1 Mother 2 Another

As Maddie continues to develop her
linguistic skills (translation – the kid’s always
talking) and expand her vocabulary, I’m learning I have to
really watch what I say around her.


I’ve not yet heard a cuss word come out of her mouth –
mostly because we started censoring ourselves a long time ago and
she hasn’t heard one from us. But I hear her say things that
I know I’ve never tried to teach her; they’re simply
phrases she’s heard over and over again and has started
repeating. Believe me, it’s a bit startling. Some prime
examples:

Maddie’s long been fascinated with music, whether singing it or playing it. She often identifies people at church by where they fit in our worship band – “Joseph plays piano!” “Danny’s daddy (a nursery friend) drums!” – and so on. Some of her favorite times with Brian are the moments he gets out his guitar and lets her “play”, or make up songs with him.

So this weekend while at the mall, when Maddie spied a teeny guitar in a music shop and began jumping up and down, I couldn’t resist. She’s already got a toy drum and percussion set, a piano we allow her to play, and an electronic Elmo guitar toy. But this was the real thing, and girlie wanted it.

Maddie’s been curious for a couple
months about the whole potty thing. She wants to watch Mommy go
potty, and if not able to watch, enjoys narrating the scene from
the other side of the door: “Mommy going potty. Mommy wiping
bottom. Mommy washing hands.”


She’s so interested that she now narrates it when anyone at
all goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, much to the chagrin
of our more private guests.

Not having a boy ourselves (nor, to the
best of our knowledge, are we about to have one), Brian and I have
not done a lot of research into circumcision. I do know that what
used to be a relatively standard procedure has recently become the
object of much more scrutiny, and the subject seems to be almost as
much of a hot button topic as breastfeeding in some circles, with
both sides holding strong opinions.


I’m not trying to stir up a hornet’s nest by bringing
up infant circumcision today, but a medical journal recently
published a report on the National Institute of Health’s
recent study about circumcision and AIDS prevention.


The numbers are staggering, and the world health community is
sitting up and taking notice.

Maddie noticed one day during playtime
that Elmo doesn’t have ears. Frankly, I’d never spent
enough time studying the toy to see that, but she’s
absolutely right. Why is this? Why create something that giggles
and kicks but doesn’t have ears? I finally figured out why.


Because the stupid thing would never listen to anyone else anyway.
How many Elmo dolls have you found that say things like, “So
how is Elmo’s friend today?”


I mean really, pretty much every Elmo doll is constantly talking.
He’s a real chatterbox (except for my favorite version
– the stuffed, silent Elmo), and I’m seeing his speech
patterns reflected in my daughter.

On my Top 5s page I offer some of my
favorite maternity wear sites, but I have to give a quick shout-out
(completely unsolicited) one more time to href="http://www.2chix.com/">2 Chix. I got a couple of
their cute maternity tees back when I was in my first trimester
last fall, and they’re still going strong.

Having been deprived of her beloved
playground for over a week now, Maddie’s had a bad case of
cabin fever. Her naps have been nonexistent and she spends a lot of
time with her sad little face pressed up against the window. So
yesterday when the weather finally warmed up and the winds backed
off, we were out the door faster than you can say Show Me Your
Belly Button.


With the temperature a balmy 30 degrees, we almost wore shorts but
decided against it. We did enjoy the relative warmth, though, as we
strolled along our street, happy the sidewalks were shoveled and
the melting ice was piled on the sides. We had snacks in the
stroller and were headed to the park – what could go wrong?


And then we hit our first street corner. Of course. Corner
snow.

My husband recently found out that
he’s losing his job as his entire New York office gets shut
down. We’ve spent the past two weeks coming to terms with
this white elephant of uncertainty in our lives, trying to figure
out how we’re going to get ready for a new baby in the midst
of such upheaval.


It’s obviously been a lot for us to process, since it’s
taken me two weeks to get to a point where I can write about it.
Brian’s looking for work wherever he can find it, and the
very real possibility exists that it ain’t in New York. So as
if financial uncertainty and losing our corporate health care
weren’t enough, now we’re faced with the idea of
selling, buying, packing and unpacking a house with a newborn. The
sheer volume of details overwhelms me.


And that, of course, is setting aside the emotional impact of all
this. I’ve lived in New York for 12 years now and love it
fiercely, warts and all. At the same time, we know it’s
nearly impossible to raise a child easily in New York without a
pretty hefty amount of cash, so we’ve always had this
nebulous idea of moving out of the city at some point. Just not
fresh from the delivery room.

(Warning: insanely cute video coming up.)


Ok, so perhaps she’s not the next American Idol
– after all, they’ve got an age minimum of 16, and
that’s years, not months.


And I promised myself that I’d never be a pushy stage mom, no
matter how incredibly and clearly talented my daughter might be.


But listen, I can’t fight it if it’s her destiny. My
child is barely 20 months old and walks around singing a half dozen
of her favorite songs. Upon waking in her crib after a nap,
she’ll entertain herself with endless rounds of “Row,
Row, Row Your Boat” or her new favorite, “Head and
Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. She’s got her favorite tape
of church songs we sing and will happily sing along with a few of
the simpler ones.

Maddie’s had a couple of bad colds
this winter, and one of the worst side effects for her is the
stuffy head while she sleeps. A couple times she’s been so
congested she can’t sleep more than half an hour: after maybe
30 minutes of lying down, she’d wake up crying, needing to
get up and let the old sinuses drain for a bit. Lie back down,
sleep some more, wake up crying, and so forth.


In an attempt to help her (and us) sleep better, we elevated the
head of her crib by sticking a pillow underneath that end of her
mattress. This helped a bit, but wasn’t a perfect solution
since she had a tendency to slide towards the bottom of the crib
and seemed, in fact, a bit afraid of her off-kilter world.

Maddie’s got a bit of a thing for
firemen and fire trucks. Living in New York, it’s hard not to
see a lot of emergency vehicles, and living a couple blocks from a
fire station we see more than our fair share of them. We often see
a fire truck parked outside the local grocery store on our way to
the park, or hear one whizzing on its way to a fire. So my
daughter’s become immune to the noise and the scare factor,
and we’ve even taught her to hear a siren and say,
“Fire truck! Going to help people!”


In fact, her dog-sensitive ears now perk up at any sound of a
siren, and she wants to run to the window and look for the fire
truck. Whenever we see the boys on the street, she waves at them
and is ecstatic if they return her wave. She thinks they’re
very cool.


So the other day when we had a fire truck pull up right in front of
our house, Maddie thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
Apparently someone a couple doors down needed medical care, so two
ambulances parked at that address and the fire truck – the
backup medics, I guess – idled in front of our picture
window.

A reader wrote to me recently asking for
advice on this one question:


What do you do when you and a good friend with babies the same age
as yours have differing ideas on child-raising? Specifically, on
when it’s ok to take a sick child into a social situation?


This mommy is having a frustrating time finding a way to stay
involved in play groups and mommy circles, since her friend insists
on bringing her sick child to every meeting. She’s been
making polite excuses for missing various functions, but knows it
will soon need to be decided on more concretely. And before you
ask, yes, she’s tried direct confrontation; there’ve
been days when the two of them have had a play date set up, the
other mommy’s called and informed my reader that her
baby’s sick, my reader’s asked her not to come, and she
shows up anyway.


So this poor girlfriend wrote asking for advice on how to handle
the whole thing. Not wanting to simply throw my opinion in her
face, I sent the question out to my best friends, my Mommy Focus
Group, to get their responses.


The overwhelming response? Glad we’re not in her shoes.

When Maddie was only a couple weeks old,
our friends Matt and Sandra came by for a visit/pep talk. They
brought their son Stephen, who is a year older than Maddie. An
active then-one-year-old, Stephen politely showed us all the areas
of our house which were not yet baby-proofed. Matt wrestled our
television remote away from Stephen and stowed it safely on top of
our entertainment center. Ten minutes later, Stephen was pointing,
clearly asking for the remote again.


“He’s just gotten the object permanence thing,”
Matt explained. I watched, awestruck at the small body that could
remember things ten minutes after they happened. I looked at my
newborn, who couldn’t remember where she’d left her
fist, and longed for the day when she’d have the ability to
remember stuff like that (and, of course, shower thanks on me for
all those remembered favors.)


I know, careful what you wish for.

I spent part of the weekend doing those
boring chores around the house that no one wants to do but everyone
needs to, and which make you feel very virtuous when you finally
get to cross them off your list. One of those chores brought me
into our musty basement and in contact with an old trunk of toys
from my childhood. Remembering there was a doll’s cradle in
there, I took a few minutes and cracked the thing open.


I found the cradle, ready for assembly and reeking of the 1970s
with its lovely gold and brown polyester. And as a bonus, I
discovered my old Betsy Wetsy doll. Maddie’s been interested
in babies and life-like dolls for a while now, so I figured
I’d give her a few new things to play with.


And let’s face it: I’m happy to train her to give a
hand with the newborn.

Yep, we’ve got a family member who
is growing at an astonishing pace. She’s rapidly outgrowing
her seasonal clothing, almost faster than suitable clothing can be
found for her. You could truly say she’s growing like a weed.


If weeds grew sideways and had ridiculously large bellies.

Maddie’s begun to show tiny hints
that she’ll soon realize Mommy’s word isn’t
Immutable Law: that just because it comes out of my mouth, it
ain’t necessarily Gold.


Yesterday we went to our church’s mid-week service with our
small home group. Brian’s worship leader and is there every
week, but Maddie and I rarely go because it’s in such close
proximity to bedtime. During the day I was preparing Maddie for the
evening outing – a trip she usually loves, because she adores
our church nursery and always loves hearing her daddy sing.

After posting my recent entry encouraging
new moms to get out there and find some play dates, I had a couple
moms confess to me that the idea of play dates intimidates them. I
can completely understand that; it’s just like the whole
playground thing, where you’re approaching a new group of
people and know there must be rules but don’t know what they
are. And above all, you don’t want to either offend someone
or leave the impression that you’re a bad mom.


The good news is that we’re all that insecure, so if
you’re having a new friend over for a play date she is just
as nervous as you are! But just to help you gals out, I’ve
written out some basic guidelines that may help you steer through
your first few play dates like a pro. Lest you think I made these
up, rest assured that I sought advice from my more experienced
girlfriends before I set out on my first play dates. So these are
the result of many voices of wisdom!

I’ve noticed a recent trend in
Madeleine towards deliberate craftiness that is disturbing, to say
the least.


When she wants something from me she’ll often ask several
times, even though I always answer with “no”.
Eventually she’ll start saying, “Yes!”
“No!” I reply. “Yes!” “No!”
until it’s kind of a game in itself and it’s clear she
doesn’t really have a hope of changing my mind.


Except that sometimes she will switch, and say, “No!”
in the clear hopes that I’ll absentmindedly reply,
“Yes!” Every time I catch it and smile knowingly at the
little minx, she’ll look a bit chagrined but unabashed.

Maddie’s becoming quite the social
butterfly these days; she’s expanded her play date horizons
beyond hanging with her good friend from the neighborhood Naomi,
and is now making more of an effort to invite over or head to
friends’ houses in other boroughs. She’s been spending
more time with her friends from the church nursery and will soon
need her own Blackberry to keep up with her busy schedule.


As great as these play dates are for Maddie, though, I’ve got
to confess something.


I’m not scheduling these fun times so that my daughter gains
valuable interaction time, develops her inter-personal skills, or
learns how to make nice with others.


I’m doing this for me.

Maddie received an awesome target="_blank"
href="http://www.sensationalbeginnings.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=O+1+4323X">
rock and bounce pony for her birthday last summer after
falling in love with the one in our church nursery. We figured
she’d enjoy it for a long time, but thought it would sort of
come in and out of fashion.


Instead, she’d simply become more and more enamored of the
thing, and given her love of all things adrenaline-inducing, I
think it’s just a matter of time before someone –
either the horse or the girl – gets hurt.