Category: parenting

lullabies

Phoebe loves music. She loves to listen to music, and sing and dance. Her tastes are quite varied, ranging from the playful to the serious. For example, she enjoys the electronic beep-bop music that comes out of a plastic ball that flashes lights, as well as classical music played at an outdoor concert. She is also partial to the music of various contemporary musicians, including Tom Waits, Innocence Mission, and Kristin Hersh.

When she was a little baby, only a few months old, her absolute favorite song was “Thief,” by Belly. It was a song that John and I both listened to a lot, and sang along with, from the time Phoebe was in utero. We’d sing it to her as a lullaby, and sing it to her to soothe her at various times when she was fussy. When she was really riled, only “Thief” would do to calm her. I’d sing it, sometimes over and over again, and she’d sit quietly and listen. The moment I’d stop, or try another song, she’d cry.

She later became a bit more flexible in her taste in lullabies. John would usually sing “The Ants Go Marching.” I settled in to singing “Baby’s boat’s a silver moon,” a song my mother used to sing to me, and that her father used to sing to her. Later, we switched to Sandra Boynton’s “Silly Lullaby” (from Philadelphia Chickens). Then one night, not so long ago, Phoebe stopped wanting me to sing to her at night. I’d try various songs, and Phoebe would shake her head and say “no.” Which made me pretty sad.
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Lately, Phoebe’s been hooked on The Flaming Lips. We have a DVD of their music videos, and Phoebe loves it. The songs include “Phoebe Battles the Pink Robots,” which is Phoebe’s official theme song. She likes that song, but her favorite song now seems to be “Do You Realize.” In fact, she likes it so much, she has even let me sing it to her as a lullaby.

And now, to borrow a page from Tabba, who shares a song each week, I will share with you Phoebe’s latest favorite song:

“Do You Realize,” by The Flaming Lips

half-brained

Tonight, my brain is tired. Very tired. Sleep deprived. Stressed.

We’ve come down to New York to visit John’s parents, since we haven’t been down here since before our big trip to Europe. It’s been about 2 months. We drove down last night. Left later than we meant. Hit more traffic than we anticipated. Arrived after midnight.

Phoebe slept in the car on the way down. And I largely did, too. (You’ll be happy to know that I wasn’t the one driving.) So the car sleep was dandy. But then, we were up. And visiting with Phoebe’s Grammy. And there were new toys. (Actually, some old toys that were John’s when he was little. But exciting and new to Phoebe.) There were delays of getting our stuff together, and putting together the travel crib.

Before we knew it, it was 2:00 a.m. While this may still be before last call at some bars, it’s a time of day that some might consider to be late for a toddler to be up. So we worked on winding back down. Pajamas. Reading books. A sippy cup of milk.

But Phoebe would not wind down. NOT. Nope. Nuh-uh. She was Awake. Wired. And when she realized that we were conspiring towards getting her into bed, she was also Not Happy. We had screaming and sobs the likes of which we had not seen or heard in many a month. The long and short of it was that it was 4:00 before she (and we) got to sleep.

She did sleep as late as 8:00 this morning, but all in all, it wasn’t enough sleep for her. So it was a bit of a rough day. And then tonight, we got home late too. (From visiting John’s dad and then picking up dinner from my favorite restaurant in the universe.) Not as late, but Phoebe had fallen asleep in the car and was Unhappy to be Awake, but Unwilling to be Asleep.

So the upshot is that now I am tired. And feel that I barely have half a brain left with which to function. But I did come across this test at Azahar’s place that lets me know a bit more about the halves of my brain. (Apparently, I’m supposed to have two halves.) It looks like I’m more right-brained. I thought I was more half-and-half brained. Or perhaps sometimes just half-brained.


You Are 30% Left Brained, 70% Right Brained


The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you’re left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you’re right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

pushover

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Phoebe and I went to the playground at our town park this morning before lunch. She’d been at daycare the past 3 days, and we didn’t get to spend much time together Monday, either. So I was determined we’d go do something fun together today.

The playground was more crowded than I’d ever seen it. Actually, there have been a number of times when we’ve been the only ones there, and other times when we’ve seen only a couple other kids. Today, though, there were a half dozen or so mothers there, and maybe 10 or so kids. I had the sense that a number of the mothers knew one another, so perhaps it was some sort of play group. A few of the mothers seemed moderately friendly, and I had at least one in-depth conversation about the the unexpected warmth of the day, and the duration of the recent rain shower.

There were several kids close to Phoebe’s size. Phoebe was interested in watching them, but didn’t interact much with them. There was a bit of smiling with one other toddler, and another kid who tried to get Phoebe to chase him, and then another kid (or maybe the same one) who tried to play with Phoebe. At some point, a couple of kids were walking away from the play equipment down a nearby path. Phoebe started to follow, from a bit of distance. One little boy, perhaps 2 years old, turned around and walked right up to Phoebe. I thought perhaps to meet her. He reached his hand out toward her, and I thought “how cute.”

Then he pushed her over. Gave her a good solid shove, and knocked Phoebe right over. Then he said something like, “you go back there.” Phoebe sat on the ground, and didn’t make a peep. She just looked. I was behind her, so I couldn’t see her face for the whole interaction. But she seemed, more than anything, surprised. Perhaps wondering if this was a usual form of interaction.

Anyhow, the mother asked her boy to apologize, and we wandered our separate ways without further incident. We climbed some more, and went down slides, I pushed Phoebe on the swing. Then we went home.

When we got home, I told John about our park visit. What was the first thing I told him about, do you think? I’m sure you guessed it. The shove. Even though there were more pleasant interactions, and lots of fun was had, the one brief mean act stuck with me. It was the first time that I knew of where Phoebe had been subjected to a random act of meanness. And as I mentioned the incident, Phoebe watched me very intently, her eyes huge. I realized that I was reinforcing her memory of the unpleasant incident. So I talked about all the goood things we did, and the nice kids.

This sort of thing happens so often. The one bad incident overshadowing the good ones. The one rude person making more of an impression than all the largely polite ones. I remember this a lot from working in retail. In a day when I’d help 100 moderately pleasant people, a single interaction with an asshole of a customer would tarnish my whole day. (Is it just me?)

Anyhow, it was a fun visit to the park, dammit.

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to(o)ma(ny)to(matoes)

tomato_eggs2.jpgI head to the farm for my next load of vegetables tomorrow, and I fear I may be buried in tomatoes. For some reason or another, I’ve been having trouble keeping up with them. It could be that I’ve received 30 pounds of tomatoes in the past 3 weeks, and that I’m pretty much the only one in the house who eats them. I do love tomatoes, but I seem to have my limits. There were even a couple of days when I didn’t eat any tomatoes. Tonight, if I can get myself motivated enough, I plan to roast up a bunch of the smaller tomatoes with garlic, for some sort of sauce, which I’ll then freeze. I also haven’t managed to cook up my pretty eggplants, and I’l be sad if they get demoted to compost. But I’m a bit wiped out to start cooking.

I just got Phoebe off to bed, an hour and a half late. Phoebe and I went on an excursion to meet a friend, involving visiting a playground, and then dinner out. We didn’t get home until almost 8:00. Yes, I realize that in a previous life, 8:00 would be time to go out, not late to get home. But, you see, Phoebe’s bed time is 7:30. I can never quite figure out how to fit things together without messing up Phoebe’s schedule when we go out. She naps right smack in the middle of the day, from about 12:30 or 1:00 to around 2:00 or 2:30. I hate to have Phoebe miss a nap (for many, many reasons), and while she will sometimes sleep in the car, it results in a 20 to 30 minute nap instead of the usual 1 to 2 hours. So we often try to wait till after the nap to go out. But that almost invariably leads to a later bedtime. Arg. It’s worth it to get out of the house, though, I suppose.

John has just left this afternoon for a short trip to the west coast for some business, which means I get to do the solo parenting thing for a couple days. I’m cheating a bit by having Phoebe go to daycare an extra day. I have my violin lesson tomorrow, and John usually stays with Phoebe when I go to that. My other options were to cancel my lesson, or bring Phoebe (an event which I can envision, but which would likely result in a less than ideal learning experience). I opted for a fourth day of daycare, rather than switching a day. Because since John will be away, my working time will be otherwise reduced. And I’ve had a very productive past couple of weeks, and want to keep rolling with that.

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the arrival: loss, losers, and a whole lot of lugging

Here we are, safely and comfortably settled in Saarbrucken. It’s day 2 of our trip. Or is it day 3? Well, it’s Monday night. I know that much. I guess that does make it day 3. It’s just that we’ve only had one actual night of sleeping in a room with walls and, you know, a bed.

Ah, beds. How we do take them for granted. Until the point where we’ve spent 24 hours or so sitting in various car, plane and train seats, or floors, not to mention walking and standing…

The trip here was…long. Not terrible. But well…long.

Day 1: Leaving home

We left home around 2:00 p.m., drove to the airport and checked in without incident. We were very happy to find out that the flight was underbooked, so we got to sit in a row with a free seat. It was fabulous news considering Phoebe would otherwise have been only in our very crowded laps.

The flight was good, though it involved too little sleep. I tend to forget how chaotic and noisy flights are, what with the beverage and meal service and people getting up and moving around. And with the lights on. It was almost as if people weren’t scheduling their activities around Phoebe’s bed time. Could that be possible?

Phoebe was very good overall, though too interested in what was going on. There was a bit of crying here and there, but not for too long overall. She was almost asleep when dinner was delivered. And then she perked right up and wanted my cantaloupe. I tried covering up my food to keep it from calling to Phoebe, but eventually worried the flight attendants would think this meant I was finished and snatch up my tray before I could eat. So eventually, John held Phoebe while I ate. Which Phoebe did not like. (Translation: she cried.) I shoveled the food in, some sort of lentil-ish loaf and mashed potatoes (the “special” dinner), and what was left of my cantaloupe, to a soundtrack of Phoebe’s various sad and angry vocal stylings. But then Phoebe settled in John’s arms before I finished eating, and eventually fell asleep. She slept well enough that we could transfer her to my arms at some point.

The flight was long, but seemed too short once Phoebe finally fell asleep, around 9:00 p.m. by our time. Meaning about 4 hours before our scheduled arrival in Paris. And then the lights came back on and the chaos started up again about an hour before landing, what with breakfast service and all.And then, before we knew it, we were on the descent.

Day 2: arrival in Paris (and departure)
So there we were on the ground at Paris, CDG. And we gathered up our big piles of stuff and eventually got off the plane. There were quite a lot of other babies and small children on the flight, and it was funny to see that most of those other families were also slow getting off the plane. And we headed out of the plane, and expected to see our stroller, which we’d checked at the gate. It wasn’t there. Neither were any of the many other gate-checked strollers. We hung around for a bit, with the gathering small crowd of baby-toting people, until we finally got the news that all the strollers had all been sent to baggage claim, as everybody “had already left.” Everybody, I thought, except for all the people travelling with small children!

So, we headed off to clear immigration and customs, joining the end of the line with the rest of the baby people. And I was crankily muttering to John that it defeated the purpose of checking strollers at the gate when they have the stroller sent off to baggage claim. And John said something like: “If that’s the worst thing that happens on this trip, it will be a pretty good trip.”

An excellent point.

But it turns out this was not the worst thing that happened to our stroller. We don’t actually know what happened to our stroller. Everybody else got their stroller. Ours didn’t appear. Apparently, the very cranky agent at the desk in Boston misdirected our stroller. I didn’t notice when she handed me my receipt that she’d written LAX (that’s LA) and some other possibly non-existent flight number, rather than CDG and our flight number. And sadly, we didn’t even have a name tag on the stroller. When I asked the agent if I could put my name on it, she just said, “I’ll take it now.” I complied. That was all she said to me, before she scribbled on a tag, and handed me the receipt, all the while ranting to a coworker about the crappy day she was having. I slunk off without even reading the tag. Was it spite?

So, our stroller is probably gone. It was a very nice stroller. Nicer than American Airlines (losers) will be willing to reimburse us for, according to the lost baggage agent. They offered us a loaner, some poor other soul’s lost stroller, from all appearances. But that sad little thing wouldn’t even open. I thought we’d be better off without it. We can apparently get reimbursed for up to 50 U.S. dollars for a new stroller. There was the possibility that they would be able to find the stroller, and get it to us.

So, off we stumbled and lugged. Happily, we’d at least brought our new lightweight carrier for Phoebe, so we were able to manage our luggage with Phoebe on my back. We had to get moving to get the train station to make our way to Saarbrucken, Germany.

We took the RER to Gare du Nord, then the Metro to Gare de l’Est, which was where we planned to take the newly opened TGV line, a super-duper fast train, direct to Saarbrucken. Notice how I used the past tense there…planned. Because, you see, all the TGV trains, for the day were sold out. One can purchase tickets in advance. However, I hadn’t. Unbeknownst to me, one can only purchase online at least 5 days in advance. Once I got my act together to buy, our departure was 4 days away.

No big deal, I thought. We’ll buy our tickets at the station.

But.

It turns out that not only were all the fast trains sold out for the day, so were the usual slow routes. What the agent finally arranged for us was to get a 2:00 train, after a 3 hour wait, to Nancy. Followed by a train to Metz. Followed by a train to Forbach. And then a train to Saarbrucken. Count ’em, my friends. 3 changes, 4 trains. Plus 2 suitcases, 2 backpacks, a diaper bag, and one very tired toddler. Anyone care to do the math?

That’s all I have time for now. I’ll write more when I have a chance. For now I’ll say that I’m actually having a great time, in spite of various inconveniences. The first day of the conference was good, and tonight I get to sleep in a bed. Which I should do now, because it’s way, way too late. And because I really appreciate having a bed to sleep in.

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Phoebe enjoyed looking at the planes at the airport.

p.s. If you are a relative of mine, and wondering why I haven’t emailed, it’s because I can’t manage to get to my email just now. I managed to check it just fine, but haven’t been able to get back on for the last few hours. I’ll try again tomorrow.

learning some lessons (a crankiness review)

This has been a bit of a week for learning for me. I love learning. I am a bit of a long-term student. And even my career goals for after I get the PhD involve continued research. But the truth is, sometimes, the learning process can involve some crankiness. I like to feel like I know stuff, but often learning involves being shown that I don’t know stuff. Which is not always comfortable.

Take Monday. I had my violin lesson. I hadn’t had much time to practice last week, and there were 2 new, unfamiliar pieces. Worse, I didn’t practice until late in the week, meaning I more or less couldn’t remember the pieces at all from the previous lesson. And while Phoebe has lately been encouraging me to practice (she points at the violin, and then plays quietly nearby while I practice), she has less interest in listening to me struggle with a new piece that I play poorly (she kept leaving the room). Resulting in a shorter practice session. End result: Monday’s lesson was not my best. The topic of my lack of rhythm came up. Sigh.

Take Yesterday. I noticed that a deadline for abstract submissions for a big conference was today. I had meant to submit an abstract for the work I did for my master’s project. (Re-submit, actually, as the abstract I submitted for a previous conference was rejected.) I decided that I should make the push, and spent 4 hours re-writing the abstract yesterday afternoon and evening. I then sent it to a professor (one of the reader’s for my master’s project) on the off chance she would have time to look at it and give suggestions. Remarkably, she generously agreed to read the abstract, and even came back with several helpful suggestions. She said I should definitely submit the abstract, but that it would need to be “re-written.” Crap. I thought re-writing was what I’d just done. But I re-re-wrote, and was up till 2:00 in the morning. It apparently still needs re-re-re-writing, though. (The deadline was extended, so my professor will send me more comments tonight or tomorrow.) It will definitely be very good for me to learn how to write a better abstract, but, well, I hadn’t thought the first one (or second or third) were all that bad. Showing that I indeed have stuff to learn.

Take today. Another lesson in a different domain. I took Phoebe to Whole Foods this evening, as we need some stuff for a dinner we’re having tomorrow. (The aforementioned veggie dinner.) I was trying to get out the door by 5:00, with the plan of picking up some dinner for Phoebe at the store. We didn’t manage to leave till 5:15. Phoebe usually eats around 5:30. The store is 20 minutes away. I gave her some cheese before we went in the store, thinking it would hold her till we finished shopping, when she could eat some more.

We went in the store, I plopped her in a cart. Then I plopped her in another cart, because the straps on the first cart weren’t properly attached. Then we started shopping. And more time passed. Then Phoebe realized she was cold, and I’d left her sweater in the car. (It was about 90 degrees out, but downright chilly in the frozen food aisles.) But while Phoebe is generally a very happy and well-behaved toddler, she becomes less so when her needs aren’t met. Such as when she is cold and hungry. We almost ended up leaving without most of the items on the list. After buying a bit of bread and milk for her (yes, I went all out for the gourmet dinner), and returning to the car to warm up, eat and get her sweater, we were able to then complete our shopping mission in relative calm. You’d think I would’ve known providing adequate food clothing were among the basics of parenting.

Now, it’s 1:00 a.m., and I am back at work on the abstract re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-write. I’m completely wiped out and cranky and am no longer sure I can manage to get the abstract done. Is it too late to change careers?

psychic baby (qu’est-ce que c’est?)

You know how when you’re expecting a phone call, or waiting for someone to show up at the door, it’s hard to settle down and concentrate? Well, that’s how I usually feel when Phoebe’s having a nap.

Even though she usually naps for about an hour and a half, the time zips by. I get her settled, putter around for a few minutes, and usually open up my laptop. To, well…putter. Before I know it, 45 minutes have elapsed. And I think about getting to work. Knowing that I probably have only about 45 minutes.

Today, we were down at John’s parents. (We’d gone down for the weekend to get in a visit before our big trip.) The plan was to head out to the rehab center to visit John’s dad after Phoebe’s nap, and then to go directly home. So, once Phoebe was napping, my puttering included some packing and getting organized. I read some stuff online, answered a couple emails, and did some other puttering and even some work-related stuff.

It looked like Phoebe was going to have a longer than usual nap. She was upstairs, and the baby monitor was with us downstairs.

I’d started reading the new Harry Potter last night, and managed to read about 15 pages before I fell asleep. In this unexpected quiet time, the book beckoned. John was sitting reading his copy of the book. (Yes, we did buy two copies yesterday.) I commented to him that I felt like whenever I settle down to do something focused, Phoebe always wakes up. “I feel like if I sit down to read, she’ll wake up.”

After some more deliberation, and couple more minutes of quiet from the baby monitor, I decided to pick up the book. I sat down. I said to John: “Do you want to time this?”

I started to open the book.

“Waaaaaahhhhhh!!” said the baby monitor.

I slammed the book shut. And there was silence.

Tell me, how did she know?

have toddler, will travel

We’ve headed down to the in-laws again for a few days. John’s Dad is doing pretty well, and has been in a rehabilitation place for the past few weeks. We managed to arrive there at mid-afternoon yesterday, a remarkable accomplishment. Our plan was to leave home at 10:00 a.m. (It always drives me crazy when I end a sentence with “a.m.” or “p.m.” What do I do with the punctuation? “a.m..”?). Our plan was to leave at 10 in the morning. And we were out the door by 10:59 sharp!

I’ve been wiped out the past couple of days. Can’t stay awake at night. (And no, I’m not pregnant. Just tired.) I think my schedule and ongoing lack of sleep are catching up with me. I had several days this week that were scheduled up the wazoo. And I spent most of Wednesday (my unscheduled day) doing research, not school or job research, but research about a trip to Europe this summer. I’m planning/hoping to go to a conference in Germany at the beginning of August to present a poster that I’ve co-authored with a couple of professors I work with. John and Phoebe would go with me, but probably not help with the poster presentation. (Though Phoebe is good at pointing, and could perhaps Vanna for me.) It turns out that the venue is in a city that is not terribly close to any major international airports, so we will need to plan on a train trip as well as the flight. And it turns out that it’s just as quick to get there from Paris by a newly opened TGV line than it is to get there from Frankfurt. So, we’re thinking a holiday in Paris would be great.

But.

The idea of travelling with a toddler is Daunting™. (Funny how I feel too tired to deal with footnotes, and yet I just felt compelled to hunt down that ™ symbol.) I did find somebody’s post on travelling with small children that looks helpful. Though things look no less daunting. (cf. other tales of toddler travel.)

We have to decide about whether or not to take the car seat, for one. We will be taking public transportation, so we will need to lug everything around with us onto subways and trains, and possibly busses. We need to figure out sleeping arrangements. We’ll probably need a crib in our hotel room. We may rent an apartment in Paris.

We need to decide all of this very soon. We did apply for Phoebe’s passport, but actually getting her passport may lead to more stress, as I’ve heard that things take much, much longer these days. (There are new regulations requiring passports for travel to Canada and Mexico, leading to many, many more people needing them. Passports, that is. I’m not sure that people need Canada and Mexico in greater rates than previously.)

revenge of the teeth

Last night I posted a list of things teeth-oriented. Yes, a silly list. But I should have realized that teeth are no laughing matter. Now teeth want revenge, and they have launched a full-blown attack.

Phoebe has been showing some signs of teething this week. Fairly minor. A tendency to drool, and bite and chew on things. Habits which she’s largely outgrown. There has been some tugging on the ears, and our 15-month check-up confirmed that there are no ear infections. So, teething it is. No big deal. Right?

That is until last night.

I hadn’t been prepared for an attack of “vicious canines.”

Phoebe is a good sleeper. A phenomenal night-time sleeper. (Not so great with naps.) She rarely wakes up in the night, and when she does, she can usually get back to sleep pretty quickly. But last night, just as I was going to bed, at 1:00 a.m., Phoebe woke up screaming. The long and short of it is that she just would not settle down. Did not want to be put down. At 3:00, I finally decided to just hold her, and take her into bed with me. We slept fitfully, and she woke up at 6:00. Full of energy.

I spent most of the morning lying on various floors as she played nearby. She’s been in a great mood except when she’s expected to sleep. We tried a morning nap. She was very tired, and went down in her crib with no argument. Relieved, I stumbled back to bed, and collapsed.

She slept in her crib for 25 minutes.

At this point, I threw myself on John’s mercy, who has work he needs to do today, to let me get just a little more sleep. So, happily, I am now at least partially functional.

What scares me is that the offending teeth are not even visible yet. How long will this go on?