Thane has grown a LOT in 4 months.

Thane passed his checkup with flying colors. The doctor remarked on how very strong he was. He can stand on his own (if you provide the balance) holding on to your hands in a vise-like grip. He rolls over easily front to back, and frankly is very very close to rolling over back to front. He’s gotten 90% of the way there several times and simply stopped trying when he was on his side. When placed on his belly, he can move by scootching, although there’s no intent on his part to move somewhere. On his back, he moves in circles like the hands of some baby-clock ticking away the brief moments of infanthood. He kicks up his legs and then brings them down to the side. He repeats. Yesterday he turned 180 degrees using this method.

Thane’s gripping and playing is going very well. He isn’t a huge fan of pacifiers, although they will sometimes help when he’s unhappy. But he loves to play with and hold toys. Sometimes in his attempt to reach for something, he’ll knock it onto the floor several times. (Helpful brother Grey will often restore it.) If he can grasp it well, it immediately goes to the mouth. He will hold strongly onto an object once he’s gotten it.

We are still nursing all the time. My pediatrician has given the green light to start adding in solid foods, but there’s no rush. Thane hasn’t started giving me the puppy dog eyes as he watches me eat dinner. He’s clearly thriving on breast milk. Instead of looking forward to each milestone hit, I find myself not wishing Thane any older or bigger or stronger than he is. Already, I miss the little tiny baby. (15 pounds is NOT a little tiny baby.)

Thane’s sleeping is a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. On the good side, when it’s time for bed I go through our bedtime routine of two stories, nurse while mom sings, and placing him in his crib awake. I walk out the door as he watches his mobile and I don’t hear from him again for 5 hours. He goes to sleep like a dream (ha! Get it?!) He stays asleep during the night, waking at reasonable intervals for a bit of a snack and immediately going back to sleep. The other day, we put him to bed at 7:30 and he didn’t wake up for the day until TEN. That’s fantastic! Fabulous! Amazing!

The flip side, though, is that the child DOES NOT NAP. He gets tireder and tireder as the day goes on, but he won’t nap in his crib, or in his swing, or while mom holds him. And towards the evening, he gets understandably cranky. I’d rather put him to bed at 8 or 8:30, but he just can’t be happy being awake then. And he doesn’t sleep unless we do good-night ritual above. All told, I think this is likely a phase and I’ll get him to nap eventually, but it does seem like he lumps all the sleep together. This is less pronounced when he goes to daycare because he sleeps well in the car, so he gets a nap going to and coming from daycare.

Personality-wise, I continue to find Thane a joy. He’s incredibly social, smiling incandescently at everyone he meets. He LOVES to watch other children play. He very reliably only cries when something is wrong (hungry, dirty or tired) OR if he can’t see anyone. He’s extremely good-natured. He “talks” a lot, this happy baby babble that delights my heart. He seems very sweet and good-natured, and possibly a bit less mercurial than his brother.

He already loves to read. Even in the middle of his exhausted evening fuss, he quiets down and pays attention when it is time to read. You can almost watch him drink in the bright pictures, trying to figure out his world.

He does not like loud noises, especially when he is eating. If I speak loudly while I’m feeding him, he pulls off and gives me this accusatory stare. Rubertina at daycare reports the same thing. Also, I am now remembering why I weaned Grey at 7 months. The squirming and thrashing is painful enough in his gummy state. I suspect it was unendurable with opposing biting teeth.

He laughs when you blow on his belly.

Thane is a lovely child. His eyes remain a few shades darker blue than Grey’s. His cheeks are winter-rosy. His skin is exceptionally soft. His birth-hair has mostly fallen out, and after a while of psuedo-baldness, his first real hair is starting to come in, a bit darker than Grey’s. His gaze is arresting — clear and knowing. His smile lights up the world around him.

The good and the mixed

I had a great parenting moment this afternoon.

Grey sat on the potty, pooping, and reading a book. And by reading, I mean pointing to each word and correctly saying what it was.

Caveats there are that he had pictures for reference, had been read the book several times before, and would often make initial-sound mistakes. (Eg. say it was “swim” when it was really “soar”.) So he’s not reading where reading = interpreting a story one has not read before using letters. It was reading = using letters, memory and context to figure out all the words in an entire book.

At three, I’ll take it.

I got an email from work today informing me that due to an expected foot of snow, work is to be conducted from home tomorrow. This would’ve been awesome news a few years ago. I would’ve made it work a few months ago. But with a very active, nap-averse preschooler and an infant… I just don’t know if I can actually get ANY work done. Childcare, remember, is right next to work. I’m not quite sure what to do — just as much work as I can? Work that night when my husband comes home? Not fret about it? Take the day off?

I had a rough afternoon today — great poop moment aside. I don’t really want to stay home tomorrow, since it is actually significantly harder on me to try to work AND tend to my family.

The woes of the sinus cavity

On Friday, I thought about bringing the boys in to the doctor. But Thane didn’t look so bad and I’ve sort of gotten used to the Varsuuvial flows of Grey’s nose, so I didn’t. Then Thane got worse over the weekend. I figured I’d bring them in Monday. Oh yeah, President’s Day. The office was closed.

He looked a little better Monday (and/or I was in denial) so I attempted to go to work. My daycare is by far the most forgiving I’ve ever seen regarding sending kids in less than 100% healthy (note: this is a double edged sword since it goes for ALL the kids in the daycare) but even they sent Thane home with me at noon yesterday. Of course, I brought Grey home too.

Diverting for a moment from my thesis of snot, I’d just like to report that we had poop successes yesterday involving timely self-reporting. WIN!

If you know me, you know I am not a morning person. Not at all. Not even a little bit. It is telling of what a profound effect parenthood is having on me; I felt like I got to sleep in this morning when no one woke me up before 7:20 am. Then I had to wait over an hour for the doctors office to open. But blessed be! They could see us today! This morning, even!

I generally like our pediatrician. He’s a no-nonsense, no-BS sort of guy. He’s the sort who tells you what’s what and doesn’t tapdance around it. OK, most of the time I like this. But this morning, I got quite a lecture on how six weeks of snottiness is about three weeks more than I should’ve let it go. Also, that I should’ve brought Thane back in when the last round of antibiotics didn’t solve the problem. (In my mind, it meant that it wasn’t a bacterial infection.) I feel divided on this. I’ll promise you this much: my parents wouldn’t have taken me to the doctor for this. Thane is snotty. He’s really congested. He’s not running much of a fever. He’s sleeping a lot and doesn’t have a great appetite, but chances are excellent he’ll recover on his own. In my world, winter = snot. The way I was raised, the degree of sick you need to be to stay home from school was some combination of a 100 degree fever, vomiting and exciting rashes. The bar for going to the doctor was even higher — usually requiring the suspicion of a strep infection (a very common problem in our household — my sister even had her tonsil out because of it). By the standards I was raised by (successfully, I’d point out), Thane’s illness is barely worth a get-out-of-school-free pass. But yet my pediatrician was disapproving that I’d waited so long.

Then there’s the third hand, where we’re all responsible for trying to keep health costs low and not go to the doctor every time we get the sniffles. On the fourth hand, the doctor is a doctor and I am a parent and he knows more about health than I do, EVEN when I research stuff on the infallible internet.

Also, he chastised Grey for playing too forcefully with a toy. I did not feel like the world’s most competent parent. (I also thought the toy was good for it.) But Grey was really being pretty good, I thought. Cue worrying about whether I’m becoming one of those parents who doesn’t notice their child’s behavior isn’t acceptable, instead of a parent who acknowledges that there are limits to the obedience a sick 3 year old can be expected to display.

Lessee… introduction, three paragraphs support, mandatory digression… oh yea. Time for conclusion.

Thank heavens for antibiotics. Yay antibiotics! My husband comes home tomorrow. Yay husband comes home!

Postscript: On the plus side, sick babies sleep LOTS

I have pictures!

Soon, apple, we shall rule the world! Muahahah!

According to the photographic record, my eldest never wears clothes and all his underwear have either a) super heroes or b) dinosaurs. This is actually true.

http://tiltedworld.com/brenda/pictures/February2009/index.html

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming

It’s always hard to return to writing after having posted something Deep and Meaningful. For example, my life today is deeply centered on poop, snot and laundry. It’s a hard come-down to go from summarizing a man’s life to poop, snot and laundry (although I suspect he would’ve been deeply sympathetic on at least the poop and snot counts).

We’re sick here at my house. Not like desperately sick. Not running fevers and throwing up sick. No, we’re snotty sick — the kind of sick that can go on for months without exciting too much comment, and you don’t realize just how not well you were feeling until you start feeling well again. I have a diagnosed secondary infection (and am on antibiotics). Thane has already had one bout of antibiotics and is now pathetically, sadly full of snot. Oh, the snot. The thing is, babies mostly breathe through their noses. And his poor, wee little nose is so clogged up, he can’t breathe. And them as can’t breathe, can’t sleep. Every hour or so his mother heartlessly tortures him with a suction device of great cruelty. His nose is bleeding from where snot-scabs had to be removed. Every breath is a snorffle of unhappiness. I have him sleeping in his swing. I do suction out his poor nose. I have the humidifier going. I attempted to torture him further, uh, help him out by irrigating his nose with saline. These are the remedies available in the 21st century, all the drugs of the 20th century having been proven not to help babies and may cause harm. Salt water and suction.

Grey is sick too. His nose is like a Hawaiian (that has far too many consecutive vowels) volcano, with overlapping floes. I’m not too worried about him. He’s discovered the joy of sleeves as stand-ins for tissues. I would argue, but it beats the couch.

We will not speak of the poop, except to say that finding the cat gift at 3 am last night elevated my poop woes to a level to which they needed not go. One grownup and four poop-producing-machines is really unfair odds.

My brother came out this weekend to help out, which was actually very helpful. He made it possible for me to sleep in. Ah, blessed sleep. How I missed you. He also kept me from feeling too lonely. I am a social creature by nature. I like people. Preferably people whose poop I’m not responsible for. But he had to go back down to Princeton this afternoon, so it’s just me and the poop-producers again. Grey is sometimes company, but he’s also started getting into things. I need to be more alert, watch him more carefully, set out clearer rules and consequences, and follow through. That sounds like work to me. I think we may play with computers tonight. That is less like work.

My husband will return to me on Wednesday. I in no way begrudge the time he is spending with his mother. There’s no more important thing for him to be doing. But I also miss him. Every time I think about how I miss him and how I miss having him around, I get all sniffly because my husband is gone for a week. My mother-in-law’s husband is gone.

The boys awaken. I think I need to bring them both to the doctor tomorrow, to see if they have drifted into secondary infections. Likely so. I can’t wait to go back to work!