Earlier this year, I posted this brief tidbit about recognizing the balance of “good” years and more trying ones. I don’t think any entire years are throwaway ones – good things happen in the more trying years, and hard things occur in the most prosperous ones.
I am grateful for all of the growth that has come from this challenging year, but I must admit that I am breathing a sigh of relief to bid adieu to 2014, and I am welcoming this symbolic/calendar fresh start with open arms.
And though this has been a tough year, so many good things have happened, and there have been so many joyful moments. Here are my favorite photos from 2014 – a reminder that every day is an occasion to make something great happen, and a dark and cloudy time has beauty as well.
My mother in law’s house is in a great location – close to the park, close to town, but it’s also right next to the water plant. That means water, in the South, in the the summer. That means mosquitoes. It’s like her little sloped driveway leads to a valley which houses a protected mosquito population.
So when I go to pick Maya up at the end of the day, part of our dance is getting the car doors open and closed quickly enough to keep as many buzzers as possible out. It never works. Once Maya and I are all buckled up in the car and pulling up the driveway, we roll down all of the windows and pick up speed to hopefully cause the blood-suckers to catch a ride on the wind wave.
Inevitably, there is always at least one that manages to maintain its in-vehicle spot for the duration of the ride home. My theory is that he tucks himself in down by my feet and the pedals and gets all warm, fat, and happy feeding on my ankle flesh. I have the “itchy bites” (as Maya calls them) to prove it.
The other day, we were halfway home when I realized there was still one stowaway buzzing around in the car. I opened my window and Maya’s rear passenger window to strategically create an air stream. I thought it worked, so the windows went back up and the AC back on. But then, Maya starts crying hysterically and yelling “Mosquito!! Mosquito!!” I thought her reaction to getting bitten was a tad on the strong side for a girl who has more itchy bites on her arms than teeth in her mouth.
But then I realized that when she felt the bite on her foot, she instinctively slapped at it, and there on her perfect baby-child foot, lay a flattened and dead mosquito. This sudden awareness that she had taken life broke her poor sweet heart!
My first reaction was, “Good job, babe! You got it!” but then I thought for a bit; she was so upset, and here I was – cheering her on for flattening a bug.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still promote the smacking and flattening and smushing of mosquitoes, cockroaches, and some other undesirables, but I became totally aware that my reaction was building a link in her between smashing and cheering.
Okay, okay, I know I’m being a little dramatic, but I have thought a lot lately about how we form kids’ attitudes and how important semantics are in how children perceive things.
So what angle do I take to begin the discussion about life and death? How do I say it’s okay when some things die, but it’s also okay to be sad about it? And while I may start with the mosquito, I’m really thinking ahead to when we will have to have the “Your dog has been sent to the farm” conversation. I don’t want to lie; I don’t want to whitewash it. But I don’t want to freak her the F out either – I mean, her heart was broken by a mosquito, and I love that it was; it shows how untainted she still is by this world.
Any advice about how to have this serious talk with a toddler?
Each morning, there are tasks to be done. Usually, because I have a wonderful husband and I try to be a decent wife, these tasks are split in two. One of us gets the babe up, changed, soothed, milked, and dressed, and the other gets the dogs up, out, fed, watered and the coffee brewed.
The dogs are familiar with this routine, and are, for the most part, patient. Pious in their faith that we will come each morning and take care of them.
I have had Anna Banana since she was just a 3 pound pup – and that was almost 13 years ago. But she is a small dog – a Jack Russell Terrier – so she will live 18-20 years. Sometimes her proximity to her upper years makes me realize my own proximity to my upper years, as we have grown together.
Holiday Anna
Sean rescued Nina from an abusive household when she was already a couple of years old. She is fiercely loving and loyal and grateful to him. Unfortunately, she is also wary of anyone else, nature (thunder, rain), technological advances (cars, cameras) and especially gun shots (occasional in our country neighborhood).
Nina and the blooming cherry tree
And Lola is a dog’s dog. She likes people okay, but she is all about chasing squirrels, running, and enjoying the outdoors. She’s also cool with stretching out on the living room rug. She has her flaws: a taste for neighbor’s chickens, a slight Alpha complex, but she is pretty much an all around good dog otherwise. She does not beg, does not get on the furniture, only barks if others do first. Lola was the runt of the litter (I think this is what caused her Alpha issues – a canine-Napoleon complex) and Sean rescued her before she was starved out by her siblings.
Nina, perpendicular to Lola
Lola getting a boost from Nina
We were unsure of what it would be like to introduce a new little baby into this bustling household of doggies. Would she be part of their pack? Could she learn to out-Alpha Lola?
There were no problems when we brought little Maya Bell home – Anna and Lola became fairly indifferent, though Anna was initially peeved about losing her prime lap space, but Nina fell in love.
Nina, once dubbed by a friend, “the mean one”, now lets a toddler pull her ears, push her face, ride her back, and yank her tail. She sometimes is a little over zealous with baby-face kisses.
Our golden-eyed Nina is getting old. Because she was a rescue, we are not sure of her exact age, but she is somewhere around 13. And our best guess is that she is a Pit-Lab mix. So that’s 91 in large breed years. We are noticing her sharp edges waring away a bit and we fear her hours are winding down.
I so hope that Maya remembers this wild beast that loves her so; this golden-eyed girl that found joy in her baby hands. And I will do my best to appreciate this love, this dog, these moments, and capture as many as I can for Maya to hold on to as she grows.
Lesson seven: Do what’s hard now to make it better in the long run
My cousin, Marie, asked me today whether I had written a post on “cry it out”, the method of teaching babies to comfort themselves and *phew* sleep through the night. She has a friend who is fried and exhausted and willing to try anything.
Well, first, I was so tickled that someone actually thought of my blog as a resource, even if I have known that person since the day she was born (so she is obligated to read it and like it). 🙂
Marie and Rae, mid – 80’s
Rae and Marie, 2010? 2011?
Second, I was uncomfortable with the idea of recommending this method to another parent. There is much debate over this controversial issue and I am not an authority and have done very little research. (I did read the article linked above, though). All I can do it talk about my own experience. I am not going onto the web and promoting that this is right for every baby and every family.
When I was exhausted, sleepless, stressed and crying for no reason in the middle of my workday (I went back to teaching when Maya Bell was four months old), a dear friend and colleague told me of her experience and now, I am telling it to you.
I will say, that I think I remember that this method has no effect on babies younger than six months, though my pediatrician didn’t see a problem with “practicing” it when Bell was five months old-ish. This was also about the time we were transitioning Maya from sleeping in our room to her very own crib in her very own room.
put her down, hit the “whale” option on the Sleep Sheep noise machine (Maya never seemed to like the ocean waves as much as I wanted her to), and started the mobile
Then she cried.
After about 3 minutes, one of us would go in there, pick her up, sing “You Are My Sunshine” (but without the sad part in the 2nd stanza and taking out the 4th stanza completely)
Put her back down, and she would cry again.
This time, wait 5 minutes. Go back in, another hug, some brief crooning (have I mentioned that it’s probably my singing that was making her cry in the first place?), put her back down.
Rinse and repeat, 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, 20 – upping the span of minutes until you go in again each time.
Around round 3 or 4, I had to stand on the back porch so I couldn’t hear her. Often crying myself.
If I remember correctly, the longest this went on was about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.
When you are ready to give in, give it one more round – that’s usually when she finally would fall asleep
It was really difficult for about four days. Then, just like a snap, she slept.
I would wake her again just before I would go to bed – usually around 11pm or so – and nurse/give a bottle one last time. From there, she would sleep straight through til 6:30-7am.
We all changed for the better. A well rested mommy is a better mommy – there’s no debate about that one. The article linked above says that after a cry-it-out session, there are still stress hormones in the baby’s saliva. That may be true, but in my, ahem, professional scientific opinion (not), that is a short lived symptom, because – and again, I can only speak from our personal experience – Maya stopped crying for more than a couple of minutes at bedtime. She no longer created the stress hormones from the crying because she was no longer crying.
She was just sleeping. And like a champ!
She will be 2 next month. And she is still an awesome sleeper. There has been some recent night waking, but that is a whole new phase of being-almost-two and is its own e-mail chain in my baby/mommy circle. Maybe that will be another post. But for the last year and a half, Maya has slept about 12 hours a night. Hallelujah.
A well rested kiddo
And now, our bedtime routine looks an awful lot like the one from back then, only much shorter:
5:30 dinner time
6:00 bath time
6:30 read books, have some warm milk (we are currently switching from bottle to sippy cup here. Next step, move milk to dinner time and try the routine without the step, but we’re not quite there yet – that and potty training are on the docket for summertime, when Mommy (or Bob, as Maya calls me, short for Baba – she doesn’t say ‘M’s) isn’t teaching teenagers all day)
Brush teeth
In bed by 7. Still listening to the whales.
95% of the time, she sleeps on through until 7:30 0r 8am. There is not even a peep or whimper out of her when we put her down now. Not at all.
Again, I am just telling our own story here – no advocating or promoting of any particular school of thought – but this is was happened with us, and it’s been very nice.
The first time Auntie Marie met Maya
Now if anyone has any tips on how to get her to say Mama, I’d love to hear it!
I think in themes. It’s a hazard (benefit?) of my literary analysis training and day to day routine with students. I cannot hear, read, watch or see anything without finding the theme of the incident, story, piece, etc.
When we are in elementary school, we are taught that the theme is the moral of the story. This is not incorrect, and when students are stuck, I direct them to start again at this basic step. But now, in my advanced literature classes (sounds fancy, right? Well, remember, it’s still only high school!), we talk about theme in terms of the universal human truth. The thing about the story that relates to being human. The underlying current of understanding and connection. It leads to discussions about archetype and culture and basic humanity. Theme is the language of my every day work life.
Teacher Rae
And I tend to apply it to the “real” world as well. I have a narrative mind that turns each and every situation into a fictional story – which means that it must have been built with all of the nuts, bolts, stylistic choices and literary tools and devices authors use. I do not give enough credit to random coincidence or purposeless happenings. Some might call it a faith in a higher power – some puppet master/story writer of our fates – that everything happens for a reason, but it really could just be my English teacher default 11th-grade-lit-analysis brain setting.
Whatever it is, I like it. I feel better thinking that there is a lesson or purpose behind everything and that my life has some significant meaning. (Students of mine will be very familiar with this vernacular of mine: significant moments, meaning, universal human truth…)
I recently read that a “successful blog” should have a theme. And I have struggled with this – I do not want to have a separate blogs each for my education musings, my mommy blogging, and yet another for my writing practice. Maybe those are genres, categories, not themes, but still – what is my theme here?
I started off my posts with “Lessons” and I kind of trailed off from that because it seemed a little kitschy, but it is the truth of my perspective and how my brain works. I am writing this blog to make my own life lessons apparent to myself.
To teach myself how to look, notice, appreciate, be grateful.
To teach myself to write regularly.
So whether my readership is just me or if there are countless of you out there, that is my purpose here. You may notice motifs arise and threads of themes begin to weave from post to post, whether they are tagged parenting or teaching, and my aim is to make that more purposeful.
Truth be told, this is a challenging time for me. I am grabbing my story by the reigns and making purposeful notes to change it. Don’t get me wrong: I have everything I need to be happy – the most wonderful family, a good job, great friends, a sturdy home – and I am happy, but I am also unsettled and uncomfortable. I am at a crossroads (is it my age? The mid-30s?) and I am going to write until this path is clear.
Who is Rae?
Thank you for all of your support and guidance, friends, readers, universe, story writer in the sky. I am looking closely at the beautiful things in my life and I am listening and I am writing.
So, theme? Universal human truth?
How about self-discovery?
Identity.
Voice.
One must know oneself to be happy. This is my bildungsroman* (just started a little later in life than Scout Finch or Holden Caulfield).
*German, a novel about the main character’s moral, psychological, or spiritual growth.
The South gets made fun of for being so darn incompetent when it comes to handling snow. We cancel school at the mere hint of a flurry and we abandon cars on the side of the road when there are more than two inches of snow – we straight up shut the f down.
But this is what is so great about snow in the South. We like it this way. As a teacher, I can tell you that the faculty is checking weather.com more often than the students are. We are not actually that mad that our unit plan schedule has been thrown off. And sure, we’ll be bummed in May when we lose a teacher workday to make up a snow day, but that just does not dampen the child-like magical excitement that comes from an unplanned holiday.
And that is what it is – a holiday. The South’s inability to function when water gets too cold is actually a great thing. I do not want to try and make it to work or push on through when I could be staying home. It’s a SURPRISE! day off. And it’s one that pretty much everyone gets!
We do not get too many days where the three of us stay home as a family. Weekends are a volley of who has Bell while the other takes care of errands, weekend work, or the grasped-at alone/social time (which we always do in trade – ever so rarely together.) The grandmas have the kid during the week, so we don’t hit them up for too many weekend hours so we can have a date night.
We have a lot of snow right now by Chapel Hill standards. I do not have the right clothes for this. I wore my hiking boots out today, but I clearly needed either rain boots, waterproof pants, or both. The snow was higher than my high tops – that’s way more than we are accustomed to.
Our yard
Sean and I took turns sleeping in: he got up with Bell from 7-830am, at which point I got up and he went back to bed until 1030. Are you seeing the value of this snow day yet? 🙂
We had coffee, read books, played with the doll house, made oatmeal, tried to let the dogs out (but since these dogs have lived their whole lives in NC, they peed on the deck and scrambled back inside.)
We all had fried eggs, toast and blueberries when Dada got up. It then took us 30 minutes or so to bundle up to go outside. Bell was dancing by the door in between every layer of clothes I put on her. She was so impatient to go out. First tights, then waffle thermal jammies, then socks, then a long sleeve shirt, then a sweater. Then, her penguin Halloween costume (see – we really don’t have real winter clothes!) then boots, scarf, hat, gloves, jacket. She continued to jump up and down and attempt the door knob while I went through the same routine with my own clothes – tights, two pairs of socks, jeans, boots…
My little penguin
Meanwhile, Sean was getting out all of his old snowboarding gear and layering that on. We have been together for 7 years. I have never seen him snowboard, but he does wax nostalgic about it occasionally. He was determined to go down the tiny hill on our street.
Bell made it one step into the snow, which went up past her boots, and she was DONE. She wanted to be carried. She is heavy in all those layers!
We tried to fashion a sled out of the storage container that held the snowboarding gear and put her in that, but as illustrated below, she was not having it.
(I had involuntary nagging Mommy pings going off in my head about how Bell’s baby was so underdressed for the weather)
Sean attempted the hill – but it was not steep enough and he kind of just scooted himself down.
Then, he was kind enough to pull Bell and me on the snowboard, which she tolerated. My bum eventually got too wet hanging off either side of the board, but it was pretty cool while it lasted.
Sled selfie?
All in all, we were only outside for 15 -20 minutes – a fraction of the time it took us to get dressed and undressed for it. But it was worth it.
By 4pm, we were all a little stir crazy. And though we didn’t stay outside as long as Penn and Kim Holderness’ family did, I still think their Snow Day video pretty much sums up how we were by late afternoon. True fact: I remembered to get wine at the grocery store the day before, but we had to stop on our TWO HOUR (12 mile) trek home in the snow yesterday to get milk and eggs.
So no, we can’t drive in the snow (except for my husband who mentioned a number of times during yesterday’s commute that he was born in Colorado), but I like it that way. Unlike the Holderness video, I was thrilled to get that phone call that school was cancelled again today. But does anyone have any suggestions for toddler games other than “Help Mommy Fold Laundry – no, no, no, wait – don’t throw that on the floor; I just folded it!”
I am kind of sorry to start this post out admitting that I (occasionally) watch the show Shark Tank. But I guess everyone knows that with a toddler, it’s not like my Friday nights see much action anymore. But I have learned that the show actually has some darn good products on it – and the ones I like usually don’t get sponsored by the Sharks.
I have now bought 4 products from the show – all of which I have been extremely happy with. I have gotten the Scrub Daddy, the Freaker, the Better Life cleaning products, and the one I am going to shout from the rooftops: The Bibbitec Bib.
This bib covers the whole babe: neck, shoulders and knees and is made of material that can be wiped off with a napkin. It is made by a mom, Susie Taylor, because she saw a need in her own kids and wanted to share her good idea. The Sharks were total downers, telling her that it wasn’t worth the money, that her profit margin was lame and that no one would pay $25 for a bib.
Well, she made the point that the “affordable” bibs just didn’t do the job – they left too much open space, so clothes were always getting spotty. True that. She made good points and made a product that I had some real use for. But I also felt her passion – she did not set out to come up with the next pet rock and get rich quick, she believed in her product. I immediately bought one for Bell.
And since then, I have bought one for every baby birthday party I’ve been to.
At one point, I ordered two of the same color for two babies whose birthdays were coming up, and they accidentally only sent me one. I was worried, and so often customer service is skeptical of the customer (perhaps not believing that my order actually was wrong), but I e-mailed Bibbitec and explained what happened.
Within the day, I got a personal e-mail apologizing and assuring me that another one was on its way. It was so clear that I was not corresponding with generic customer service – I was reaching the Bibbitec inner circle. I can’t praise them too much for being a small, intimate company, because I actually want them to blow up and be a huge success with a lot of employees, but if they can keep that intimate tone in their customer relations, then they will continue to win moms and dads over.
When my bib arrived, it came with a HANDWRITTEN NOTE from Susie and a coupon for a future order. They didn’t need to make that gesture; I was already a dedicated customer, but I do so appreciate it.
I think I may have actually said to my husband – “I wish I had a reason to give more money to this company.”
Every time I go to a baby shower, I give the book Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott (hilarious recounting of her first year as a mom) and now, I will also bring a Bibbitec bib. And since Bibbitec makes bibs for babies and smocks for kids, I will continue to get one for every baby/kid birthday party Bell and I attend.
“The Ultimate Bib Original, Baby or Junior is perfect as a soft, non-toxic burp cloth – changing pad – breast-feeding shield – full body bib – placemat – breathable stroller blanket – art smock – “lapkin” and apron. The Ultimate Bib will be there for as long as your child wears a bib. Once that time comes, the Ultimate Smock will be there to continue to protect your inspired little artist and creative little chef.”
Bib as Placemat
I was not compensated or cajoled in any way for this post. I have just been really impressed with this mom and her product and I want to tell as many people as I can that I’m a fan.
It sounds a little like “bye”, but she points at boys in her books and says it – at first tentatively, looking up at me from under her lashes, chin down, and then more jubilantly, high-fiving me and yelling “boo-ya!” in celebration (one of her early words).
So proud of her. (And of me for writing it down on the DAY IT HAPPENED!)
I have been keeping a journal since I was 9 years old. In fact, we were recently cleaning out our office/guest room/workout room/storage room in an attempt to make it only a yoga room (ha!) and we found a big long tortilla box full of my old journals.
My toddler wanders into the chaos and finds the book that appeals to her the most – a white puffy plastic number with musical notes and polka dots, locked to keep out prying eyes of parents and siblings.
Hottest style of the late 80’s
When she lifts it, all the pages (pink, blue, and yellow) slide right out the bottom. So much for that crummy lock! I do my best to re-gather the pastel pages before she puts a permanent hurting on any of them and I am sent on a whirlwind trip down memory lane. There, scrawled in pencil and big ol’ loopy kid writing are my most important thoughts, feelings, and happenings of 1988. Gems like, “I LOVE Corey Feldman!” and on January 7, 1989:”Dear Di, Just like yesterday. P.S. Sorry there is nothing to talk about. Love, Rae”
Oct. 27, 1988 Today we had a wild day. First we went to since (science?) then we had math then 10:35 recess then came daily oral language and then we played “password” then came lunch. and I have this real big crush on this boy named Joey. We all ran after Joey today to try to kiss him then at 2:00 recess we spyed on Joey.
What is “daily oral language?” and did I have another class called “daily written language?” Clearly I could have used a lesson in run-on sentences.
My point with this anecdote is to prove that I have been chronicling my thoughts, feelings and not-so-major happenings in my life for 25 years. So I thought that of course I would be all over writing about Baby Bell’s adventures in growing every day. I mean, just take 5 minutes, right?
Nope. For my baby shower, I requested and received a super cool book by artist, Nikki McClure, called “Baby’s First 1000 days” and I thought to myself, nose in the air, “Hmph! Only 1000 days? That’s nothing!”
I literally have filled out 3 days of that book. And now the kid is 635 days old (give or take a whole bunch of days) and I feel like it would be weird to try and pick it up again at this point. Thank goodness for iPhone cameras – if a camera were not always in the pocket of my husband, my mother in law or me, then there would be no recorded history of this child.
I have already promised myself that I will totally write it all down with the next kid.
So that is one of my goals with this blog – to be better at recording these moments. And though I still love the idea of my daughter as a grown woman, cleaning out my old dusty attic after I’m gone and happening upon her baby book where I lovingly recounted the first time she rolled over or cut a tooth or pooed on me, that’s just not the reality. We live in an online world, where our baby books are blogs, our photo albums are Instagram, and our pen pal letters are Facebook.
Truth be told, I am kind of afraid the Matrix will happen and all this digital, Cloud content will either just disappear, turning into the thin air from whence my wireless came, or it will take our weak, 140-character minds over and rule the world.
But hopefully, all of this will never go away (like that photo someone tagged you in when you were drunk at that party) and my girl can access these archives on the internet database in her brain that she controls by blinking and twitching her head back and forth. Yes, in my vision of the future, the next incarnation of Google Glass is individuals walking around with serious body ticks to surf the web implanted in their brains.
But I digress…
So, the other day, Bell was eating rotini noodles with tomato sauce and I was sitting next to her at the table. I noticed that she was just swallowing them straight down, whole. She seemed fine with it, but it made a sympathy lump in my own stomach. So I tried to “teach” her how to chew (though she has no problem doing this instinctually with other foods.) I don’t know how much of a learning or growing moment this was for her, but her imitation of me was pretty darn funny.
So, to chronicle:
She has most of her teeth at 21.5 months, but not the middle ones between the front 4 and back molars.
She says “cheese!” when we brush her teeth at night.
She calls me “Baba” instead of “Mama” – she may be doing this just to spite me. But I do think it’s pretty funny when she yells out, “Hey, Bob!” to get my attention.
She can identify some numbers and letters and short words (even Mama with ‘M’s), but is not saying as much as we “expect” her to – I know, I know, kids progress at different rates.
She signs “I love you” now and will do it of her own volition, not just when commanded to, and this warms my heart like the sun.
She makes a big ole smacking noise when she kisses my cheek.
If you ask her what a cow says, she says, “Mooo”, if you ask her what a snake says, she says “Tsssss”, if you ask her what a fox says, she sings the youtube song. This is my fault. I’m kind of sorry and kind of not.
She has only in the last week allowed ponytails in her hair – which is growing naturally into a mullet.
The Story Changes 