Yesterday Natalie was eating the (unusual) snack of crackers and feta cheese. She said she was done, so I took the remaining feta and put it back into its container.
"What's Mommy doing?" she asked.
"I'm putting the leftover feta away to save for later," I explained. "Food takes time to make and money to buy, so we don't want to be wasteful. We want to be grateful."
She was paying careful attention to what I was saying. I've told her before that "we don't want to be wasteful," but I don't think she really got it. Also, annoyingly, in the past she'd say back, "We do want to be wasteful" just because she wanted to be a defiant toddler. But yesterday was different. She was in a good mood. So I kept going.
"Actually, did you know there are some people in the world who don't have delicious food to eat? Isn't that sad?"
I could see the gears turning in her head. I expected her to respond with something silly or break into song or grab a toy or do some other age-appropriate activity. Instead, she kept talking.
"And we have a house that protects us from thunder and lightning," she said.
I was rather shocked. Perhaps she was getting the whole gratitude thing, at least a little.
"And we have a beautiful house," she said.
She got me. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.
"And some kids don't get to do special things like make crafts," she said.
The tears just fell down my cheeks.
"That's right, in fact most kids in the world don't get to do all these special crafts," I said.
We hugged, she ran away to grab a toy, and soon after it was nap time.
Not every day is perfect, but yesterday was.
Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Reflections from a Disney Store
I grew up playing with Barbies. I owned at least eight dolls and two lunchboxes full of Barbie clothes. A Barbie townhouse with operating "elevator" stood next to my bed for most of my childhood, and I remember learning my first lesson about budgeting when I saved up $20 from allowances and report card rewards to purchase a Barbie kitchen.
So, because you can probably see where this post is going, I need to explain that I am not opposed to dolls and frills and princesses. I am, though, annoyed about how much it's in my face these days as the mother of a toddler girl.
We walked into the Disney Store yesterday to make a princess-item return. At 2 years, 4 months old, Natalie has never watched more than 20 consecutive minutes of TV (in fact she has watched one episode of one TV show ever), so we are far from the feature-length film phenomenon. She doesn't know any specific Disney or Pixar characters aside from Mickey and Minnie Mouse. My goal was to exchange the princess item for a similar Mickey and Minnie item so she could have more characters to play with on top of her retro Fisher-Price garage. I figured this would be an easy proposition, as I used to frequent the Disney Store when I was in elementary school and I remember lots of little figurines and other tchotkes Natalie would probably enjoy.
I was not prepared for the gender-divided experience that is the Disney Store.
At our particular Disney Store at Tyson's Corner, the message is clear when you walk in the door: girls to the left, boys to the right.
I walked in to make our return, got a giftcard for store credit, and assumed within five minutes we'd have our replacement item. Natalie found the small section of the store that contains Muppet characters, and she knows Kermit well, so we talked about him for a while. But I wasn't going to spend a lot of extra money on a nearly life-size Kermit doll, so we moved on.
Although we stayed firmly grounded in gender-neutral territory in the store's main aisle, it didn't take long for us to hit the princess explosion and the friendly Disney Store employees trying to push their wares on a female toddler.
"Ohhh, what special princess are you looking for today?" the employee said as she crouched down to Natalie level. At this moment, my super talkative toddler became silent. I could see the gears turning in her head, and I heard her mutter something about Elizabeth, which would be a reference to the only princess she knows from one of our favorite books, The Paper Bag Princess.
"She doesn't really know about the princesses," I said to try to prevent the princess-pushing from escalating.
"Well, we have lots of princess beach towels on sale and...." the employee continued as she rattled off a bunch of other items as I tuned out and nodded politely.
When she finally asked, "Is there something in particular I can help you find?" I jumped in with, "Actually, yes, when I was a kid you all used to sell little plastic figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the other classic characters. Do you still have those?" She enthusiastically took me to the girl side of the store.
"We have these great sets! Here's the one for Minnie Mouse." As she handed me the Minnie set, I immediately noticed how Minnie is holding a mirror. The set rested upon a display arranged as a tower containing hundreds of other figure sets, all with some kind of girly bent. I couldn't believe these were the only figures in the store. Not surprisingly, they weren't.
As we made our way to the other side -- the boy side -- of the store, our employee assumed we must be leaving and wished us a good day. When we made it to the boy-side figurine set tower I discovered everything I'd been looking for. There were the Peter Pan sets, the Toy Store sets, the Finding Nemo sets; all the items I assumed would be sold in the Disney Store, even if I wasn't specifically planning to buy those items for my child quite yet. And, of course, within the boy-side figurine tower there was a set with Mickey and his friends.
As I was recounting this story to Matt last night, explaining how I was directed to the girl set with Minnie holding a mirror, he said, "What, did the Mickey set involve construction work or something?"
Yes, mindreader, it literally does.
Overwhelmed by the political implications of any Disney Store purchase I could make, I walked out of the store with my son attached to me in the Ergo and my toddler daughter holding my hand, unfazed to be walking out without a replacement present, chatting away about getting a "special treat [aka food] from the mall."
I'm not sure when childhood became so gender divided. Maybe childhood has always been this gender divided and when I was a kid I just assumed this was normal. But when I look around the toy store or even the book store, something in my gut tells me the marketing surrounding our kids has attempted to steer them further and further toward clearly gender-specific items. I think there's value in kids having a well-rounded upbringing, which includes girls and boys playing with toys designed for their sex and the opposite sex, and kids reading books with prominent male and female protagonists. As Natalie gets older, I'm happy for her to play with princesses. But I want her to be the one to make that decision.
So, because you can probably see where this post is going, I need to explain that I am not opposed to dolls and frills and princesses. I am, though, annoyed about how much it's in my face these days as the mother of a toddler girl.
We walked into the Disney Store yesterday to make a princess-item return. At 2 years, 4 months old, Natalie has never watched more than 20 consecutive minutes of TV (in fact she has watched one episode of one TV show ever), so we are far from the feature-length film phenomenon. She doesn't know any specific Disney or Pixar characters aside from Mickey and Minnie Mouse. My goal was to exchange the princess item for a similar Mickey and Minnie item so she could have more characters to play with on top of her retro Fisher-Price garage. I figured this would be an easy proposition, as I used to frequent the Disney Store when I was in elementary school and I remember lots of little figurines and other tchotkes Natalie would probably enjoy.
I was not prepared for the gender-divided experience that is the Disney Store.
At our particular Disney Store at Tyson's Corner, the message is clear when you walk in the door: girls to the left, boys to the right.
I walked in to make our return, got a giftcard for store credit, and assumed within five minutes we'd have our replacement item. Natalie found the small section of the store that contains Muppet characters, and she knows Kermit well, so we talked about him for a while. But I wasn't going to spend a lot of extra money on a nearly life-size Kermit doll, so we moved on.
Although we stayed firmly grounded in gender-neutral territory in the store's main aisle, it didn't take long for us to hit the princess explosion and the friendly Disney Store employees trying to push their wares on a female toddler.
"Ohhh, what special princess are you looking for today?" the employee said as she crouched down to Natalie level. At this moment, my super talkative toddler became silent. I could see the gears turning in her head, and I heard her mutter something about Elizabeth, which would be a reference to the only princess she knows from one of our favorite books, The Paper Bag Princess.
"She doesn't really know about the princesses," I said to try to prevent the princess-pushing from escalating.
"Well, we have lots of princess beach towels on sale and...." the employee continued as she rattled off a bunch of other items as I tuned out and nodded politely.
When she finally asked, "Is there something in particular I can help you find?" I jumped in with, "Actually, yes, when I was a kid you all used to sell little plastic figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and the other classic characters. Do you still have those?" She enthusiastically took me to the girl side of the store.
"We have these great sets! Here's the one for Minnie Mouse." As she handed me the Minnie set, I immediately noticed how Minnie is holding a mirror. The set rested upon a display arranged as a tower containing hundreds of other figure sets, all with some kind of girly bent. I couldn't believe these were the only figures in the store. Not surprisingly, they weren't.
As we made our way to the other side -- the boy side -- of the store, our employee assumed we must be leaving and wished us a good day. When we made it to the boy-side figurine set tower I discovered everything I'd been looking for. There were the Peter Pan sets, the Toy Store sets, the Finding Nemo sets; all the items I assumed would be sold in the Disney Store, even if I wasn't specifically planning to buy those items for my child quite yet. And, of course, within the boy-side figurine tower there was a set with Mickey and his friends.
As I was recounting this story to Matt last night, explaining how I was directed to the girl set with Minnie holding a mirror, he said, "What, did the Mickey set involve construction work or something?"
Yes, mindreader, it literally does.
Overwhelmed by the political implications of any Disney Store purchase I could make, I walked out of the store with my son attached to me in the Ergo and my toddler daughter holding my hand, unfazed to be walking out without a replacement present, chatting away about getting a "special treat [aka food] from the mall."
I'm not sure when childhood became so gender divided. Maybe childhood has always been this gender divided and when I was a kid I just assumed this was normal. But when I look around the toy store or even the book store, something in my gut tells me the marketing surrounding our kids has attempted to steer them further and further toward clearly gender-specific items. I think there's value in kids having a well-rounded upbringing, which includes girls and boys playing with toys designed for their sex and the opposite sex, and kids reading books with prominent male and female protagonists. As Natalie gets older, I'm happy for her to play with princesses. But I want her to be the one to make that decision.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
The unswaddling of Adam and other updates
You know when people stop blogging? When they have two kids. I like how blogging helps me keep my life in order (and gives me something to look back on) so though I miss blogging more frequently, I'm going to try to do it at least sometimes. (No concrete goal right now.)
Here's what's been up.
So many babies:
In addition to our one baby, we have about 25 friends having first, second or third babies all within a span of about six months. Four of those babies were all born the other week, which has made for some fun hospital visits and virtual correspondence and a much more adorable Instagram feed.
Spring break:
Matt had a lovely 10 days off, and I had a reduced work schedule, so we took advantage of opportunities for family time and occasionally nice weather to make our annual venture to the cherry blossoms in D.C. and to the National Zoo.
We took Natalie to the zoo over the summer, but the experience didn't stick as she was only 18 months old and not nearly as communicative. At the zoo Adam needed to be fed, so I found a little bench near some primates and deemed it an appropriate place to nurse my little man. (I would have chosen the inside of the small mammal building, which may have been an even more appropriate place to nurse my small mammal, but it was pretty crowded inside.) I'll admit, I used to stare at women who would breastfeed uncovered in public, not because they offended me, but because I was trying to figure out how they could be so stealth and expose essentially zero skin. Well, all that paid off at the zoo because it was only about 50 degrees at the time, but I was wearing a black nursing tank under an all-black long-sleeve shirt, and as I managed to somehow not freeze and not get spit up on me I felt like I'd finally arrived. I just can't do covered nursing, and I've gotten much more liberal about rarely bringing a bottle with me when I leave the house with Adam.
Fastest home repair in history:
Last week after dinner while watching some TV show (currently: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Silicon Valley -- the newest addition that I'd highly recommend if you're a nerd and/or you have nerd friends) Matt and I heard a horrible crash from somewhere in our house. It sounded like a mirror or cabinet or perhaps baby fell. After we confirmed the kids were fine and everything in our house (including laundry room and crawl space) were in complete working order, we figured maybe the noise came from our (annoying, incense-burning) neighbors. The next morning, on our way to the zoo, we solved the mystery: our garage door wouldn't open because some springs busted and some piece of the contraption broke away from the garage ceiling. Amazingly, a repair person came within 30 minutes of making the call, and 20 minutes later he'd repaired the door. Problem solved, $200 later.
Vitamix:
We got one. Matt's been wanting one, and after about three years (and some sacrificed rubber spatulas our child may have ingested in her smoothies) I agreed it was time. He's frugal enough, so he bought a certified refurbished one that costs nearly half of the retail price of a new one and still comes with the standard five-year warranty. I'm now waiting for him to perfect my favorite Smoothie King recipe, Peach Slice Plus.
Craiglist and consigning:
We got rid of the old blender on Craiglist, and that reminded me that we already have some baby items to begin selling/donating/giving away. Of course, people on Craiglist are notoriously flakey, so that can be annoying, but man, people want your aden + anais swaddle blankets, let me tell you. Because we're done having children and we have lots of baby and kid clothes, I've recently entered the wide world of children's clothes consigning. Getting started is a bit (ok, a lot) of work, as Matt can attest after watching me go a little crazy the other week Baby Oxicleaning away stains (tip: buy Baby Oxiclean at Target or Toys/Babies R Us, where you'll find it for $9.99), but it feels good having a plan in place and making back some money on our kids' clothes that I can then justify putting back into future clothing purchases. When I have more experience I'll share my tips and mistakes.
Speaking of baby clothes...my new favorite brands are:
Watch out, you'll probably be getting one from me as a gift.
Also, Baby Gap: thumbs up to you for using a golden snap on some of your snapped baby clothes. Having that one gold snap standing out from all the silver ones makes baby dressing one bit easier. Seriously, simple genius move.
Dishwasher and washing machine:
Both are running constantly these days. Our water bill tells the story. (And we only run them when they're brimming over -- two kids, I tell you. Who chooses to have more than two?)
Ants:
We have some. Isolated to one small area of our kitchen, but still, some, and with torrential rain that some is starting to become a lot as they seek shelter in our house. The irony here is that our kitchen is the cleanest it has ever been because it's the one thing I consistently clean these days (and the cleaning ladies leave the floors spotless) so why we have some ants now is baffling. So far my solution has been to kill them with my bare feet because grabbing a paper towel while holding a baby and entertaining a toddler seems like too much work. Any eco-friendly solutions for getting rid of ants in a house with two kids and two dogs? Otherwise we'll be Raiding them tonight.
The toddler:
She's off the bottle. Only took her until 2 years and 3 months old, but now she exclusively drinks her milk from cups. I really didn't mind the bottles for most of her existence even when her little buddies had moved way beyond the bottle phase. She never used them as pacifiers (she never really used pacifiers, either) and she'd never have them for more than five minutes of serious milk chugging. Even our pediatrician wasn't particularly concerned. But then we had a second baby who legitimately needs my toddler's bottles. So, to get her to change, we did "the countdown," which is our best parenting tactic with her: any time there's about to be a transition, small or large, we try to build it up with adequate warning to help her anticipate what's about to occur. For one week we told her she had X many days before no more bottles. Somewhat magically, with only a few tears, the transition went smoothly.
She's also done with sleep sacks. That happened only a couple weeks before the end of the bottle. Seriously, she loved those sleep sacks, but like bottles, they were becoming a bit ridiculous. So, she's got her comfy quilt and that's enough.
She is not done with tantrums. Oh no, those are only beginning.
The next transition I plan to force on her is installing the toddler rail onto her crib. I love that she loves her crib, but all these signs of babyhood must come to an end. I figure the toddler railing is a way to get her a little more independent without forcing her out of the crib quite yet. I have a feeling even when the railing is up and she can get out of bed on her own she'll choose not to, at least not immediately. I used to selfishly not want her to have a toddler railing or a regular bed because I feared she'd be up too early in the morning, but now that I'm up early enough with Adam she can just join the party. That crib needs to eventually go to Adam as he's going to quickly outgrow the Pack N Play.
Further down the road we'll force potty training, but for now she's content in diapers. By this summer when she's two and a half it will be time to require it, and by then I'll want Adam to inherit all the cloth diapers. I know my child well enough to know that she needs baby steps to move toward big changes, but at some point we just have to rip off the Band-Aid (or diaper) for her to make a change.
The baby:
As the title of this blog suggests, another transition of late involved the baby deciding he's done being swaddled. Specifically, a week and a half ago when he was almost exactly 3.5 months old, Adam woke up four times in one night. We'd been down to one night-time wake up for a pretty long time at this point, so it was a rough night. Every time he started crying, though, he'd broken out of his swaddle (having never swaddled Natalie we were too lazy to learn to truly swaddle Adam, so we solely used the Summer Infant SwaddleMes for wrapping him at naps and night). So, we decided to unswaddle him cold turkey. My experience parenting Natalie thus far has taught me that cold-turkey transitions when kids are super little are the easiest way to make a transition (see "The toddler" section above for our later-in-life failures). And, like any responsible parents, we'd already hired a babysitter for the night we were planning to unswaddle him cold turkey, so we just prepared the babysitter for the worst. Again, miraculously, the child slept wonderfully from 6:45 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. in nothing but his pajamas and size small fleece Halo Sleep Sack, and neither the toddler nor the baby even saw the babysitter during the three hours she was playing security guard (and we were enjoying a lovely meal at Mussel Bar in Ballston).
As he steadily marches toward four months old, Adam continues to be a total joy. I really am embracing babyhood much more this time around, probably mostly thanks to 1) knowing what I'm doing and 2) knowing this is the last time I'll have a baby. (As the ladies on the beach in Miami said to me, "They get older, and then they get lip.") He's exiting the blob-like phase now that he's grasping objects and paying attention to books (I think we're going to have another little reader on our hands) and giggling and cooing and getting more vocal. He is not interested in rolling over, though he's done it a few times, but he is interested in standing up. I think it's about time to break out the old Exersaucer to give him a new experience and work those little legs.
His night-time sleep continues to be wonderful, and his daytime sleep is good, just not consistent. I am starting to see patterns emerge, like the early morning nap, and I can say definitively right now that he has two-hour awake windows. When he was super tiny he was predictably awake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but we've turned that corner into greater awakeness.
Oh, and he's still super portable and loves the Ergo, so it is in full effect.
Two silly baby organizing tips:
I cannot believe it took me nearly 2 years and 4 months to get to these two, but:
1) hang your baby tub -- one of my friends who just had her first baby told me she and her husband had hung up their infant tub in their bathroom. "Seriously?" I said. Yes, they are smart and realized that the Fisher Price whale tub is meant to be hung up! Genius! I tried using a Command hook on the tile in the kids' hallway bathroom, but it would always fall down right after the cleaning ladies' visit. Umm, it's because they were legitimately cleaning the tile in our bathrooms, a thing I just obviously don't do. So, that scrubbing/hot water was causing the Command hook to fall. So, geniusly I looked at the linen closet door in the same bathroom, and ta-da!
2) organizing breast milk in the freezer -- our freezer overfloweth with breast milk. Now I have a bin for each month (four total at this point). I lay the bags flat until they're completely frozen, then place them upright in their appropriate containers, with the oldest milk in the front so we can use that up first. This is not rocket science, but the 20 minutes I spent to get this together has been totally worth it.
See you some time in May!
Here's what's been up.
So many babies:
In addition to our one baby, we have about 25 friends having first, second or third babies all within a span of about six months. Four of those babies were all born the other week, which has made for some fun hospital visits and virtual correspondence and a much more adorable Instagram feed.
Spring break:
Matt had a lovely 10 days off, and I had a reduced work schedule, so we took advantage of opportunities for family time and occasionally nice weather to make our annual venture to the cherry blossoms in D.C. and to the National Zoo.
We took Natalie to the zoo over the summer, but the experience didn't stick as she was only 18 months old and not nearly as communicative. At the zoo Adam needed to be fed, so I found a little bench near some primates and deemed it an appropriate place to nurse my little man. (I would have chosen the inside of the small mammal building, which may have been an even more appropriate place to nurse my small mammal, but it was pretty crowded inside.) I'll admit, I used to stare at women who would breastfeed uncovered in public, not because they offended me, but because I was trying to figure out how they could be so stealth and expose essentially zero skin. Well, all that paid off at the zoo because it was only about 50 degrees at the time, but I was wearing a black nursing tank under an all-black long-sleeve shirt, and as I managed to somehow not freeze and not get spit up on me I felt like I'd finally arrived. I just can't do covered nursing, and I've gotten much more liberal about rarely bringing a bottle with me when I leave the house with Adam.
Fastest home repair in history:
Last week after dinner while watching some TV show (currently: Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Silicon Valley -- the newest addition that I'd highly recommend if you're a nerd and/or you have nerd friends) Matt and I heard a horrible crash from somewhere in our house. It sounded like a mirror or cabinet or perhaps baby fell. After we confirmed the kids were fine and everything in our house (including laundry room and crawl space) were in complete working order, we figured maybe the noise came from our (annoying, incense-burning) neighbors. The next morning, on our way to the zoo, we solved the mystery: our garage door wouldn't open because some springs busted and some piece of the contraption broke away from the garage ceiling. Amazingly, a repair person came within 30 minutes of making the call, and 20 minutes later he'd repaired the door. Problem solved, $200 later.
Vitamix:
We got one. Matt's been wanting one, and after about three years (and some sacrificed rubber spatulas our child may have ingested in her smoothies) I agreed it was time. He's frugal enough, so he bought a certified refurbished one that costs nearly half of the retail price of a new one and still comes with the standard five-year warranty. I'm now waiting for him to perfect my favorite Smoothie King recipe, Peach Slice Plus.
Craiglist and consigning:
We got rid of the old blender on Craiglist, and that reminded me that we already have some baby items to begin selling/donating/giving away. Of course, people on Craiglist are notoriously flakey, so that can be annoying, but man, people want your aden + anais swaddle blankets, let me tell you. Because we're done having children and we have lots of baby and kid clothes, I've recently entered the wide world of children's clothes consigning. Getting started is a bit (ok, a lot) of work, as Matt can attest after watching me go a little crazy the other week Baby Oxicleaning away stains (tip: buy Baby Oxiclean at Target or Toys/Babies R Us, where you'll find it for $9.99), but it feels good having a plan in place and making back some money on our kids' clothes that I can then justify putting back into future clothing purchases. When I have more experience I'll share my tips and mistakes.
Speaking of baby clothes...my new favorite brands are:
1) Zutano
2) Burt's Bees
3) Offspring
Watch out, you'll probably be getting one from me as a gift.
Also, Baby Gap: thumbs up to you for using a golden snap on some of your snapped baby clothes. Having that one gold snap standing out from all the silver ones makes baby dressing one bit easier. Seriously, simple genius move.
Dishwasher and washing machine:
Both are running constantly these days. Our water bill tells the story. (And we only run them when they're brimming over -- two kids, I tell you. Who chooses to have more than two?)
Ants:
We have some. Isolated to one small area of our kitchen, but still, some, and with torrential rain that some is starting to become a lot as they seek shelter in our house. The irony here is that our kitchen is the cleanest it has ever been because it's the one thing I consistently clean these days (and the cleaning ladies leave the floors spotless) so why we have some ants now is baffling. So far my solution has been to kill them with my bare feet because grabbing a paper towel while holding a baby and entertaining a toddler seems like too much work. Any eco-friendly solutions for getting rid of ants in a house with two kids and two dogs? Otherwise we'll be Raiding them tonight.
The toddler:
She's off the bottle. Only took her until 2 years and 3 months old, but now she exclusively drinks her milk from cups. I really didn't mind the bottles for most of her existence even when her little buddies had moved way beyond the bottle phase. She never used them as pacifiers (she never really used pacifiers, either) and she'd never have them for more than five minutes of serious milk chugging. Even our pediatrician wasn't particularly concerned. But then we had a second baby who legitimately needs my toddler's bottles. So, to get her to change, we did "the countdown," which is our best parenting tactic with her: any time there's about to be a transition, small or large, we try to build it up with adequate warning to help her anticipate what's about to occur. For one week we told her she had X many days before no more bottles. Somewhat magically, with only a few tears, the transition went smoothly.
She's also done with sleep sacks. That happened only a couple weeks before the end of the bottle. Seriously, she loved those sleep sacks, but like bottles, they were becoming a bit ridiculous. So, she's got her comfy quilt and that's enough.
She is not done with tantrums. Oh no, those are only beginning.
The next transition I plan to force on her is installing the toddler rail onto her crib. I love that she loves her crib, but all these signs of babyhood must come to an end. I figure the toddler railing is a way to get her a little more independent without forcing her out of the crib quite yet. I have a feeling even when the railing is up and she can get out of bed on her own she'll choose not to, at least not immediately. I used to selfishly not want her to have a toddler railing or a regular bed because I feared she'd be up too early in the morning, but now that I'm up early enough with Adam she can just join the party. That crib needs to eventually go to Adam as he's going to quickly outgrow the Pack N Play.
Further down the road we'll force potty training, but for now she's content in diapers. By this summer when she's two and a half it will be time to require it, and by then I'll want Adam to inherit all the cloth diapers. I know my child well enough to know that she needs baby steps to move toward big changes, but at some point we just have to rip off the Band-Aid (or diaper) for her to make a change.
The baby:
As the title of this blog suggests, another transition of late involved the baby deciding he's done being swaddled. Specifically, a week and a half ago when he was almost exactly 3.5 months old, Adam woke up four times in one night. We'd been down to one night-time wake up for a pretty long time at this point, so it was a rough night. Every time he started crying, though, he'd broken out of his swaddle (having never swaddled Natalie we were too lazy to learn to truly swaddle Adam, so we solely used the Summer Infant SwaddleMes for wrapping him at naps and night). So, we decided to unswaddle him cold turkey. My experience parenting Natalie thus far has taught me that cold-turkey transitions when kids are super little are the easiest way to make a transition (see "The toddler" section above for our later-in-life failures). And, like any responsible parents, we'd already hired a babysitter for the night we were planning to unswaddle him cold turkey, so we just prepared the babysitter for the worst. Again, miraculously, the child slept wonderfully from 6:45 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. in nothing but his pajamas and size small fleece Halo Sleep Sack, and neither the toddler nor the baby even saw the babysitter during the three hours she was playing security guard (and we were enjoying a lovely meal at Mussel Bar in Ballston).
As he steadily marches toward four months old, Adam continues to be a total joy. I really am embracing babyhood much more this time around, probably mostly thanks to 1) knowing what I'm doing and 2) knowing this is the last time I'll have a baby. (As the ladies on the beach in Miami said to me, "They get older, and then they get lip.") He's exiting the blob-like phase now that he's grasping objects and paying attention to books (I think we're going to have another little reader on our hands) and giggling and cooing and getting more vocal. He is not interested in rolling over, though he's done it a few times, but he is interested in standing up. I think it's about time to break out the old Exersaucer to give him a new experience and work those little legs.
His night-time sleep continues to be wonderful, and his daytime sleep is good, just not consistent. I am starting to see patterns emerge, like the early morning nap, and I can say definitively right now that he has two-hour awake windows. When he was super tiny he was predictably awake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but we've turned that corner into greater awakeness.
Oh, and he's still super portable and loves the Ergo, so it is in full effect.
Two silly baby organizing tips:
I cannot believe it took me nearly 2 years and 4 months to get to these two, but:
1) hang your baby tub -- one of my friends who just had her first baby told me she and her husband had hung up their infant tub in their bathroom. "Seriously?" I said. Yes, they are smart and realized that the Fisher Price whale tub is meant to be hung up! Genius! I tried using a Command hook on the tile in the kids' hallway bathroom, but it would always fall down right after the cleaning ladies' visit. Umm, it's because they were legitimately cleaning the tile in our bathrooms, a thing I just obviously don't do. So, that scrubbing/hot water was causing the Command hook to fall. So, geniusly I looked at the linen closet door in the same bathroom, and ta-da!
2) organizing breast milk in the freezer -- our freezer overfloweth with breast milk. Now I have a bin for each month (four total at this point). I lay the bags flat until they're completely frozen, then place them upright in their appropriate containers, with the oldest milk in the front so we can use that up first. This is not rocket science, but the 20 minutes I spent to get this together has been totally worth it.
See you some time in May!
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Leaving the house with two kids
Today I completed my first by myself out-of-house adventure with my toddler and my baby. I wanted to write it all down for myself so I can remember the steps of this quasi-routine for the future. I did not really plan ahead for today's outing, except to set my alarm, and somehow the cards fell into place.
Here's photographic evidence of our excursion:
Here, now, for your amusement, an account of my nearly two hours of preparation for a 45-minute toddler music class:
7:33 a.m. Human alarm clock (aka baby) goes off seven minutes before my iPhone is scheduled to wake me up. Oops, false alarm. Baby just let out a cry and put himself back to sleep. Still, I rush downstairs, turn on the coffee maker, get out a bottle for Natalie, fill up the diaper bag while waiting for coffee to brew. Put cereal in a snack trap for toddler, fill up a sippy cup with water and ice for toddler, grab more newborn diapers for baby, pull my wallet and keys from purse, fill up my water bottle, and add all those items to the diaper bag. Finish just in time to pour myself a cup of coffee.
7:43 a.m. Baby and toddler are still miraculously asleep, so I turn on shower and hop in. I manage to even do my hair when...
8:05 a.m. Baby is legitimately screaming now, and I'm at least partly dressed, so I go grab him.
8:10 a.m. Bring baby downstairs to nurse while I drink coffee and watch Today Show.
8:30 a.m. Baby is done and sufficiently burped and has even drifted back to sleep. Put baby in bouncer seat that is upstairs in our master bedroom. Take bottle to toddler who of course wants to read books in her crib. She reads while I put on a shirt and brush my teeth. I also lay out all needed diapers and clothes (even remember socks!) for baby in nursery and toddler in big girl room. I run downstairs, Ergo, Ergo infant insert, baby's hat, and diaper bag in tow to throw in the car during this rare moment when neither child needs me.
8:40 a.m. Time to dress toddler. She wants to take her bunny (aka her "lovie") out of her crib. Then she wants to put him back in the crib with his friends. Then she wants to analyze all the colors of all her new socks.
8:50 a.m. Baby's still sleeping, so I take toddler downstairs to put her hair in ponytails while she watches videos on her YouTube channel. I make it through "Five Little Monkeys" with her and then set up the videos on autoplay. I run downstairs to grab toddler's coat, scarf and shoes, then put them on her while she watches the "Old McDonald" video. As I rush upstairs to change the baby, I hear toddler say, "Please may I watch more videos please?" (this is a new, shocking development -- the complete sentence, polite request) and, with perfect timing, the next video in the queue comes up. Wish granted!
8:55 a.m. Baby has an especially dirty diaper and isn't pleased to be aroused from sleep. He's especially not pleased when I put his onesie over his head and cram his tiny, refusing-to-bend arms through the long sleeves. He wears a pair of socks for the first time. Those Trumpettes are amazing. They only sort of fit, but the elastic is so quality that they still don't fall off his miniature feet. I grab baby's burp cloth, and oh, yes, baby, and head downstairs.
9:07 a.m. I tell toddler it's time to leave for music class. "NO!" she whines. I say, "OK, well, then Baby Adam and I are going to music class and you can stay here." "Natalie go to music class too, please!" she whines. "Great, then follow me," I say. I open the baby gate while holding baby, toddler grabs my hand (she's finally getting the hang of going down stairs but still needs assistance at least some times). Toddler makes it down about three steps before letting go of my hand, so I go ahead and put baby in car seat. With perfect timing, by the time baby is in car seat, toddler is all the way downstairs. I get toddler into her car seat. I run back inside to get my shoes. As I'm getting into the car, I realize I'd like a scarf but decide it's too much trouble. I reach into diaper bag to hand toddler snack trap full of cereal and sippy cup right as toddler says, "Blue and red cup!" Eureka! Another wish granted. Then toddler asks for Rufus, the teddy bear who spends 90 percent of his life in our car. Rufus, though, came inside two days ago and has been residing in the living room ever since. I'm not going back inside. So, I say, "Rufus didn't make it. Sorry." Yes, I tell my toddler the teddy bear is a casualty of this morning. Ha.
9:12 a.m. I turn on the car and we're on the road, seven minutes after the arbitrary, imaginary time I gave us for leaving.
9:22 a.m. We pull into the rec center parking lot.
9:28 a.m. We have made it past the rec center front desk just in time to walk down the stairs to the music class.
Two minutes to spare! Seriously, where is my medal.
Here's photographic evidence of our excursion:
Here, now, for your amusement, an account of my nearly two hours of preparation for a 45-minute toddler music class:
7:33 a.m. Human alarm clock (aka baby) goes off seven minutes before my iPhone is scheduled to wake me up. Oops, false alarm. Baby just let out a cry and put himself back to sleep. Still, I rush downstairs, turn on the coffee maker, get out a bottle for Natalie, fill up the diaper bag while waiting for coffee to brew. Put cereal in a snack trap for toddler, fill up a sippy cup with water and ice for toddler, grab more newborn diapers for baby, pull my wallet and keys from purse, fill up my water bottle, and add all those items to the diaper bag. Finish just in time to pour myself a cup of coffee.
7:43 a.m. Baby and toddler are still miraculously asleep, so I turn on shower and hop in. I manage to even do my hair when...
8:05 a.m. Baby is legitimately screaming now, and I'm at least partly dressed, so I go grab him.
8:10 a.m. Bring baby downstairs to nurse while I drink coffee and watch Today Show.
8:30 a.m. Baby is done and sufficiently burped and has even drifted back to sleep. Put baby in bouncer seat that is upstairs in our master bedroom. Take bottle to toddler who of course wants to read books in her crib. She reads while I put on a shirt and brush my teeth. I also lay out all needed diapers and clothes (even remember socks!) for baby in nursery and toddler in big girl room. I run downstairs, Ergo, Ergo infant insert, baby's hat, and diaper bag in tow to throw in the car during this rare moment when neither child needs me.
8:40 a.m. Time to dress toddler. She wants to take her bunny (aka her "lovie") out of her crib. Then she wants to put him back in the crib with his friends. Then she wants to analyze all the colors of all her new socks.
8:50 a.m. Baby's still sleeping, so I take toddler downstairs to put her hair in ponytails while she watches videos on her YouTube channel. I make it through "Five Little Monkeys" with her and then set up the videos on autoplay. I run downstairs to grab toddler's coat, scarf and shoes, then put them on her while she watches the "Old McDonald" video. As I rush upstairs to change the baby, I hear toddler say, "Please may I watch more videos please?" (this is a new, shocking development -- the complete sentence, polite request) and, with perfect timing, the next video in the queue comes up. Wish granted!
8:55 a.m. Baby has an especially dirty diaper and isn't pleased to be aroused from sleep. He's especially not pleased when I put his onesie over his head and cram his tiny, refusing-to-bend arms through the long sleeves. He wears a pair of socks for the first time. Those Trumpettes are amazing. They only sort of fit, but the elastic is so quality that they still don't fall off his miniature feet. I grab baby's burp cloth, and oh, yes, baby, and head downstairs.
9:07 a.m. I tell toddler it's time to leave for music class. "NO!" she whines. I say, "OK, well, then Baby Adam and I are going to music class and you can stay here." "Natalie go to music class too, please!" she whines. "Great, then follow me," I say. I open the baby gate while holding baby, toddler grabs my hand (she's finally getting the hang of going down stairs but still needs assistance at least some times). Toddler makes it down about three steps before letting go of my hand, so I go ahead and put baby in car seat. With perfect timing, by the time baby is in car seat, toddler is all the way downstairs. I get toddler into her car seat. I run back inside to get my shoes. As I'm getting into the car, I realize I'd like a scarf but decide it's too much trouble. I reach into diaper bag to hand toddler snack trap full of cereal and sippy cup right as toddler says, "Blue and red cup!" Eureka! Another wish granted. Then toddler asks for Rufus, the teddy bear who spends 90 percent of his life in our car. Rufus, though, came inside two days ago and has been residing in the living room ever since. I'm not going back inside. So, I say, "Rufus didn't make it. Sorry." Yes, I tell my toddler the teddy bear is a casualty of this morning. Ha.
9:12 a.m. I turn on the car and we're on the road, seven minutes after the arbitrary, imaginary time I gave us for leaving.
9:22 a.m. We pull into the rec center parking lot.
9:28 a.m. We have made it past the rec center front desk just in time to walk down the stairs to the music class.
Two minutes to spare! Seriously, where is my medal.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Baltimore Aquarium with a toddler
In an attempt to celebrate Natalie's final days as an only child, we've been trying to choose some activities to enjoy with her before her brother's arrival. The short list has included the Baltimore Aquarium, a place I hadn't visited in at least a decade. If you're like me and you haven't been in a while, I can say that although the entrance area has changed, probably for the better -- more aesthetically pleasing, though not necessarily any better at regulating visitor traffic flow -- the interior is mostly the same. This time, though, I got to see the popular tourist attraction through the eyes of a toddler, and that made it the most fun I've had there.
Here's what we learned:
Logistics
1) Tickets -- If you're looking for a deal or you are sticking to a relatively strict schedule (as is the case with many families traveling with small children), it's probably a good idea to buy tickets in advance. Tickets are expensive -- $34.95 for adults (12 and up), $21.95 for kids (3-11), with kids under 3 free and further discounted rates for seniors. I did some searching for coupon codes and other deals, but because we're not Maryland residents I had a hard time finding much.
The best deal we could find that applied to us involved $8 off each adult admission through AAA. Because we found the deal the day before we went, we picked the tickets up at a local AAA office. A couple points to know about AAA tickets, if you go with this option:
2) Parking -- There is some metered street parking available on Pratt Street right across from the harbor, practically in front of the aquarium, and those few coveted spaces are actually valid for 4-hour stretches, as we discovered after the fact. There are also some 2-hour street spaces on Market Place, just one block past the aquarium, but we figured we'd be gone for at least 3 hours and didn't want to risk it. So, we went with the expensive, safe parking option of the Lockwood Place Garage with an entrance on Market Place. Most aquarium visitors will be parked for at least 3 hours, which means you'll be paying the highest price: $24 for 3 hours or more (up to 24 hours), with $5 off if you remember to take your parking ticket to get it validated at the aquarium's exit.
3) Timing -- Check the aquarium's website for updated hours information, but know that it will be open by 10 a.m. We went during the winter holidays, so it opened at 9 a.m. the day of our visit, though we didn't get inside the exhibits until 10 a.m. (mostly because we didn't rush ourselves leaving the house). If you're able to purchase timed-entry tickets before you arrive and you've got a toddler in tow, I'd recommend going with 10 a.m. as that's when the exhibits are the least crowded (and most toddlers I know, including my own, seem to be on their best behavior earliest in the day). Plan for 2-3 hours of visiting time for you and your toddler.
4) Strollers, lockers and coat checks -- The aquarium has a strict no-stroller policy, though I did weirdly see someone with a stroller near the shark exhibit (but maybe she had special permission based on circumstances). Strollers and coats can be checked right inside the main entrance, where there is a wall of lockers as well, though by the time we were leaving at 12:30 there were signs that said the stroller, coat check and lockers were all full and to check back later. I'm not sure what you do at that point, besides returning to your car to store your items or waiting for an indefinite period of time. So, I'd recommend leaving your stroller at home and trying to minimize how much you bring in if possible. We visited on a 50-degree day, so Matt and I skipped our coats and just brought the diaper bag, which we traded off carrying.
5) Food -- I'm glad we kept the diaper bag on us because I'd packed it with snacks for Natalie, and it's a good thing I did -- looking at fish made this child, who normally does not have a tremendous appetite, especially hungry. There are a few places to eat scattered throughout the aquarium, including one on the 4th floor near the puffins exhibit. This spot has a particularly awesome view of the inner harbor, and if I'd had better parenting instinct at the time I would have given Natalie a snack at one of the tables there that could have prevented the mini-meltdown we experienced moments later in front of the puffins. Over in the section of the aquarium known as Pier 4 (where the dolphins are located) there's a small cafeteria called Harbor Market Cafe with a large eating space where you can set up your child with food either from home or purchased there. Plus, you can enjoy the jellyfish art hanging overhead.
Getting around with a toddler
Our visit lasted exactly two and a half hours, which was the perfect length for us. Before you arrive, check out the aquarium maps to determine what makes the most sense for your child's temperament. If you follow the normal aquarium route, you'll start at Blacktip Reef, which is super cool and a big exhibit that should keep everyone's attention, but then you will hit a lot of small tanks as you move up the aquarium levels. This mostly worked well for Natalie, but it also means that she had her 4th-floor freak out in front of the puffins, which is too bad because that should have been one of the exhibits she enjoyed the most (she loves penguins, so puffins are close enough). It also means she didn't pay much attention inside the rain forest section on the 5th floor.
Cute mother-child photo? Not happening in the rain forest.
But, overall, the aquarium really held Natalie's attention, especially once she got more food in her system. She seemed most mesmerized by the sharks, and stared for many extended periods at the shark tanks, repeating, "Sharks have big teeth!"
We skipped the dolphin show, as I think it's probably still too long and advanced for our almost-two-year old, but Natalie enjoyed watching the two dolphins from the underwater viewing area.
When it came to smaller fish tanks, Natalie seemed more attracted to the bright displays with colorful tropical fish rather than some of the low-light displays. In fact, I suspect some of the low-light tanks scared her because she ran away from a few. There are ledges (or "little steps," as Natalie called them) in front of nearly all exhibits for kids to stand on to get a better view of the tanks, so she enjoyed that element of the visit as well. On a funny side note, one of Natalie's favorite things to say now is, "So pretty!" and "So beautiful!" So, she kept saying that, and Matt and I kept saying, "Yes, beautiful fish." I definitely had several people say to me, "Actually, that is a [insert highly specific, technical species name here]." I would just say, "Ohhh, thanks!" and then laugh a little inside at the absurdity of the situation and the fact that I was just trying to keep my kid smiling, not teach her Latin.
Perhaps the weirdest/coolest exhibit all three of us enjoyed is the jellyfish, also located in Pier 4 near the dolphins. I mean, come on, these guys are cray cray.
There's a small section in Pier 4 named the Children's Discovery Gallery. It was not what I was hoping it would be (I remember a place where I got to pick up starfish when I visited as a child), but Natalie thought it was amazing, so that's all that matters. The Gallery includes marine-life dress up clothes children can try on, a giant tortoise shell they can touch, a marine-life puppet show space where kids can put on their own performances, and a wall with a coral reef backdrop where kids can stick Velcro-backed sea creatures. Natalie was difficult to photograph here because she was excited and mostly jumping.
If you're hoping to get some good photos of your family at the aquarium, take advantage of the several atriums throughout the buildings. They offer great lighting, provided you keep the camera pointing away from the windows.
I'm so glad we had a chance to share this experience with our daughter!
Here's what we learned:
Logistics
1) Tickets -- If you're looking for a deal or you are sticking to a relatively strict schedule (as is the case with many families traveling with small children), it's probably a good idea to buy tickets in advance. Tickets are expensive -- $34.95 for adults (12 and up), $21.95 for kids (3-11), with kids under 3 free and further discounted rates for seniors. I did some searching for coupon codes and other deals, but because we're not Maryland residents I had a hard time finding much.
The best deal we could find that applied to us involved $8 off each adult admission through AAA. Because we found the deal the day before we went, we picked the tickets up at a local AAA office. A couple points to know about AAA tickets, if you go with this option:
- The AAA website may claim that there are not enough tickets available. This is likely wrong, which is part of the reason we picked ours up at an AAA office.
- When we bought our tickets through AAA, they wound up being vouchers good for 9 months. This means they did not include entry for a specific date and time, meaning we were taking a bit of a gamble because we did not have standard timed-entry tickets. Instead, when we arrived we had to go to a will-call window and trade in our voucher for timed-entry tickets. The good news is our timed entry tickets were for 10 a.m., which is exactly when we got there, so we did not experience a wait.
2) Parking -- There is some metered street parking available on Pratt Street right across from the harbor, practically in front of the aquarium, and those few coveted spaces are actually valid for 4-hour stretches, as we discovered after the fact. There are also some 2-hour street spaces on Market Place, just one block past the aquarium, but we figured we'd be gone for at least 3 hours and didn't want to risk it. So, we went with the expensive, safe parking option of the Lockwood Place Garage with an entrance on Market Place. Most aquarium visitors will be parked for at least 3 hours, which means you'll be paying the highest price: $24 for 3 hours or more (up to 24 hours), with $5 off if you remember to take your parking ticket to get it validated at the aquarium's exit.
3) Timing -- Check the aquarium's website for updated hours information, but know that it will be open by 10 a.m. We went during the winter holidays, so it opened at 9 a.m. the day of our visit, though we didn't get inside the exhibits until 10 a.m. (mostly because we didn't rush ourselves leaving the house). If you're able to purchase timed-entry tickets before you arrive and you've got a toddler in tow, I'd recommend going with 10 a.m. as that's when the exhibits are the least crowded (and most toddlers I know, including my own, seem to be on their best behavior earliest in the day). Plan for 2-3 hours of visiting time for you and your toddler.
4) Strollers, lockers and coat checks -- The aquarium has a strict no-stroller policy, though I did weirdly see someone with a stroller near the shark exhibit (but maybe she had special permission based on circumstances). Strollers and coats can be checked right inside the main entrance, where there is a wall of lockers as well, though by the time we were leaving at 12:30 there were signs that said the stroller, coat check and lockers were all full and to check back later. I'm not sure what you do at that point, besides returning to your car to store your items or waiting for an indefinite period of time. So, I'd recommend leaving your stroller at home and trying to minimize how much you bring in if possible. We visited on a 50-degree day, so Matt and I skipped our coats and just brought the diaper bag, which we traded off carrying.
5) Food -- I'm glad we kept the diaper bag on us because I'd packed it with snacks for Natalie, and it's a good thing I did -- looking at fish made this child, who normally does not have a tremendous appetite, especially hungry. There are a few places to eat scattered throughout the aquarium, including one on the 4th floor near the puffins exhibit. This spot has a particularly awesome view of the inner harbor, and if I'd had better parenting instinct at the time I would have given Natalie a snack at one of the tables there that could have prevented the mini-meltdown we experienced moments later in front of the puffins. Over in the section of the aquarium known as Pier 4 (where the dolphins are located) there's a small cafeteria called Harbor Market Cafe with a large eating space where you can set up your child with food either from home or purchased there. Plus, you can enjoy the jellyfish art hanging overhead.
Getting around with a toddler
Our visit lasted exactly two and a half hours, which was the perfect length for us. Before you arrive, check out the aquarium maps to determine what makes the most sense for your child's temperament. If you follow the normal aquarium route, you'll start at Blacktip Reef, which is super cool and a big exhibit that should keep everyone's attention, but then you will hit a lot of small tanks as you move up the aquarium levels. This mostly worked well for Natalie, but it also means that she had her 4th-floor freak out in front of the puffins, which is too bad because that should have been one of the exhibits she enjoyed the most (she loves penguins, so puffins are close enough). It also means she didn't pay much attention inside the rain forest section on the 5th floor.
Cute mother-child photo? Not happening in the rain forest.
But, overall, the aquarium really held Natalie's attention, especially once she got more food in her system. She seemed most mesmerized by the sharks, and stared for many extended periods at the shark tanks, repeating, "Sharks have big teeth!"
We skipped the dolphin show, as I think it's probably still too long and advanced for our almost-two-year old, but Natalie enjoyed watching the two dolphins from the underwater viewing area.
When it came to smaller fish tanks, Natalie seemed more attracted to the bright displays with colorful tropical fish rather than some of the low-light displays. In fact, I suspect some of the low-light tanks scared her because she ran away from a few. There are ledges (or "little steps," as Natalie called them) in front of nearly all exhibits for kids to stand on to get a better view of the tanks, so she enjoyed that element of the visit as well. On a funny side note, one of Natalie's favorite things to say now is, "So pretty!" and "So beautiful!" So, she kept saying that, and Matt and I kept saying, "Yes, beautiful fish." I definitely had several people say to me, "Actually, that is a [insert highly specific, technical species name here]." I would just say, "Ohhh, thanks!" and then laugh a little inside at the absurdity of the situation and the fact that I was just trying to keep my kid smiling, not teach her Latin.
Perhaps the weirdest/coolest exhibit all three of us enjoyed is the jellyfish, also located in Pier 4 near the dolphins. I mean, come on, these guys are cray cray.
There's a small section in Pier 4 named the Children's Discovery Gallery. It was not what I was hoping it would be (I remember a place where I got to pick up starfish when I visited as a child), but Natalie thought it was amazing, so that's all that matters. The Gallery includes marine-life dress up clothes children can try on, a giant tortoise shell they can touch, a marine-life puppet show space where kids can put on their own performances, and a wall with a coral reef backdrop where kids can stick Velcro-backed sea creatures. Natalie was difficult to photograph here because she was excited and mostly jumping.
If you're hoping to get some good photos of your family at the aquarium, take advantage of the several atriums throughout the buildings. They offer great lighting, provided you keep the camera pointing away from the windows.
I'm so glad we had a chance to share this experience with our daughter!
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Natalie's new room
Natalie's been in her new room for nearly three weeks, but I wasn't able to put the finishing touches on it until this morning, thanks to a Christmas Eve package delivery. She's loving it, I'm loving it, so I thought it was time to share it.
I had perhaps more fun creating this room than I did creating the nursery two years ago, simply because this time I knew I was creating a room exclusively for a little girl, rather than creating a room that could easily work for a girl or a boy. Perhaps what made this experience even more fun was knowing the little person I was designing the room for. I tried to incorporate as many of her interests into this room as possible, and I got her involved and excited in the decorating process along the way.
Bedding -- the inspiration
My vision for the room began over the summer, as many visions do, with a trip to Target, where I happened upon the Xhilaration twin quilt ($50) that ultimately became the room's inspiration piece. Even though Natalie's continuing in her crib (for as long as she'd like, which could be a while) I thought it would be wise to base this room that she'll grow into around fun bedding, so I threw in a pillow sham ($20) and slowly pieced together other items. She scored a new Mini Dot Crib Fitted Sheet in bright pink ($16 after coupon) from Pottery Barn Kids, too. Fortunately, she loves to say "polka-dot," and there are yellow polka-dots in her quilt, so there's some coordination going on, too.
Curtains
My next task after tackling the bedding was to get some seriously heavy-duty curtains. Natalie's new room has two windows whereas the nursery has only one. I considered DIYing the no-sew curtains I had made for the nursery, but knowing I'd have to make twice as many curtains and knowing that the room lets in a lot more light than the nursery, I decided this time I'd be better off hiring a professional and getting real curtains made with built-in black-out liner.
It took me a while to find a well-reviewed local seamstress willing to make curtains, but I finally happened upon Young's Cleaners. I'd recommend their seamstress services. I had to do a little back and forth because of language barriers, but by working with the owner's daughter I was able to get exactly what I was hoping for. I decided to be perhaps a little unconventional with the overall curtain design and went with three panels (instead of two or four) and chose one patterned fabric for the two outside panels and one solid fuchsia material for the middle panel.
These curtains were definitely an investment, but I am happy to spend the most on curtains for a room for a child. If there's one thing we value in our house, it's sleep.
Curtain fabric -- $75 for 8 yards (16 feet of patterned fabric, 8 feet of solid fabric), Jo-Ann Fabrics
Black-out liner fabric -- $36 for 8 yards, Jo-Ann Fabrics
Seamstress labor -- $210 for three curtain panels, Young's Cleaners
Curtain rod, 48"-88", black satin finish -- $32, Bed Bath and Beyond
Curtain rings -- $18 for three packs of 7 rings each, Bed Bath and Beyond
Furniture
Because we moved Natalie's crib out of the nursery and into the new room, we temporarily dodged the bullet of needing to buy another bed. We are still waiting to see if we'll need a second crib for the nursery. I'd predict yes at this point, but for now baby boy (when he arrives) will kick it in the Pack N Play and then we'll reevaluate.
The only furniture, then, we needed to consider for Natalie's new room was a bookcase and a dresser. For her bookcase, we chose the eight-box Expedit from IKEA in white ($70).
For her dresser, we decided to tackle the one real DIY project of this new room and we refinished an old dresser a friend handed down to us when we moved into our house seven years ago. This refinishing project was not a monumental task, as the dresser was in good shape aside from some water stains on the top; I just wish we hadn't waited until the coldest weather of the year kicked in during late November to take on this project inside our freezing garage. We followed the same procedure we did when Matt refinished the dresser for the nursery. Matt sanded the dresser, and then I painted it a shade called Watermelon Smoothie ($15.75 for a quart) manufactured by Glidden, but color-matched using Behr paint thanks to the recommendation from a Home Depot employee and professional painter who told me he'd always choose Behr over Glidden.
As another splurge and mini-project, I decided to line the eight dresser drawers in fancy handmade paper from Paper Source ($46 for eight sheets). I chose gold dragonflies on fuchsia, gold dragonflies on sea green, bean orange, and bean white on green. I used Modge Podge to get the paper to adhere to the drawers' interiors. It's a time-consuming task, but I love how Natalie opens her drawers and says, "Mom made art!"
Art
Actually, Natalie likes to talk about the art all around her room. Specifically, I framed two pieces of art Natalie already had, and I purchased three new pieces of art: Reading Rainbow, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($24); Muppet Alphabet, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($25); Home is Wherever I Am With You, Etsy seller RawArtLetterpress ($20). I was super pleased with the service I received from both sellers. In the case of RawArtLetterpress, my order shipped immediately and it arrived with a few added free goodies that I plan to make into greeting cards. I was a little dismayed when I checked over the two prints I received from Society6 and discovered a couple green dots in the middle of each poster. I contacted the company, and they sent me new versions of each print, no questions asked, that very day. They even responded to my email within 15 minutes. I framed all the art in cheap-ish white frames from Michaels ($54 for four frames after various discounts).
You might notice in the picture above two pink fabric bins with an owl pattern that house some of Natalie's toys and stuffed animals. I picked those up at Home Goods in early November ($13 each).
I also decided to go with another decal, just as I'd done with the nursery. I went with Dali Decals again and opted for the Peaceful Leaning Birch Tree with Blossoms in white with pink flowers ($89 after coupon code). While not absolutely necessary, this decal rests over Natalie's crib and helps fill what had been a giant empty wall in the room. Plus, I love hearing Natalie talk about how the leaves from her tree will fall on the grass (she was pretty jazzed to talk about leaves this year).
Extras
Moving Natalie into her new room meant sacrificing some storage space. Because her new room shares a wall with the hallway bathroom, this room is actually slightly bigger than the nursery, but its closet is significantly smaller than the nursery closet. So, baby brother will be housing some extra gear in his closet. Even still, Natalie's closet has room to expand, as many of the items that are in there are either clothes she'll grow into or toys she doesn't even know she owns yet that she'll be slowly gifted during her brother's first few months of life.
Moving Natalie into this room meant breaking out her P'Kolino Little Reader Chair that I received for her at my baby shower. She didn't have space for it in the nursery, but she loves it and her stool with her name on it in her new room. She especially cracks me up when she reclines in the chair with her arms on both armrests and both of her feet propped up on the stool. She looks like a queen. It's absurd.
Overall, I didn't make a tremendous time investment in this space (we got away with not painting the walls and sticking with the original Behr Sagey we painted the room seven years ago, so that definitely helped). Still, it took me much longer to piece together this room as compared to the nursery simply because of the comparatively limited time I have at this point in my life. I am thrilled, though, that Natalie loves the room so much, and I'll share soon how we got her to transition to the new room.
I had perhaps more fun creating this room than I did creating the nursery two years ago, simply because this time I knew I was creating a room exclusively for a little girl, rather than creating a room that could easily work for a girl or a boy. Perhaps what made this experience even more fun was knowing the little person I was designing the room for. I tried to incorporate as many of her interests into this room as possible, and I got her involved and excited in the decorating process along the way.
Bedding -- the inspiration
My vision for the room began over the summer, as many visions do, with a trip to Target, where I happened upon the Xhilaration twin quilt ($50) that ultimately became the room's inspiration piece. Even though Natalie's continuing in her crib (for as long as she'd like, which could be a while) I thought it would be wise to base this room that she'll grow into around fun bedding, so I threw in a pillow sham ($20) and slowly pieced together other items. She scored a new Mini Dot Crib Fitted Sheet in bright pink ($16 after coupon) from Pottery Barn Kids, too. Fortunately, she loves to say "polka-dot," and there are yellow polka-dots in her quilt, so there's some coordination going on, too.
Curtains
My next task after tackling the bedding was to get some seriously heavy-duty curtains. Natalie's new room has two windows whereas the nursery has only one. I considered DIYing the no-sew curtains I had made for the nursery, but knowing I'd have to make twice as many curtains and knowing that the room lets in a lot more light than the nursery, I decided this time I'd be better off hiring a professional and getting real curtains made with built-in black-out liner.
It took me a while to find a well-reviewed local seamstress willing to make curtains, but I finally happened upon Young's Cleaners. I'd recommend their seamstress services. I had to do a little back and forth because of language barriers, but by working with the owner's daughter I was able to get exactly what I was hoping for. I decided to be perhaps a little unconventional with the overall curtain design and went with three panels (instead of two or four) and chose one patterned fabric for the two outside panels and one solid fuchsia material for the middle panel.
These curtains were definitely an investment, but I am happy to spend the most on curtains for a room for a child. If there's one thing we value in our house, it's sleep.
Curtain fabric -- $75 for 8 yards (16 feet of patterned fabric, 8 feet of solid fabric), Jo-Ann Fabrics
Black-out liner fabric -- $36 for 8 yards, Jo-Ann Fabrics
Seamstress labor -- $210 for three curtain panels, Young's Cleaners
Curtain rod, 48"-88", black satin finish -- $32, Bed Bath and Beyond
Curtain rings -- $18 for three packs of 7 rings each, Bed Bath and Beyond
Furniture
Because we moved Natalie's crib out of the nursery and into the new room, we temporarily dodged the bullet of needing to buy another bed. We are still waiting to see if we'll need a second crib for the nursery. I'd predict yes at this point, but for now baby boy (when he arrives) will kick it in the Pack N Play and then we'll reevaluate.
The only furniture, then, we needed to consider for Natalie's new room was a bookcase and a dresser. For her bookcase, we chose the eight-box Expedit from IKEA in white ($70).
For her dresser, we decided to tackle the one real DIY project of this new room and we refinished an old dresser a friend handed down to us when we moved into our house seven years ago. This refinishing project was not a monumental task, as the dresser was in good shape aside from some water stains on the top; I just wish we hadn't waited until the coldest weather of the year kicked in during late November to take on this project inside our freezing garage. We followed the same procedure we did when Matt refinished the dresser for the nursery. Matt sanded the dresser, and then I painted it a shade called Watermelon Smoothie ($15.75 for a quart) manufactured by Glidden, but color-matched using Behr paint thanks to the recommendation from a Home Depot employee and professional painter who told me he'd always choose Behr over Glidden.
As another splurge and mini-project, I decided to line the eight dresser drawers in fancy handmade paper from Paper Source ($46 for eight sheets). I chose gold dragonflies on fuchsia, gold dragonflies on sea green, bean orange, and bean white on green. I used Modge Podge to get the paper to adhere to the drawers' interiors. It's a time-consuming task, but I love how Natalie opens her drawers and says, "Mom made art!"
Art
Actually, Natalie likes to talk about the art all around her room. Specifically, I framed two pieces of art Natalie already had, and I purchased three new pieces of art: Reading Rainbow, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($24); Muppet Alphabet, 17"x 20", Society 6 ($25); Home is Wherever I Am With You, Etsy seller RawArtLetterpress ($20). I was super pleased with the service I received from both sellers. In the case of RawArtLetterpress, my order shipped immediately and it arrived with a few added free goodies that I plan to make into greeting cards. I was a little dismayed when I checked over the two prints I received from Society6 and discovered a couple green dots in the middle of each poster. I contacted the company, and they sent me new versions of each print, no questions asked, that very day. They even responded to my email within 15 minutes. I framed all the art in cheap-ish white frames from Michaels ($54 for four frames after various discounts).
You might notice in the picture above two pink fabric bins with an owl pattern that house some of Natalie's toys and stuffed animals. I picked those up at Home Goods in early November ($13 each).
I also decided to go with another decal, just as I'd done with the nursery. I went with Dali Decals again and opted for the Peaceful Leaning Birch Tree with Blossoms in white with pink flowers ($89 after coupon code). While not absolutely necessary, this decal rests over Natalie's crib and helps fill what had been a giant empty wall in the room. Plus, I love hearing Natalie talk about how the leaves from her tree will fall on the grass (she was pretty jazzed to talk about leaves this year).
Extras
Moving Natalie into her new room meant sacrificing some storage space. Because her new room shares a wall with the hallway bathroom, this room is actually slightly bigger than the nursery, but its closet is significantly smaller than the nursery closet. So, baby brother will be housing some extra gear in his closet. Even still, Natalie's closet has room to expand, as many of the items that are in there are either clothes she'll grow into or toys she doesn't even know she owns yet that she'll be slowly gifted during her brother's first few months of life.
Moving Natalie into this room meant breaking out her P'Kolino Little Reader Chair that I received for her at my baby shower. She didn't have space for it in the nursery, but she loves it and her stool with her name on it in her new room. She especially cracks me up when she reclines in the chair with her arms on both armrests and both of her feet propped up on the stool. She looks like a queen. It's absurd.
Overall, I didn't make a tremendous time investment in this space (we got away with not painting the walls and sticking with the original Behr Sagey we painted the room seven years ago, so that definitely helped). Still, it took me much longer to piece together this room as compared to the nursery simply because of the comparatively limited time I have at this point in my life. I am thrilled, though, that Natalie loves the room so much, and I'll share soon how we got her to transition to the new room.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Natalie sings!: Creating a toddler YouTube channel
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might have trouble with some of the embedded videos. Please visit my
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Yesterday our child turned 23 months old, and as I reflect back on 22 months, I think it will go down in our daughter's life story as the month she started singing. A lot. And asked us to sing for her. A lot. "Mommy sing more songs!" and "Natty sing by self" were two of the most common sentences our daughter uttered this month.
I've caught myself turning teary-eyed on many occasions this month as my daughter sings to me or sings to herself when she thinks I can't hear her. She has many songs now, but she has some all-time greatest hits. She references "Class on the Farm" (aka her pre-preschool class) where they sing "Old McDonald" while holding animal puppets, and then she proceeds to belt out a rushed "OldMcDonaldhadfarm E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOOOOO" (that last O gets really drawn out, and Old McDonald's most popular animal appears to be a duck...it's always a duck). She also runs around like an airplane while singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and manages to get through the lines about the wheels and the wipers before just looping on "All through the toooowwwwnnnnn" (again, her signature singing move appears to be drawing out that final note). And, after months of me singing "Hush-A-Bye Baby" to her while rubbing her back as she lays heavy-eyed inside her crib, Natalie has been singing all the lyrics of this song to herself, to me, and this week, to the Cabbage Patch doll of my childhood that I regifted to her as she prepares to become a big sister.
She's added new songs to her repertoire this month thanks to earning a new privilege of screen time. Up until hitting 22 months, Natalie had practically zero interest in TV. I had DVRed her an episode of Sesame Street months back, but it was way over her head and she watched for about 30 seconds before going back to coloring. Of course, her lack of interest in the screen has not bothered me, but I have thought about ways to slowly introduce her to videos without making it too much a part of our lives. Though I am not a believer in parking kids in front of the tube, I figure there might be times in the coming months when having her spend 15 minutes watching part of a show will be useful.
Creating a YouTube channel
I made Natalie a YouTube channel, and it's been the perfect way to introduce her to media while at the same time completely controlling what she watches and for how long. So far her channel is exclusively composed of Sesame Street clips, almost all of them from the official Sesame Street channel.
Making a YouTube channel is super easy. If you're signed in to your YouTube account, each time you watch a video you'll see an "Add to" option in the menu underneath the video. Simply click "Add to" and you'll get several options of ways to save your video, including "Favorite videos," "Watch later," and any personalized channel name you've created.
Our favorite videos
Sing the Alphabet Song!
This is by far my favorite video. It's catchy and fun without being annoying. Memorizing the lyrics takes no time, and it's fun to hear Natalie repeat back all the words as we run through the alphabet together.
Usher's ABC Song
This is one of Matt's favorites, and watching this enough times has caused it to literally become embedded in my dreams (plus, Usher started dancing with me at my friend's party [in my dream] and he is, not surprisingly, an incredible dance partner). How could you not find this man and this song charming and addictive?
Feist sings 1, 2, 3, 4
It took me a couple days to translate Natalie's toddler speak in reference to this song, but now it's impossible not to chuckle when she walks around singing "counting a 4" and "chickens from the shore" and "penguins at the door."
Norah Jones sings Don't Know Y
You know I love a good pun, and I fully hope to indoctrinate my child with a pun-loving philosophy. This is such a clever twist on Norah Jones' famous song. Natalie goes crazy every time the letter Y shows up in the video after being late to his playdate with Norah. "Natalie sees Y!" she shouts. Yes, we are trying to break our child of the habit of referring to herself in the third person, and no, Elmo, you're not helping, but you are cute.
Jimmy Fallon, Sesame Street and The Roots Sing "Sesame Street" theme
This one is purely for fun, but I finally figured out why my daughter runs around saying "A-OK": "Sunny day, everything's A-OK." And Jimmy Fallon is just adorable and a recently minted dad!
ABC-DEF-GHI Song (by Bird Bird)
OK, so the visual quality of this one leaves something to be desired, but that's because it's authentic vintage Sesame Street that dates back to at least the early 80s when I remember watching this frequently. Bonus points for how Big Bird teaches kids to spell "car" and "cat" at the end.
Potty Time
OK, this one is admittedly ridiculous, but it has also prompted my child to ask to go sit on the potty because Elmo sits on the potty. Adults, please notice how many ridiculous puns and other jokes the Sesame Street geniuses embedded in this one. Oh, potty humor.
I Love Trash
Here's another throwback to my childhood (and yours too, no doubt). I just liked this song as a kid, and as an adult I can appreciate how a song like this teaches some great vocabulary by getting kids to make connections. "Anything ragged or rotten or rusty"? It's impossible for me not to laugh as Natalie runs around singing "I love traasssssshhhhhhh!" and I always have to resist saying, "Actually, remember how you hate trash and hate to get dirty?" Again, she's my daughter.
Kermit and Elmo Discuss Happy and Sad
This is one of the few non-musical clips in our queue, but Natalie loves to ask for this one, saying, "Elmo and Kermit the froggie play tag." Watching this video with her has taught me that I don't talk to her very often about emotions, so I should probably get on that. This video also helped prompt me to buy art featuring Kermit for her new room because Kermit appears to be perhaps her favorite Sesame Street character, and I fully endorse this choice.
Benefits of the YouTube channel
I am not surprised by how well the clips keep her attention, because it's no secret that toddlers and children can be mesmerized by the screen. I am surprised, though, by how much the clips have taught her. Her little brain really is a sponge, soaking up everything in front of her. The videos we've selected for her channel have helped her further memorize the alphabet, identify specific letters by site, begin to understand the sounds different letters make, identify numbers, learn opposites, spell a couple simple words, and even learn about emotions such as happy and sad. Sure, she gets reinforcement of all these concepts through books, toys and daily activities, but that's why I think the personalized YouTube channel has been a great supplement to her routine and education -- it gives her another way to make connections and learn.
Speaking of routine, Natalie wakes up each morning knowing that she'll change her diaper, go downstairs, have some milk, and watch a couple videos while I do her hair. This past month she has asked for this routine without fail. Creature of habit? Clearly my daughter.
Something I love about the YouTube channel routine is that we only watch these clips from our desktop computer, so she still does not watch any TV on our actual TV. In a way, it feels like this option allows us to save some of the mystique of the television for when she's a bit older and better suited for slightly longer stretches of screen time. Right now, thanks to these 2-3 minute videos, our daughter only gets in about 10-15 minutes of screen time per day, and it seems like the perfect amount.
Have you made your child a YouTube channel? What are the best videos out there for toddlers? We'll eventually look to expand outside Sesame Street, so I'd love some suggestions!
Yesterday our child turned 23 months old, and as I reflect back on 22 months, I think it will go down in our daughter's life story as the month she started singing. A lot. And asked us to sing for her. A lot. "Mommy sing more songs!" and "Natty sing by self" were two of the most common sentences our daughter uttered this month.
I've caught myself turning teary-eyed on many occasions this month as my daughter sings to me or sings to herself when she thinks I can't hear her. She has many songs now, but she has some all-time greatest hits. She references "Class on the Farm" (aka her pre-preschool class) where they sing "Old McDonald" while holding animal puppets, and then she proceeds to belt out a rushed "OldMcDonaldhadfarm E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOOOOO" (that last O gets really drawn out, and Old McDonald's most popular animal appears to be a duck...it's always a duck). She also runs around like an airplane while singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and manages to get through the lines about the wheels and the wipers before just looping on "All through the toooowwwwnnnnn" (again, her signature singing move appears to be drawing out that final note). And, after months of me singing "Hush-A-Bye Baby" to her while rubbing her back as she lays heavy-eyed inside her crib, Natalie has been singing all the lyrics of this song to herself, to me, and this week, to the Cabbage Patch doll of my childhood that I regifted to her as she prepares to become a big sister.
She's added new songs to her repertoire this month thanks to earning a new privilege of screen time. Up until hitting 22 months, Natalie had practically zero interest in TV. I had DVRed her an episode of Sesame Street months back, but it was way over her head and she watched for about 30 seconds before going back to coloring. Of course, her lack of interest in the screen has not bothered me, but I have thought about ways to slowly introduce her to videos without making it too much a part of our lives. Though I am not a believer in parking kids in front of the tube, I figure there might be times in the coming months when having her spend 15 minutes watching part of a show will be useful.
Creating a YouTube channel
I made Natalie a YouTube channel, and it's been the perfect way to introduce her to media while at the same time completely controlling what she watches and for how long. So far her channel is exclusively composed of Sesame Street clips, almost all of them from the official Sesame Street channel.
Making a YouTube channel is super easy. If you're signed in to your YouTube account, each time you watch a video you'll see an "Add to" option in the menu underneath the video. Simply click "Add to" and you'll get several options of ways to save your video, including "Favorite videos," "Watch later," and any personalized channel name you've created.
Sing the Alphabet Song!
This is by far my favorite video. It's catchy and fun without being annoying. Memorizing the lyrics takes no time, and it's fun to hear Natalie repeat back all the words as we run through the alphabet together.
Usher's ABC Song
This is one of Matt's favorites, and watching this enough times has caused it to literally become embedded in my dreams (plus, Usher started dancing with me at my friend's party [in my dream] and he is, not surprisingly, an incredible dance partner). How could you not find this man and this song charming and addictive?
Feist sings 1, 2, 3, 4
It took me a couple days to translate Natalie's toddler speak in reference to this song, but now it's impossible not to chuckle when she walks around singing "counting a 4" and "chickens from the shore" and "penguins at the door."
Norah Jones sings Don't Know Y
You know I love a good pun, and I fully hope to indoctrinate my child with a pun-loving philosophy. This is such a clever twist on Norah Jones' famous song. Natalie goes crazy every time the letter Y shows up in the video after being late to his playdate with Norah. "Natalie sees Y!" she shouts. Yes, we are trying to break our child of the habit of referring to herself in the third person, and no, Elmo, you're not helping, but you are cute.
Jimmy Fallon, Sesame Street and The Roots Sing "Sesame Street" theme
This one is purely for fun, but I finally figured out why my daughter runs around saying "A-OK": "Sunny day, everything's A-OK." And Jimmy Fallon is just adorable and a recently minted dad!
ABC-DEF-GHI Song (by Bird Bird)
OK, so the visual quality of this one leaves something to be desired, but that's because it's authentic vintage Sesame Street that dates back to at least the early 80s when I remember watching this frequently. Bonus points for how Big Bird teaches kids to spell "car" and "cat" at the end.
Potty Time
OK, this one is admittedly ridiculous, but it has also prompted my child to ask to go sit on the potty because Elmo sits on the potty. Adults, please notice how many ridiculous puns and other jokes the Sesame Street geniuses embedded in this one. Oh, potty humor.
I Love Trash
Here's another throwback to my childhood (and yours too, no doubt). I just liked this song as a kid, and as an adult I can appreciate how a song like this teaches some great vocabulary by getting kids to make connections. "Anything ragged or rotten or rusty"? It's impossible for me not to laugh as Natalie runs around singing "I love traasssssshhhhhhh!" and I always have to resist saying, "Actually, remember how you hate trash and hate to get dirty?" Again, she's my daughter.
Kermit and Elmo Discuss Happy and Sad
This is one of the few non-musical clips in our queue, but Natalie loves to ask for this one, saying, "Elmo and Kermit the froggie play tag." Watching this video with her has taught me that I don't talk to her very often about emotions, so I should probably get on that. This video also helped prompt me to buy art featuring Kermit for her new room because Kermit appears to be perhaps her favorite Sesame Street character, and I fully endorse this choice.
Benefits of the YouTube channel
I am not surprised by how well the clips keep her attention, because it's no secret that toddlers and children can be mesmerized by the screen. I am surprised, though, by how much the clips have taught her. Her little brain really is a sponge, soaking up everything in front of her. The videos we've selected for her channel have helped her further memorize the alphabet, identify specific letters by site, begin to understand the sounds different letters make, identify numbers, learn opposites, spell a couple simple words, and even learn about emotions such as happy and sad. Sure, she gets reinforcement of all these concepts through books, toys and daily activities, but that's why I think the personalized YouTube channel has been a great supplement to her routine and education -- it gives her another way to make connections and learn.
Speaking of routine, Natalie wakes up each morning knowing that she'll change her diaper, go downstairs, have some milk, and watch a couple videos while I do her hair. This past month she has asked for this routine without fail. Creature of habit? Clearly my daughter.
Something I love about the YouTube channel routine is that we only watch these clips from our desktop computer, so she still does not watch any TV on our actual TV. In a way, it feels like this option allows us to save some of the mystique of the television for when she's a bit older and better suited for slightly longer stretches of screen time. Right now, thanks to these 2-3 minute videos, our daughter only gets in about 10-15 minutes of screen time per day, and it seems like the perfect amount.
Have you made your child a YouTube channel? What are the best videos out there for toddlers? We'll eventually look to expand outside Sesame Street, so I'd love some suggestions!
Friday, November 15, 2013
Books about having a second baby
If my second pregnancy had a tagline, it would be this: "No one cares about a second baby." This sounds harsh, I realize, and it's not how I feel about my second baby who will be born in the scarily near future; rather, it's a statement about how nearly everyone else reacts. Sure, my family and closest friends are supportive and excited, but there is a certain feeling from strangers and acquaintances alike that a second-time parent is a pro and therefore not much to celebrate. For example, whenever I find myself out running an errand or out on the town without Natalie, strangers assume I'm about to have my first baby. "Oh, is this your first baby?!" they say in a high-pitched voice. When I say, with a smile and excitement in my voice, "No, this is number 2," the tone immediately shifts and the typical response is, "Oh."
Of course, the truth is that as a second-time parent, while I do not have all the answers (or most answers), I do have a better sense of what to except the second time around, and therefore the months ahead seem almost more scary than they did as I anticipated my first child. My eyes are fully opened, so I know about the physical recovery from childbirth, the sleep deprivation ahead, the serious commitment breastfeeding requires, the reality of being covered in spit up, and the fears over whether or not the baby is gaining enough weight and developing normally. On the flip side, I recognize with hindsight that these challenges and worries will hopefully last for an exceptionally small portion of our son's early life, and I have at least a few more coping mechanisms and previous experiences this time around to inform my parenting.
Still, I'm a firm believer in preparation through reading. This time, instead of feeling the need to read about pregnancy or breastfeeding or newborns, I have sought out books specifically focused on having a second child. In trying to gather books on this topic, I found that there are few books to choose from, and nearly all these books have mixed online reviews. I selected the four books I could easily acquire through my local library. Having completed reading four books on this topic, I will just be adding to the mixed reviews of these books, but here goes.
Here's what I found these books to say (so you don't have to read them)...
Universal advice:
The universal point all these books emphasize is that preparing yourself, your relationship with your spouse, your firstborn, and your house before the arrival of baby #2 is the best way to make the transition as smooth as possible. My rational brain that loves to be organized said, "True," and I worked hard to find specific advice within each book that went beyond basic organizational strategies such as babyproofing in advance, learning to manage a weekly grocery and meal list, having a division of household tasks between spouses, maintaining routines with your older child, keeping a firm place in your life for time by yourself, with your spouse, and with your friends.
In terms of sibling preparation, every book recommends, as my doctor and plenty of friends have recommended as well, making any changes in the older child's life well in advance of the arrival of the baby so that the older child has time to adjust and doesn't associate the newborn with all things upheaval. This for us means moving Natalie into her new room as quickly as we can put it together, hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.
Universal criticism:
Overall, my main criticism of these books, as I observed in many online customer reviews, is that they mostly provide common sense advice that you've probably heard before. Perhaps because so many people have such wildly different circumstances, there's no good way to present super specific advice in a published format.
I also feel like the picture these authors paint on the whole regarding welcoming a second baby to the family is one of doom and gloom, and I feel like I've heard enough doom and gloom from friends and acquaintances and TV and movies that I don't really need more extremely negative reminders about the realities of life with two small children. I want honesty, but I also want some balance of optimism and pessimism, especially since I have made such major strides in the past few years in living my life in a more optimistic way.
Either way, I've tried to compile what I found to be some of the most specific information from these four books below.
Welcoming Your Second Baby
by Vicki Dansky
3rd edition, 2005
This book is focused on the most immediate aspects of preparation for a second child and life with two children, including, for example, a whole chapter about having the firstborn present at the birth of the second child. (For the record, Natalie will not be witnessing her brother's birth.) Much of this book is written in bulleted-list format, which I can appreciate because it makes it even easier to pick and choose what to read. In any of these books, you'll find lots of ideas that no doubt do not apply to your circumstances.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
And Baby Makes Four: Welcoming a Second Child Into the Family
by Hilory Wagner
1998
Maybe it's just me, but this book felt like the most negative of the four books I've read on this topic. For that reason, it would be on the bottom of my recommended titles list, but I'm reviewing these in the order in which I read them so I can remember how I saw ideas building or conflicting among the books.
This book is divided into three parts (1: Planning for Two; 2: Pregnancy and Preparation; 3: Your New Family) with multiple chapters within each section. My review of this book is incomplete because, as in the case of the previous book, several chapters do not apply to me (most notably, I don't need to read chapters about deciding when to have another kid or about being pregnant a second time). I focused most of my attention on the chapters about sibling preparation and managing life with two children. Thankfully, the whole book uses helpful subheadings and bulleted lists so readers can easily pick and choose what to read.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
Joan Leonard
2000
After reading the relatively Negative Nancy of a book above, I found Twice Blessed refreshing. Of course, it's not surprising that a book with the word "blessed" in its title might take a more positive approach. Still, I salute you, Joan Leonard, for not scaring me like everyone else.
This book is structured in a remarkably similar way to Wagner's book above, making it easy to select the most relevant parts of the book for reading or scanning.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
Judy Dunn
1995
This book's horribly outdated cover threw me off at first, but this wound up being the book with what I felt was the most specific advice for making the adjustment to two children. As with all the previous books, there are chapters readers can easily skip based on individual circumstances. I valued, though, the way that this book considers the adjustment to a growing family in stages: the first few weeks (chapter 5), the first year (chapter 6), and the rest of the time the siblings will spend under the same roof (chapters 7-10). The tone of this book is somewhere between the optimism of Twice Blessed and the general pessimism of And Baby Makes Four.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
As if to solidify this sentiment, I find myself a lot more emotional these days as I anticipate the joys of a newborn. When I was pregnant with Natalie, our friends gave me the book Oh, Baby, the Places You'll Go! (A Book to be Read in Utero) by Dr. Seuss. I felt a little silly when pregnant with Natalie to read it out loud more than once. Now, though, totally by her own volition, Natalie has been gravitating toward this book on her bookcase. So, we've read it at least 20 times to baby boy. And I really can't get through the last page without choking up:
So now, as my voice
burble-urps in your ear --
with a bump-thumpy sound
that is not very clear --
the words I am saying
you hear in your heart,
and know that I wish you
the very best start.
It's a scrumptulous world
and it's ready to greet you,
And as for myself...
well...
I can't wait to meet you!
Of course, the truth is that as a second-time parent, while I do not have all the answers (or most answers), I do have a better sense of what to except the second time around, and therefore the months ahead seem almost more scary than they did as I anticipated my first child. My eyes are fully opened, so I know about the physical recovery from childbirth, the sleep deprivation ahead, the serious commitment breastfeeding requires, the reality of being covered in spit up, and the fears over whether or not the baby is gaining enough weight and developing normally. On the flip side, I recognize with hindsight that these challenges and worries will hopefully last for an exceptionally small portion of our son's early life, and I have at least a few more coping mechanisms and previous experiences this time around to inform my parenting.
Still, I'm a firm believer in preparation through reading. This time, instead of feeling the need to read about pregnancy or breastfeeding or newborns, I have sought out books specifically focused on having a second child. In trying to gather books on this topic, I found that there are few books to choose from, and nearly all these books have mixed online reviews. I selected the four books I could easily acquire through my local library. Having completed reading four books on this topic, I will just be adding to the mixed reviews of these books, but here goes.
Here's what I found these books to say (so you don't have to read them)...
Universal advice:
The universal point all these books emphasize is that preparing yourself, your relationship with your spouse, your firstborn, and your house before the arrival of baby #2 is the best way to make the transition as smooth as possible. My rational brain that loves to be organized said, "True," and I worked hard to find specific advice within each book that went beyond basic organizational strategies such as babyproofing in advance, learning to manage a weekly grocery and meal list, having a division of household tasks between spouses, maintaining routines with your older child, keeping a firm place in your life for time by yourself, with your spouse, and with your friends.
In terms of sibling preparation, every book recommends, as my doctor and plenty of friends have recommended as well, making any changes in the older child's life well in advance of the arrival of the baby so that the older child has time to adjust and doesn't associate the newborn with all things upheaval. This for us means moving Natalie into her new room as quickly as we can put it together, hopefully sometime in the next few weeks.
Universal criticism:
Overall, my main criticism of these books, as I observed in many online customer reviews, is that they mostly provide common sense advice that you've probably heard before. Perhaps because so many people have such wildly different circumstances, there's no good way to present super specific advice in a published format.
I also feel like the picture these authors paint on the whole regarding welcoming a second baby to the family is one of doom and gloom, and I feel like I've heard enough doom and gloom from friends and acquaintances and TV and movies that I don't really need more extremely negative reminders about the realities of life with two small children. I want honesty, but I also want some balance of optimism and pessimism, especially since I have made such major strides in the past few years in living my life in a more optimistic way.
Either way, I've tried to compile what I found to be some of the most specific information from these four books below.
Welcoming Your Second Baby
by Vicki Dansky
3rd edition, 2005
This book is focused on the most immediate aspects of preparation for a second child and life with two children, including, for example, a whole chapter about having the firstborn present at the birth of the second child. (For the record, Natalie will not be witnessing her brother's birth.) Much of this book is written in bulleted-list format, which I can appreciate because it makes it even easier to pick and choose what to read. In any of these books, you'll find lots of ideas that no doubt do not apply to your circumstances.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
- Hospital advice -- Your first child may not be able to visit you at the hospital for any number of reasons, so the book recommends not building up a potential hospital visit in case it doesn't work out. Additionally, if your child does visit you, ideally you will not be the one holding the baby so that you can give your older child attention when she visits (26).
- Dealing with jealousy, when the baby is a newborn -- If possible, find ways to give your older child special time with you by staggering when you feed the baby and put the baby down for a nap (70). Of course, following this advice would mean you would likely never get a break yourself, but I guess that is an idea.
- Regression -- I'd heard and read plenty before about regression in toddlers after the baby arrives, but I was surprised to read that regression is most common seven months after the baby's arrival (73). The author does not elaborate on this claim, though, so I don't know about this statement's accuracy or helpfulness. We're not planning to touch potty training for the time being because we figure Natalie would just regress, anyway.
- Encouraging positive sibling interaction -- The author recommends specifically praising positive play between the firstborn and baby by saying something like, "'Look how happy your brother becomes when you sing to him'" (81). I like this because it offers the older sibling specific praise and may therefore encourage more positive interactions.
And Baby Makes Four: Welcoming a Second Child Into the Family
by Hilory Wagner
1998
Maybe it's just me, but this book felt like the most negative of the four books I've read on this topic. For that reason, it would be on the bottom of my recommended titles list, but I'm reviewing these in the order in which I read them so I can remember how I saw ideas building or conflicting among the books.
This book is divided into three parts (1: Planning for Two; 2: Pregnancy and Preparation; 3: Your New Family) with multiple chapters within each section. My review of this book is incomplete because, as in the case of the previous book, several chapters do not apply to me (most notably, I don't need to read chapters about deciding when to have another kid or about being pregnant a second time). I focused most of my attention on the chapters about sibling preparation and managing life with two children. Thankfully, the whole book uses helpful subheadings and bulleted lists so readers can easily pick and choose what to read.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
- Baby doll care -- Teach your firstborn how to properly care for a baby by giving the toddler a baby doll to pretend play with (77). The book specifically recommends showing the toddler how to support the baby's head. Natalie loves to sing "Hush-a-Bye Baby" to her stuffed bunny, but I'm planning to get one of my two old Cabbage Patch dolls out from the back of the crawl space (when I finally blaze a trail through there) and let her have it as her baby doll.
- "Our" baby -- Refer to the baby as "ours" (89). It turns out we've been unwittingly following this advice because one of Natalie current favorite books, I'm a Big Sister, refers to the new baby as "our" baby, and so that language has stuck in our house as well.
- Keeping a toddler occupied while mom nurses -- Read books or watch videos with your toddler while you nurse your newborn (130). At this moment, Natalie has a shockingly long attention span when it comes to books, and I think I could realistically manage feeding a newborn while Natalie reads beside me. Who knows how long that will last, but I will milk it (ha!) for all that it's worth come January. Also, who knows how nursing will go with baby #2. I'm not setting myself up for disappointment with that one.
- With toys, sharing is not always caring -- Teach your first born to understand that many of her toys are not suitable for the baby, and while it's nice to share, there are times where sharing is not good (146). We sort of went through this when trying before Natalie was born to teach the dogs the differences between baby toys and dog toys. I've already put all the baby's toys into a special red bin that Natalie can easily and safely access, and we'll work on teaching her that it's OK to hand her brother toys from that bin only. (Stay tuned.)
- Outings with the firs born -- Try to arrange as many special outings for the firstborn as possible once the baby arrives (149). The book recommends a special weekly outing for the toddler. That sounds awesome, but likely unfeasible. I could see myself trying to ensure that between Matt, me and babysitters, family and otherwise, someone gives Natalie a special outing whenever we can.
- Don't overplay the concept of "mommy's little helper" (150) -- I thought this was a great point. Nearly every book or article I read emphasizes making the firstborn feel important in the life of the baby, but realistically, there's only so much my two-year old will be able to do. Once the baby can see and focus more, Natalie can play a bigger role, as the book points out, in keeping her brother smiling and entertained.
Joan Leonard
2000
After reading the relatively Negative Nancy of a book above, I found Twice Blessed refreshing. Of course, it's not surprising that a book with the word "blessed" in its title might take a more positive approach. Still, I salute you, Joan Leonard, for not scaring me like everyone else.
This book is structured in a remarkably similar way to Wagner's book above, making it easy to select the most relevant parts of the book for reading or scanning.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
- Siblings are good for helping kids mature! (57) -- Yes, thank you! Not exactly advice, but at least affirmation that my family's life as we know it will not be forever destroyed. Specifically, the author highlights how: "Even if the oldest temporarily regresses back to thumb sucking or wetting the bed after the arrival of the baby -- which is very common -- in the end the child may mature more quickly. Studies reveal that kids show signs of more grown-up behavior...after the birth of a new baby, even if signs of regression are also there" (57-58).
- Brush off your firstborn's baby album (63) -- Natalie is loving looking at her baby book these days. Of course, she's mostly enamored with pictures of herself and her family and friends, but it gives us a nice way to talk about the hospital, and how small babies are, and what babies need, and how babies grow.
- Don't move your firstborn out of the crib if she's not ready (68) -- We have been planning this all along, but it was affirming to read we're not crazy for not wanting to transition Natalie to a regular bed yet. Natalie has loved her crib since she was about four months old, and now she is especially attached to it, contentedly babbling in there for about an hour each morning before she's ready to get out. When I get her up for the day or from a nap, she often asks to stay in her crib. So, I leave the door open, do a few things upstairs, and then in about 15 minutes she's ready to get out. Rather than force her out of her comfort zone, we're going to move Natalie's crib to her new room, and we'll use the Pack N Play as the baby's crib until either Natalie's ready to give up her crib or we decide to force her to give it up (or we decide sound sleep is what matters most of all and we suck it up and buy/borrow a second crib for a while).
- More good news: Sibling fights are good -- Specifically, these fights over such topics as toys and parental attention teach coping and negotiation skills (182). Again, not something I didn't know, having grown up as the middle child in a family with relatively strong personalities, but still a great reminder that, again, both of my children are going to be fine and perhaps better because they have each other.
Judy Dunn
1995
This book's horribly outdated cover threw me off at first, but this wound up being the book with what I felt was the most specific advice for making the adjustment to two children. As with all the previous books, there are chapters readers can easily skip based on individual circumstances. I valued, though, the way that this book considers the adjustment to a growing family in stages: the first few weeks (chapter 5), the first year (chapter 6), and the rest of the time the siblings will spend under the same roof (chapters 7-10). The tone of this book is somewhere between the optimism of Twice Blessed and the general pessimism of And Baby Makes Four.
Here's what I found most helpful from this book:
- Two does not have to mean twice as difficult -- Instead, this author claims the workload is more like one and a half (17). Having kids closer together in age can actually make the adjustment easier because parents aren't too far removed from the baby routine. Even though I haven't given birth yet, I can relate to this sentiment because I really do feel like Natalie was just a baby yesterda.
- Savor these pre-baby moments with your firstborn -- I'll just quote this one directly: "Rather than fuss over preparation, enjoy your child now, and think about his current interests and the things you like doing together" (49).
- The firstborn can get a gift when the baby is born, but don't say it's from the baby (59) -- I really, really appreciated this point. Every book (and nearly everybody I've spoken with) recommends having a special gift for the firstborn, but the other books say parents should say it's from the baby. Although this book does not state it so bluntly, saying the present is from the baby is a lie, and an unnecessary and confusing one at that. Natalie will be thrilled that her brother's arrival also means she gets a few special treats of her own; she won't care (nor will she likely understand) where they're from.
- Be prepared for a child's response to the baby to be ambivalent -- I was happy to see the author point out that your firstborn's attitude toward the baby will likely be more nuanced than we often are willing to admit. Dunn writes that the response could involve, "a combination of anger, distress, increasingly mature behavior, and genuine interest in and affection for the baby" (69).
- The beginning will be rough, but then it's over (72) -- Right, I need to keep telling myself this. Specifically, the first month will be bad, but that's why my husband will be off from work, splitting all baby and toddler duties with me.
- Babies as young as six weeks might be adaptable to changes in feeding and napping schedules (89) -- I like the idea of raising flexible children. Likely through luck, Natalie turned out pretty flexible, and I hope baby boy can be somewhat as obliging. Of course, the book points out that more difficult babies might take two to three months to become more adaptable.
- Firstborn jealousy will likely be apparent when the baby is three to four months (93) -- This makes sense, as this is around the time babies start showing more personality, doing tricks, and generally exit the solely-a-blob stage into something a little more entertaining.
- An increase in fearfulness in the firstborn is normal -- Specifically, the book points out that about one-third of firstborns show an increase in pointed fears during the baby's first year of life (95). This could include, for example, a new fear of water, which may require parents to temporary minimize or even suspend baths and revert to sponge baths before re-acclimating the firstborn to the fear-inducing stimuli.
- Handling baths for two kids -- One solution: bathe on alternate days (109). We already bathe Natalie every other day, so we could easily bathe baby boy on the opposite nights. Or bathe them together with the newborn in a tub anchored with suction cups to the floor of the tub (109). Because we do not have such a contraption, we'll probably see how the alternating bath days works first.
As if to solidify this sentiment, I find myself a lot more emotional these days as I anticipate the joys of a newborn. When I was pregnant with Natalie, our friends gave me the book Oh, Baby, the Places You'll Go! (A Book to be Read in Utero) by Dr. Seuss. I felt a little silly when pregnant with Natalie to read it out loud more than once. Now, though, totally by her own volition, Natalie has been gravitating toward this book on her bookcase. So, we've read it at least 20 times to baby boy. And I really can't get through the last page without choking up:
So now, as my voice
burble-urps in your ear --
with a bump-thumpy sound
that is not very clear --
the words I am saying
you hear in your heart,
and know that I wish you
the very best start.
It's a scrumptulous world
and it's ready to greet you,
And as for myself...
well...
I can't wait to meet you!
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Picture books for a 20-month old
I am not upset that reading continues to be one of Natalie's favorite activities. We were fortunate to be gifted a great quantity of books from lots of friends and family before Natalie was born. Many of these are picture books that we haven't really enjoyed until now, thanks to Natalie's increased attention span and the fact that we have nearly hit our limit with the dozens of board books she's practically memorized. The picture book era is here, and I am thrilled.
Here are Natalie's current favorites.
Books containing repetition
Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood
Everyone piles on top of one another in this napping house until a wakeful flea destroys each character's slumber. The illustrations are fantastic, and the repetition, while sometimes a little annoying from an adult's perspective, definitely helps in getting Natalie engaged with the story.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
I mentioned this book before as well, but the "cookie book," as Natalie calls it, is far and away the picture book hit in our home. This little mouse is certainly demanding. Don't give this bad boy a cookie or else your day will be ruined. We've read the other books by Numeroff, and though they follow the same format of listing consequences for every action, they seem a lot more complicated and therefore less appealing than this one to the two-and-under crowd. I love how each page has just one key vocabulary word focus, such as "straw" or "crayon" or even "Scotch tape." I think that format has worked well in teaching Natalie lots of new, somewhat obscure vocabulary.
Favorite less-popular book
Nothing But a Dog by Bobbi Katz
I've never seen mention of this book on other websites or book lists in anyone's "best of" categories, but this is a sweet book for pet owners (though I'd recommend skipping it if you do not own a dog and do not want to encourage your child to beg for a dog). The "nothing doggie" book, as Natalie calls it, starts off by saying, "Once it starts -- the longing for a dog -- there is no cure for it." You can probably guess how the story ends. Although the text in this book is fairly simple, the protagonist in the illustrations definitely looks like an eight-year old engaged in eight-year-old-and-probably-a-lot-older activities, such as learning to play the trumpet and going to"monster movies" with her best friend. So, Natalie can't exactly relate to much except the dog-love part. Still, she wants to read this book daily.
Rhyming books
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinnker and Tom Litchtenheld
This book seems to be a modern classic. The book title is pretty spot-on: the story explains how each truck at the construction site has had a long day and now is going to rest before the next busy day ahead. Natalie is fascinated with cars and trucks, and this book is helping to expand her repertoire of truck names.
Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
I get a little sad each time Natalie asks for the "la" book, but I know she's asking for it more because it contains nearly perfect rhyme scheme and not because she's mad at me (or so I like to think). Seriously, this book is fun to read as you track Llama Llama's Saturday shopping extravaganza with his Mama at the Shop-O-Rama. Thanks to the great rhyme scheme, Natalie can complete nearly every sentence and gets a big kick out of her involvement in reading the story. I like seeing her sense of pride as well as the way the book keeps her attention even after back-to-back readings, which she requests often. (I was about to make a joke about the need for a Llama Barack Obama book, but looks like someone else already beat me to it.)
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
This book is the newest addition to our library, technically a gift for our future son (oh, by the way, I'm pregnant), but Natalie of course got her hands on it the moment we opened the gift. She calls this the "dump truck book" because the Little Blue Truck, with the help of his farm animal friends, manages to save the big, bad dump truck that lacks manners and companionship. Matt pointed out how the meter and rhyme is a bit off on certain pages ("His heavy-duty/ dump-truck tires/ were sunk down deep/ in muck and mire" is supposed to rhyme, I believe, but fails), but because the story is not only fun but contains an actual theme, I'll go with it.
If you have any suggestions for additions to our library I would love to hear them!
Here are Natalie's current favorites.
Books containing repetition
Bark, George by Jules Feiffer
I mentioned this book previously, but it warrants a little more attention. Meet George, a puppy whose dog mom wants him to "arf" but he will only meow, quack, oink, and moo until a trip to the vet un-TurDuckens this dog. The illustrations are a little eccentric, but this is one of the books Natalie asks for by name. She is also hilarious in that she has named random dogs we pass on the sidewalk "George" in honor of this story.
The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood
Everyone piles on top of one another in this napping house until a wakeful flea destroys each character's slumber. The illustrations are fantastic, and the repetition, while sometimes a little annoying from an adult's perspective, definitely helps in getting Natalie engaged with the story.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
I mentioned this book before as well, but the "cookie book," as Natalie calls it, is far and away the picture book hit in our home. This little mouse is certainly demanding. Don't give this bad boy a cookie or else your day will be ruined. We've read the other books by Numeroff, and though they follow the same format of listing consequences for every action, they seem a lot more complicated and therefore less appealing than this one to the two-and-under crowd. I love how each page has just one key vocabulary word focus, such as "straw" or "crayon" or even "Scotch tape." I think that format has worked well in teaching Natalie lots of new, somewhat obscure vocabulary.
Favorite less-popular book
Nothing But a Dog by Bobbi Katz
I've never seen mention of this book on other websites or book lists in anyone's "best of" categories, but this is a sweet book for pet owners (though I'd recommend skipping it if you do not own a dog and do not want to encourage your child to beg for a dog). The "nothing doggie" book, as Natalie calls it, starts off by saying, "Once it starts -- the longing for a dog -- there is no cure for it." You can probably guess how the story ends. Although the text in this book is fairly simple, the protagonist in the illustrations definitely looks like an eight-year old engaged in eight-year-old-and-probably-a-lot-older activities, such as learning to play the trumpet and going to"monster movies" with her best friend. So, Natalie can't exactly relate to much except the dog-love part. Still, she wants to read this book daily.
Rhyming books
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinnker and Tom Litchtenheld
This book seems to be a modern classic. The book title is pretty spot-on: the story explains how each truck at the construction site has had a long day and now is going to rest before the next busy day ahead. Natalie is fascinated with cars and trucks, and this book is helping to expand her repertoire of truck names.
Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney
I get a little sad each time Natalie asks for the "la" book, but I know she's asking for it more because it contains nearly perfect rhyme scheme and not because she's mad at me (or so I like to think). Seriously, this book is fun to read as you track Llama Llama's Saturday shopping extravaganza with his Mama at the Shop-O-Rama. Thanks to the great rhyme scheme, Natalie can complete nearly every sentence and gets a big kick out of her involvement in reading the story. I like seeing her sense of pride as well as the way the book keeps her attention even after back-to-back readings, which she requests often. (I was about to make a joke about the need for a Llama Barack Obama book, but looks like someone else already beat me to it.)
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
This book is the newest addition to our library, technically a gift for our future son (oh, by the way, I'm pregnant), but Natalie of course got her hands on it the moment we opened the gift. She calls this the "dump truck book" because the Little Blue Truck, with the help of his farm animal friends, manages to save the big, bad dump truck that lacks manners and companionship. Matt pointed out how the meter and rhyme is a bit off on certain pages ("His heavy-duty/ dump-truck tires/ were sunk down deep/ in muck and mire" is supposed to rhyme, I believe, but fails), but because the story is not only fun but contains an actual theme, I'll go with it.
If you have any suggestions for additions to our library I would love to hear them!
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