Most of the time I try to post thought provoking or seriously (mostly) interesting posts, but sometimes she’s silly or even seems wise beyond her years. Yesterday she said something that surprised me and makes me wonder if she knew or just coincidence.
When I am driving her around town, I like to talk to her. Most of the time I believe that she has no idea what I am saying, but does she.
“You know girl, me and you have to stick together,” I said.
“Aw-ite,” she replied.
Hmmm. Makes you think.
Ok, I admit it. I let Rachel watch way too much TV. I took the easy way out to keep her content as I did a number of things including house work. As she learned to move around, I was worried to leave her. I noticed quite early that she would sit still and watch just about anything although I did limit it to appropriate material. Soon, it was obvious that she enjoyed some more than others.
At times, I felt a ping of guilt as I let her sit there for hours as I did work around the house. But, I would justify it by saying that the shows she liked was education. They were all helping her learn.
Recently, however, Michele and I had a little talk about how much TV I was letting her watch. And, yes, it was a talk as I brought up the subject to get her thoughts on. We both agreed that she was watching too much TV. As Michele said, “If she spends more of her ‘free’ time watching TV, than that is too much.”
Well, yesterday, was the first day of limited TV and quite honestly it was a lot easier than I thought. While this was not always the case, but sometimes when we played, I would more or less just watch her. Yesterday, I played with her and it was amazing as it always was when I let myself go.
As I sit here this afternoon while she taps, I wonder how much time I’ve lost with her in front of the TV. I try not to beat myself up too much though, as I have learned my lesson. As the weather cools into winter, I know we are not forced to watch TV.
Dear Rachel,
I know that I have told you this before, but you do not stop amazing me with what you have learned. It’s been wonderful to be able to see the steps that you have made: both physical and mental. As you charge your way into toddlerhood, I wonder what lies ahead for me and you. The struggles we will go through as I try to teach you and you assert your independence. Please do not grow up too fast, as true independence is much harder than it looks.
As frustrating as it may be to get you to identify a color correctly, I believe that you know them. I’ve caught you on occasion pointing out the correct color, but you are determined to answer with “blue” when ever you are asked.
I was surprise and yet humored the other day when I came in to check on you. Nap time has been frustrating recently as you are determined to fight it as best you can. Most of the time you demand a drink or more food to buy time, but this time you were just crying. When I came in to check on you I noticed something out of place. I saw a small child standing in her crib without her diaper. I could have sworn I put one on when I changed her. Oh, and there it is in the middle of the room. She took it and chucked it across the room. Great now I’ll have that naked baby run through my dinner party (I never host dinner parties, but you get the idea.)
Sometimes I am torn on whether to praise you for your accomplishment or punish you because you did something I said no to. The other day I left the room for just a minute as you played on the floor. The TV was off when I left the room, but somehow it was on when I returned. Confused I looked to where I left the remote sitting on the couch. And there you where sitting there nonchalantly watching Dora: The Explorer with remote in hand. Should I have praised you for finding the remote, pointing it in the right direction and hitting the power button? Or should I have punished you because you picked up something I’ve told you a thousand times not to play with?
While you have been doing good with “please” and “thank you” for some time, “welcome” and “excuse me” have been new additions. But you pulled out all the stops on your manners and consideration the other day that threw me for a loop. We were playing with your Weebles and on a whim I decided to wobble around the room. When I fell (I had to because only Weebles wobble, but don’t fall down), you ran over, placed your hands on my shoulder blade and helped me up. For a minute, I wondered who this little tyke was and how she learned such a thing.
About a month ago Michele and I decided to start weaning Rachel off of the pacifier. We figured as she neared two she was getting too old for one. Now, I know this is a sensitive topic for a lot of people and what is stated in this post is only my and my wife’s opinion. If you feel this is way too early, that is great; we all have opinions. This is what is working for us.
Now, with that stupid disclaimer out of the way, on to the post.
Normally, before we started limiting the pacifier, we would just hand her one whenever she didn’t have one. Sometimes she would go on a hunt and find four or five of them. It was always funny to see her try and figure out how to get all those in her mouth. She resorted to switching them out every so often.
We started off pretty simple, we just did not offer it. If she asked for it, we’d let her have it. This didn’t quite work; we only taught her she had to ask for it. Our next step was to hide them all and only let her have them in the crib. At first this was really rough and Michele and I took different routes.
Michele would try to reason with her, telling her she can have it as long as she wanted, but she had to stay in her crib. If she wanted out, she’d have to relinquish the suckie. This may have helped, but resulted in a lot of crying in the crib.
I took the direct approach. I just picked her up out, took her suckie and put it back in the crib. I would then carry her into the living room where I could distract her and she’d forget about it. Less crying, but she may not have known why we were doing it.
At first, Rachel would throw a huge fit when we would pull her out of the crib without her suckie. It was hard to not give it to her; especially when she said, “Suckie. Please.” But we kept with it and after just a short time you could tell she was thinking it over. She would usually cry a little still, but she was working it out in her head.
Now, when we go in to pick her up, she puts it down!
I think it’s gone pretty good so far. For how badly she always wanted one, she took to no suckie pretty easily. She would always go get one, if she saw it, even if she already had one (or more.) It was not uncommon to see her sitting with one (or two) suckie(s) in her mouth and three or four in her lap/hands.
The last step would be to try one bed time without the suckie and see how it goes. I’m not overly eager to try this. It’ll probably end in a long, tired fight through the night and a very cranky baby the next morning.We have some time, but we want to have sometime for Rachel to forget about them before our second child is born. We want Rachel to not need pacifiers so she won’t still the baby’s.
Cross your fingers!
Ok, so I’ve never seen the movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but it has been one of those weeks. The week started out bad and ended up even worse. At the start of the week I was dealing with introverted stuff; worrying and feeling sorry about myself. And in the way only Karma can do, I ended the week thinking only of someone else.
Monday and Tuesday
These two days were kind of rough that spawned the post Struggling. Although I originally intended the post to be more about me struggling with Rachel the last few days it ended up being more about this blog, it’s posts (or lack of) and it’s potential readers. While I do feel that is what that post was supposed to be about, I feel I’d like to mention another kind of struggling.
In a way this fits with potential readers. I want this to be an actual account; not just the pretty stuff. Rachel was not particularly bad Monday and Tuesday. It was more of my attitude that effected her. We were both just kind of grumpy. Sometimes the whole stay-at-home thing gets to m; especially when I stay inside too much.
Wednesday
Happy Halloween!! Michele took Rachel out trick-or-treating while I stayed home to give out candy. Rachel did not quite understand the whole thing and could just barely squeak out trick or treat, but she loved walking around and getting a bunch of candy. They spent the first part getting candy while I gave. As Rachel tired Michele brought her back and they gave out candy together.
Thursday was pretty uneventful while Friday was a haze of allergies. I struggled to stay awake with sinus pressure and a runny nose. Well, I struggled only when I did not want to go to sleep. I laid awake struggling to sleep while Rachel took her nap.
Saturday/Sunday
Here’s the ultimate. Shortly after I woke, my mother shows up at the door, telling me my father (divorced) was in a car wreck late last night and they’ve been trying to contact us. After getting our land line disconnected, we’ve never got into the habit of bringing our cell phones into the bed room.
I’m not sure of all the details, but somehow he slid his blazer sideways into a telephone pole, causing the pole to fall onto the blazer. The passenger side hit the pole. He suffered a broken right collar bone, broke both right forearm bones, a cracked C2 vertebrae, a severely lacerated left hand and some bumps and bruises.
They sent him to a hospital with a surgical specialist, worried that the hand might have nerve or tendon/ligament damage. It did not. He went into surgery Saturday afternoon not long after I made the two hour drive to see him. They set his arm with pins and plates and cleaned up his hand, sewing it only partially. Because the wound was open so long, they did not want to stitch in any possible infection. They did not do much today, but tomorrow plan on taking another look at the hand, cleaning it up again and stitching it up all the way. He will also have to wear a neck brace for a couple of months for the vertebrae.
He is doing good considering all that he has been through the last couple of days. He was awake, talking and in pretty good spirits when I left him today. His wife is staying with him.
To say the least this week has been a roller coaster of emotions, starting from self-pitty to worry about ones dad’s life. There only has been a couple of weeks that has compared to the range of emotions I’ve had this week. Some good, but not all. But that’s life.
When we first decided that I would be a stay-at-home dad, I tried to find some books about the subject. While I found loads helping women and some treating stay-at-home dads as something of a joke, I found little actual helpful books. I feel I should note, however, I did find Peter Baylies’ book “The Stay-at-home dad Handbook.” I found the book to be extremely well written with practical advice toward dads.
It may have been in this book that I read that stay-at-home dads are much more likely to experience depression at some time in their stay-at-home career than woman, mainly because they do not have the social structure in place that women typically do. It all my thoughts about how I expected this to go, the one thing I did not expect, for some reason, was the isolation.
While Rachel was still very young, I ventured out to a local Mom’s Club. Fortunately, I do not have a horror story about how bad they treated me. They were very welcoming and, even though I was their first male interested, did not make me feel out of place. The main reason I did not continue to go to meetings is that I was told I would be expected to pay the dues if I came to more meetings. With Rachel so young, I did not expect to be involved in their activities. I just wanted a little adult time.
With Rachel nearing 6 months old, I decided to try and find an online community through blogging/journaling. Knowing a lot less than I do now, I decided to see what I could find on LiveJournal. Now, I’m the kind of person that hopes that everything starts off with a bang and when it doesn’t I get depressed and usually let it fall be the wayside. (I know, bad habit. I have a lot of them.) So when I did not find what I was looking for, and now I’m not sure what that was, I ended up letting it go.
But as difficulties with Rachel and the isolation getting to me I would go back and try to find something. Some people I could relate to. Although I found a few good people I can talk with, it did not exploded like I wanted it to so again I let it go. It would go on like this for almost two years: posting for a month or two the off for a couple. I’ve wasted more than a few dollars paying for Livejournal features with the resolve I would stick to it “this time”.
In my latest endeavor, I decided to move my story over to WordPress, hoping that the more blog-like features will help me get more readers. Don’t get me wrong, I liked LiveJournal, but it was inconvenient for nonmembers to comment.
Now, again, the frustrations of it not taking off like it should is getting to me. Rachel has done loads of cute things I should be posting about, but I lack the desire to post. I should post because I “want to” and for the “sake of posterity”. But truth be told, I post because I want other people to read my story and validate my decision and my experiences. I worry so much that I am doing things wrong, that I am, somehow screwing my daughter up, preparing her for a lifetime of therapy.
I guess, or better yet, I hope we all feel this way at some point.
If anyone out there is reading (and I believe there is according to WordPress stats) please post a comment, letting me know if you are enjoying the read. And if there is some thing I can do to make them better. Thank you.
Probably a lot of you will disagree with me, but I believe Bill Cosby has to be one of the funniest comedians ever. His comedic timing and content are unparalleled. His facial expressions sometimes are just as funny as his words. He did not have to use profanity to get his point across or to complete a joke.
I consider myself lucky to have grown up with the Cosby Show. Just as funny as his stand-up, the cast had to constantly improve as he made up things on the fly. The show also helped pave the way for other African-American families on TV. I wish I had the chance to see him doing his stand-up.
After seeing his video entitled “Himself” (which had to be replaced with a DVD because I watched it so much), I learned that his expressions made his comedy. While hearing his other routines, I often wonder if it’d be funnier if I saw his doing it. In one of his routines in this video, “Natural Childbirth”, he talks about the birth of his and his wifes first child. In the end of this skit he states, “Darling, I love you very, very much. You just had a lizard.”, referring to the changes in color his child made as they cleaned it off.
Sometimes I think that Michele has given birth to a camel. Rachel’s eating patterns seem to be unusual for children, although it may be quite normal. On an average day, I eat approximately the same amount of food, as I’m sure most of us do. Rachel, however, eats three days worth of food in one day.
About twice a week Rachel eats us out of house and home. She is constantly coming up to me asking for more food. And eats an inordinate amount of food at each meal. The rest of the days of the week she fasts. There is not much of any other way to say it. She eats very, very little most days of the week.
In this regard, she reminds me a lot of a camel (or really any other animal with a slow metabolism, but camels are just funny). I often joke, that her hump is not on her back, but on her front. Overall she is small for her size, she’s never had those cute, fatty baby legs. I’d swear that 75% of her body weight is in her stomach; her belly sicks out unbelievable amount.
I’m not too worried as, I’m sure she eats when she wants to, but I wonder if this is normal.
Yesterday was my wonderful wife’s birthday. I made her a cake and sung to her; the present is on the way. And, of course, I was sick. Vomiting sick. In some strange, crazy twist of fate I always seem to get sick on important days.
Michele’s birthday seems to be one of those important days. I woke to Rachel crying, like every morning, not feeling too well. Not feeling too well was not a big deal, I usually don’t feel to good in the morning, at least until I get my caffeine. I am horrible addicted to caffeine and the headaches are unbearable.
* * *
I went to bed a little nervous. Tomorrow I will marry Michele and be with her the rest of my life. When I woke up the next morning, however, I was much more than a little nervous. Just about from the time I woke up till the reception, I wanted to hang over the toilet and a lot of the time I did.
Between toilet trips, I laid on my bed, fading in and out of sleep, until absolutely the last possible second before I had to start getting ready. I struggled to get ready with the help of my best man and brother. Weak and pale I finally made it to the church where I had a chance to sit for a few minutes.
Between toilet trips, I sat at a table in the back of the church with my head down. At some point my mother, hearing I was sick, came in to check on me. After seeing to me for a minute, she went to check on Michele. Michele asked her how I was. My mother answered I was here. Luckily Michele accepted that answer.
The first words out of the priest’s mouth was “You’re white as a sheet.”
* * *
Most people would think that on my wedding day, it would have just been nerves. Now, I would tend to agree if this had not happened to me before. Prior to my wedding, I have had times of “morning sickness.”
I swear alcohol has never been involved in these episodes. On random, so it seemed, days, usually Saturday, I would wake up sick. Vomiting sick. Dry heaving sick. I would drink water and eat saltines just to have something to throw up. For some reason late in the afternoon, around three or four, I would inexplicably get better. After this time, I could eat anything and keep it down.
While it may have been aggravated by nerves, I think I had on of these episodes on my wedding day.
* * *
Now, vomiting is not the only sick I’ve been on important days. The day we closed on our house, I had such a sinus attack. I’ve always had bad seasonal allergies, but they have lessened as I got older. Some days, however, the come back in such a force. I send the whole day in a fog of medicine and sinus pressure.
I drifted through the closing not quite sure what was going on. Between signing documents I had to blow my nose. At first, I tried to skim over the documents so that I would know what I was signing. After reading the first paragraph of like the second documents 4 or 5 times I gave up. I even asked my wife to make sure she was looking over them.
* * *
At times, I’ve felt gilt about the amount of TV I let Rachel watch. If I let her, she would easily watch 4 or 5 hours of TV in the morning; it just mesmerizes her. (Don’t worry, I make sure she watches good programs. She loves Dora and Diego.) Today I felt a rush a relieve that she loves these two shows. She will sit quietly and watch them while I hang my head over the toilet.
Today must have been a mild version of my sick episodes because about eleven I was feeling better and even ended up eating some pizza for lunch. It was a relief that I felt better earlier than normal. I was worried about feeding Rachel as every time I stood my head would spin severely and I felt worse as I moved around.
* * *
There was a previous time I got sick on Michele’s birthday, but it was not until late in the night that it happened. Her first birthday after we were married, she worked until 9pm and I thought I would surprise her at work. So I showed up at her work and took her out to Applebee’s.
I felt a little queezy while I was waiting for her, but thought I was just really hungry. Once we got to Applebee’s I was really starting to feel sick and one look at the nachos we got for an appetizer sent me running to the restrooms.
I ended up leaving early, leaving Michele sitting there with a full nachos appetizer sitting in front of her on her birthday with no one to share it with.
* * *
So, as you can see, it was no surprise for me to wake up yesterday sick.
Yesterday while we were out we stopped at Burger King to get a snack and a little play. On a whim, I let her sit beside me on the booth even though her feet barely hung over the edge and the table at least a foot away. I handed her chicken nuggets and we sat there happily eating our snack.
As she was munching on one of her chicken nuggets she slides over to me and leans her head against my side. I looked from my sandwich down at her and brought my arm around her. Leaning in I said, “I love you.” Between bites a little voice pipes up saying, “I uv oo.” I brought her as close as I could with my arm around her, holding her close.
Today we ventured out to the local mall. After walking around a bit she stopped in front of me and said, “Up. Up.”
Looking down to her beautiful blue eyes, I smile and say, “What do you say?”
“Peez!”
After a short bit of carrying her, my arm got tired and I put her down to walk some more. She asked for a drink and after taking a sip she carries it wrapped up in her arm like a little football. A few seconds later, she stretches her other arm out and runs to catch up to me. It was so cute, my little football rusher.
While munching on a bit of granola bar she sat down in the middle of the mall walkway. Now we were not in a big hurry so instead of angrily ordering her up. I plopped down beside her - right there in the middle of the mall. So we sat for a few minutes, resting.
I know that these few moment are fleeting. There will be one day that she swears I am ruining her life. I accept that. And hopefully, if I’ve done my job well enough, there will even be a day that she discovers that I knew what I was talking about. But, for now, give me these little moment - these little moment that I will treasure.
I often wonder if what I have to say will be long enough to fill up a post. I know that it really doesn’t matter how long it is as long as the content is good. The last couple of days have been a fog of seasonal allergies, and sleep deprivation. I have not been sleeping well the last couple of days and Rachel has had a few rough nights. Michele had the weekend off which allows me a little time to relax and disconnect. So without further delay I will write about some random thoughts/events of the last few days.
Momblocker
Doodaddy posted about his adventures of a closet momblocker Thursday. Never hearing of the term, I was intrigued what it meant. I quickly realized that I was one. While I am not a die hard momblocker, demanding my way on every issue, I do have my moments. For a long time, I would insist I get her ready for outings and pack, or check, the diaper bag. I’ve let go of it for the most part as I try to keep my mouth shut, but the thoughts run across mind. When they do, I try to remind my self she (Michele) needs to learn how to do this stuff too.
First Haircut
Saturday morning we set off to get the little ones her first professional haircut. If you’ve never heard of the place Cookie Cutters is the coolest place to get your little ones hair cut. The seats are cars, and each place has it’s own playstation where you can play a game or watch a movie while you get your haircut.
Rachel was a little apprehensive when we put her in the seat, but settled when we put on Dora. But as soon as she felt the lady tug on her hair and saw the scissors it was a fight to keep her calm enough to get her hair cut.
We will definitely go back for her later hair cuts. The idea of a salon tailored to children is wonderfully overdue. Plus they have a pac-man game I can play while she gets her hair cut. (Joking)
Family Night
Every Saturday evening my family gets together with my brothers family and my mother, usually at my mothers house. While Rachel has never been downright scared of my brother, she’s always been a little cautious. Seeing him only once a week did not give her a lot of time to warm up to him.
The last three weeks she has played with just my brother. It’s nice to see them interacting and her laughing at my brother’s antics.
Shouldn’t Have to Say
While I usually add these without posting about them, I felt that this time I needed to comment. The teething process for her has been relativity easy. Her molars are giving her some problems however. The first have already come in and the second are pushing through now. Teething has given my some of the funniest “Shouldn’t Have to Say” and Sunday was no exception.
“Don’t chew one your books.” is pretty easy to figure. I’m sure she was just trying to get some relief. However, later in the day I told her, “Don’t bite Daddy’s collar bone.” I was holding her in my left arm and she laid her head down on my shoulder. As I rubbed her back and bounced her a little I felt her razor sharp teeth dig into my collar bone. She did not break the skin or anything, but it still surprised me.
Both have been added to the “Shouldn’t Have to Say” page.
Crayons
One of the items one our list to buy at Wal-mart Saturday was a box of 96 crayons. I was amazed to find that Crayola has a box with 120 crayons! Of course, I bought the bigger box. Examining the box once we got home, I saw that the packaging was like a pencil box with three crayon boxes and a sharpener inside. I spent a few minutes looking for blue.
I pulled them out this morning to do some coloring with my daughter. She scribbled on a page as I colored next to her. She’s doing a little better about letting me have a crayon.
We’ve been working on colors with her recently, so I was excited when I heard her say pink. Looking over to verify she had it right, I told her that it was right and she did a good job. A few seconds later I heard her say pink again. I looked over and saw a pink crayons in her hands and the first one on the floor. I told her good job again. A few seconds later “Pink” she piped up again and again I looked over to see a pinkish crayon in her hand. “Good Job” I told her. She must be getting this better than we thought if she can pull 3 pink crayons out of a box.
While looking for blue, she picked up one of the smaller boxes and dumped it. For some reason I yelled at her for dumping the crayons and I took them away. A few minutes later I felt bad and wondered why I flipped out over such a small thing. After thinking about it, I don’t know. My short temper sometimes gets the better of me; patience is not one of my strong points.
My daughter has already taught me a lot and I am trying to be a better person.
I still haven’t found that darn blue!
