10 days ago  10 comments

He's Not Good: He's a Baby

Before Sam was born, I announced one day that I never wanted to refer to my baby (or kids) as "good" or "bad."  Especially as a newborn, they aren't good or bad; they're just babies, expressing needs however they can.  I think I was afraid of not having a "good" baby, so wanted to not put value judgments on a baby who cries more.  Well, my kid is a quintessential good baby--especially in public.  Nothing makes him happier than looking at stuff and smiling at strangers or loved ones.  Needless to say, this makes him a perfect grandchild.  

Which brings me to my complaint:  My mother-in-law won't quit calling him "good."  He was up past his bedtime two hours tonight and she was asking him if he was going to be "good" for dinner. I wanted to say, "if he cries it's not because he's not good--it's because he's tired!"  I suppose it's a minor complaint, but since it's like nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it, I have a long two more days ahead of me.   

13 days ago  7 comments

Why aren't baby cell phones black or grey?

The kid can't get enough of our telephones (if you are my FB friend, you may have seen the video), so I bought him a play telephone for Christmas.  But it's not going to work, because it's bright yellow and red.  He's too smart for that.  What about one that is black or grey like a normal phone?  And maybe lets me record my voice, so he does think it is real?  

Admittedly, I didn't really look that hard for this phone.  It was a 30-second search at Amazon for something with free shipping.  So maybe what I want exists and I was too lazy to find it.  

13 days ago  6 comments

What's going on around here?

Ok.  Seriously, the word limit for topics has to fixed or I won't be able to handle it.  If I see one of those, I turn away immediately...which means for the last few days I've barely been around (of course, there's also work). 

30 days ago  4 comments

Options

So, just a quick update.  As I was lamenting having to send the kid back to daycare for even one more day, I suddenly remembered that our Saturday night sitter is a college student and likely between semesters.  Sam loves her, we like her, she loves babies.  She's qualifed (she's an elem ed major and previously worked in a daycare).   I emailed and it looks like she can help out with details to be worked out tonight.  It also makes the transition nice because she knows part of the routine and I don't have to introduce Sam to someone new immediately!  

Also, my brother will be done with school and looking for jobs at the end of December and he offered to come out.  It's kind of cute because he never reall thought he liked babies until he met Sam.  It's not ideal (we don't really have room for him to live here),  but the combination of the two give us time to look for a good permanent solution.

It's nice to enter the weekend being able to relax a bit!

32 days ago  9 comments

I want a nanny.

So, I want a nanny, but I don't know if the kid does.  Originally we wanted daycare for a few reasons: 1) socialization,. 2) multi-culturalism and 3) hassle.  The last one is really just because both of us hate hiring and firing people, so we were ready to let someone else deal with.  

But this week has not gone so great.  As I noted in other posts, the daycare has this odd policy of making kids sleep on their back until they are out of the infant room (so 12-15 months).  Needless to say the kid isn't sleeping well and now it's screwing up night sleep and of course my sleep.  And I feel like he's regressing because he's forgetting how to self-soothe.  And I know I expected his sleep to change at daycare--I just expected it to be caused by the kids, not the workers. But this one I'm really to give a bit more time--but I'm not sure how much.

Then when I went to pick him up, he was crying and soaking wet.  Obviously, he cries at home sometimes, too, and I don't always catch the diaper changes quickly.  So I can let that go.  But there also seemed to be no one there who knew anything about this day nor did they introduce themselves to me, so I found that odd.  But the morning team is great, so perhaps I can deal on that front as well.

Then, there's the commute.  It just seems to be taking longer than I want.  And we have to rush with him so much in the am, whereas, if we had a nanny we could actually play a bit instead.  And I'm just not used to the routine of packing up all of our stuff.  So that's stressful.  Oh, and apparently we didn't test out the drive home at the right time because it basically took an hour to get from work to daycare to home.  If I go straight home it is a 15 minute train ride.  That's a lot of time in a baby's schedule.  And I hate to drive, and as I hadn't driven much in my months off, I am now reminded of how much I hate to drive.  I will note that most everyone else I work with has a nanny, so perhaps they were right that our schedules just don't work with daycare.

And the other thing is that my employer allows me to work at home one day a week.  With daycare, I really still have to take him.  With a nanny, we could work something out where they could work around me.  

And there are of course financial reasons.  We can afford a nanny, but just weren't sure we wanted to.  I also cut back to 80%, so we've already had a 20% paycheck in my salary, so this will be eating in more.  But if we go with a nanny, we don't have to pay for parking, so that's something!

Ok, so these are all sort of lameass reasons.  But the combination of negativity is making me stressed and perhaps will be remedied after I get used to it.  But I'm not sure; sometimes when I think I've made a bad decision, I just know it and I need to make a quick change.  

As for the other aspects, I guess they seem manageable: playgroups to add socailization and multiculturalism.  I know it won't quite be the same, though, and the kid really loves people and being busy.  As for being an employer, I have become much more pushy and bossy since becoming a mom, so I feel like I could do a better job of advocating for myself and the child and making hiring/firing decisions than I previously could.

So that was rambling.  So, am I calling it quits too soon?  Or do I start looking for a nanny now knowing that I'm really not going to be happy unless I do?  

34 days ago  5 comments

Sleep-An Update

Sorry I haven't been around much recently. Sam is much too active for his own good, so I am already spending the day moving him from one end of the living room to the other, so he can roll back to the other side and we can do it all over again! That, and I'm obsessed with getting all my old pictures digitized, so I spend naptime organizing them.

But the sleep update is that once again the books lie. They say "feeding your child solid food will not help him sleep longer at night, this is old wives tale." Yet, three days after putting Sam on some rice cereal he has gone from waking up 4 times a night (generally at 11 pm, 1 am, 3 am and 5 am--all highly convenient times) to waking up once. Yes, he is now sleeping from 6 pm to 7 am waking up only once to eat. It also makes me feel a little better about the previous schedule--it really wasn't my "fault." He really was just hungry. Oh, and naptime has developed a schedule now that nighttime sleep is a little better. I know you all (and others) had said that someday a schedule would come and someday I would be able to sleep. But I didn't really believe it...but, the day has finally arrived! (Oh, and I recognize that this could all change again as quickly as it started, for now, I'm thrilled.)

34 days ago  10 comments

Facebook

I joined the Offsprung group on Facebook recently and I have the same profile picture on there that I do on here.  So if anyone wants to know my real identity and friend me there as well, go ahead.  I missed all the Facebook fun around here a few weeks/months ago.