To push or not to push

Let's just start with the obvious: we live in a rather extreme part of the country, in a particularly extreme neighborhood. Extreme parenting, that is. And from here the view is a bit hazy as to "age appropriate" and "useful" and "all for show" and "productive." Our general stance has been entirely against pushing our children. When the fusspot had no receptive language skills at 18 months, we grudgingly agreed to a series of hearing tests and an EI evaluation, but we certainly did not push for extra services. And when we started to talk about "preschool application forms" last fall we resolved that the fusspot would stay another year in her home daycare with her little brother: coloring, going to the playground, and picking her nose for up to 20% of her waking hours (yes, we are trying to cut down the cumulative hours on that one a bit), despite the rather loud extortions from our very own daycare provider that she needed preschool (and piano! and ballet! and swimming!) if she was ever going to get into college (it really doesn't help that our daycare provider has both a young child and one just about to head off to college).

And yet, somehow our living room wall looks like this:
And by the way, I cannot tell you how much this particular combination cracks me up. First, there's the electrical tape patching up a home-made insulator for the water pipes and you can see the cracks in the wall. Then there's the delightful absurdity of hanging montessori sandpaper letters (they look quite plain on the wall because they are actually meant to be handled and textural) next to imaginative waldorf letters (the swan and tiger) next to total Americana: beautiful flower alphabet letters which would stump even a 30-year-old. I mean, can you really recognize sweetpeas on the wall? And would you expect your preschool-age kid to do so? The goal is the same but the methods are completely incongruous. And the letter choice comes from a more phonics theme (both letters are in her name).

And then there's the fact that I'll be leaving work early today to take my daughter to "preschool prep class." Ok, so I chose this class because it is: close, cheap, and incredibly designed for 2-year-olds with little siblings in tow and I was hoping to meet some moms in our new neighborhood. But preschool prep class?

On the other hand, the fusspot picked up a book that we bought last week and read it out-loud cover to cover this morning. Twice. And she got about 90% of the words correct (this is obviously pure memorization). She spends at least an hour listening to books every day. She's incredibly verbal and socially clued in and thus far seems to be rocking that delightful developmental "average" that we were so worried about earlier. And so it's easy to go a bit over the top - she's scheduled to take both preschool prep (1 hour a week, late afternoon for working moms) and dance this fall and probably also music (we have a groupon which will cover the fall but I'll drop it if it's too much). She's already immersed in a foreign-language daycare situation.

And then something happens which reminds me that the hazy, fuzzy line probably needs to be a bit brighter. Her dear daycare buddies from last year had to move from NYC to one of those flyover states. And the little boy, who is 6 and in kindergarten, calls almost every day to our daycare to complain about being bored. And I'm sure he is bored in class. I mean, the kid reads well and can do some fairly sophisticated math for someone who still needs help wiping their ass. But he's also bored because he has never had to entertain himself at home for 3 hours on a Sunday morning. He was either in daycare (pretty relaxed but plenty of stimulation and lots of other kids around) or in soccer, piano, language, or swimming class or being lugged around the city to a million exciting "enrichment classes." He's 6 and he has no idea how to play for a few hours at home alone. And if my darling fusspot at 6 can't play I feel that we will have utterly failed as parents (on the other hand, eh, we're going to fail at some point. Maybe we should get it over at this point?).

And today I had a long coffee with a dear childhood friend. A friend whose mother was one of those incredible superwoman mothers. No, she wasn't a high-powered executive who also raised 3 kids and ran a homeless shelter, she was a SAHM who had the most incredible house. I still have dress-up costumes which she sewed for me that I have given to the fusspot 25 years later. I still remember crazy cooking experiments she let us do in her kitchen. I still remember detailed theater productions we staged on the back porch. And her daughter, who is my age, has plenty of prestigious advanced degrees and a successful career and somehow her mother still dreams that she'll quit work and be a SAHM. As my friend put it, what was the point of pushing me through some of the hardest schools in the country if that's what you were really dreaming for my future?

So here we are in that weird year where my fusspot will turn 3 (!) and we somehow have to decide how much is appropriate, what friends we need to just laugh at when they try to compare their toddlers to ours, and how to still make the most of living in an incredible city.

today

Today I cut the tags off of a brand new orange tank top and put it on.
Today I upgraded from flip-flops to flats.
Today I asked my husband if my outfit was ok.
Today he made me eggs and toast for breakfast.

Because today is twenty-six. My twenty-sixth consecutive first day of school for the new year. Twenty-six.

Please, please, please let this be my last year enrolled as a student.

6 months

This weekend the dumpling turned 6 months. So in his honor a few things that I love about my little guy at 6 months:

- I love how entirely social he is, how he perks up when someone smiles at him
- I love seeing his little bald head pop above the covers in the morning
- I love his obsession with finding and chewing on the laptop cord/breastpump cord/cell phone chargers/camera cord (you would be astounded by how many wires we have to move every day once he gets going)
- I love how he coos at his big sister and never complains when she bops him
- I love how he transforms into a mole-like creature after bedtime who will not open his eyes no matter. He will desperately root around licking pillows/stroller/his father but refuse to open his eyes to find me
- I love how his baldness makes his ears appear to stick straight out from his head
- I love how he grins and laughs when put on our changing pad
- I love how he will seriously try to devour his change of clothes if he can reach them
- I love how he will try to smile even through his tears when I pick him up

Things I am utterly unprepared for: feeding this baby. We have our big 6 month appointment on Friday and I am really, really, really hoping that the little guy has not fallen entirely off the growth charts. He looks fine and is fully mobile at 6 months (rolling 8-10 times in a row, army crawling all the way across our apartment, tripod sitting) and he has a few miniscule little rolls on his arms and thighs but he is hardly chunky in the way that his sister was and he just looks small next to other babies. And while I know that solids theoretically makes breastfeeding easier, I am worried about my supply dropping even more and really want to make solids as fun an experience as it was the first time.

And then there's the little issue of our daycare provider Y and solids. Y adores the dumpling and is a huge proponent of breastfeeding (you know, one of those, of course I nursed until ... my kid was 5), but she also firmly believes in budha-babies (it's a cultural thing) and thus lectures me every day that my pumped milk is not enough for a growing boy. And she somehow let it slip that she had tried to feed the dumpling bananas 2 weeks ago at which point I basically burst into tears. I know she means well, I know that I was always looking for a daycare provider who I trusted to make decisions and I am overwhelmingly thankful that she is an incredibly well-educated loving parent who has her own ideas. But then again, she fed my baby. And so last week when she let slip that she'd tried to feed the dumpling rice puree but his tongue reflex got in the way I just about had it. In my mind I have already dismissed her attempts to feed him (you know, "he didn't really get any in his mouth" inner monologue, and the output seems to corroborate my delusions) but I really want to be the one who first offers my son the incredibly fun experience of playing with food. And here's the thing: she's not going to do self-feeding. It makes her nervous, it's messy and time-consuming and she doesn't believe in it. So unlike the fusspot who basically had only breastmilk at daycare and self-fed from day one (which was at 7 months, no regular meals until 9 months) I need to get used to the idea of the dumpling being spoon-fed. My compromise is that I am going to buy organic jars of baby food and instruct Y that she is not allowed to feed him anything else without my approval (no, I don't believe in rice cereal before 12 months. Neither does LLL. Yes, I am well aware that it will do no harm but I also see no benefit so No, no rice cereal. Or honey).

Which is how I came to be standing in the grocery store this afternoon with a totally panicked look on my face and the clock ticking until I needed to be home to feed the little guy. And when a rather together-looking mother with baby in sling approached I basically grabbed her and said Help! What do I feed my 6 month old? And she sternly advised me to buy jars of peas ("start with something green") and jars of squash and carrots ("not supposed to make those at home anyway") and I exhaled at her excellent advice and nodded and resolutely grabbed all attendant jars and then muttered something about remembering the carrots and nitrate issue from my older baby. And she gave me a rather blank stare as I duly explained that I did indeed have a 2-year-old and all, but um, yeah, I can't bear to think about feeding my 6 month old solids ...

Beats me why this solids issue is so very hard for me at the moment. Maybe it's worrying about my supply, maybe it's artificially being stuck on the idea of using the same method we used the first time (it's called "baby lead weaning," weaning in the British sense of starting solids. Focus on large pieces, no purees). Maybe it's just that my little guy is 6 months old and while he could easily pass for a 3 month old his is in fact about to dive into toys and a real bedtime routine and pulling up ...

Even less eloquent than usual

Don't worry, I haven't fallen into a crevice or joined a cult and given up the internets. We're still here, floundering along.

I keep thinking of things to write about, but it seems that whenever I sit down to post I get distracted by work or things which must be done urgently. It doesn't really help that the dumpling has hit his 6 month growth spurt and my supply still isn't back up to normal. Our daily routine is a bit of a grind at the moment. I mean, it's never a good sign when your 2 year old says: "See you tomorrow dada" at 8:45 am every morning as you walk out the door with her. Of course, there are also very sweet moments in the morning during their brief hour half together every day. This morning she insisted upon referring to JD as buttercup all morning.

I have utterly failed to meet all self-imposed deadlines related to my degree and am currently still tossing and turning over whether I should abandon ship at this point or battle it out to some type of (maybe successful?) gory end. I am leaning towards sticking it out still, but there are days which are really hard.

Posts I would like to write soon: to push or not to push, the big preschool dilemma; how not to throttle your daycare provider (subtitled: introducing solids); parenting and loneliness (subtitled: yours truly is now known as "the Amt.rak mom"; a little more travel here and there.

still here, still pumping

Nothing much new over here. The 2 days of lying curled up in a ball in bed followed by 2 more days of not eating from food poisoning have completely tanked my supply. These J cups are pumping 2 ounces (total) at a time nowadays. The dumpling needs at least 12 ounces of milk to go to daycare. Yeah.

What I am doing:
- Feeding him every possible minute, including leaving work to nurse. This would have been totally sufficient with the fusspot (after all we survived swine flu (while living alone abroad), the dreaded pox (mine and hers), the gas baby of 2010 and a pregnancy without any real drop in supply) but the dumpling is not a great nurser. After a minute or two he unlatches to smile at me, look around and check on his feet, the usual. Even when we're alone in a dark room. It's infuriating. The baby cannot nurse to sleep because he gets distracted by everything.
- Pumping every 2 hours when separated, after every feed when we're together
- Motherlove "magical concoction of gross green plants" as per bottle
- Drinking lots

Any other suggestions? We're going to the beach for the weekend so I'm planning plenty of time alone in the bedroom nursing, but we need this fixed. Soon.

Any suggestions welcome. In the meantime I'll be pumping.

ps - Yes, yes, yes I know that there is nothing wrong with using some formula to tide us over until solids. But, as always, every ounce of formula is a sign to your body that it doesn't need to produce all that much milk, and since I would very much like to breastfeed ... well, practically forever, I need milk. And yes, when I am all done nursing forever I am most assuredly going to get a little cosmetic surgery done and maybe land up as a totally adorable wear-a-dress-without-alterations D cup. Bliss.

sick

It seems that it's always when things are going well that one little glitch reminds you that this is hard. I have food poisoning, caught eating out on Sunday afternoon. Cue 24 hours lying curled up in a ball too sick to get out of bed ... and you have a nursing disaster. Thankfully I have a long history of GI problems and wonderful docs, but it was still none too heartening when they suggested an immediate trip to the ER for IV fluids, oh, and pick up some formula on the way over. I skipped the ER (for now, definitely still in reserves depending on how I'm doing in a few hours) and have been raiding the freezer stash, but it's looking like a few long days of non-stop nursing/pumping to get everything back in order. At this point we have no idea if the fever is Salmonella related, or the result of a plugged duct. If only there were some breastfeeding-safe meds to treat the awful d this would be a lot easier. And of course, I hadn't really noticed until it became a problem that we have just reached 5.5 months - the pinnacle of milk demand for the baby and the point when I start to feel really over the whole nursing thing (Nursing a toddler who also eats solids is entirely different from nursing an exclusively breastfed baby, the former I could do happily do forever). On our calendar we have another 6-10 weeks before we start solids (I know, I know we are crazy fanatics about early food. All I can say is that it was fine before) and I am getting increasingly excited. Of course, the idea of a second high chair and the attendant mess being dropped directly into our friendly rodents' holes is a bit terrifying, but hopefully they will be long gone by then.

In summary: sick, pumping non-stop, still turning on the lights before walking into every room in the apartment, rather grumpy.

Dishes, mice, and playground chatter

I just wished my first dishes in 6 weeks. Six delightfully long weeks when I occasionally cooked, frequently cleared the table, and yet managed to not wash a single dish.

Which is also to admit that JD's leave has come and gone and we are slowly sinking back into our regular routine. We have instituted Sunday evening cooking for the week (this week baked pasta, bean burritos, wilted spinach and bbq chicken. Variety: yes. Nutrition: meagre), outsourced the laundry, and even had a cleaning team in twice (that would be 2 times total 8 years together) and thus far it is ... ok.

My work stress remains and will build in the coming weeks. We have had many long talks and the time has come for us to start to prepare for new careers/a new city/being homeowners someday/living someplace we will need a car/leaving our warm little cocoon of similarly-inclined parents. And while it is nice to have the time to prepare, a small part of me thinks that this may very well be just like IF: I wish no one had told me until I really had to deal with it.

But before we get to the big things, I have learned how to minimize the steps between light switches in our new apartment in the hopes that turning the lights on will inspire the rodents of an unusual size (thankfully not rats, just rather large mice) to flee prior to my arrival.

The baby continues to slide down on the growth charts (now 16th percentile!) but looks exceedingly robust and meets every physical benchmark despite his noticeable lack of interest in eating. Some day I may just bash the pediatrician's scale. For now, we smile and nod and politely decline any invasive tests (i.e. anything beyond the scale and fairly frequent checks for ear infections. Beats me why they are worried about ear infections, but I don't really mind and neither does the dumpling).

My neighbor confided at the playground today that she'd had a "scare" recently and it convinced her that they are not at all ready for #2. Let's hope the daggers of jealousy went unnoticed. Another acquaintance waddled by when I was running errands. Due next week! I smiled and chatted politely. My mother was ranting about someone's planned homebirth and I accidentally let slip that we might just consider that in the future if there is no mid-way option like a birthing center available. Long silence on her part. So yeah, even from where I stand with 2 adorable healthy children I know that we will someday dive back into this mess again. And in part I want to keep my blog going so that when we do I will still have that support network out there. The more obvious reason is that my readers are just incredible and I am lonely. But then I keep reading about privacy and awful things on the internets and I want to be careful about saying things here which I would not say to someone's face. Eventually someone from my family will find this blog and while I hope they will have the perspective to understand it, I do not want to deliberately hurt anyone. So I won't really be talking about couples therapy or worrying that my toddler is screaming at me because she's heard one too many fights at home or the immense fear that giving up my career will send me into an utter tailspin of depression. But it's all there somewhere and PPD really sucks.