Pumpkins and Preschool

Last year we went apple and pumpkin picking and I could not, for the life of me picture how things like that worked with two kids. This year we scaled the apple/pumpkin experience down a bit, but did go out and have some good, wholesome, fall-fun picking out pumpkins. Lucy was quite taken with the adventure and hugged several squash, posed for a picture with a scarecrow and told Michael and I that she wanted to stay and live with the pumpkins on the farm. She didn't quite get the idea that you couldn't eat the pumpkins and tried to take a big bite out of a mini pumpkin. I guess it is kind of an odd concept for a kid. We brought the pumpkins home and had ourselves a good old time and made a party out of carving the pumpkins. Lucy and I made a ham pizza for sustinence - it was messy but delicious. Michael carved the pumpkins. They were like wood and Michael had to really work to carve them. It was more of a stabbing motion than carving, but he got the job done. Lucy decorated her newly created jack-o-lanterns with marker made a fine mess of them but was as proud as if she had just painted the Mona Lisa. The end result, a happy Lucy, a sweaty Michael and a Mom that was just a little nauseous from eating a toddler-made, ham pizza. Good times.

This fall has also landed us in the season of preschool open houses. I think when we were kids most of us didn't go to preschool until the year before kindergarten. Now it seems that three is the typical age to begin preschool, some places accept children even earlier. I think preschool at three is good. Lucy loves her "school" now and I think will benefit from going to preschool next year a couple times a week. The first open house I went to was a cooperative preschool in Watertown. It was nice, the parents spoke highly of it and the word on the street (which is really the playground) is that it is good. The only catch was it was a mandatory five day a week program. My mind started racing.....five days a week this year for preschool, five next year for preschool, then kindergarten. Before I knew it I was in a place where my Lucy was fifteen, piercing her face and resenting me. I was clearly not ready for five days a week next year, and honestly I don't think she is.

The next preschool was nice, there was a great free-spirited vibe to it. Each day the school made a snack together and everyone brought something in to contribute. Thursday was applesauce day and each kid brought in an apple. One of the teachers taught music and dance so a regular part of each day involved dancing in the big room of the preschool. The teacher to student ratio was great and the space was sunny and bright with a totally kick-ass playground. But the group was a mixed-ages group which wouldn't be my first choice and the number of days was flexible, but the hours were 8:45-2:00 with lunch and rest in the second half of the day. Not sure if I need to pay to have Lucy eat lunch and then nap on a cot.....but we'll see, this seemed like a good place.

Fall is such a season of change. Maybe it is because of the leaves, the temperature the hours of daylight. Lucy is changing so much these days. Some days I look at her and can get a glimpse of the little girl she will be in a year. It makes me a little sad. I would love to freeze her at this age just for another year or so, selfish I know but I don't want her to grow-up too fast. These days she looks at me with her huge eyes and long lashes and tells me, "someday I'll be growed up just like you Mom." I want to stop time. I look at Josh and see that he's no longer a newborn - he's just a jolly old baby now, drooling all over himself and blowing raspberries like it the best thing he has ever learned to do. These little monkeypants are funny little kids. These days there is little sleep, but lots of laughs.

What Sleep???

I can't believe Josh is almost five months old. I'm tired. It isn't the kind of tired like after one night of staying up late, it is the kind of tired that is always lingering. Nights are not so bad, I try to go to bed early - usually no later than 10:30. Michael usually does Josh's first feeding which can be anywhere between 10:30 and 1:00. I usually hear the guys and if it seems like Josh is exceptionally pissed I'll get up and make a bottle or do what I can to help. Josh goes back to sleep pretty easily and then wakes again around 3:00 or 4:00 for another snack. For a while he would be wide awake after the last feeding. I'd put him into his crib and he'd look up at me and his face would light up with a smile. He's gotten better and goes back to sleep right after his big gulp. Then at around 5:00 or 5:30 he wakes up and we bring him into bed with us and he'll sleep until about 7:00 or 7:30.

Lucy sleeps great some nights - other nights she stirs frequently. Sometimes she has nightmares, her little stuffed Cookie Monster has been banished from the crib because she had a nightmare that Cookie ate her hand. She still talks about it and scrunches up her little face and holds out her hand and tells me, "Cookie ate my hand." Nightmares are the new thing since Josh was born. It is hard to say if it is having a new baby in the house or if it is just being two. Sometimes she needs a drink of milk. Sometimes she has to pee. Last night just after going to bed she was unsettled and asked Michael for a piñata. He told her she could have one at her third birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese that she talks about constantly. Her little mind is working overtime these days and some nights she just is quick to stir. She also has been waking up at around 5:30 in the morning when it is pitch black. She is WIDE awake and if you tell her to go back to sleep she has a big screaming fit. Michael has been great and we try to alternate who gets up with Lucy and who sleeps in with Josh. I never in my lifetime thought it would feel like such an indulgence to sleep in until 7:00 - it feels soooooooo good.

When Lucy was a baby nights were awful. She woke frequently and she screamed and cried for hours on end. Even if I was in bed and Michael would get up with her I would lay in bed wide awake, my stomach in knots as I listened to her. We were exhausted. At one point I remember walking into the refrigerator - like I didn't see it in front of me and then wham! Michael had a big gash on his head that we couldn't for the life of us remember how he got it. We were all so tired that we practiced what we called "diving". Whenever we could, no matter what the circumstances were if Lucy went to sleep we both dove for the bed to catch some sleep ourselves. It didn't matter if we were in the middle of eating - plates would be abandoned on the table and we would dive. Just drank a pot of coffee - no sweat, I could be asleep in six seconds flat.

Lucy slept on me for a great part of her first year. I remember when she was around eight or nine months old she would only nap on me. At night she would eventually sleep best with us, so that is where she slept. I read books, I knew that we should "cry it out" but I didn't have the heart. I paid seventy-five dollars to have a sleep consultant say, "have you read Ferber? Okay, good so you know you have to have her cry-it-out." I wrote out a check and continued to let Lucy sleep with me, on me, holding my hand while she lay in her crib...whatever it took until she was about seventeen months old. Then I got pregnant and realized that I would eventually need a few months of sleep before the chaos would begin again. I rode the coattails of my friends consult with a colleague of the great Ferber himself and got the sleep situation under control.

So I am tired now, but not the bed-diving, open head wound kind of tired that I was with Lucy - but tired none-the-less. I go to bed every night and on my night table are two monitors buzzing and twinkling beside me. My sleep is fragmented, disjointed and I wake up feeling fuzzy most mornings. One night I counted how many times I was up and down out of bed between the hours of two and four and I stopped counting after eight. Today my brain is especially dull. But I know someday it will be a distant memory. Someday when Lucy and Josh are teenagers I'll be struggling to wake them up before noon on weekends and I won't remember sleeping for the first year of Lucy's life wearing my glasses.

Mean Girls and Streakers at the Playground

Lucy, Josh and I are regulars at the playground. We have playgrounds that we frequent and know lots of the kids and parents who hang out there. Lucy has her regular playground friends that she plays with, snacks with and yucks it up with. The boundaries of play are pretty well established. Recently, Lucy was wanted to mix it up a bit so we've been exploring new playgrounds. She has taken a shine to one near our old apartment. Lucy calls it the Belmont playground. With a new playground comes new kids and new lessons to be learned.

Just recently we arrived at the playground on a beautiful day that felt more like summer than fall. Soccer practice was buzzing on the fields beside the playground and kids and parents were everywhere. As a mom you survey the landscape and the people in the playground like the secret service scans the perimeter surrounding the President. It was a pretty run-of-the-mill crew and then I spotted a mom with a big old wreath of flowers in her hair. Our neighborhood is pretty diverse so it only makes sense that hippies are part of the melting pot. Then I spotted her freebooting little guy on the monkey bars. He was probably three or four and was completely nekid except for a long sleeve shirt. Now I'm not quite sure what happened to cause the boy to lose his pants. Who knows, lots of things happens to clothing, so a half naked preschooler isn't that uncommon. Slightly awkward, but to each his own. Moon Blossom the Mom seemed fine with it so whatever. But the poor boy kept trying to go down the slide - without pants. I mean this was just painful to watch, and listen to. Lucy was oblivious, happily going down the slide next to him, whizzing by him as he squeaked along. It was just wrong - it seemed too painful. I think I will do my best to enforce a pants on the slide rule with my children, that is reasonable isn't it?

Lucy made a friend at the Belmont playground. She and another girl who was slightly older than Lucy bonded over trying to climb up the slide and then falling back down and laughing their heads off. This repeated over and over and on her way by Lucy skipped by with a big grin on her face telling me she made a new friend. She bopped around, following the girl as happy as could be - she was in her glory. Lucy's new friend and her sister who was younger than Lucy began to play a game that involved placing wood chips on a little shelf. Lucy abuzz with happiness joined right in and I could see her new friend's interest in Lucy was gone. The two girls went about their business and told Lucy she couldn't put her woodchips on the counter. She tried a few times not really getting it, and then walked away with a big handful and a confused little smile not quite knowing what to do with the woodchips. She put them on the end of the slide and went back over.

Now, as a parent I do my best to let certain situations iron themselves out. If everyone is safe and it is a matter of figuring out whose turn it is or a minor scuffle I think kids have to learn to work it out on their own. If the situation starts getting dangerous or out of control I will intervene. I have yelled at a lot of kids, big and small who have crossed the line. Lots of mothers are absolutely clueless and let their kids run wild. Anyway, I could see that Lucy's new friend and her sister did not want Lucy involved in their game any longer and she didn't get the message until they finally yelled, "go away." They ganged up on her and it was two against one. It wasn't my place to yell at the girls, I couldn't force kids to play with my child. Lucy came over, big sad eyes and her voice cracking with tears she said, "my friend is not being nice." My heart broke, it was Lucy's first encounter with mean girls and most certainly would not be the last. I gave her a hug and the mother of the other girls asked what happened and I told her. On her own accord the mother went over to scold the girls and tell them to apologize to Lucy. They did, but the damage was done and all Lucy wanted to do was go home.

The streaker was kind of funny, the mean girls were not. All I could think about is how as Lucy gets older I won't be able to protect her from all of the things girls today have to face. Not that boys don't have to face hardships, but girls can really be cruel. Body image, self-esteem, boys. On the way home she asked me why she was so sad. I explained as well as I could that her feelings were hurt and sometimes it made you cry and you didn't know why. I wish I could freeze her at this age, where she is so happy and the world is hers to explore. When a brush with mean girls can quickly be remedied by going to a different playground and playing squish the watermelon on the slide. But I guess that wouldn't be fair to her.

The Tank and his stats

I just had Josh's four month check-up - the boy is weighing in at 18 lbs 5 oz and is 26.75 inches long. He is big. The doctor just kept saying over and over, "wow, he's big." When a pediatrician says that repeatedly, the neurotic Mom can't help but wonder if my child is too big. But the doctor assured me that Josh was still on the same height and weight growth path that he had been on since birth. My pediatrician doesn't give me the exact percentiles - he points to the growth chart on the computer and shows me the little red x's that are on the border of the actual chart, where line meets grid - that is where Josh is.

It is funny going to these check-up's. I look forward to them to make sure that everything is developmentally on track and have any questions answered. When Lucy was a baby I would keep a running list for weeks and months before appointments. I would write down any ridiculous question that popped into my head and then produce the list when the doctor casually asked if I had any questions. I'd start, "okay, about spider bites," and he'd sigh. At one point I remember pointedly asking him if I was being neurotic. He told me that with all new mothers there was a certain learning curve. Alrighty then, neurotic I was I guess. This time I just go and listen and ask any burning questions that I may have, but my crazy list is gone and I'm a bit more rational.

The biggest thing that we've got to start working on is eliminating night feedings. Clearly he is not struggling growth-wise and he's like a shark at night -he glugs two big 7 oz bottles. He goes to sleep around 7:00 and drinks one bottle at around midnight and then another between three and four o'clock. With Lucy we struggled with sleep issues and eventually at seventeen months let her cry-it-out and she slept through the night. Now I realize that with Josh it is in everyones best interest to get sleep under control a LOT earlier.

Now I go, I try to have someone watch Lucy because the doctor is one place I recognized that she definitely does not like to share attention. On Josh's first visit I brought them both and Lucy stood on chairs telling the doctor that she was a daredevil and eating her cheeze-it's right below the No Eating sign. When it was time to listen to Josh's chest she pulled down her shirt and leaned forward so she could get in on the action. It was just a little too chaotic.

I'm going keep track of Josh's stats here. I'm not the best person for recording this kind of stuff, hopefully the blog will motivate me. Before Josh was born I finally got around to filling Lucy's baby book out. I remembered a lot of stuff, but the little things like which order her teeth came in totally stymied me. I just put a big question mark on the dental diagram and wrote, "sorry, this isn't my thing." Someday she'll get it, hopefully.

Stats for the guy
5/31/07 - I was induced early, Josh's due date was actually 6/3 but due to falling platelet levels I opted for an induction so I could get an epidural if I wanted. I did. It rocked.
Weight: 9 lbs 8 oz
Height: 22 inches

6/4/07
Weight: 9.38 lbs
Height: 22 inches

6/29
Weight: 11.38 lbs
Height: 22.75 inches

7/27
Weight: 13.88 lbs
Height: 24.5 inches

9/28
Weight: 18.5 lbs
Height: 26.75

12/14
Weight: 22.13 lbs (100th percentile!)
Height: 28.25 inches (99thth percentile!)

3/4
Weight: 25.8 lbs
Height: 31.50 inches
Off the charts again for height and weight!

6/2 - Josh's 1 year and Lucy's 3 year
Josh
Weight: 28 lbs
Height: 32 inches
Off the charts again!

9/2 - 15 months
Weight: 30.4
Height: 34 inches
Back on the chart, barely!

12/1 - 18 months
Weight: 31
Height: 34 inches
99th percentile for weight, 97th for height, and head is 100th percentile...big brains!

Lucy
Weight: 33 lbs
Height: 37 1/2 inches