We really like the idea of having family traditions for our family, especially during the holidays. The only tradition we had in my family was to see a movie on Christmas Day. My husband has more traditions but I think we'll carry forward a nice brunch with monkey bread and also slippers filled with goodies for Saint Nick Day. Some other ideas that I like:
-Volunteering at a soup kitchen for both Thanksgiving and Christmas
-Giving a few of your current toys away
-Making cookie day
-Reading a christmas story every night for the month of December
-Advent calendar with family activities for each day or week
-Orange in the toe of stocking
-Christmas Eve box with pjs, movies and snack to be watched during break
-Get a tablecloth, and some colored permanent markers. Trace the hands of all present for dinner, and write something you're thankful for in the hand. Date it too, and then it's really fun the next year.
-Going for a nighttime walk
-eating dinner by candlelight.
Making tree decoration a tradition in itself-the music, hot cocoa, popcorn-
-Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day brunch the same dishes year in year out made the meals tradition and ceremony.
-Buying gifts for children/families in need.
-An annual outdoor excursion (when kids are older) a special hike
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
Boob bites
My baby's first tooth started to show almost a month ago to the day. And this morning I felt the second one. Bite down hard on my boob. My nipple to be more exact. I did what I heard was best to do, say no sternly and put the baby down. He'd look at me with lit up eyes and a big smile thinking my stern voice was a game. After I put him down, he got upset so I picked him up again and tried again. Ouch! and one more time. Ouch! so we went about our day.
Then came nap time in which my babe likes to be nursed a little just before. This time it was 4 bites. Same excited reaction from my no. Same stern reaction from me. This time I put him in his crib each time. So it took 7 good chomps before my baby understood. He nursed a lot today and most of the day was very good.
Parenting is hard and wonderful business.
Then came nap time in which my babe likes to be nursed a little just before. This time it was 4 bites. Same excited reaction from my no. Same stern reaction from me. This time I put him in his crib each time. So it took 7 good chomps before my baby understood. He nursed a lot today and most of the day was very good.
Parenting is hard and wonderful business.
Lonely in a big land
My husband and I have been very fortunate to have met such nice people here. And I think it surprises Canadians to know that they have a pretty good reputation world-wide, well certainly in the US. We would giggle about how kind they were, so nice that their buses said 'Sorry, out of service'. American buses tend to leave out the apology. So we're not that surprised that we'd happen upon some great people.
It's cute because the Montrealers we've met, or come to think of it the Toronoto-ers (?) too, refer to going out to the country for x amount of time (weekend, day, etc). I don't think urbanites really do this in the US. Sure, we go to the country but we call it by another name, a more specific destination--town, campsite, etc. So we were invited for a weekend in the country. We made our way out to this idyllic spot with babe in tow. We were one of may be 10 adults and one other kiddo. The old weekend in a house of strangers would mean staying up late, playing games, having drinks. The new time in a house of strangers meant following every move your baby makes in a very unbaby friendly home (the host admitted she knew nothing about baby proofing and I confessed I knew nothing about it either until my babe moved around and showed me what to be concerned with. I don't blame her). And then there's feeding your baby, bathing your babe and of course the (dreaded) napping and sleeping. I left the weekend not feeling like I knew the 8 other adults any better. It was really sad for me. I didn't feel refreshed after it seems one should from time in the country. I didn't feel more connected to some sweet souls. I just felt like a tired mama who did everything she could to make sure her babe was happy and content.
And then that experience reminded me of how tired I am of it all. See, this is not the first time my husband and I have lived abroad (can you call it living abroad when you live in Canada?). And it's also not our first time in a new city, in fact we've lived in a lot of places. I have lived in 7 cities in my life and I grew up in the same very small town for 13 of those years. And you know what, you get tired. It's all very exciting and wonderful. And it's tiring too. It's hard to put yourself out there time after time to meet people, connect, question, laugh, ponder, extend. I have kind of spent my own social capital. I have no more dollars. And any social energy I have, I spend it on my kid. I don't mean to. I told myself I'd always have my own life, my own things. But by the time there is any time for me, I am done. Some how I have to muster enough energy to build a small community in this place that feels so lovely and so odd at one time.
It's cute because the Montrealers we've met, or come to think of it the Toronoto-ers (?) too, refer to going out to the country for x amount of time (weekend, day, etc). I don't think urbanites really do this in the US. Sure, we go to the country but we call it by another name, a more specific destination--town, campsite, etc. So we were invited for a weekend in the country. We made our way out to this idyllic spot with babe in tow. We were one of may be 10 adults and one other kiddo. The old weekend in a house of strangers would mean staying up late, playing games, having drinks. The new time in a house of strangers meant following every move your baby makes in a very unbaby friendly home (the host admitted she knew nothing about baby proofing and I confessed I knew nothing about it either until my babe moved around and showed me what to be concerned with. I don't blame her). And then there's feeding your baby, bathing your babe and of course the (dreaded) napping and sleeping. I left the weekend not feeling like I knew the 8 other adults any better. It was really sad for me. I didn't feel refreshed after it seems one should from time in the country. I didn't feel more connected to some sweet souls. I just felt like a tired mama who did everything she could to make sure her babe was happy and content.
And then that experience reminded me of how tired I am of it all. See, this is not the first time my husband and I have lived abroad (can you call it living abroad when you live in Canada?). And it's also not our first time in a new city, in fact we've lived in a lot of places. I have lived in 7 cities in my life and I grew up in the same very small town for 13 of those years. And you know what, you get tired. It's all very exciting and wonderful. And it's tiring too. It's hard to put yourself out there time after time to meet people, connect, question, laugh, ponder, extend. I have kind of spent my own social capital. I have no more dollars. And any social energy I have, I spend it on my kid. I don't mean to. I told myself I'd always have my own life, my own things. But by the time there is any time for me, I am done. Some how I have to muster enough energy to build a small community in this place that feels so lovely and so odd at one time.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
My future, one day: Dealing with back talk
My friend posted on FB to get advice on how to deal with back talk. Her example:
Her: Don't put your shoes on the counter, that's where we put our food.
Response: You put your food on plates and cutting boards that our on the counter.
Asked again...tantrum.
Some great ideas for how to deal:
-What works for my "no gray area" child. Stop giving a reason for reasonable requests. You don't have to justify everything. State what is undesirable and then state what you want her to do. "Don't put your shoes on the counter; put your shoes on the floor by the sliding glass door." And then, thanks (immediate and recognize when / if she remembers next time). Note I removed "dirty" since that gives her the opportunity to argue that the shoes are clean.
-Another thing that worked for mine at that age was "gamifying" (OK, bribing him) to avoid arguments. If he did as told without questioning / arguing / negotiating, he got to put a marble into a jar. (That was important. He liked picking which marble and putting it in the jar so that was part of it.) When the jar was full we did a predetermined fun activity (no "stuff"). Started with a TINY jar and a TINY reward - but still enough to pique his interest. Then worked up to bigger jars and corresponding bigger rewards. After a while there was an option for me to remove marbles but found that didn't work well. If there were no marbles then he had "nothing to lose" and he exploited that. He was allowed to ask "why" after the task was done and the marble was in the jar. But beyond any reward system the key was (and still is): you HAVE to state clearly what you WANT them to do, not just the "don't". Seriously, he will be 18 in 18 days and if I tell him "Stop doing X" there are still situations when he cannot figure out what he is supposed to do instead, because that's how he's wired. Want to guess how tough this has been to deal with at school, other parents, and random strangers? Inhale. Exhale. Drink beer. Hugs.
-My response would have been, "The only acceptable response to that is yes ma'am while you move your shoes. That's warning #1." She gets 2 warnings and on the 3rd offense gets a consequence. BUT the next time you ask her to do something and does not talk back- tell her you noticed she didn't argue or talk back and that you are proud of her for acting like such a big girl.
-Ok, I am clearly in the minority here, and I hesitate to respond since we obviously have different situations, but if she is not responding with sass, why not actually respond to her questioning the sense of it? If she's really thinking it through, isn't that a good thing (a sign of intelligence)? With Owen we find that if we respond with a logical answer (and some humor if possible) instead of being authoritarian, then we keep it a conversation instead of an argument. I believe that you can pick your battles; you don't have to fight them all to show you are in charge.
- I have a very clear memory of getting in serious trouble for talking back, probably around this age, and genuinely not understanding what I was doing wrong. I thought I was having a conversation/ answering a question/ etc. I have no idea if this is what LG is thinking or not. So I would also tend toward just responding with "Please do what I asked. If you really want to talk about how germs work, we can do that later." Or something like that. Hugs. Parenting = not for the faint of heart, and you are fabulous at it!
Her: Don't put your shoes on the counter, that's where we put our food.
Response: You put your food on plates and cutting boards that our on the counter.
Asked again...tantrum.
Some great ideas for how to deal:
-What works for my "no gray area" child. Stop giving a reason for reasonable requests. You don't have to justify everything. State what is undesirable and then state what you want her to do. "Don't put your shoes on the counter; put your shoes on the floor by the sliding glass door." And then, thanks (immediate and recognize when / if she remembers next time). Note I removed "dirty" since that gives her the opportunity to argue that the shoes are clean.
-Another thing that worked for mine at that age was "gamifying" (OK, bribing him) to avoid arguments. If he did as told without questioning / arguing / negotiating, he got to put a marble into a jar. (That was important. He liked picking which marble and putting it in the jar so that was part of it.) When the jar was full we did a predetermined fun activity (no "stuff"). Started with a TINY jar and a TINY reward - but still enough to pique his interest. Then worked up to bigger jars and corresponding bigger rewards. After a while there was an option for me to remove marbles but found that didn't work well. If there were no marbles then he had "nothing to lose" and he exploited that. He was allowed to ask "why" after the task was done and the marble was in the jar. But beyond any reward system the key was (and still is): you HAVE to state clearly what you WANT them to do, not just the "don't". Seriously, he will be 18 in 18 days and if I tell him "Stop doing X" there are still situations when he cannot figure out what he is supposed to do instead, because that's how he's wired. Want to guess how tough this has been to deal with at school, other parents, and random strangers? Inhale. Exhale. Drink beer. Hugs.
-My response would have been, "The only acceptable response to that is yes ma'am while you move your shoes. That's warning #1." She gets 2 warnings and on the 3rd offense gets a consequence. BUT the next time you ask her to do something and does not talk back- tell her you noticed she didn't argue or talk back and that you are proud of her for acting like such a big girl.
-Ok, I am clearly in the minority here, and I hesitate to respond since we obviously have different situations, but if she is not responding with sass, why not actually respond to her questioning the sense of it? If she's really thinking it through, isn't that a good thing (a sign of intelligence)? With Owen we find that if we respond with a logical answer (and some humor if possible) instead of being authoritarian, then we keep it a conversation instead of an argument. I believe that you can pick your battles; you don't have to fight them all to show you are in charge.
- I have a very clear memory of getting in serious trouble for talking back, probably around this age, and genuinely not understanding what I was doing wrong. I thought I was having a conversation/ answering a question/ etc. I have no idea if this is what LG is thinking or not. So I would also tend toward just responding with "Please do what I asked. If you really want to talk about how germs work, we can do that later." Or something like that. Hugs. Parenting = not for the faint of heart, and you are fabulous at it!
Monday, August 26, 2013
Food please
What I found you need to feed your baby solid foods:
-a hand immersion blender. Don't invest in the bulky food processor, I found this pretty much does the job.
-glass pyrex storage dishes. food can go straight from the fridge to microwave without having to transfer into another dish.
-a fork. yep. for mashing stuff.
-a nice kid spoon. one that has a long end that you can hold on to but enough room for your babe's hand too.
-bibs. the kind that wipe off. don't get the velcro ones, my little guy figured out how to take them off awhile ago.
-tolerance for a big mess. as they get older they just want to explore, throw, squish, slide, shove all the food. get ready--it's fun and messy.
-a hand immersion blender. Don't invest in the bulky food processor, I found this pretty much does the job.
-glass pyrex storage dishes. food can go straight from the fridge to microwave without having to transfer into another dish.
-a fork. yep. for mashing stuff.
-a nice kid spoon. one that has a long end that you can hold on to but enough room for your babe's hand too.
-bibs. the kind that wipe off. don't get the velcro ones, my little guy figured out how to take them off awhile ago.
-tolerance for a big mess. as they get older they just want to explore, throw, squish, slide, shove all the food. get ready--it's fun and messy.
Why I am glad to be a parent in Canada
I've been thinking about how fortunate my husband and I are to have moved to Canada just before we had our baby. Yes, it is thousands of miles from all of my family and the good majority of my friends but there are a lot of good things about being in Canada and also in Montreal.
1. Parental leave. This benefits me in a few ways. First, my husband has access to it all since I haven't worked a day in Canada. In his work, he doesn't get the time off really, but it alleviates some of the major projects. There were several weeks in there, when sleep was really bad, that his schedule was very flexible and it was really helpful. Second, this benefits me because other mamas have off to. Not just a few weeks or even months, they have a year off. They need to do something to fill that time so they're looking for other fellow mamas. Lucky for me I have the cutest little ice breaker.
2. Health care. I don't even want to think about how much it would've costs for all of our baby's health care needs. Many days in the NICU and many tests. And the tests are continuing and may continue. And it seems like the healthcare is good quality so that isn't compromised.
3. Linked to both of these things is the fact that I am here in Canada as a stay at home mom or I would be on maternal leave if I worked in Canada before the baby arrived. For me this is particularly good because I don't produce much milk when I pump. I need my babe there to do the work. Had I been in the states, I would've had to go back to work and more than likely use formula. And really what my baby needed was the best stuff.
4. Once my French improves I will feel better about living here but I know that it will be such a wonderful thing for my babe to be bilingual. It's so cool to be in a place where you can easily speak in English or French, in most parts of the city. Using that part of his brain at such a young age will hopefully help him learn other languages later in life too.
5. The countless events and things to do in Montreal, especially in the summer. I have taken advantage of the local wading pool a ton of times this summer. Also the myriad of parks in my neighborhood. The festivals, the library hours, free museum activities, discounted kid sessions....the things to do are actually countless, it's an amazing place for a kid!
More to come....
1. Parental leave. This benefits me in a few ways. First, my husband has access to it all since I haven't worked a day in Canada. In his work, he doesn't get the time off really, but it alleviates some of the major projects. There were several weeks in there, when sleep was really bad, that his schedule was very flexible and it was really helpful. Second, this benefits me because other mamas have off to. Not just a few weeks or even months, they have a year off. They need to do something to fill that time so they're looking for other fellow mamas. Lucky for me I have the cutest little ice breaker.
2. Health care. I don't even want to think about how much it would've costs for all of our baby's health care needs. Many days in the NICU and many tests. And the tests are continuing and may continue. And it seems like the healthcare is good quality so that isn't compromised.
3. Linked to both of these things is the fact that I am here in Canada as a stay at home mom or I would be on maternal leave if I worked in Canada before the baby arrived. For me this is particularly good because I don't produce much milk when I pump. I need my babe there to do the work. Had I been in the states, I would've had to go back to work and more than likely use formula. And really what my baby needed was the best stuff.
4. Once my French improves I will feel better about living here but I know that it will be such a wonderful thing for my babe to be bilingual. It's so cool to be in a place where you can easily speak in English or French, in most parts of the city. Using that part of his brain at such a young age will hopefully help him learn other languages later in life too.
5. The countless events and things to do in Montreal, especially in the summer. I have taken advantage of the local wading pool a ton of times this summer. Also the myriad of parks in my neighborhood. The festivals, the library hours, free museum activities, discounted kid sessions....the things to do are actually countless, it's an amazing place for a kid!
More to come....
Friday, August 9, 2013
Baby logs, Type 3: Sleep teaching
We were desperate for our baby's sleep and our own that we resorted to sleep teaching/training/crying it out. It seemed all of the parents we talked to said this is what you had to do. We needed to do something. I said to myself that I couldn't have more kids if i'd have to sleep teach them, I hated it that much. Seriously, I think I even posted here that I'd rather give birth again. Hearing your baby cry is the worst. As mothers, I suppose (my husband could handle it much better than me). You just have this biological tick and it eats away at you. I hated it. But I have to say we have an especially stubborn baby. Parents on the local listserve are like 'oh my baby cried 20 mins the first night, 10 the second and 3 the next and done.' Ha! Not mine (and I know bc I kept a log). He cried some for about 12 days (my log is 17 days!). 12 days of agony. But it did work. He did get the hang of sleep and became a good sleeper. Until we traveled, then it all goes to shit. Luckily, you (usually) don't start at square one bc they remember how to soothe and sleep a bit.
Now remember back to that second log I took of my kid's shitty sleep, well it had some value. I was able to see a pattern of when he typically woke to be fed or soothed which helped in the sleep training. According to the school we used, you'd go in 1 hour before he typically started to cry to try to get to him before he cried and hopefully avert the crying.
There was one fateful night where I woke up to feed him (yes I set my alarm for 3 different times to wake in the night) and I peed. While peeing he woke up. And so it goes, you can't go in to him when he cries or it sends mixed signals. So I had to wait til he stopped crying...pretty sure it was an hour and 40 mins. I am sad to even admit that here. that we let him cry that long. who ever is reading this, please note how desperate we were. our baby would not sleep, for anything. It was effecting our parenting, our marriage, our baby, our life.
Sleep Teaching started on the first of the month.
We logged:
Bed time
1st check in to try to calm
2nd check in to try to calm
Etc
(note we stopped going into calm him at some point bc it just made him that much more upset that it wasn't me and my husband wouldn't pick him up, we felt it was making it worse)
Total time cried til sleep
Wake up time and the time he cried to fell back asleep
Times went in to Dream feed
We kept a similar log with daily naps (every 2 hours at his age).
For memory's sake, the first night he cried 46 mins before falling asleep. He woke 3 times in the night.
2nd night he cried 40 mins. 3rd night, he fell right asleep. We also did naps at the same time, as the book recommended. Sometimes this was harder bc it was the middle of the day.
In the heart of the training you're supposed to do it in 12 hour chunks for night sleep and 1 hour for naps. Any time they wake in this chunk, they need to soothe and go back to sleep. This was the worst part. My baby sleeps 35-40 min naps. And he sleeps 10.5 hour sleep cycles. May be this is bc I am wuss and go and get my baby and should just let him cry but after the heart of the training where he was getting so much more sleep, I didn't think it was worth it. And that made me feel much better.
Wishing all babies happy, long nights of sweet sleep. And their parents too.
Now remember back to that second log I took of my kid's shitty sleep, well it had some value. I was able to see a pattern of when he typically woke to be fed or soothed which helped in the sleep training. According to the school we used, you'd go in 1 hour before he typically started to cry to try to get to him before he cried and hopefully avert the crying.
There was one fateful night where I woke up to feed him (yes I set my alarm for 3 different times to wake in the night) and I peed. While peeing he woke up. And so it goes, you can't go in to him when he cries or it sends mixed signals. So I had to wait til he stopped crying...pretty sure it was an hour and 40 mins. I am sad to even admit that here. that we let him cry that long. who ever is reading this, please note how desperate we were. our baby would not sleep, for anything. It was effecting our parenting, our marriage, our baby, our life.
Sleep Teaching started on the first of the month.
We logged:
Bed time
1st check in to try to calm
2nd check in to try to calm
Etc
(note we stopped going into calm him at some point bc it just made him that much more upset that it wasn't me and my husband wouldn't pick him up, we felt it was making it worse)
Total time cried til sleep
Wake up time and the time he cried to fell back asleep
Times went in to Dream feed
We kept a similar log with daily naps (every 2 hours at his age).
For memory's sake, the first night he cried 46 mins before falling asleep. He woke 3 times in the night.
2nd night he cried 40 mins. 3rd night, he fell right asleep. We also did naps at the same time, as the book recommended. Sometimes this was harder bc it was the middle of the day.
In the heart of the training you're supposed to do it in 12 hour chunks for night sleep and 1 hour for naps. Any time they wake in this chunk, they need to soothe and go back to sleep. This was the worst part. My baby sleeps 35-40 min naps. And he sleeps 10.5 hour sleep cycles. May be this is bc I am wuss and go and get my baby and should just let him cry but after the heart of the training where he was getting so much more sleep, I didn't think it was worth it. And that made me feel much better.
Wishing all babies happy, long nights of sweet sleep. And their parents too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)