Welcome Home

A little cliff hanger...I now know how to get red felt tip pen (like a marker and not the washable kind) off of a wood floor.

We, just Mr. B and I, squeezed in a much needed trip to see grandma this weekend and returned home at my, not his, bedtime last night. He did sleep on the way home, but woke up and eagerly wanted to see dada and doggie before going back to sleep.

Arriving home late meant awakening to all our stuff and with Mr. B in tow...it is a lot of stuff...I am sure cloth diapering is part of the bigger load.  Mr. B did not like the let's have a normal at home routine this morning, so he had to liven it up.  I due adore a good list, so I decided to put this morning's fun events in chronological order using a list, so here goes (please fasten your seat belts as it will be a bumpy ride)

1. Squirm so much for first diaper change of day that mommy leaves pajama pants off.
2. Dump out doggies water and food bowl
3. Watch doggie get upset and have a seizure
4. While mommy makes toast, find a red felt tip pen and draw on suitcase, coffee table, rug, shirt, floor
5. Take mommy's rag to help clean up so that she has to go get another one
6. Spill mommy's coffee all over table and floor (which she was putting on table when she discovered #4)
7. Let mommy strip me down in tub to make sure I am not harmed (she doesn't realize that because of #4 and #5 the coffee cooled entirely)
8. Try to climb out of tub multiple times while mommy cleans up coffee spill
9. Let mommy wash sticky legs and belly
10. Finally get to eat breakfast with only a diaper on (I wonder if mommy realizes that this was my goal all along)

The Compromise:  Mr. B took over my morning and my blog (see above)
The Sweet Reward: I initially used my tried and true disinfectant cleaner which worked fine on the glass coffee table but not the wood floor.  Happily, I next discovered the pure castille soap did the trick.  A sigh of relief until I saw just how many rags were needed this morning and the realization I had no coffee....Help!!!  That was the real compromising mother problem.

Ode To Arugala

It is unseasonably warm where I live now, so much so that everything has gone into Spring mode very early.  I am a big proponent of the planet since I live here and I believe that global warming is real and here to stay.  Today, though, well and yesterday too, I decided if you can't beat 'em then join 'em.  So, I (who still have winter clothes on my laundry room floor to wash) jumped with two feet into Spring or rather my garden.  While I know that we may return to cold weather, I love Spring gardening and hate to get seeds in any later than possible.

Yesterday, with two dogs, a toddler, claw style hand tiller, a shovel, and the odds and ends seeds purchased in previous seasons...to be honest I think I just lost track of this sentence.  Let's just suffice it to say, I started gardening yesterday...March 12th....March 12th....(I am still in disbelief).  Yes it is Spring warm, yes we are wearing Spring clothes, but most importantly my chives are growing, the soil surface is warm but underneath it is cool and damp.  My garden is speaking loudly to me that it is Spring even though the calendar is laughing at the garden.  So, I tilled and I planted and I tilled a little more so I could plant a little more and yes I went overboard.  I planted loose salad greens, head lettuce, spinach, arugula, peas, beets, radishes, chard, regular kale, and Chinese kale.  We have also been enjoying fresh green lettuce salads full of arugula, which I really love. To explain why I have greens in full growth goes all the way back to last Fall.  After a long term pattern of procrastinating a Fall garden, last year it really happened.  Honestly, it was not due to finding a cure to my laziness, but due to anger that my garden that was having its best year sadly met the hottest driest Summer I have seen.  I was so frustrated that I put in a Fall garden.  I am a great Spring gardener and I now realize that Fall gardening is basically the same except that I water more at the beginning and less at the end.  With an unseasonably mild Winter (I believe I mentioned that above), nothing froze.  So, the arugula I planted last Fall is now bolting.  That's the happy part of the story. The sad part, nothing froze, so the weeds lived on.  Underneath my gardens top soil is an extensive mesh of weed roots.  Yep, folks global warming is real and yep we need a good hard freeze every Winter to kill things that we find annoying, such as weeds and mosquitoes. 


The Compromise: Global Warming...need I say more.

The Sweet Reward:  Arugula in all forms right now, i.e. salad, bolting in my garden, and seedlings ready to emerge...a worthy reward for the above price right....okay not really...sorry to end on the sad note.

On a happier note:  Bake your own pizza and as soon as you pull it out of a very hot oven (at least 450 is my recommendation), toss fresh arugula on top so it wilts.  so yummy, especially if you sub out the mozzarella for goat cheese.....mmmmm.....

Mama Aerobic Routine

I am always trying to work exercise into a busy mom and part-time worker schedule, so mutli-tasking is my forte.  The other day though, I began mutli-tasking without preplanning, just a happy accident (ooohhhh that would be a fun posting topic).  I love to turn on pandora for my son as he loves music.  I have to make conscious efforts to do this as I am more likely to have on PBS or talk radio for sound (wow, I really am a nerd...kiddo's name should have been Poindexter...I don't think we could afford the investment in self-defense classes for him ;)  The other day this great upbeat tempo song came on (kid music sure has improved over the years) and I just felt like dancing.  By the way, we have one rule about dancing in our house.  If you are a bad dancer, you can only dance alone in your house or at weddings, otherwise it become a societal nuisance.  Well, it turned out to be quite a workout.  So, I decided to blog about it for other moms that are struggling to get their heart pounding with exercise (worrying when your kiddo is TOO brave on the playground doesn't count). Here are the instructions.  Feel free to print out for future reference.

1. Make sure to completely close the curtains in your living room
2. go to pandora.com and type in your favorite artists, i.e. Sesame Street or Schoolhouse rock
3. Pick up a nearby toddler weighing over 26 pounds
4. Dance away with abandon
5. When the toddler giggles, make sure to also giggle it adds to the heart pounding effect
6. When the song is through place said toddler back on the ground
7. See him signing more so cutely, that you are left with no other choice, but pick him up and dance again

I would love to say that I did this for a full workout, but believe me this is much more exhausting than you can imagine.  

The Compromise:  Exhaustion
The Sweet Reward:  Giggling, exercise, giggling, loving the music, giggling....and more giggling...I am smiling right now just remembering. :)

One For the Record Books

Where to begin my sordid tale?

When husband, D, and I decided that staying home as much as possible was our parenting journey, we realized that I had to work some. This means that I toggle a few part-time positions with full-time mom.  Most days it works amazingly well and my son, Mr. B, really goes with the flow of constant change.  We have what we call Daddy days and Mama days.   Typically we have the latter. 

Well, today began as the former...a Daddy day...and it was the second one this week, which can be unpredictable at best.  I worked all day and followed it with an evening commitment that meant Mr. B came along.  This type of situation was so much easier when he was younger.  I recall taking him to a work training all day when he was 6 weeks old. He was so quiet and well behaved that people came up to me afterwards and said they didn't even realize a baby was present.  Mr. B has become a professional at handling work meetings and all types of more adult environments with ease and an infectious grin.  So, he came with me tonight. The event ended at bedtime, so I  naively assumed we would leave and he would fall asleep in the car with pajamajams already in place.  I did not work in to my plan "running over."  A 20 month old on second wind in pajamajams is adorable even when hard to handle.  Well, then came the true compromise (by the way engaging in a professional meeting with a 20 month old running around was not the true compromise...amazing!).  While doing a last diaper change and restuffing the cloth diaper shell/cover, Mr. B ran off in unzipped footie pajamajams.  Yep, that's the note we ended our evening on...well not exactly.  Mr. B then made sure to show off his favorite part of himself.  I think I will now change my career choice to professional toggler.  Is that a real thing?

The Compromise:  wearing one professional hat by day, driving one hour and then trying to wear my other professional hat while being mama

The Sweet Reward:  "the story" to hold in my back pocket if ever his head gets too big for himself.

Developmental Milestones

Mr. B is NOT normal.  And in case you are wondering, no kiddo is normal.  Here's the reason developmental milestones are not meant to be a specific set point in time, but a time span.

For example, Mr. B's first birthday came and went and he didn't walk.  We waited a little longer, no walking. We waited even longer, still not walking. We waited a little less patiently and, well I think you get it now, no walking.  Call in the experts.  Actually, no.  I can't tell you exactly when he started walking off the top of my head (his baby book is in the room where he is currently sleeping), but it was around 15 months.  When he did decide to walk, there was nothing tentative.  I put him down on the floor in a standing position and he took not one but three steps.  Later that same evening, he walked all the way across the floor and the next day he was running.  He did this with crawling.  He absolutely refuses to do anything until he does it all the way.

Language development has been a little different.  I am fully aware that statistically boys take longer to warm up when it comes to spoken language.  Mr. B sometimes will say a word for awhile and then it disappears. Unlike the norm, he did say mama first and for quite awhile.  The first time was in the car with daddy driving away from one of my part-time gigs and he said it in true desperation.  I haven't heard it for quite awhile, but "daddy," is a regular sound in our home. :(

Given that he is a boy and others in the family had waited until they were capable of producing full sentences to talk, I began introducing sign language to Mr. B at 6 months old.  For several months, it was something I did only and I am not sure that he even paid attention to what I was doing.  Fast forward to 20 months old, Mr. B's current sign language vocabulary of what he can produce reliably tipped over 40 words today.  Yet, 12-15 spoken words is expected at this age per babycenter.com.  What is the underlying purpose of spoken word vocabularies?  Is it to demonstrate phoneme (letter sound) production?  Is it a way to measure a child understanding of symbolic meaning (the spoken word being a simple for the actual object....i.e. this thing I am typing on is called a computer, not because it is intrinsically appropriate but because it was selected by a human as the label or symbol...modernwordmaker would have worked too.)?  Depending on the purpose of this milestone my son is either REALLY behind if sound production is the underlying goal or REALLY ahead if symbolic meaning is important since he produces 42 signs and can understand many, many more.

What is my underlying purpose in this blog entry?  RELAX.  Please stop worrying about your kiddo.  A broad range of timing of these milestones is normal and inconsistent development is normal.  My kiddo can communicate a lot of information, but has been slower with physical development.  But, yep, he is still "normal" or abnormal ;)  I guess, you can decide, but I plan to not worry and I plan to monitor myself for comparisons.  I am deeply concerned that comparing one child to another or one mother to another is negative for all parties.  I am not typing this for all people to read because I have perfected not comparing my child, but a way to document my intent.  so, if you catch me making harmful comparisons, you have my permission to gently remind me of my pledge here.  I actually mean it.  This concern came about when another mama asked me on the playground how old Mr. B is because when asked to point to a letter he is correct a majority of the time (he is beginning to make the sounds too). She admitted that she was worried that her child was developmentally behind. I reassured her, but have continued to stew about this since then.  Remember that inconsistent is often the case.  My son can do all this, but he does not consistently use 12-15 words although probably has said this many.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:  for your benefit and everyone else's stop comparing your child to all the other children.  You will save valuable time, energy, and mama sanity.

Second important message:  If you teach your kid the sign for "cookie," he will use it with the most pathetic face at every opportunity.  This sign took one learning incident...no repetition needed for this important word...yep, he understands the functionality of language.