DotMoms

Untrodden ground

By Martha

What is it about my baby's feet that makes me feel as melty as a freshly-baked Toll House cookie? Is it because they're softer than anything in the world? Is it because the toes are disproportionately long and pudgy? Is it because the toenails somehow seem to need to be cut each and every day?

Of course, I love all of his parts. His sweet-smelling head covered with peach fuzz hair, his short fingers with the dimples at the knuckles, the thighs getting so chunky that they have little rolls of baby fat around the knee. But it's the feet that really get me.

It was the same way with my older son. I feel this irresistible compulsion to kiss each little toe, to play "this little piggy" over and over, and to make up silly songs regaling the glory of the tiny baby foot. What is it that's so special about those feet?

I think it's the fact that the soles are completely unblemished -- not the slightest trace of a callus, no need for a pumice stone to scrub away a week's worth of walking. Because no walking has yet been done. Those feet have yet to take even one step in the wrong direction. And that's what it comes down to.

Those feet can carry my little baby wherever he wants to go in life. They can carry him far from home; they can decide that they're not the wandering sort. They can run him down the fast track to success; they can lead him down the wrong path altogether.

They're his feet, and it will -- some day -- be for him to decide. Meanwhile, all I can do is keep clipping the toenails and try to offer him gentle guidance down a good road.

See Spot Run

By Amanda

As the mother of two children in day care I have been guilty of letting someone else do the dirty work. From getting rid of the pacifier to potty training it's been great to have the extra nudge of the day-care teachers to move things along.

A few weeks ago I started panicking about my four-year-old learning to read. I was, of course, doing the worst thing a parent can do, I was COMPARING children. You see five-year-old Claudia from my daughter's pre-school class knows how to read, and she didn't learn it at day care. Her mother taught her. I realized that this was my job, and I had no idea where to start.

For Christmas my daughter's grandmother gave her an anthology of "Dick and Jane." She told my daughter that she learned to read by studying "Dick and Jane." Although I don't remember, I'm sure that's how I learned to read as well. The thought of reading this book night after night with its endless repetition didn't thrill me, but I didn't have any other brilliant ideas, so we gave it a try.

We are now 135 pages into the book. I am amazed at how she takes in each new word, studies the sound as it rolls off her tongue and then pushes forward. She wants each sentence to be perfect from pronunciation to inflection. She repeats a sentence again and again until she gets it right. When she does get it right, she is so proud of herself. I am even prouder.

I knew hearing a child say her first word or take her first steps was going to be monumental, but no one could have prepared me for this -- watching her take her first steps into the world of reading.

I never could have imagined that hearing "See Spot Run" ten times in a row would sound so beautiful.

Reclaiming our bed

By Amy M.

When my son was a newborn, I wanted to do everything "right." Like many first-time moms, I was a nervous wreck, sleep-deprived, and, well, clueless. Even though Alex was waking up 3–4 times a night to nurse for his first three months, I was afraid to bring him into our bed, which probably would have allowed both of us to get more quality sleep. Not until he was around nine months old, when he was less "fragile" and I was less nervous, did I finally cave in and let him sleep with us when he woke up in the middle of the night.

Well, a year later, Alex is still sleeping in our bed. During the winter and spring, it was an occasional thing. I had stopped nursing him in November, but when he would still occasionally wake up during the night, I just couldn't simply "soothe" him and then leave him in his crib to cry it out. Okay, the truth is I wanted to get right back to sleep and that would happen much sooner if I brought Alex into bed with me.

We had established a nice nighttime routine, including bath with Daddy and storytime with me. He would usually fall asleep in my arms in the glider. But just recently, he began squirming out of my arms when I tried to read to him. Now he walks to the door of his room, looks at me smugly, and then sets off down the hall, saying "bed."

No, he's not talking about his crib. He's talking about mommy and daddy's bed. It's like he's afraid of missing something if he sleeps in his crib. And if he's in our bed, at least one of us is with him. Every night, I think, "We'll do something about this tomorrow, or over the weekend."

But what can we do? When we put him in his crib at night while he's still awake, he gets hysterical. Is it time to switch to a toddler bed? If you have any suggestions, please share them!

Editor's Note: Amy is a new DotMom. You can read her bio here.

Milestones

By Teddi

A co-worker from a different department asked about my twins yesterday. I proudly showed him my most recent pictures. Lately I've noticed that I measure esteem for my colleagues -- and just about everyone else -- by how much they ooh and ahh over my endless parade of photos, stories and other assorted toddler ephemera.

"How old are they?"

"Thirteen months," I replied in my "can-you-believe-it?" tone.

"And they're not walking yet? Wow, well, don't worry too much, I've heard twins are slow sometimes compared to normal kids."

I gritted my teeth as he walked away. I hate how comments like that make me feel. Oddly defensive, frustrated, even a little ashamed. We've been told countless times by people who actually do know what they're talking about (our pediatrician, baby experts, every baby book published in the last 20 years) that all babies develop at a different pace and ours are moving along just fine. In fact, they're thriving little campers.

Still…

I wasn't too concerned when the babies in my singleton mom's group began standing up, cruising and taking a few tiny steps in walkers. On our latest visit, I noticed my kids were the last ones not yet walking. But my idiot colleague is right, singletons really are a little faster on the development train. Not a big deal.

Then last week I went to my twins group. Again, we're in last place in the walking race. Jimmy and Lily crawl around like their butts are on fire, get up on their knees and bounce, stand up on any available surface, sometimes without support, but they just don't get the whole walking thing. It's like they just aren't interested. My vague sense of embarrassment was enhanced by the fact that my kids are the oldest in the group by a few weeks.

So what am I so worried about? That my kids will be unable to walk? Visions of me fashioning some kind of double homemade sling to ferry my 40-pound kids from room to room flash through my mind. But that's not really it.

Life can be seen as a competition and since I've had kids I'm amazed at how I feel myself getting caught up in reaching the milestones instead of enjoying the journey. In theory, I know better, and I hate that I let inconsequential things like this bother me, but I do.

When people ask about the walking, I usually laugh it off and say, "Well, I'm not really rushing it, as soon as they're both walking, my life will really get intense." Lately I'm realizing it's me who needs to turn down the intensity a notch and enjoy the ride.

Do you worry about milestones?

Car talk

By Robin P.

I bet when Henry Ford was inventing the automobile he was thinking in terms of transportation not communication, but that's how I look at my car. It's the place where Lillianna and I exchange thoughts and ideas without interruption. Sure it gets me from point A to point B, but it also helps me connect to my child.

On our most hectic days, as we are trying to dash out of the house, Lillianna always starts to ask questions about random things. "Mom, why do we have a wine bottle with our last name on it? Why did you write about balloons on your blog today?" My answer is always the same, "I will tell you in the car."

That is our place to chat endlessly about anything that is on our minds. Sometimes I talk about a lesson I want her to learn, like not to judge a book by its cover, how to be sympathetic, why manners are important, what to do in an emergency. Sometimes I tell her stories about when I was her age and the funny things my mom, dad and sister did. I always enjoy these times together. It wasn't until the other day that I realized Lillianna loves these talks, too.

I answered her question about why I wrote about balloons on my blog and that started a discussion about bridal showers which turned into why brides register for gifts and on and on it went. I am always amazed at the twists and turns our conversations can take. Figuring she was probably bored at this point, I asked,"Are you going to put your headset on and listen to music?" Lillianna's response surprised me. "Not yet, Mom. I'm waiting until storytime is over." All I could do was laugh. I never thought of it as "storytime," but she obviously sees our talks as something fun and so do I.

When and where do you talk to your children?

Hot bats

By Beth

As I was browsing through my website referral logs this morning, I saw that someone had gotten to my site by Goolging "Will hot bats induce labor?"  I think we all know at what stage this poor woman is in her pregnancy. The ninth month with the swollen feet, the barking "Can't you park any CLOSER to the front door???" at her poor wide-eyed husband, the not being able to roll over in bed. The whole shebang. When I was at this point in my pregnancy with Beckett, I also found myself Googling for popular inducement methods. But this poor woman. She sounds desperate. Hot bats? That's really pushing the envelope.

When I hit 38 weeks, I was ready for baby Beckett to move out of my womb. My pregnancy was relatively easy. I could still wear my regular underwear right up until the 36th week, which I considered to be an accomplishment. But in week 36 the elastic in my underwear and the elastic in my skin both snapped, leaving me with stretch marks and several days of "going commando," as my husband put it, until I could go shopping for new undies. By the 38th week, I was so swollen that I swore I'd throw a formal party the day my ankles made a reappearance in my life. This was the week I started Googling natural induction methods.

I read about castor oil, long walks, and nipple twisting. There were articles about reflexology, evening primrose, and red raspberry tea. I was too chicken to actually try any of it, and wound up being medically induced for pre-eclampsia at 39 weeks. Turns out that swelling wasn't normal! Imagine my surprise! But I swear, during all of my moaning and groaning in those last two weeks of pregnancy, I never resorted to hot bats.

What crazy inducement methods have you heard about and/or actually tried?

Editor's Note: Beth is a new DotMom. You can read her first post here and read her bio here.

The reason they like bananas

by andrea

Kids ask the best questions, don't they? Their questions arise out of their innocence, a genuine thirst for knowledge and a keen interest in their surroundings and how things work. It's so fun to see this in action. (Clearly, for me, part of the fun of being a parent is the act of studying these strange little critters a.k.a. our children.)

Earlier this week, while she was eating her cereal, my daughter Emma suddenly got very serious and, not knowing which words to choose, asked me a garbled question about "the first elephant." As it turned out, she wanted to know where they came from, and how the first ones got here.

I was caught by surprise. I had nothing prepared. How does one explain billions of years of evolution (this is what we will be teaching our children) when she can hardly grasp the concept of the five years she's been alive in this world?

Just now I was researching a better way of explaining it on a level she'd understand. I found this here:

The most success I have had in getting the concept across is to keep coming back to natural selection. How some things live and some things don't. And the things that live have babies just like themselves so eventually everything looks like them.

You can play a game with colored jelly beans or M&M's to illustrate this point. Use a colored paper background, a colored carpet or, best of all, the green lawn. Talk about how there are many different colored jelly-bean-people hiding in the grass and a predator wants to fly down and eat them. Spread out the jelly beans and have the child pretend to be a predator -- catching the ones that are the easiest to see in a short period of time. Then collect the remaining ones and discuss how the green ones and the black ones "survived" and now there will only be green and black jellybean babies –- at least until the first snow.

How have you explained this big question to your child? Is there a better way?

Traveling toddler

By Analee

Jan-Patrick was 4 months old when I took him with me on his first flight. We flew from Frankfurt to Manila for 14 straight hours. Despite the fact that I did not sleep at all due to paranoia, it was uneventful. A month later, since we were more experienced and confident, we flew again to Paris and then to Amsterdam. The only thing that bothered the little prude in me was the fact that a couple of men seemed to find it normal to start a conversation with me despite the fact that I was trying to breastfeed my son. Whatever happened to discreetly looking away once a woman's breast, a breastfeeding mom at that, is exposed?!

Since li'l Jan has been a good traveler, my husband and I thought that a short trip to Rome would be easy for an 11-month-old. Wrong! We found out later that we should not have compared the reactions of baby Jan to the reactions of now-toddler Jan.

It took three adults to supress his need and want to crawl around while onboard. The stewardess, my husband and I took turns playing with him and distracting him with whatever we could find. His fascination with the 2 new toys from Lufthansa only bought us 10 minutes. Thank God, the flight was only an hour and a half.

Touring around Rome was more difficult. Not the toddler's fault, of course. He was, after all, only acting his age. It was little embarassing though when we joined the 3.5 hour tour of the Vatican. In areas where we were all supposed to hush and look, he was babbling and looking around animatedly. At least, said the guide, he could appreciate the works of Michelangelo at such a young age. If only he knew that Jan has the same reactions when looking around dirty train stations.

Do not even ask what our experience was when he had our first dinner at this chichi restaurant. Let's just say, the succeeding meals were taken in restaurants were they can seat us al-fresco instead of being cooped up inside.

Many times, my husband and I have opined that we would leave Jan with his grandparents on our next trip. I doubt we will, though. As inconvenient as it may have been with a toddler during the tour, I doubt if we would have enjoyed it as much without him. For now, I am looking forward to the time when he is big enough to appreciate traveling.

The day care experiment comes to a close

By Anne-Marie

In two weeks, Nathan starts his second year of preschool. This means summer is almost over and so is day care.

So what did I accomplish this summer while the kids were in preschool? I got the carpets cleaned and attended an eBay seminar. I went to my MOMS Club board meetings and worked on the newsletter. I wrote our proposed charter school discipline and dress codes. I got a few haircuts, went to several doctor appointments and attended jury duty. I did some eBay selling and made a little extra money.

I ran errands, read some good books, went to see "I-Robot," got caught up on the fourth season of the "Sopranos," stayed in bed all day with a nasty head cold, cleaned my house and ate many meals without getting up once for someone else. I even got some writing done. It wasn't the most relaxing of summers, but I accomplished a lot.

Most importantly, I learned some important things about my kids and me. First, Nathan needs to have social interaction with his peers and other adults. He's the black hole of attention, and day care, like preschool, satisfies that need. He enjoyed playing with new kids, going swimming at the rec center, learning new songs and games and eating different foods.

Lucie thrived as well. Even though she'd cry every time I dropped her off, she was fine five minutes after I left. (I'd peek in the classroom window and check.) She started taking naps on a more regular schedule. She was also more enthusiastic about eating, rather than drinking, her meals at home. She got used to wearing shoes, probably because she saw the other kids wearing them. She even did some painting, which was something I'd never expose her to at home, figuring she was too little.

While I relished the solitude and quiet, I did miss my children, especially Lucie. Nathan, at four years, is a big kid. It's good for him to be away from me. And to tell you the truth, I'm glad to get away from "Drill Sergeant Nathan." He's especially moody and demanding these days, and it's overwhelming at times.

His sister is a different story. At one year, Lucie is still my baby and I need that cuddle time with her. I now value our one-on-one time more and am looking forward to attending our mommy/toddler tumbling class this fall.

I also learned my children really love each other. Several times, I witnessed a reunion scene that nearly brought me to tears. After picking up Lucie in her room, we'd go to the center's playroom to find her brother. Upon seeing her, Nathan would yell, "Oh, hiiiii Lucie!" Then he'd run over and give her a huge hug. She' say, "Nay-nay!" and hug him back. A real Kodak moment.

All in all, the day care experiment was successful. It did us all some good. I got a break and the children had a fun summer. I also learned some valuable things about us as a family and as individuals. Most importantly, I now know that if my children ever have to attend day care on a more permanent basis, we'll all survive, and the kids will flourish.

Start spreading the news

By Beth

I got an instant message last week from a girlfriend back on the Mainland. It started something like this, "I'm so excited! I'm going to NYC this weekend with Chris!" After my initial reaction of wanting to pick up the monitor and hurl it out of my office window, I composed myself, and replied, "Cool. Have fun. Take lots of pictures!"

I was having such a great morning until this childless friend of mine turned me into a green-eyed monster by typing about how much fun her life is in a four-inch by four-inch window with blinking noises and happy face icons.

I poured myself another cup of coffee, and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. This wasn't the first time I'd felt jealous of my DINK friends since my son Beckett was born four months ago. And it wasn't the first time I'd felt horribly guilty because the lifestyle shift of going from thirtysomething hipster to mommy wasn't (and still isn't!) an easy transition for me.

My pregnancy wasn't planned, and my husband and I had never really discussed whether or not we wanted to have children until I was actually pregnant. We didn't have time to discuss having kids. We were too busy globetrotting and snorkeling and drinking bourbon martinis to think about whether parenting was right for us or not. When we found out we were pregnant, we tried to comfort ourselves by saying things like, "Well, we've had our wild days. It will be good to settle down."

That seemed to work in a pinch, even though we were both secretly terrified that after having a baby our lives would be over. I kept hearing my mother's voice in my head saying, "It's time to come in for dinner. You've had enough fun for one day." You've had enough fun. That's what I was afraid of.

Enter Beckett. When Beckett was born, something happened to my dogma. Almost everything I thought was a truth about myself and about the universe shifted. Suddenly, I found myself feeling sorry for people who didn't have babies. I would say things like, "Wow, it feels so good to stay home and just be a family." And I finally understood why my parents rarely went out with friends and our big social activity was going to church on Sunday mornings.

I talked to my childless friends on the phone, and exclaimed that having a baby was better than all of the bourbon martinis in all of the bars in all of the metropolitan cities in all of the world. So why this morning, would I possibly feel jealous of one of my best friends going away with her husband to New York City for the weekend?

Oh yeah, because I'm not just Beckett's mom, I'm also still Beth the human being! I'm still Beth the actress. I'm still Beth the friend who loves throwing dinner parties, and staying up all night talking to a friend over a bottle of wine. I'm still Beth the lover, who wants to spend hot nights with her husband without listening for cries over the baby monitor.

Today, I'm okay being Beth the mom. But I'm keeping all of the other Beths just under the surface, easily accessible and ready to jump into action. I figure New York City will still be there when my husband and I decide we're ready to steal off for a romantic weekend. This weekend we'll have to make do with taking a stroll through the neighborhood and being parents. If we can make it there, we'll make it anywhere.