Daycare vs. Stay at home

There are days when having both of us work from home and being able to keep A-chan home with us is absolutely wonderful. And then there are days when our work schedule gets interrupted and I get really frustrated and almost wish that she went to Daycare. Almost.

I usually plan my "serious work sessions" for during her nap everyday. But the days when she doesn't take a nap (like yesterday) or if her nap is cut short by something, I can't get much done and end up being frustrated and feeling resentful about it. The fact that I get so frustrated is a mystery to me - it's like not-sleeping is a trigger for me to get all upset and it makes no sense. And at the end of a long day of stress & anger & tantrums from a sleepy toddler I end up questioning our decision to keep her at home with us.

Daycare is a necessary and wonderful thing for lots of parents, I know. Yet I just don't like it. Looking back on my own daycare days I am filled with horror. So I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to keep my daughter home with us.

It seems like all the kids I know who are in daycare are always sick. A-chan so far has had only two illnesses in her two year old life and we hope to keep that number to about the same ratio as she grows. That is a huge reason I don't want to send her to daycare. And the added caveat that we know all her bad habits will come from us instead of from other kids is...well, I don't know if that's a benefit or not.

So why am I writing all of this? Mainly to have something to convince myself that daycare is evil when I'm extremely frustrated and tired and grumpy and A-chan refuses to take a nap.

The Preciouses: Pink and Purple

Our pediatrician has recommended during our last few visits that we cut A-chan off cold-turkey fashion from her pacifiers. After some hemming and hawing we tried to take his advice and at least get her to cut back.

It backfired, badly.

What had been a 'paci' and a spare have become a matched set which she expects and requests now together. Thus the legendary team of "Pink and Pohple" was born - two jewel-tone pacifiers, one ruby and one amethyst, are her frequent request if she is stressed or wants comfort.



She will tolerate being deprived of one for short periods so long as we continue to put her off. Otherwise she expects to have one in her mouth and the other in her hand, often being used to touch her lower lip and usually switching back and forth from one to the other every few minutes. On occasion she'll manage to have both in at once, a practice I find inexplicably schrecklich.

Trying to use one paci and carry a spare has its problems. For instance, if someone hands you a cup to drink from, what are you to do? You can't remove your current paci without putting something down first, but putting down the cup seems counterproductive and putting down the spare is counter to the desire to have a spare. Poor A-chan will often stand there waiting vexedly for Nata or I to intervene and remove a paci, and will sometimes even hand over the spare as well.

We are still working on her paci use, and would like to get it down to none. Aside from the double-paci use *shiver*, her need to have both when sleeping in my opinion disturbs her sleep. The spare doubles the chance that one will fall overboard and land with a clatter on the wooden floor and wake her up, or at least plant in her subconscious mind the idea that Something Is Needed. This additional chance of loss (neatly turning the idea of a "spare" on its head) played out poorly twice yesterday, as she dropped the spare while riding in a shopping cart in Target and none of us noticed it immediately (resulting in an immediate paci search-and-rescue mission amongst the toddler clothes) and again as I carried her in from the car that night when the spare was knocked from her hand into the leaves on the ground (requiring me to round up a flashlight and go back out for more S&R).

On the positive side, I can usually get her to surrender both to me first thing in the morning, and conveniently misplace them until her nap time ("No, I don't know where they are"), and then sneak them away when first discarded after her nap until bedtime. Not all of the time, however, and the fervor with which she takes them back has lead to Nata and I refering to them as "the preciouses". She's not _quite_ Golem-like in her obsession for them, but we skirt around saying "paci", "pink", or "purple" while she is doing without lest we risk triggering her desire for them.

Broken

We decorated the Midwinter tree yesterday. Which went pretty well except for one unfortunate statement on my part. A-chan was helping by putting candycanes on the tree. She dropped one. It broke. She was distressed by this. I said, "That's okay. If it's broken that means we can eat it." Immediately thereupon she wanted to give it a try and thereafter spent most of the day either dropping candycanes 'accidentally' or mangling them by hand and asking to eat them afterwards.

We also found out that my allergy to mint is still going strong. After years of not eating candycanes I decided to try and see what happened. I regretted it verily. A-chan complained of having her tummy hurt but didn't have the same type of reaction that I did. Hopefully the allergy didn't get passed along because not being able to eat or touch mint just sucks.

A Day with Friends

Not too much to say tonight cause I'm exhausted. We went to "the city" today to visit with some friends who have 3 little girls about A-chan's age; M,F and E. They were very patient with us and took us to JumpZone and ToysRus and dinner, nevermind the fact that we totally derailed their daily schedule and didn't let their girls get a nap.

Whenever we spend any time with them I always get inspired to be a better parent. They are quite simply the penultimate parents in my opinion. I always wonder where they get the patience, the energy, the endurance to deal with three toddlers all the time while I can just barely deal with my one! It's simply amazing to watch them. And I don't think I've ever seen them get angry. Not once. I want to be just like them.

A-chan had a great time (and so did we) and played and giggled and played like she never gets to at home. That's one of the problems with stay at home parents like us - she very rarely gets to see other kids. I think perhaps most stay at home parents get out a bit more than we do. Usually once a week we leave the house. For groceries. Occassionally, like this week, we leave the house multiple times but it's a novelty and we try not to let it happen too often.

JumpZone was fantastic. It took her a while to get okay with the noise and the other kids and the new place, but once she figured out how much fun it could be she didn't want to leave. Ketu had the honor of taking her on all the playscapes, and thank goodness that his utilikilt has the modesty snap!!!

Sshhh, quiet.

Quiet storybook time after a busy day.

This was the first year we've ever participated in the Black Friday shopping madness. I found it interesting and invigorating. Ketu found it a bit tiresome, I think. But then he had to do the driving and the dealing with people who had no thoughts for others and had to have what they wanted now now now. A-chan just wanted to run around the store in delight. She enjoyed the tapestry throw with a dog on it at Best Buy very much. As always her squeaky shoes were remarked upon many times and got quite a lot of attention. One fellow remarked, "I heard it, I just didn't know what it was." They are so wonderful!! Several times she just took off on her own and we were able to track her down in the huge crowd within seconds.

It saddens me how people disregarded others so completely during the commercial extravaganza. (Not that I was that thoughtful myself as I ran around the store after A-chan) How are we parents supposed to teach our children about being nice to our fellow humans and politeness if there are so many rude people out there? I was under the impression that this was officially the beginning of the christmas season, but there was very little holiday spirit to be found other than perhaps greed. Again, it's not as though I was completely apart from the frenzy since we did go to the store for the same sale as everyone else...

On another level, however, we were quite apart from the crowds around us since we don't celebrate christmas. I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and come across some interesting ones that have a lot about being a minority in America. Although it is usually the case that a white person will be surrounded by other white people, that doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't a minority. To be Hindu, particularly a celtic hindu, in a small southern town is to be alone albeit in a different way than minorities often face - unless I'm wearing a sari and bindi. I am hoping that our differences will be a good thing for A-chan and that she won't be ashamed of us, at least not for following our hearts in religion. We are worried that being set so apart from mainstream america will be difficult for her. I'm sure that will be a recurring issue here from time to time. :)

Unturkey

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving day. Mainly because by the time we get through Con season in september, A-chan's birthday and Halloween we're desperate for some time-out before the Midwinter Holidays clomp us over the head. Also because we're vegetarian and it causes more trouble to join my family for the holiday than joy. The vegetarianism has always been a source of bad feeling between me and my family and it's so nice just to ignore the whole thing and not get into fights and recriminations about something that doesn't really matter. (Why can't I bring my own food to family celebrations??? It drives me nuts that they get so angry when I bring food with me, but they don't want to cook things that we can eat...) And I most definately don't want my daughter to get caught up in the family politics over something that is supposed to be a pleasant holiday. I want to keep her as far away from it as possible. Another reason, though mostly an add-on to the others, is that we aren't so sure the arrival and subsequent survival of the first americans is something to celebrate with wild abandon. I have mixed feelings about it. Obviously if they didn't arrive and live through the first years of settlement then I and my husband, daughter, cats, et al wouldn't be here and enjoying this beautiful 70 degree thanksgiving day weather. But on the other hand the new americans did slaughter and displace thousands of the native peoples and completely destroy large parts of their cultures. We have yet to decide how we will tackle these issues in the future. What exactly do we want to tell A-chan about the first immigrants and such? And how do we go about explaining that we don't eat turkey when the rest of the nation is so enamored of the idea?

So here we are not celebrating but instead doing hard manual labor with huge boxes full of midwinter decorations and strings of tree lights so that we can celebrate another holiday later. Ketu put together our fake christmas tree to the utter delight of A-chan and all the cats. I'm not sure if A-chan had more fun carrying the branches to him or chasing away cats when they tried to eat the fake needles. She loved the "Christmas in the Stars" CD that was the first holiday music of the year - Yes we all love R2 and 3PO singing carols. We are teh g33ks! Our food today consisted of all american staples that have absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving: grilled cheese sandwiches (lunch), pizza (dinner). For dessert, however, we totally caved in to the delights of pumpkin pie (for Ketu) and pecan pie (for me). A-chan insisted that the cool whip was ice cream and refused to eat any pie in favor of the "eys cram".

When the empty boxes of holiday decorations go back into the attic we are going to send up some old baby toys too. We decided this a few days ago and somehow A-chan found out about it. She went out of her way to convince us today that her exersaucer was still a well-loved and wanted toy even though she hasn't fit into it in almost a year. It's just been sitting in our office for that long, waiting for an excuse to banish it to the attic. But now we are second guessing our decision. Should we leave it out? Or put it up and hope that she doesn't notice the lack of a huge circular entertainment device. And of course to make things even more difficult, the cats love to sleep in the gently curved and vaguely cave-like bottom. Oh yes, we are weak and I'm convinced that they have all banded together with some fiendish mind-control device!

Words of the week

meowing
and
needs hug mata
what happened?
watch out purr purr
grandma amma
bed all messy
snowman santa
all filled up
too big
I miss you, dada

The Most Dreaded Words

They have come. We are filled with terror. Yes, our daughter has said THOSE words. "I want a doggie." More horrifying than any four letter word she might learn inadvertentely. It is this sole phrase that has us quaking with fear. It's not that we don't like dogs. Okay, well maybe it's more like I'm fine with dogs but Ketu doesn't like them. We are intrinsically, without a doubt as far from dog people as you can be.

Our house is filled with cats. 16 of them to be precise. And one feral kitty lives outdoors and deigns to let us feed him. There are cat pictures everywhere, cat statues, stuffed kitty toys - we just love cats!! Cats wash themselves. And (except for one notable autistic kitty) they go potty on their own. No baths, no walking in the rain or at 5 am. Cats can pretty much fend for themselves with a small bit of intervention and supervision when we are on trips. (They wouldn't agree, of course and would prefer never to have us further than 10 feet away at all times...)

So what's the problem, you might ask. Just don't get a dog if you don't want one. Right. If only it were that simple. See, we were both born with the word sucker painted on our foreheads. How can we say no next saturday when we go past rows of puppies and doggies at the adoption site? The pull of those sad eyes and wagging tails is a strong one even though we aren't dog people. With the added pressure of baby blue eyes and happy giggles will we be able to stand strong? Even worse that this same trial will take place at least once a month when we volunteer at the rabies clinic.

Speaking of the rabies clinic, it's been about 4 months since we've

been to one. The last one that we went to Miss A-chan was beginning to get antsy about sitting still for 3 hours. I'm a tad bit wary of going next weekend because it's been so long and we have no idea how she is going to react. (Her first rabies clinic was when she was 2 months old. We've skipped a few here and there in the intervening 22 months, but never so many at a time...) We're going to have to come up with some solution to help keep her occupied and out of trouble.

Pajama Girl!

A-chan in her pajamas sitting on Dada's pillow for our bedtime story. Hugging her two lovies. Note one pacifier in the mouth and a second in the hand. Just one isn't good enough. We're working on breaking her of that habit and have gotten her to not need paci's during the day. She still needs both at naptime and bedtime though. Our pediatrician recommends the cold turkey method of taking the paci's away, but we just can't do that.

Words of the week

"good job, mata"
"no diarrhea"
"bluejay flew away"
"pinkjay flew away" ( we thought that she knew what a bluejay was until she said this one later the next day...but maybe she does but likes pink better?)
"Hey guys"
"Hey dada come here please"
"seventeen"
"apple, pear, two fruits"
"every day"
"I want"
"cute"
"chewbacca, han solo" (already said r2, stormtrooper, yoda & "dark vader")
"new game"

An open house

The day started off poorly when religious spammers drove up and knocked on the door thereby waking up the baby early and scaring her at the same time. This pretty much set her mood to tantrum girl for the next 6 hours: I was not happy. Ketu was not happy. A-chan was incredibly unhappy. I have to wonder if they have any clue just how absolutely rude and annoying they are?

We went to an open house party yesterday for A-chan's godparents. (We use the term loosely because we couldn't think up a better one at the time and everyone pretty much has an idea of what this means, but to us it has no religious connotations...) Oh wow, was the food just incredible! S is a fantastic cook and we ate ourselves silly. AND we got to bring lots of it home with us, woot!! We'd never eaten tamales and we loved the frybread which was just like poori.

At first A-chan was very sleepy and not wanting to socialize, in fact did a fantastic sulky face that I wish we'd thought to get a picture of. After eating a ton of blueberries, some cornmeal cookies and chocolate covered cherries she finally started smiling. Her red winter squeaky shoes had stopped squeaking about a month ago, so we thought that they were safe for letting her wear them in the confined space of a house. Almost as soon as we got there one shoe started squeaking again! At least it wasn't as bad as with both squeakers going and it definately helped keep track of her. (Except for the time that I was weaving and not paying attention and Ketu was eating chili and came into the hallway and saw her about 8 stairs up. We don't have any stairs at home so anytime she can climb stairs she wants to desperately, but she's not very steady at it since she doesn't get to practice much. Heartattack time!)

The arrival of M,F & E also helped with her mood. Soon the four girls were flying around the house in a game of follow the leader. Her pants are too big for her and despite the belt kept slipping down. (teeny-tiny baby butt) Every time A-chan would run around the corner she would stop and let M,F & E's dad pull up her pants! It was so funny - she wouldn't let anyone else do it and she stopped every time!

Apparently she became quite enamored of L's non-digital clock (how often do you see those these days?!!) and tried to take it with her. She asked for one this morning at breakfast.

She fell asleep on Ketu's shoulder around 9 pm - something she's never done before. Well, not since she was like 10 months old anyway. If it's not a bed with her lovies and special blanket it's not for falling asleep on. It was soooo sweet :) And Ketu sat there with her on his shoulder for about and hour as we talked to people, isn't he a great dad?

The Cutest Ham

A-chan has decided that she loves to have her picture taken. This evening as I was cooking dinner she thought she looked cute sitting on the largest stacking box and asked her dad to take pictures of her.

She also loves seeing the pictures on his digital camera right after they are taken. One picture will turn into half an hour of her striking a cute pose and then running over to see the picture. It's amazing that she even knows how to work the buttons on the camera to see the pics!

Today was a very tantrum-filled day, every little thing got her worked up. We aren't sure why. The pictures episode was one of the high-points of the day where she was smiling and happy.

Inspiration

I've been playing around with my blog about our 17 cats for a few months. And looking at other blogs here and there related to my bento obsession. Then I found a blog that inspired me to create this blog. www.thelotuslife.net Why did her blog inspire me so much? I'm not exactly sure. But looking at the pictures of her children and of the lunches that she makes for them...I realized that I was letting so much of life with my daughter slip past. That I haven't been making an effort to cherish each day the way that I should be, the way that I want to. The realization that we mainly take pictures of her only on special occasions and not just everyday-having-fun pictures came as a shock. Where are the pictures of her just being my wonderful little girl?? So I've decided to change my ways and start cherishing each day and this blog is the start of it.

Like today - she thoroughly enjoyed her lunch. Baby tomatoes first, then pickles, then blueberries (she has to tell me the size of each blueberry before she eats it...). Next came tomato soup, but she put her noodles into the soup first. What a mess!! But she had fun and that's what counts. It seems so ordinary, so I don't really tend to take note of how she eats. However, it's the details that make things special and I want to try to remember them. Hopefully soon I will figure out how to put up pictures!