Home Is Where the Heart Is

I missed a week of Ellie's life this week. I know, I know, poor Marty. I have friends who have missed many whole weeks or months of their children's lives and I have nothing but respect and admiration for them, because there is no way on Earth that I would do this again. Even though I know I will. See my problem is that Ellie is on the verge. On the verge of what you ask? She's simply on the verge of toddlerdom. So for those of you that have either never experienced toddlerdom or have blissfully forgotten, allow me to provide this short definition.

Toddlerdom: A fictional, although all too believable location, rooted in reality, where your small cherubic, allow me to stress angelic infant, accelerates at breakneck speeds towards childhood with tantrums and whining leaving behind all traces of the cherub and instead replacing it with a toddler...warts and all. Did I mention the whining and the tantrums and diaper rash?

What's so great about all that, you ask? It's the acceleration. I was looking at some old (relative term) pictures of Elise the other day and I was amazed at how different she looks. With each passing week she looks more and more like a little girl, more like her mom and less like the perfect little cherub born almost 16 months ago. She is gaining new skills and abilities every single moment - literally perfecting new words and activities in a day. But the pictures are the key for me.

While I was away this week, Elise would look at two books with her mommy - books that Meredith made for Elise and I for Christmas and Father's Day. They are pictures of the two of us with captions. Throughout the book, Meredith would ask who is this? Elise would respond, 'baby' and 'daddy'. Do you know how cool it is that my daughter not only recognizes me, but knows me?!? Meredith would hold her up to the phone and she would say, 'Hi Daddy!' Has your heart ever jumped out of your chest and flown 2000 miles in an instant? At first it's cool. Then it aches. See, the problem is that the aching didn't stop. For three days, it just ached.

I used to like traveling alone. I used to love traveling. I used to think that people who didn't like traveling alone had no adventure in them. Now, I have anchors. Anchors that keep me home even when I'm away. I didn't realize that having an anchor doesn't weigh you down, it doesn't tie you down, it just makes you aware of where home is and makes it hard to leave. I was in San Antonio this week and the only place I wanted to be was in the port of Philadelphia. My port. I travel with pictures so that I can not only recognize my anchors, but I know them and can be with them everyday. Even with the whining (which Elise has taken to an art form) the only place I want to be is Toddlerdom in Philadelphia.

Say My Name

I am not sure whether it's considered a developmental milestone or not, but Marty and I think it's the most exciting to happen since she learned to walk: Ellie can say her name! Well, it sounds more like "Eh-wee" than Ellie but the point is there. L's are hard to say. In fact, just this past week it's like something has clicked in her brain with the whole speaking thing and she's suddenly saying a lot more.

She's saying "mommy" very, very clearly. She's been saying daddy for quite a while now, but she always called me Mama until this week. Trouble is though, now that she's got the hang of "Mommy" she wants to use it indiscriminately. She calls me Mommy, but also uses it as a term of endearment for her father and her grandparents (and sometimes our neighbors and complete strangers). Not really sure what that's all about but for now it's sort of cute and hopefully it will pass so she won't go around calling every stranger that walks by "mommy " until she's 7, because that would be potentially embarrassing. She has also begun filling "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" in for words that used to be in her vocabulary like "up" and "down" and "out". I am beginning to understand why people say that your child learning to speak is a mixed blessing.

Additionally this week, she busted out with "Myles" (our neighbor's child), "empty", "Elmo", "Abby", "Grover", "more", "back" and the cutest one: "thank you" (She says "Tank too" when you hand her something, or if she hands something to you. It's really adorable.) It's surprising that so much of her vocabulary consists of Sesame Street characters, especially since she gets about 30 minutes of exposure to the show a week (and had never even seen it at all until about 3 weeks ago) and only has one Sesame Street book, but I guess there's a reason that they are such popular children's characters. They know what children love and seriously deliver! I think it's hilarious that she will point out Elmo and Grover again and again in her "Hide & Seek, Near and Far" book (sort of like Where's Waldo) but you ask her "where's the pig" in the animal book and she completely ignores you, as if to say "The pig is the only thing on the page, Mommy, I will not condescend to answer your ridiculous question". She knows what a pig is but it's not as challenging as finding the allusive Elmo or Grover in the maze of craziness in Tibet, and I guess my girl likes a challenge.

Also for a few weeks now, she has been mildly obsessed with babies. She points to every child (in person or in a magazine or picture or diaper box) she sees under the age of three and screams "BABY!" like it's the coolest thing that ever happened to have stumbled upon a baby (even though there happens to be an abundance of children in places we go, like the playground, and we have pictures of babies all over the place so she is screaming BABY about every four seconds). I guess she doesn't realize that half of the kids she's calling baby are probably older than her, but whatever. In fairness, at least she refers to herself as a baby too. She even points to Marty sometimes and calls him baby. I am not sure what's worse, calling her father "mommy" or "baby" but it seems like "daddy" is now passe. I am sure he's hoping it will make a comeback soon.

Sleeper

When Ellie was first born, Marty’s brother Tom gave us the advice that we should be loud when the baby is sleeping (use regular voice, keep tv on etc) so that she wouldn’t get used to only sleeping in silence. He had a good point and the proof to back it up - his daughter Abby would probably continue sleeping if a truck drove into her bedroom - however when we tried, it did not work out as well for us. If we were making lots of noise, she wouldn’t fall asleep. Then if she was asleep and we were talking normally, she would wake up.

Regardless of how loud or quiet we were trying to be, Ellie was just a natural born light sleeper. When she was still sleeping in the cradle in our room, she woke up when one of us rolled over in bed! When we moved her into her own room, she woke up when we walked down the hallway or sneezed in the next room! When we were riding in the car and she was sleeping in the back, the second the engine turned off she was immediately awake, no matter how long she’d been sleeping or how tired she was!
Sliding with Grandpa

There is nothing worse than accidentally waking a sleeping baby when she would’ve otherwise slept through the night (especially when you’re tired and exhausted too) so what followed was months and months of tip-toeing, whispering and avoiding taking showers while she was sleeping. We would even avoid getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night at all costs because it would inevitably wake her!

Needless to say, going into her room to check on her was completely out of the question. For a Worrier like me, not going in to check on your child takes a LOT of self-control, especially when you have an infant. As time passed, I got used to my light sleeper and have always stayed out of her room once she's down for the night. A few weeks ago, however, it was a pretty cool evening and I was concerned that she would be cold because her pajamas didn’t cover her feet. Even tough I knew it was risky to enter her room in the middle of the night, I decided to go in (against my better judgment) and put a blanket on her before I went to bed. I turned the doorknob in super, super slow-motion, crept very slowly and softly into her room and gently rested a blanket on her feet then crept out. To my surprise, she continued snoozing away, without even a stir.

In the Pumpkin Patch

The next night, even though I put her in pj’s with feet, I was still concerned that she might be too cold, so I decided to tempt fate and go in and cover her with a blanket once again. Once again, she slept through it all. Is it possible that a child can “outgrow” being a light sleeper? Apparently so. And I’ll admit it: I’m lovin’ it. I am completely addicted to going into her room before I go to bed every night. I love how peaceful she looks. I love how she’s always in a different, uncomfortable-looking position every night- sometimes her face jammed up against the crib rails, sometimes her knees tucked under her with her butt up in the air, sometimes on her back with a stuffed animal peeking out from behind her shoulder blades. No matter how uncomfortable the position seems like it would be, she always looks cozy and happy.

Picking Apples in the Orchard

Elise is becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler every day. She’s talking more, getting better coordination, understanding more – she’s even tolerating the car more! It is so exciting and wonderful to watch her grow and learn, as she changes from a baby into a little girl. But amidst all this change and growth, I do cherish those few moments every night, watching her while she’s sleeping – looking so small and serene. It reminds me that she still is, and always will be, my baby.

Enjoying the Apple!

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

One year ago this week, we were riddled with anxiety, fretting about leaving Ellie in daycare with strangers in a strange place for the first time. Will she love it (and them)? Will they take good care of her? Will she make friends? Will I have a nervous breakdown worrying that I made the wrong decision to put her in daycare? Will I have to start selling my organs so we can afford a nanny?

Well, here we are one year later in a very similar boat. We have been through the whole daycare rigmarole before, so the anxiety about daycare in general isn’t there. But we've started Ellie in a new daycare this week and all the old feelings are flooding back. The first time it was hard on us, but this time it might be a little harder on her. Last time she started a new daycare she was just three months old and had no idea what the heck was going on and frankly didn’t care who was holding her as long as she was being held and fed. (Sidebar: she is still partial to people who feed her).

Now it’s a little different because she is aware and more particular. She never cried when we dropped her off at her old daycare, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that she spent 9 hours a day three days a week with these people since before she could remember. She loved them like family because they were a regular part of her world. They were there through it all in the past year – they watched her grow, learn to crawl, learn to walk, learn to run, learn to tackle…

Now it’s a new place with new caretakers and new kids…new everything! The new place recognizes that all this “new” can be rough on kids, so they have an “immersion process” for the first week. The first day, child and parent stay together for just two hours. The next day the two of you stay there for three hours. The next day you leave the child at the daycare by herself for just two hours, the next day 4 hours and the last day 6 hours.

Marty accompanied her on her first day. She was a little tentative at first, unsure what to make of all of the kids and chaos (there are many more children at this place). She was also unsure what to make of these new kids, until one little girl, Andrea (who is about one month younger than Ellie) came up to Ellie and gave her a very warm Welcome hug and kiss. Ellie was a little confused by this greeting at first, but then returned the greeting, giving Andrea a big hug and kiss on the lips back. This bizarre ritual set the stage for Ellie making a new best friend (Olivia who?!) and the two of them stuck by each other the rest of the day. Ellie even grabbed Andrea’s hand and tried to take her with them when they were leaving. Note from Marty: Andrea squandered her best friend status when on day two of the immersion process Andrea crawled into the lap of Ellie's Opa. Nobody, and I mean nobody gets to share Ellie's Opa. She pushed, and shoved her old best friend out of his lap faster than a dog scratches a flea.

This new daycare also has a lot of different rituals and procedures. For example, once a day all of the kids sit together in a circle and sing songs together (circle time). On Monday, Marty laughed at the prospect that Ellie would ever sit still in a circle for any length of time that exceeds 5 seconds. On the first day, he wasn’t far off in that assessment. But by Wednesday, it was reported that she only got up briefly once during the entire 20 minute circle time! This is a big deal for our wild child! Another big deal is the outdoor time. Elise is an outdoor and playground fiend. There is no place she would rather be than running around, sliding, falling or swinging around on something. This daycare spends a great deal of the day building the kids muscles outside with climbing, jumping and swinging all over the joint. Ellie has come home with some bumps, a couple of bruises and lots of little mosquito bites as proof that she is having a blast doing what she loves the most.

The other very different part about this daycare is the napping situation. At the old place, they had cribs and pack n plays for the kids to nap in, so Ellie was always nicely contained. Here, they nap on mats on the floor. Again, we chuckled at the idea that Ellie would lay on a mat on the floor and go to sleep. Even when she's really tired she has a compulsion to get up and run around her crib like a crazy person before falling asleep! But once again, we were proven wrong because on Friday she slept on a mat on the floor for an hour.

I don't know what kind of magic they're working at this joint, but I think I like it!

Notes from a daddy: By way of more color commentary - the staff at the new place is far more cosmopolitan in comparison. The lead teacher is from Peru and teaches the children in English and Spanish. Our personal favorite teacher is a young woman from Sweden who speaks Swedish, Somali, Arabic and English and I've requested lessons for both Elise and I. Mostly because children are sponges at this point and I REALLY want to be able to read all those instructions from IKEA. In addition to all the foreign languages flying around out of the mouths of babes, you also have to watch out for the sign language. Elise already uses about three to five sign language words now, but they have words for many more words they teach the children. What the difference really comes down to is both places took care of my child, but this place nourishes her mind and body too.

Playgrounds and Partings

Two quick stories – one cute and the other a little gross (but also a little cute)

We were taking a walk the other day when Ellie noticed a playground across the street. She pointed at it eagerly and said "weeeee! weeeeee!" and then looked up at me expectantly "weeee, weeee!" point, point. Even though it wasn't my intention to stop at the playground, we had to after that. She just made it sound like so much fun! (and it was really cute.)

The next story is about poop, so go ahead and decide now whether or not you want to read on…Now that Ellie is not nursing and eats only solid food, her poop is much more, shall we say, adult-like. Cute, runny baby poop is gone, and now she produces very smelly solid poop and there is nothing cute about it. It’s gross. Even talking about it is gross, I know, but I promise there is a point to this gross story.

So anyway, even though I will tell anyone and everyone about the wonders of the Diaper Champ, there comes a point that the smell just can’t be contained, no matter how miraculous the contraption. Therefore, we started flushing her poop in the toilet to cut down the stink factor in the house. Always curious, Ellie was very interested in watching me flush her poop and then, of course, wanted in on the super-fun looking flushing action. So, I showed her how to flush the toilet (which, in retrospect, seems like a really terrible idea – I think I will probably need to go ahead and get a plumber on retainer) so that she could be part of the whole process and maybe gain an interest in the whole toilet thing (hey, I’m in no particular rush to potty train but not having to pin her squirmy body down to wrestle a diaper on her sounds like fun). So now, flushing the toilet might just be the highlight of her day (and with all the buses and dogs that go by it’s stiff competition). She runs over to the toilet, and eagerly watches while I drop it in and she flushes and then waves and says “Bye, bye! Bye, bye!” until it’s gone.

See, that’s cute right? Or maybe it is just gross. Sorry.