I haven’t really been talking a lot about Oliver lately. Which, you know, he’ll probably thank me for in a few years. Are only babies interesting? Not at all.
I’ve found an excuse to talk about him – he’s officially 2 and a 1/2 today. And, it’s a cliche, but I do like this age the best so far.
It just seems a lot easier lately, than even just a few months ago. What a difference better communication can make to tantrums and freak outs. They seem to be few and far between, lately. I mean, that might change again, but for now, it’s good. You can reason with him. He wants to avoid the timeout/naughty chair (thanks, Supernanny), and he knows when he’s doing something bad. So normally, he’ll stop.
He amazes me every day when he comes out with these grammatically correct full sentences. Especially when he first wakes up in the morning – he just spouts out these carefully constructed observations, with proper tenses, etc. I didn’t expect him to be able to do that! He’s very observant, you can’t put anything past him anymore DAMN IT, and just seems really clever. Yes, I know, the sun shines out my child’s butt – I know EVERYTHING thinks their kid is smart, funny, etc. But for me, he is.
It’s pretty easy to make him smile. Things that make him happy? Juice (watered down, but of course!!), ice cream, hamburgers, Mr. Maker, colouring and painting, cutting up colouring books with his Dora safety scissors, playing outside on our deck, playing at the park (lately, he picks out an older woman – like a 4 or 5 year old, and hangs out with her the whole time – very interesting), visiting the basement with Daddy, airplanes, choo choo trains, animals, and books. He is still a huge book lover. He’s like the only kid at playgroup who will actually sit down and look at the pile of books for a few minutes. He’s still got his full on energy and needs to be active quite a lot, but he’ll always stop for a book. (Clearly, he’s gotten this from me and not from his illiterate father).
I took this video yesterday. It’s not his best work, but it makes me smile.
Hmm, birthdays, even if just a half birthday, require cake, right? Better go make one.
I know! This just demonstrates how exciting my life has become!!
Anyway, so despite my promise not to write any more about baby bottles, here’s a bit more information that no one will really care about. I continue to be happy with my purchase of Born Free bottles post-Canadian government declaring bisphenol A ‘dangerous’, and returning my trusty old Avent bottles. When I dished out a lot of cash to purchase the bottles, I decided at the same time to listen to their little instructional insert and get the Born Free foam bottle washing set so as not to scratch the plastic they use with the cheap wirey brush I had been using or the old Avent bristley brush I now use for other dish washing jobs. I don’t know exactly what plastic is in Born Free bottles but it is clearly a lot weaker than evil Avent plastic as I have read stories of the bottles melting in microwave sterilizers. So I was being cautious and not wanting to wreck them.
This set of bottle brushes was not at all cheap – I think I paid about $13 or so for it. I haven’t seen any other bottle brush set that is purely foam – although I am sure someone else out there makes one, and one day soon I’ll probably see one in the dollar store and get REALLY pissed off. But anyway. I bought the brushes ultimately because I was going to be washing the bottles by hand. Because our old dishwasher had some issues.
The dishwasher that came with this house was an old Bosch, which is a good brand, but as time went on, it just really wasn’t working. It was getting stuck mid-cycle. It was leaving soap residue on our dishes. I could never trust it to wash bottles properly. So for months I washed bottles by hand, and for a few months sterilized the Avent bottles as well, and then I stopped sterilizing when I got the Born Free ones and just made sure I washed them REALLY well in hot and soapy water.
We thought it was a hot water issue with the dishwasher. We realized that it would work when there was enough hot water getting to it. We had various methods of ensuring that it was receiving it, including running the kitchen sink hot water tap (total waste of water and bad for the taps, apparently). We talked to an appliance salesperson at one store who told us that unlike in Europe, dishwashers here don’t heat their own hot water. We wondered if we were going to have to have some major plumbing work done. We continued to live with only vaguely clean dishes. I continued to hand wash what was important.
We considered getting a new dishwasher. The other weekend, I noticed a major furniture and appliance store was having some kind of big sale that involved a free BBQ. Discounted appliances and a hot dog for Oliver? We’re there. We wandered around, didn’t find a lot, but then I found an as-is Jenn Air stainless steel dishwasher for a decent chunk of money off the original price. We have a Jenn Air cooktop and our Kitchen Aid oven is stainless steel, so this was going to fit the bill.
And, talking to the salesman there while Oliver happily munched on his hotdog, many dishwashers DO heat their own water! Funny that. So all this time, our old Bosch was breaking down in the hot water heating department. We bought the Jenn Air. We brought it home. Mark installed it.
<cue angels singing and choruses from on high>
We have clean dishes!! We have clean and sterilized bottles! We have no residue! We have lots of baskets and clips and all kinds of stuff to keep dishes in place. It’s a bit louder than the old one, but I don’t care, it works.
Oh – almost forgot – around the time that we replaced the dishwasher, the larger Born Free foam bottle brush (you get two in the box), started falling apart and became a real problem to use. Even when we’ve got a working dishwasher, I do occasionally need to wash stuff by hand. Last week, I sort of cheekily emailed their customer service, asking them for advice as to whether or not I should return it to the store I got it from, but also mentioning how much blog traffic I’ve had since talking about their bottles and how I’ve been using them (this is true; I can’t even count the different search engine referrals with ‘born free’ as part of the topic, and I’ve also had a bunch of ‘possibly related posts’ hits from other wordpress blogs).
I LOVE their customer service. They got back to me right away, and immediately Fed-ex’d me a replacement at no cost. I got it today. I am seriously really impressed. Makes the money we spent worth it when you know a company is going to do the right thing and look after its’ customers. So, Born Free, I highly recommend you to anyone who’s going to need baby bottles, glass or plastic, breastfeeding or bottlefeeding or both. And I also recommend owning a dishwasher that works. Life has improved vastly. The end.
So Oliver came home with big news from daycare. He pee’d for the first time ever in a potty! Woo hoo! Stickers and praise and hugs and all good things. Not that we’ve been trying very hard to toilet train him, but he is really quite uninterested in it, so this was surprising. He’s very happy to sit in a crappy diaper for like an hour, possibly eventually telling you he needs a new one (that’s a recent development). He normally refuses to sit on the potty or the toilet with insert seat, but sometimes he changes his mind and does, but just doesn’t produce anything.
There seem to be quite a few other bloggers I read that are having success at potty training boys who all seem to be about 3-6 months older than Oliver, so I guess his timing is about right, assuming that we start having some progress in this area. Mark and I discussed sort of piling on the training when we get back from the UK at the end of July. Sounds good. One little issue – we found out today he’s meant to be moving up to the junior preschool class, like, imminently, and they are meant to be toilet trained to start. Yeah, if they can accomplish that in a week or two at daycare, I’ll eat one of his diapers. (Um, a clean one, unused of course, as we won’t need them anymore!)
When we are in the UK next month, Mark and I are attending the wedding of one of his closest friends, so I’ve been assembling an outfit consisting of a dress and maybe a nice little jacket I got today or a cardigan. I’ve been trying to figure out what to wear on my feet. So I dug out my old trusty one pair of black heels, bought about 8 years ago at Zellers for like $5. Pathetic, but have served me well. I made the mistake of leaving them out, along with the various handbags that they were hidden under.
“I wear ladies shoes!” “I have a purse!” “I going home”
Oh dear. Mark is going to kill me for taking a picture of him like this! I think it’s hilarious. Time to put together a dress up box. And, he can keep them, ’cause today I found some really nice and COMFORTABLE heels at Winners.
Also, do you think that the Italian-Canadian staff and kids at his daycare will understand what ‘bugger’ means? Because he’s sort of repeating it a lot. Oops.
Just to make sure I publicly humiliate both of them equally, today Callum threw up milk and pureed green beans down my bra, and then crapped in the bath tub. When both him and Oliver were in it. Thankfully the situation was mitigated (e.g. poo contained) by a bath chair and a face cloth, which is now in the garbage.
So another day, another storm. Seems like it’s thunderstorms all the time around here. The dog has developed storm anxiety. Oliver understands what storm means, that they can be a little scary, but we’ll all be okay.
EXCEPT I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE TODAY. Or least my house and car were going to be sacrificed to the most insane hail ever. Mark is going to have to check for house damage when he gets home. My car, which really should have been in the garage, I’ve just been lazy lately, appears to have survived.
When the real pounding started, I ran down the hall, as Callum was sleeping in his car seat right beside a large window, because I literally thought I had to save him from smashed glass, it was that insane. He was all startled awake and upset, the dog was freaking out, even the cat came to see me for some human protection.
Of course, my camera batteries were flat. I managed to grab some spare ones from the drawer in time to catch the end of it:
Did not sufficiently capture the madness. Still coming down from freaking right out.
In my quest to entertain, occupy and tire out Oliver on the two days a week I have him at home, we found a Monday playgroup and a Thursday playgroup.
Monday morning
The playgroup is located at a school in a neighbourhood in the city to the south of us, about 10 minutes’ drive away. The area is diverse, with mixed housing and a mosque nearby. The playgroup is government funded, part of an early year’s initiative. It is labelled as a drop-in session for 0-6, with weekly themes. It does not cost money to attend. It runs only during school term time.
The playgroup is run in a kindergarten classroom, used by the school for their before and after school care. It is full of toys and activities that are not meant to be touched by the playgroup kids. Yeah, that’s been kind of a problem with Oliver. He loves the pretend kitchen. And the pet fish. And loads of other banned things. I have to watch him like a hawk.
The playgroup leader starts off the 2 hour session with different stations, with activities like sand play, painting on easels, play-doh, gluing and stickers – all around the weekly theme. Children also have the option of playgroup-owned toys and books. If there are many children attending, as their sometimes has been, the stations get chaotic and the noise level is insane.
After about 45 minutes to an hour of free play at these stations or with the toys and books, it is tidy-up time and then snack time. You must bring your own snack. Fine, but they don’t tell you in advance when you find out about these things on the internet or whatever – so the first time we went, I was lucky that a nice family shared their snack with Oliver.
After snack, it’s normally some physical activity, then circle (singing and books) and parachute time. By this time, Oliver is pretty much unable to listen properly and won’t really sit nicely in a circle like all the other kids that seem to be older than him, so we usually end up leaving a bit early after I have to threaten him with leaving early for not listening to me or the playgroup leader.
Going to this sort of group is not only meant to benefit your children, but also the parents. Many of the parents attending do not seem to speak English. The playgroup leader, painting everyone with the same brush, often ‘social works’ us and for example, has told us how to praise our children correctly. The group has been visited by literacy specialists and public health dentists.
That’s great and all, but in my ‘normal’ life, this is the kind of program I would manage, not receive help from. I’m used to being the social worker, not being social worked.
Thursday morning
The playgroup is located at a community center in our village. It is administered by the local parks and recreation department. It costs $2 per child per session. It’s also 2 hours. It runs all year round. It’s unfortunately not quite as diverse, but isn’t totally homogeneous either.
It takes place in a large open room on the top floor of the hall. It is filled with toys, but maintains enough open space that many children can run around if they wish to, or play ball, or whatever.
There is a playgroup leader. She basically puts out the toys, fixes or cleans them as need be, prepares the snack, and interacts with everyone. There is normally no mandatory group activity.
The snack is kid-friendly and healthy. Only kids who are old enough to eat the snack have to pay admission.
Kids range from 0-5 in age. There’s between 8 and 15 kids there each time. The room could handle more.
The mothers have the choice of interacting with their children or socializing with each other. The room is set up so that you can normally trust that your child isn’t getting into trouble. Your kid could be running around like crazy, driving a car, or sitting quietly and reading books, or pretending to BBQ.
Many of the parents seem to have been coming to the group for a number of years. That’s sort of a hard group to break in to, but they are pretty welcoming eventually and are friendly to new children immediately.
*
Can you guess which one I prefer? Which one I think Oliver prefers?
So, as a result of this, I switched daycare days. He’s now going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we’re going to playgroup number two on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For my sanity and blood pressure (I was beginning to dread Monday mornings).
Edited to add: DAMN! The playgroup leader is only running it Tuesdays this summer. Oh man, now I need to find something else to do Thursdays in July and August.
I can’t really decide whether SJP is gorgeous or hideous. I guess she’s both – which is a pretty interesting way to be, I think.
Did Charlotte REALLY have to get pregnant? Is that not just too much perfection for her life? Wasn’t it already enough that they had successfully adopted??
Next time I move house, I’m going to wear a dress and heels.
I never realized before that a good chunk of Mr. Big’s appeal is that he’s Darcy-esque. Swoony.
Carrie tells Lily that fairy tales aren’t real and not everyone has happy endings. I am trying to remember this as the over-the-top-ness of ‘let’s give everyone their ultimate happy ending’ in this movie left me feeling thoroughly depressed.
(added later) I almost forgot – I got sort of wistful for London when I saw Carrie and Miranda eating Pret in the park. Because I sometimes used to buy breakfast or lunch from the Pret at Victoria Station on my way to work. And then I remembered how overpriced it was and it wasn’t really that good anyway. So never mind.
Doesn’t matter what I went to see – going out to the cinema on a Sunday afternoon with an old friend and getting out of the house is a good thing.
It’s been a pretty awful week around here – after I got sick, Callum got sicker – like really, scarily ill. On Wednesday morning, he was almost unresponsive, he just slept and slept, and I couldn’t get him to smile. His eyes were just wrong, like only half opened and dull. Took him to the doctor, and she ordered a chest x-ray (which is a horrible ordeal for a baby, he gets strapped into a torture chamber to get the picture, and that’s the second one he’s had to have in his life). She saw a possible shadow on it, and asked for a proper report from the lab, but in the mean time prescribed antibiotics in case it was pneumonia.
I have no results yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was as I know how absolutely AWFUL I felt on Tuesday and we seemed to have the same bug – and I remember how awful I felt when I had pneumonia when I was 18. But by Wednesday, I was feeling a lot better, particularly after my fever broke. He, instead, just went totally downhill. Thankfully, he’s a lot more like himself now. He’s smiling again, was in the Jolly Jumper for the first time in ages today, and is back to mastering the roll over on to his tummy (note to self: must vacuum more, he’s covered in dog hair now). He’s not drinking any where near as much milk as normal, though.
So it could actually be that we both have pneumonia – if the doctor confirms his, then I think I’m going to have to get a chest x-ray too. I’ve definitely got something going on in my lungs, and I am winded even more easily than usual. And I’m still achy and sort of feel like I’m not getting enough air when I try to do something.
It’s a relief that he’s on the upswing, but I am still feeling the stress of the week. Hoping that this weekend, which is meant to include meeting up with all sorts of old friends, some of which I haven’t seen in years, will put a more positive spin on things.
This winter, I managed to not get sick at all. I sort of surmised that perhaps my body had decided I already had enough stress to deal with, so it was going to kick any germs’ butt that happened to be hanging around. And as Callum and Oliver were sick a number of times, there were quite a few germs that must have been defeated by my immune system.
Today, however, the germs have defeated me, I’ve caught something from Callum that Oliver gave him, and I’m feverish, and continuously leaking fluids from eyes and nose, and sore and miserable, and should really be in bed. Of course, I’m not actually able to stay in bed all day because there are BEINGS that need to be cared for. When do mothers get to stay in bed and recuperate again? When the kids are teenagers? But I’d still need to sort out the dog and the cat anyway.
Anyway, I digress. The worst part, actually, is that I have realized in how bad I am feeling, that Callum has really been hit hard by this, and of course he can’t blow his nose every 5 seconds or take extra-strength decongestants. I have a hard time giving him simple infant Tylenol or ibuprofen due to his incredible gag reflex, so he’s only had pain relief if I’ve been able to feed him some mixed into milk or applesauce. He’s been suffering since the weekend.
I’m hoping he’s better today though. I woke him up at 10am, after we both had a particularly rough night, and he had a decent breakfast, and managed some happy cooing for a while (with a frog in his throat, so deep cooing) and to roll over from back to tummy for the first time. Finally! He’s been napping peacefully for the past 1 1/2 hours and I hope this means he’s on the mend. He also doesn’t have a fever today, for the first time in days.
I look rough, I feel rough, and I’m just going to keep medicating and drinking hot tea and keep hoping it’s a short term thing. OH MY SINUSES.
