1 Mother 2 Another

After my last posting filling you in on Cora’s birth day, I was surprised at how many emails I got saying I left you hanging – what about the big meeting between Maddie and Cora??? I certainly didn’t mean it to come off as a cliffhanger – wait, no, yes, I did.

So, the big day -

Hi everyone!

Cora's Here!

As you can imagine, I'm a bit overwhelmed with everything that's going on right now.  But I wanted to thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes during this amazing time!  I've also had some requests for Cora's birth story, so without giving you too many gory details, here's what happened a few days ago - 

With my 39-week appointment tomorrow and a doctor who won’t let me carry to term because of the VBAC statistics, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll be having this kid within the next few days. And as excited as I know you are for me, there’s at least a glimmer of a thought running through your head that sounds remarkably like, “Yeah, but what about me, the reader? How will I know you’ve delivered? And most important, how am I going to get my 1M2A fix if you’re in the hospital??”

Don’t worry, already. I’m on top of it.

Saturday, March 10. An unseasonably mild
morning at the park, with the weather finally warming up and people
shedding layers of clothing. Brian, Gamma, Maddie and I are all
playing happily in the park. And then it happens. We hear those
first strains of music that herald the official start of summer
–


The ice cream man has arrived.

As I’ve written about ad nauseum,
Maddie’s got a bit of a shoe shopping issue. As in, she hates
it and won’t take off or try on shoes in the store. So I end
up buying a stack of shoes, bringing them home, and doing a massive
exchange a week later after she’s deigned to try them on.
Good times.


At the same time, I’ve become quite the online shopper
– having a toddler will do that to you. The difficulty here,
of course, is dealing with the returns hassle. No one wants to have
to pay to ship ten pairs of shoes to your house, try them on, then
pay to ship eight pairs back to the seller. Talk about expensive.


Fortunately, I’ve come across a couple of excellent
solutions.

One of the best gifts we were given for Christmas was a family season pass to the New York City zoos. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sally, we can get three adults and two kids into any of the five zoos in the New York area, free parking, and unlimited “extra” attractions like carousel rides and butterfly gardens.

I know what you’re thinking – how often do you really get to the zoo? It’s sort of a big production, packing and sunscreening and planning and all. And the answer is –

We just went this past weekend for the fourth time since the beginning of April.

If you don’t subscribe to the CPSC
href="http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.asp">automatic emails
notifying you when a product’s been recalled, I encourage you
to sign up today. I get a lot of emails from them about
children’s products and don’t pass most of them on to
you – it’d be almost a full-time blog. But one came
through today that I thought worth passing on.


The Consumer Product Safety Commission and National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration announced a recall today of the Evenflo
Embrace Infant Car Seat/Carriers. They estimate it’s about
450,000 units to come back, which apparently has a handle that can
unexpectedly release, allowing the seat to rotate and the child to
fall to the ground. Almost 700 injuries have been reported,
including skull fractures and concussions, so if you own this
product please check in right away. Here are the contact numbers:


Evenflo Recall Hotline: (800) 490-7497

NHTSA Recall Hotline: (888) 327-4236

CPSC Hotline: (800) 638-2772


And as I said before, if you don’t already, sign up for the
CPSC recall emails. You can choose to have just children’s
recalls sent to you so your mailbox doesn’t get too clogged
up. I think you’ll agree it’s worth it!

It’s that time of year – the
sun comes out, the clothes come off . . . and the sunscreen fights
begin.


Last year Maddie was just a year old, and not able to fight us very
effectively. She submitted with good grace, largely because she
didn’t know she had options, I think. This year, she has no
interest whatsoever in sitting still while we get the sunscreen on
her and is very vocal about it.

Since Maddie and I are both feeling better
(not perfect, but close!), we spent as much of the glorious day
yesterday outside as possible. Park in the morning, backyard all
afternoon, dinner on the patio, and a walk after dinner.


Which brings us to the highlight of Maddie’s day – the
walk was to Baskin Robbins.

As I inch towards 38 weeks and my belly
inches towards Guinness Book worthiness, I sit here, still sick,
still pregnant.


On the upside – while feeling worse Monday morning, a whole
day pretty much in bed made me feel significantly better by the end
of the evening. And Madeleine’s had a slight drip, but
I’m hoping it stops there.


On the downside – I’ve stayed in bed pretty much the
whole day, and haven’t even had the baby yet.

I’m 37 weeks, which is full-term in
anyone’s dictionary. My doctor actually tried to prod me into
labor at my weekly visit on Friday – she had another woman
starting and figured she might as well make a weekend of it, thanks
very much. No go, but it shows how happy she’d be with me
kicking it into gear at any time. We’re ready. Except –


I’m sick.

Maddie’s always been an outdoor kind
of girl – she loves going to the park to play and even enjoys
walking for long distances, which I hear is rare in a toddler. But
just this spring she’s discovering a whole new playground
– our backyard.

Dear Family Members (specifically Gamma,
who’s been hassling me for the last few months that there are
no new photos up on the website for her to show off at work):


I’ve finally updated the photo galleries here at 1M2A, which
means you can now see Maddie in something more recent than a
Christmas shot. To view the newest photos, click on whatever random
photo is currently on your screen. That’ll take you to the
photo gallery. Once in the gallery, no matter what picture
you’ve clicked on you’ll see the last photo listed on
the left – number 241, “window gazing”. The
photos numbered in chronological order, so that’s from the
most recent batch. Clicking on that will take you to the end of the
line and you can browse from there.


Of course, I’ve also updated “Maddie’s
Friends”, mostly with pictures of her and her main hang,
Naomi, so those are worth viewing as well.


So enjoy the new pics and show them around the office to your
heart’s content. Happy now?


Yours truly,


Mommy

As part of my fast and furious “get
as ready as I possibly can for Peanut’s arrival”
campaign, I’ve been going through Maddie’s baby book
and making sure it’s up-to-date, knowing it’ll suffer
from serious neglect once Peanut shows up. Likewise, I started
filling in Peanut’s own book (as much as you can for a baby
who’s not yet here!) and anticipating her arrival.


I remember when I was pregnant with Maddie, I wanted to find the
perfect baby book. Brian had recently re-discovered his little
memory book and was overjoyed to see it wasn’t simply for
newborns: his book went through at least his fifth birthday. So
when we set out to find a memory book for our first baby, we wanted
to find something that didn’t just have a few spaces for
photos and footprints; we wanted something that would be thorough,
with lots of blanks to fill in and plenty of room to grow.

For a couple of months Maddie’s been noticing the toy strollers coming out at the park. At first simply mildly interested, she began expressing more and more curiosity until Brian and I added it to her June birthday list. Fortunately for Maddie, it turned out she didn’t have to wait that long.

Halcyon Days my Aunt Fanny.

Yes, I’m enjoying my last few weeks with Maddie. Yes, they are precious. Yes, I know they’ll never come again and should be savored.

On the other hand, enough with the pregnancy already.

As Maddie becomes more and more sophisticated with her language skills, she attempts bigger and more difficult concepts. Right now she’s enjoying a very minimal grasp of time – past, present, and future.

There’s a Greek myth about the
goddess Alcyone who fell in love with a mortal. When he died at
sea, she drowned herself in grief. The gods felt pity for the
couple, transformed them into sea birds, and would calm the seas
every year for a couple of weeks to enable the birds to safely lay
their eggs. Over time, the phrase “halcyon days” came
about to describe the two weeks around the winter solstice that
sailors believed were typified by unusually calm seas; a sort of
calm peace before the storm.


And that’s where we’re living right now: in the calm
peace before the storm. While a part of me tenses in expectation of
all that’s coming our way – my husband’s
continued job search and the possible move that may result from it,
adapting to a newborn in the house and all the sleep deprivation
that comes with her, and oh yes, let’s not forget the joy of
labor – another part of me is physically willing myself to
try to simply dwell in the moment.

I recently cleaned out my purse as part of my organizing/nesting while awaiting Peanut’s arrival, and found probably ten bucks in change in the bottom of the thing. Looking for a place to dump it all, I shoveled the coins into a small snack bowl I had nearby. Intending to put it into my ceramic house-shaped piggy bank, I was carrying it into my room when I had a divine burst of inspiration. Maddie loves looking at the ceramic house, she enjoys finding coins lying around and bringing them to me, and she absolutely adores any sort of chore that involves sorting or moving items from one spot to the next. I’d let her put the money in the piggy bank!

With the weather turned nice here in NYC (at least for the day), we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors. Maddie’s enamored of our back yard and begs to go hang out there every spare moment she gets. So we’ve taken to grilling dinner and staying outside to eat, which of course she loves, and letting her get down and run around while we finish up.

Last night while Maddie ran everywhere, she tripped in her slightly-too-big new sandals and scraped her knee open. A mild gash, but a decent amount of blood and a painful-looking horizontal slash right across the kneecap.

She cried, of course, but allowed us to get her inside and cleaned up. We got the blood washed off, the cut cleaned and slathered with ointment, and then came at it with the band-aid.

And Maddie freaked out.

So I’ve been off work for a week now and loving every minute of it. I’m sure I won’t love it when the time comes to pay bills, but for now I feel so much better physically that I suspect I’ll take the financial hit in stride.

Even better, Brian’s still giving me “work” time – the time he’d usually be watching Maddie while I taught – to get baby stuff done, so I’ve accomplished an amazing amount in the past week, from getting newborn clothes sorted out to making some casseroles for freezing to going to Costco and stocking up on diapers. Some of this, admittedly, I would have gotten done in spite of work, but I’m not nearly as worn down at the end of the day now that I’m not multitasking so much.

As Maddie’s approaching the start of potty-training, I’ve been reading up on bathroom germs and dealing with public toilets. I found out some interesting facts and thought I’d pass them on –

As you’ve seen from my blogs over
the past months, Maddie’s been showing a cautious interest in
potty training. We’ve got a training potty in the bathroom
and she enjoys going in and sitting on it while Mommy sits on the
“grown-up potty”, and will occasionally request a
diaper change, but that’s about it. We’re not anxious
to push for potty training since we’re pretty sure
she’d regress as soon as baby sister arrives, so we’re
letting her take her time with this.


We did, though, recently have another minor victory in the process.
She’s always been a toddler who needs to poop away from other
people – Maddie’s spent several months going to a
corner or telling you to “go away” if she is pooping.
For the past week or so, though, she’s been covering her eyes
as if to make herself invisible to everyone. A couple nights ago,
my husband had a moment of divine inspiration during such a
scene.

Dear Maddie:

As we get ready for our future and how it’s going to be different with a baby sister around, I thought it might be helpful for you to know where you came from. You are incredibly special and one-of-a-kind, but are definitely a product of generations stretching back for many years. Here’s what you’ve got, and from whom:

So great news at the OB’s office today – I’ve officially gained weight and am darn happy about it. Never thought I’d say that in my life.

Tomorrow’s my big visit to the OB
– the one where she takes another sonogram of peanut and see
if she’s gained enough weight. If the answer is
“yes” then I’m fine to keep plugging along; if
the answer is “no” then I may be facing bed rest and an
early delivery.


Obviously I’m not a big fan of bed rest, especially with a
toddler already here. Bed rest feels like the time when I have to
make everyone else in my life work harder so I can lie around and
literally eat bon-bons. But more important, I’d like to avoid
an early delivery; since Maddie was a scheduled c-section, I have a
dream that at least one of my kids will get to come when
she’s good and ready.

Madeleine’s definitely taken her love of accessorizing to a new level recently. She’s always enjoyed picking out a cute purse to carry around, or a scarf to play drape over her shoulders, but she’s recently become deeply concerned about her “finishing touches” before she heads out to the park in the morning. Once again confirming that my kid’s, shall we say, unique, here are a few of my favorites, along with the explanations –

With my due date rapidly approaching,
Brian and I are kicking it into high gear to get the nursery (also
known as our bedroom) ready for peanut’s arrival. And as I
rearrange the room and set things in order, it occurs to me that
I’ve come a long way from the first time I set up a nursery.
So I wanted to pass on what I’ve learned – both from my
own experience, and from my girlfriends who passed their helpful
tips on to me.

Maddie’s hit a rough patch
developmentally, where she has no desire to share ANYTHING. Couple
that with her new mastery and understanding of the word,
“Mine!” and you’ve got a cauldron of trouble.


We’ve been working with her on sharing for several months, of
course, and she’s been pretty amiable about it up until
recently. In the beginning, to be sure, she didn’t mind
sharing because she didn’t realize anything was actually
hers. As time went on she became less enthusiastic about sharing
but still didn’t pitch too much of a fuss. On the swings, for
example, we’d make her get off before she really wanted to if
there was a line of people waiting for the full swings. She’d
look unhappy, and we’d talk about the importance of sharing
and how she was sharing the swing with another little girl and
making that little girl happy. She seemed to get it and was ok with
it, even though every day walking to the park she’d say,
“Maddie no share swing please!” “Hopefully you
won’t have to, but if it’s crowded you’ll need to
share.” And thus it went.

We can add something else at the
playground that I’d like to protect Maddie from – new
friends.


Not new friends for her, but for her friend Naomi.


Recently we’ve been encountering a little girl at the park
that is about the same age as Naomi – that is to say, six
months older than Maddie. Naomi and Elena, the new girl, have spent
a bit of time together and cautiously know each other. Elena is a
sweet girl, very good-natured and easygoing. She’s certainly
no bully and is always willing to share.


The problem doesn’t lie within Elena’s personality; it
is simply the fact that Elena exists, and now there are three girls
instead of two.

As I’ve said numerous times before,
my waistline is expanding at a terrifying (to me and the buttons on
my pants) rate in this pregnancy. I spent all of my first pregnancy
wearing those low-slung maternity pants, never really graduating to
those up-to-the-boob panel pants. When I manage to squeeze myself
into my sausage casing-er, pants- this time, though, those low
rises don’t stay risen very long; soon after I start moving
they give up the fight and slide all the way to the bottom of the
belly, leaving me with a gangsta-style hanging crotch and an
unseemly (in wintertime) amount of bare belly showing.


Clearly, I’m bigger than last pregnancy. Even my friends who
are used to me still see me and have their eyes pop out of their
head. But apparently, I’m not big enough for my doctor.
She’s putting me on a “get the girl bigger”
diet.

A couple weeks ago the whole family came
down with a moderate cold. A few rough days later, Daddy and Maddie
were fine, while Mommy, whose body is busy multitasking, was taking
a bit longer to recover. I’ve had a hard time shaking off
that last bit of stuffiness, fatigue, and sluggishness. In fact,
about a week and a half ago, I noticed I was feeling a bit
nauseated as well. Then I noticed that it was only for a couple
hours each morning.


Yes, that friend of every pregnant gal’s, morning sickness,
was back.

So not twelve hours after I posted
yesterday’s entry, I finally got Maddie singing something
other than the ABC song on video.


Here for your viewing pleasure – Maddie sings the Gloria
while eating cereal and blueberries in her pjs. And if anybody
wonders what the Gloria is “supposed” to sound like,
you can head to my husband’s href="http://www.brianmilner.com">website and hear the
original version.


So without further ado – Maddie sings.

Apparently my daughter’s read up on her Shakespeare, because she is certainly finding that there’s no audience too small, no stage too dubious, for her to bestow with her warblings.

Maddie is constantly singing these days. Sounds like fun, and is wonderful when you’re at home listening to music, but not so great in, say, the post office. The other day we walked to buy stamps before hitting the park and she spent the ENTIRE TIME – stroller walk there, wait time, and stroller walk to the park – singing. The same song. Over and over again. As everyone in line eyed me askance, I could only offer up a prayer of thanksgiving that she was singing, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” rather than one of her other favorites.

As I prepare for peanut’s arrival, I have been going through my to-do list and doing the appropriate amount of over-stressing on each item. I’m astounded at the amount of things I got done during my first pregnancy, and have to constantly remind myself that oh yes, I didn’t have a child yet to take care of! So this time around the list is considerably shorter – partly because we’ve got a lot of things done already (no need to do a baby registry, for example) and partly because I’m simply learning to let go of my unreasonable expectations.

Maddie has a fascination with her belly button that I’m sure is shared with most toddlers her age. She’s got a Sandra Boynton book, The Belly Button Book, which is a favorite of hers. And as I’ve mentioned before, Maddie loves showing her belly button off, especially to firemen.

But nothing compares on Maddie’s Joys of the Belly List with Daddy Getting the Tummy.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, Maddie has a lovey that works really well for her – Silky. She goes through cycles of need: sometimes she only needs it for sleep time, and sometimes she’ll request it several times throughout the day as she gets sleepy, cuddly, or scared. Currently she’s going through a Silky intensive, and will ask for it at church or after a big play date. We’re so grateful for the thing that right now we don’t care if she’s still carrying it when she delivers her first State of the Union address. In fact, we’re planning on getting one for peanut to use later on, and see if it works as well for her as it does for her big sister.

Maddie’s been preparing for the big sister role- bossiness and mothering come easily to her (don’t know where she gets that . . .) and, while I’m sure it’s a developmental phase every tot goes through, she’s intensely interested in imitating Mommy. She loves diapering any stuffed animal she can get her hands on (Kitty wouldn’t hold still, much to her chagrin), cooking for her dolls in her kitchen, placing them in her toy high chair and “feeding” them, putting the dolls to bed in her toy crib, and so on.

For the first time since Maddie’s been born, Brian and I spent the evening out together last night – from late afternoon until well after she went to bed. Though Gamma’s done a dry run putting Maddie to bed while we were hiding in the basement, this was the first time we’ve both been absent for such a long period. Giddy with freedom, we went to hear a romantic little talk on such topics as camelback contractions and episiotomies.

Yep, it’s time for that labor refresher course.

A few days ago, Maddie had her first encounter with a bona fide bully and I’m still seeing the effects of it.

We were playing happily on the park equipment, getting ready to head home and call it a day, when Maddie climbed the stairs and decided to hit the slide one last time. Since I had followed her up, I wasn’t in my customary position at the bottom of the slide, waiting to catch her. She took off down the slide but got stuck at the very bottom, and in her winter coat was struggling to sit up and get all the way off. At that point, an older girl – three or four years old – ran to the top of the slide and sat down. I told her my daughter was still on the slide, but she smirked at me, rolled on to her stomach, and went quickly down, kicking Maddie in the head with both feet and shoving her off the slide.

Towards the end of my first pregnancy, I had a hard time drinking enough water to satisfy my OB.  When I was sent for a 28-week ultrasound because of a lack of growth (though I sure felt bigger!), it was discovered I was low on amniotic fluid.  Every visit after that, my doctor did a “slosh check” and would pronounce me “doing well” or “a quart low”.  By the end I was drinking 4 liters a day and still barely keeping Maddie in liquid.

I realize that staying properly hydrated is incredibly important for a pregnant woman; getting enough liquid helps everything from swollen ankles to weird cravings, since oftentimes we’re not actually hungry, but thirsty.  But by the third or fourth liter of the day, I was truly hating the taste of water.  I had a deep desire for root beer, cranberry juice – anything to make the liquid more exiting.

After a couple weeks of bad weather and illness, we finally found ourselves back into our normal routine on Thursday, and I have to say everyone’s much happier for it.

We’re not schedule freaks; we don’t have Maddie’s day broken down into “7:30 a.m.: wake up. 8 a.m.: color while waiting for breakfast. 8:15: breakfast.” And believe me, I know people that do that. But we do have a certain routine that we’ve worked hard to cultivate. It provides flexibility for errands or fun days like the zoo, but gives Maddie a sense of what comes next – a sort of comfort in knowing what lies ahead. In broad strokes, breakfast is followed by time Outside – church, the playground, a play date, the zoo, whatever. Then there’s lunch, naptime, playtime at home or running errands, dinner, and so on. The routine is flexible enough that we can imitate it even when we’re not at home – if we’re on vacation, for example, we’ll hit the beach or pool in the late morning during Outside time and stick to her usual order for lunch etc. Giving her built in “retreat” time every day – naptime at home rather than on the run, followed by quiet playtime at home – helps her cope with different people and situations coming in and out of her life.

From the beginning of this second pregnancy, Brian and I had one eye on the finish line and what it would mean to Maddie. Going from being the only child in the center of several adults’ attention to sharing the spotlight with the younger, cuter model would be hard on her, we knew. And since I’m largely a stay-at-home mom she’s pretty used to getting a lot of quality time with me; sharing will be difficult at times, to say the least.

Which is why we have been looking at the nine months in a big arc, planning what it will take to make the transition as smooth and painless for her as possible. I am incredibly fortunate (in case I haven’t mentioned it this week) to have my mom living a few blocks away, and more than willing to pitch in with Maddie, so we knew Mom was the logical alternate caregiver for Maddie to get attached to. Over the last few months Mom’s tried out more and more delicate responsibilities with Maddie: long stretches of daytime by herself, putting her down for naps, handling meals, and finally last night the big one: bedtime.

On March 13, someone stood up and gave me their seat on the subway for the first time this pregnancy.

I was 30 weeks pregnant at the time.

The person who offered me their seat was a woman.

This offer has yet to be repeated.

Yes, you read the title right, and no, it’s not ironic. The world indeed is going mad.

As many of you know from a previous blog, my daughter had decided to hate shoe shopping. I finally broke down and ordered a home foot measuring kit, thinking I’d do the measuring myself and go online shopping. I reconciled myself to a few years with a girl who didn’t enjoy shoe shopping. Then this weekend we had a little mini-breakthrough!

We’re definitely sick.

That runny nose turned into quite the gusher, and all three of us woke up Saturday morning with the stuffy head and cough thing going on. So we spent the weekend cooped up indoors, Brian and I taking shifts so we could try to get some rest time to ourselves. Maddie was having a hard time sleeping, which means of course that we all have a hard time sleeping, and she was getting up a good couple hours before her normal wake-up time.

For the past couple of days Maddie’s been running a very low fever. Yesterday she added a mild runny nose to the equation. She’s been clingy and cuddly as well.

All of these things can be explained away by something other than illness, so we’re crossing our fingers. As the weather warmed up here, I anticipated a mild round of allergies, which could be responsible for the mild runny nose. And Maddie keeps complaining that her cheek hurts and sure enough, when I peer in, she’s got a very swollen gum in the back, which would account for the fever and clinginess.

So Maddie and I came home from running errands recently and I gave Maddie over to a few moments of unfettered run-of-the-house fun as I put purchases away. She’s reached that great age where she can entertain herself for rather long periods of time, and combine that with a pretty baby-proofed house and a pretty obedient and docile kid, and I find myself with stretches of 5-10 minutes where I’m comfortable simply keeping her in earshot while I get work done.

A few minutes into my grocery unpacking, and I realize something’s changed. No longer do I hear her little running back and forth, from one place to the next on some busy toddler errand. No, the last time I heard her move it was towards the bedrooms which, now that I thought of it, were suspiciously quiet. No chatting with a stuffed animal, no giving Dolly orders . . . . hmmmm.

A girlfriend of mine recently emailed asking if I’d covered discipline and toddlers on my website yet – she’d hit a new phase of disobedience from her own toddler and was eagerly looking to my mommy focus group to find out what had worked for them.

When Maddie turned a year old, my girlfriend Abby gave me the book Kids, Parents, Power Struggles. I was a bit astonished that I’d have to start thinking about such things at such an early age, but boy was I grateful to read the thing right away. Because the truth is that when you need those disciplining tools, the last thing you want to do is take the time to research, read, and absorb; you need to know immediately. That book gave me some rudimentary tools to deal with Maddie’s emerging personality, and made me feel more equipped to start making deliberate decisions about how we’d raise our daughter – how we’d deal with disobedience, to time out or not to time out, consequences, and so forth.

The book also caused me to look further for more good parenting books, and thanks to some good friends who have already been through toddlerhood and some great been-there-done-that parents at my church, I collected a few that I’ve found incredibly useful.

For a few months now, Maddie’s been developing a new hobby – soccer. We bought a ball for her last summer that’s roughly the size of a soccer ball, though much lighter, and she’s enjoyed rolling it, sitting on it, and so forth, all year now. But a few months ago Brian introduced her to the whole concept of “kicking” the ball and running after it, and she hasn’t slowed down since.

One of the best parts about being pregnant for a second time is getting the chance to have those, “Oh, yeah!” moments over and over again. There’s a chemical released during labor and afterwards called oxytocin – a true multi-tasker of a hormone – that actually has been proven to have amnesiac properties to it, meaning that it helps you forget how bad the whole experience was. Sort of nature’s way of making sure you don’t remember so much that you only have one kid.

Combine that with the famous Pregnancy Memory (also known as the Black Hole), and everything old is new again. Every little milestone I’ve hit with this pregnancy, I think, “Oh, yeah! I remember this feeling!” and it’s so instantaneous, so familiar, that you can’t believe you ever forgot that feeling. I’ve had it with the bad – lower back pain, fatigue, Dog Nose – and with the good – feeling the baby move, hearing the heartbeat at the doctor’s office.

Maddie’s going through this language phase that’s incredibly cute for now and while I don’t think it’s deliberate, I’m afraid it soon will be.

She’ll say something that’s either not completely intelligible or so outrageous that you aren’t sure you heard her completely – for example, she’ll say, “Maddie have ice cream!” This is outrageous in our household because she has yet to ever try ice cream, so you’ll say, “What did you say?”

“Maddie have ice cream, please.”

“Do you want ice cream, Maddie?” you ask, still not able to believe that’s what she’s saying.

“O-k,” she’ll agree, as if you’ve thought of it yourself and she’s surprised and pleased by the offer.

I remember very well the first time I laid eyes on a pair of pregnancy panties. I was watching the movie She’s Having a Baby and they did a humorous montage of how life changed with her pregnancy. As Kevin Bacon folded laundry, he held up a pair of delicate, lacy, obviously pre-pregnancy panties. He then held up a pair of those ginormous, white cotton, high-waisted pregnancy undies. You know exactly the kind I’m talking about – those shapeless, unattractive underpants that we used to call spanky pants as kids; the kind Mary Catherine Gallagher wore on Saturday Night Live. The message was obvious – pretty underwear is a thing of the past once you get pregnant.

I vowed that this would not be me.

So when I became pregnant with Maddie, I had this underlying fear that at some point the pregnancy police was going to come along, wrestle me to the ground, and force me into a pair of spanky pants. “You’re going to be a mother! Shame on you! Where’s your granny panties?” That sort of thing.

When we found out that Brian was losing his job, he and I decided I’d add a few more hours to my work schedule each week. With this being Brian’s first official week of unemployment, my extended schedule has kicked into high gear and I find myself back in the workforce a bit more.

On the plus side, I’m able to work just fine – I’m not due until the end of May and have no reasons not to teach. I’ve got a loyal client base that quickly snapped up my extra hours, and I enjoy my work a lot. Brian’s got the time to cover a few more shifts with Maddie, and frankly she adores him so much she hardly notices I’m not there.

On the down side, I definitely notice she’s not there.

This past Sunday at church, Maddie hit
another first – and not a good one.


Maddie was playing happily in the nursery when one of her friends
started crying. Usually when this happens Maddie’s ok, but
this time for whatever reason she began crying as well – you
know, the old toddler crying snowball effect.


After a few moments, Maddie’s friend calmed down, but
Madeleine starting asking for Mama. I think she realized for the
first time that I was not ten seconds away- that she was alone in
there with people who, while nice, were Not Mama. With this
realization, of course, the crying simply escalated. One of the
workers came to get me, and I immediately came down. By the time I
arrived Maddie had calmed down a bit, and I was greeted at the door
by a tear-stained, hiccupping daughter being cuddled by one of the
workers. She leapt into my arms, I ran to get Silky out of her bag
– the nursery workers hadn’t known about it – and
the tension drained out of Maddie’s body.

Last fall Maddie and Gamma and I made our first official foray into that venerable female institution, Shoe Shopping. Madeleine had a wonderful time, running around the store, trying everything on, and looking at all her shoe choices in the mirror before picking a couple of pairs. Mom and I were convinced we’d done a proper inaugural job and Maddie was officially a Shoe Shopper.

Fast forward to this year.

I’m once again cautious of jinxing
things by mentioning this, but Maddie’s been sleeping like
the Olympic Gold Medalist in Extended Sleeping recently, and
I’m wondering if anyone else has gone through a similar
phase.

Her sleep’s been pretty solid since
about 15 months. Up until then she’d go through a phase of a
week or two when she’d wake up crying, needing me to go in
and hold her, a couple times a night. Then she’d sleep well
for a few weeks, then back to the disruptions. But around 15 months
her sleeping really leveled out and now even if she wakes she puts
herself back to sleep pretty quickly. Only if she asks for me do I
go in these days, and usually it’s a quick snuggle and
she’s back to bed. And these instances occur maybe a few
times a month. In general, though, she’s a twelve-hour
sleeper with a decent nap taken uncomplainingly for about an hour
each afternoon.

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.

My daughter is an adrenaline junkie.


As if chasing after a naked superhero weren’t enough, I have
to periodically scare those (optional) pants off my kid. For fun.


Yes, we’ve reached the stage in Maddie’s development
where she absolutely loves hide and seek. Not content to simply
have you hide and then seek you out in good, old-fashioned, calm
style, Maddie wants you to hide and stay hidden while she
stealthily (ish) creeps around the house trying to find you. Just
before she gives up but after she’s exhausted all her places
to look my Xtreme Adventure girl wants you to jump out of your
hiding place and scream at her.

When Maddie was only a few weeks old, I
began a game every morning with her as she was dressed. In order to
distract her squirminess, I announce the arrival of Naked Girl,
timing the dramatic monologue to coincide with the removal of the
diaper. Then I’d say, “Naked Girl! Bringing a smile to
the world, one dimple at a time.”


Come on, you’ve done stuff just like this yourself;
you’re simply not bold enough or stupid enough to tell other
people about it.

A recent href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16709587/site/newsweek/">Newsweek
article brought my attention to a new free booklet put out
by the nonprofit organization href="http://www.zerotothree.org">Zero to Three a
valuable parenting resource site that’s listed on my target="_blank"
href="http://www.1mother2another.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=34#top">
Top 5s Page.


This new booklet, “Healthy From the Start”, is endorsed
by the American Academy of Pediatrics and outlines sensible and
healthy eating habits for babies and toddlers – and more
importantly, what we as parents can do to encourage these
habits.

If Babyhood is all about Sleep –
learning to sleep at night instead of day, learning to sleep
through the night, being able to self-soothe and go back to sleep,
getting into regular naps, and so on – then Toddlerhood is
all about Control.


And when I say control, I mean control in many guises: developing
motor skills control, learning about emotions and how to control
them (also known as Not Throwing a Tantrum), realizing adults
control you, discovering how to control adults (can you say
Manipulation?). But there’s one more type of control that
dominates any toddlerhood – potty training.

No, this isn’t a review of that
penguin movie.


My daughter, who has not seen that movie, has Happy Feet of her
own. She and her daddy, who spent a lot of time together last
weekend while Mommy started working on family taxes, came up with a
new game – Happy Feet.

We’ve finally seen a turn in the
weather; it seems winter is actually here to stay. Undaunted, I
simply bundle my kid up extra-well and head out to the park in
spite of the cold. But the past couple of days we’ve had a
snow threat and so have stayed inside, relying on play dates.


So when my friend Ingrid informed me we wouldn’t be seeing
them yesterday because of a dentist’s appointment, I
panicked. No Naomi! How would I keep my child from noticing we
never actually left the house all day?? Which is why I unthinkingly
said, “Why don’t you simply drop Naomi off at my house
while you go to the dentist? Then they can still play
together.” I promise, my motives were purely selfish.


My first inkling that this might be harder than I anticipated was
when Ingrid fell on the floor in gratitude. I hadn’t really
thought about this as being babysitting, just another play date
where one of the adults happens to not be there. But how bad could
it be? Naomi knows me, knows Maddie, knows my house. What could go
wrong?

I’m afraid that our cat’s got
some competition in our household now; what has been up to this
point a one-cat home has suddenly become the residence of two
kitties.


Of course, one of them is my daughter.


I’m not sure where she got this idea, but she absolutely
loves to crawl around on the floor and pretend she’s a cat.
She’ll crawl all over the house, saying, “Meow! Meow!
Meow! Meow!” And just in case I don’t get the message
from that, she’ll periodically stop, pet herself on the back,
and say, “Soft!”

I never thought I’d say this, but my daughter is too concerned with cleanliness, and it’s driving me crazy.

I think the first time we noticed it was during our beach vacation. Maddie had just turned 15 months and been eating solid foods for a long time, and while she never had a spontaneous one-baby food fight, she certainly didn’t seem bothered by the excess pureed blueberries smeared across her face. And while she had never really had a chance to get down and dirty in, say, a mud puddle, she seemed to enjoy finger paints as much as the next child.

A couple weeks ago I told you about a
recent Consumer Reports test; the Consumers Union tested 12
rear-facing infant car seats and reported that 10 out of the 12
seats used failed at least one of their tests.

Last week, the Consumers Union retracted
that report after the federal government claimed the failure
results came from drastically higher test speeds than stated in the
report.

Consumer Reports has announced an internal
investigation into the veracity of the government’s claims,
and that they will re-do the tests as soon as possible and issue a
new report. Meanwhile, they are still urging a recall of the
Evenflo Discovery, the car seat that failed the most in their
tests.

I imagine that if you’re a parent
using one of the infant car seats that got low marks, you’re
feeling partly relieved but partly confused right now. I know I
would be. I’m not sure what I would do in your situation.
Here are the things I know to be true:

Consumer Reports works really hard to
provide unbiased, high-quality, dependable information to
consumers. They refuse to accept advertising or sponsors, conduct
all their tests anonymously so they don’t get
“freebies”, and do not allow companies to even use
their name in advertising such as “Consumer Reports rated us
the best!”

I also know that ANY car seat is better
than no car seat at all. So here are some things you can do:

-Make sure your car seat is in good
condition. If your baby is the sixth one to use it, you may want to
think about buying a new one. Buckles and straps start to wear down
with time, and the plastic may be weaker than you think.

-Along those lines, I’d encourage
you not to buy a car seat second-hand; you have no way of knowing
if that seat you picked up for 20 bucks at a garage sale has
already been in a wreck or not, and thus may be structurally
weaker. Only borrow a used car seat from someone you know and
trust, make sure you have all the instruction books, and look them
up on line to make sure the model hasn’t been recalled.

-If you buy a new car seat, register it
with the maker so they can notify you of any safety issues or
recalls.

-Sign up at href="http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.asp">this site to be
notified of any government recalls; they’ll email you
automatically.

-Get your car seat installation checked.
Click href="http://www.seatcheck.org/">here to find a location
near you. Having your seat correctly installed is half the
battle.

-Click href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/011907dnnatcarseats.55ad0942.html">
here to read an article on the car seat test retraction.
You can also read about it at href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cu-press-room/pressroom/2007/2/0702_eng0702ccs.htm">
Consumer Reports’ website or read the
government’s updates on the situation at the target="_blank" href="http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/">NHTSA
website.

-Use a car seat. All the time.

I’ll let you know if there’s
more news on this topic as I find out about it.

Recently one of my girlfriends went to put her 15-month-old down in his crib for the night. As he hit the mattress, he grabbed for a small object nearby. After she pried the object out of his fingers, my girlfriend realized it was a small plastic vial full of medicine used to fill her son’s nebulizer. He’d somehow gotten hold of one and hidden it in his crib. And if he hadn’t brought it to her attention, he’d have found it in the middle of the night and shoved it in his mouth.

Maddie’s been enamored with the
alphabet for a few months now, and while I want to encourage this
fascination and so forth, her distraction when faced with what she
realizes are Letters and not just A Jumble of Lines is beginning to
wear a bit thin.

Am I the only mom whose kid goes through these passionate love affairs with a specific food, only to suddenly shun them without warning one day?

Maddie’s always been a pretty good eater; as a baby she’d eat just about anything and I smugly assumed that would continue through toddlerhood. I’d listen pityingly to my girlfriends moan about their kids’ refusals to eat veggies and think, “Glad I won’t have that problem.” She doesn’t refuse them completely now, but she is much more enamoured of pasta and cheese than I’d prefer, and broccoli, carrots, and the occasional asparagus (NO CORN!!!!) are about all I can get down her. Thank you, Lord, for Veggie Booty.

Highest on her list, though, has always been fresh fruit, and at first her preferences followed the seasons. Last summer she ate a lot of berries, then fall came and it was apples, and so on. But for the past couple of months she gets this craving for a specific food and God help you if you don’t have it on hand.

We’ve been incredibly spoiled this winter up here in the Northeast; with temperatures unseasonably warm, Maddie’s been able to indulge her passion for the outdoors pretty much unabated. We have yet to have our first snowfall, and in fact this past December was the first December without snow in 120 years. And just a couple weeks ago we had an entire Saturday at 70 balmy degrees!

But I know that this weather won’t last – we’re descending into the 20s and 30s this week, much more typical for this time of year. So I’ve been reading up on how to keep Maddie warm and safe (since telling my toddler “no” to the outdoors is definitely not my favorite option) and I thought I’d pass on what I’ve learned.

As Maddie passes her nineteen-month marker
(yes, I still keep track,) I’m amazed at how different
developmental skills suddenly take off.


She’s always been a talker; in public or with people she
doesn’t know she’ll be quiet and reserved, simply
taking it all in. But with family and close friends she’s
quite the chatterbox. For several months – actually, about a
year now! – she’s been jabbering in her own emphatic
language, using gestures to help us stupid adults keep up. And of
course she started saying individual words last summer – the
basic “dada” and “mama” and so forth
– but recently she’s been forming her own short
sentences, and you’re left to extrapolate on your own.

Infant car seats made news recently when Consumer Reports ran a new batch of tests against 12 brands of rear-facing infant car seats. Using speeds of 35 and 38 MPH rather than the government speed of 30 MPH, Consumer Reports found that 10 out of the 12 car seats failed.

Yes, 10 out of 12 car seats failed.

In addition, Consumer Reports found that when testing a European model of a popular car seat, that car seat performed better than any other car seat they tested. The American version – same manufacturer – failed. Coincidentally, car seat testing in Europe is much stricter. CR also found evidence of problems with the LATCH system, and said seats did better when secured with a seatbelt. One car seat, the Evenflo Discovery, didn’t even meet government standards, and Consumer Reports is urging a recall of that product.

Three car seats failed all of CR’s tests – the Evenflo Discovery, the Graco Safeseat, and the Britax Companion. Only the Baby Trend Flex-Loc and the Graco Snugride with EPS passed every test.

For more information, read the entire report by clicking here. And even if you’ve got a top-rated car seat, I encourage you to find a car seat inspection station near you to make sure your seat is properly installed.

And of course, remember that any car seat is better than no car seat at all.

I recently hit the 20-week mark in this second pregnancy, and as I move forward towards the five-month mark, I recall that this is the time in my last pregnancy where it began to feel as if it were moving more quickly. Do you know what I mean? At the very beginning you’re excited and dreamy, and perhaps exhausted and nauseated, but you have this long pregnancy stretching out before you. Then suddenly you “pop” and have something that’s clearly not “just fat” in front of you, and it becomes much more immediate and real and you start to look anxiously at your “to-do” list. Or perhaps, start to think anxiously about making a to-do list.

I’ve hit several of those moments over this past pregnancy – those times when something you’ve forgotten completely about your last pregnancy comes rushing to the forefront and you can’t believe you ever forgot it. So I’ve compiled a bit of a list, because Lord knows I’ll forget it again if there’s ever a third time. And why is that? The answer is item number one on my Things I Forgot list:

The verdict is in, and the hot new must-have accessory this winter is –

Sunglasses.

Maddie’s had a couple weeks now to break – I mean, break in – her new toys, and she’s ready to offer up her stand-out favorites. As a reminder, Maddie’s 18 months old right now.

Maddie and I have been sick with a cold for the past several days, and while it hasn’t been the worst one ever it’s certainly been the longest one ever- going on ten days now – and my creativity has been sorely taxed. I’m one of those moms that won’t take her kid to the playground until the child is free from a cough or runny nose; I wouldn’t wish a toddler with a cold on my worst enemy. Add to that the fact that Maddie didn’t really feel well enough to run around the park, and we had a long several days of a sick, listless, but still stir-crazy kid.

And apropos of nothing, but if there’s one thing worse than having to take care of a sick toddler while you’re sick as well, it’s having to take care of a sick toddler while your sick AND PREGNANT as well. Without Sudafed or even Motrin to help me out, I’ve been suffering through my drippy nose and raspy cough and sinus headaches cold turkey. I actually found myself thinking one night, “In the grand scheme of things, how bad could it really be for this unborn child if I take ONE DOSE of Nyquil? I mean seriously, it’s not like I’d be doing a line of cocaine!” In the end I chickened out and resigned myself to a sleepless night; my doctor’s so strict I’m not allowed to use most brands of cough drops while pregnant, so the thought of confessing the Nyquil to her was too much to bear.

But I digress.

If you’re not au currant on our history with Elmo, read here and here.

If you are familiar with Maddie’s longstanding love affair with the Red Menace – I mean cute lil red guy – then you’re probably bracing yourselves for what comes next. Fear not – nothing new has been added to our Elmo-stuffed household.

But something I thought could be gotten rid of has been raised to level of favored toy.

Remember how I said that Maddie would have nothing to do with the hot new TMX Elmo? Apparently that’s not entirely true.

There was a remarkable drop in holiday
mellowness last week, right about, oh, December 26, and I
can’t help but notice that it happens every year. The nation
virtually shuts down for the last week of December, but for some
reason it’s seen as slothful or lazy to simply enjoy the
downtime and do nothing; we have to briskly pack up the tree and
lights and hit the organizational sales.


I understand that some of us often procrastinate household chores,
which in this case means still having a bald tree up in the middle
of March. So I can see the attractiveness in using some vacation
time to get a head-start on post-holiday cleanup. But can’t
we take a few days to enjoy the slowness of everything? We spend
all of December “getting ready” – the baking, the
cleaning, the gift-buying and wrapping – all for that one big
day. Why don’t we simply enjoy the fact that our to-do list
is done, and we’ve nothing that really needs doing for a
while? It’s not wallowing, it’s simply being in the
moment and coasting. Those same neighbors who glared at us as
Grinches for not having our lights up the day after Thanksgiving
are now giving us the Stare of Shame for still having them up three
days after New Year’s. Three days! Don’t we at least
get until the weekend??

You’ve successfully survived the holidays, but your house ain’t looking too good. In fact, it looks like a Toys R Us at closing time on the day after Thanksgiving: toys strewn everywhere, assembly instructions hanging from the chandelier where you threw them in frustration at 3 a.m. on Christmas day, and empty packages of batteries littering every square surface. And of course, then there’s your child, who’s now completely acclimated to the whole tree thing and expects tinsel and lights for the next 364 days.

Or maybe it’s just my house.

Seriously, what do you do now? How do you get your toy volume back under control, and keep your baby from discovering Post Holiday Blues?

Well, I’m back and can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve posted. I had meant to post a bit more often last week, but found lying on the couch watching videos with my hubbie infinitely more appealing. Sorry.

And not that it’s been a while since I’ve had time to watch movies, but did you know they made a sequel to that Pirates of the Caribbean movie? It was pretty good. Apparently there’s going to be a third one as well; can’t wait to watch that one next Christmas.

I think my slug-like inability to sit down and write pretty much sums up our entire Christmas vacation. With Brian off from work all week and me errand-free, Maddie was in hog heaven, basking in all the adult attention.

And of course, there was Christmas itself.