nammamane

All of us at the Kolari-Bisineer household would like to invite you over.
The Event: Nothing Special
Time: Anyday, Anytime
There is no need to RSVP. Please just come on over. Please …

If I do not sound desperate yet, let me tell you very clearly that I am extremely desperate to have you over. Please come so we can all have a good time I can get a break from my little monster.
I will cook for you get you pizza and you can enjoy in the backyard play with my dogs.

Just in case your imagination is running wild, let me reassure you that you won’t notice a thing when you come over….casue you will make ALL the difference. There is nothing wrong with our household, or I would like to think so. It is only that the latest member of our family is in love with “people”. All of a sudden she is terribly in love with people.
Savi is just a social butterfly. She needs people. She does prefer talkers though. Thanks to my cousin’s wedding we attended the past weekend, we have affirmed all of these facts. She is happiest left alone as long as she has people to watch. You don’t have to talk to her …she will talk with you as long as you are talking.

So do come home. Life is just more fun for everyone that way and perhaps you will get a break from your cooking for a day!

This is the story…

The wonderful wonderful homebased daycare provider we have for Savi is quitting in September. She says she is “sick of dirty diapers” and is “done with babies”. I really appreciate that she is quitting though, since that is what is best for both her and us. She has given us plently of notice too, which is just wonderful. “I can shop around and find the best daycare for my daughter”, I thought. Little did I remember that waitlists in the best places run a year and a half at least, at a very minimum! (Please do remember that if you are in the business of making babies ;))

Thankfully, we have a spot in one pretty good daycare. Clean place, caring teachers and all that. Savi will be going into the 12 - 18 months room (infant room 2), where kids are expected to “feed themselves”. No bottles, just sippy cups. The kids preferably know how to use the spoon and the fork. I got a sample menu and all the rules and policies.

From that day I learnt their “rules”, I sit Savi down on her high chair and let her “feed herself”. At 10 months, I should say she is doing amazingly well. She not only feeds herself but she will also feed the dogs and the cat ;). She loves touching her food and even manages to get about 20% (that is a lot, believe me!) of the food into her system. It is all very adorable to watch and messy to clean ;).

Ah yes, even that endless sippy cup experiment has ended somewhat with one kind of sippy cup Savi does not mind. Honestly, this sippy isn’t very different from a bottle (soft spout) …but hey, I think that will be in line with the daycare policy ;)

Savi loves all this ofcourse. Feel the food. Feed mama. Feed papa. Feed Iris. Feed Charlie. Totally totally oblivious to all the pressure the mom feels …the stress, acidity and my ulcers when I see that on some days that even 10% of the food does not make it into her….

And then I wonder …in a couple of months I see myself shoving food down Savi’s throat before I drop her off to daycare. I will be thinking about doing the same when I pick her back up…I will be obsessed with Savi and her eating. Oh, how scary! And then I think that all this is totally crazy!! She is 10 months old! Which sane person would expect a 10 month old to feed herself 3 full meals a day? Is this a policy that promotes “more independence” in a child or “less work” for a daycare teacher? And then some people try to convince me that kids will indeed eat when they sit down and see other kids doing the same. I got to see that to believe it!

I am sure I did not feed myself at one. Heck, I still have problems feeding myself on some days!

I am confused. Confused as hell! Honestly, I am concerned.

I know from friends and sisters who have had their share of “poor eaters” that thinking about the child and his/her eating can be an exhausting and draining task. Thankfully, my little one has never been that way ….but am I setting myself up for a whole lot of stress and worry in the eating department?

I could even be making too much of this. Kids these days are so smart. Sure, they can feed themselves at one! I was born a looong time ago and humans have evolved since then ….the fact that I did not feed myself at one is not even a relevant concern ;).

Okay folk, I can use some guidance on this one :) ….I could drive myself crazy thinking about this!

I’d be lying if I say that I was not worried about how our doggies would react to the new baby. The dogs had been our babies so far and I could not imagine that a new human baby would come into our lives. I had heard that whether we like it or not (of course, we would like it ;)), the new baby would soon become the center of our lives (owing mainly to the fact that the baby would be totally dependent on us for every single thing for the next so many years). The side effect? Doggies (no, not the cat) would go lower in the totem pole. And stay there. It hurt in the pits of my stomach.

While the dogs have done great with the baby since the day she was born, there was something amiss. I could not say what. In dog terms, I thought that perhaps we were all still not part of the same “pack” . Perhaps I was right….

I had heard about the benefits of having animals while bringing up babies. Kids that have grown up around pets tend to have lesser allergies (look at me..I cannot even fake an allergy ;)). They end up being more tolerant, compassionate and considerate (look at me ;)…alright, not the tolerant bit :)). It will be a while before I can test these theories with my own little one, so I paid little attention to them. As of a few months back, I really did not see how the pets+kids combo did much else besides generate more work ;)

But NOW it is a whole new story. Sorry, but I have to gloat. Life has been so much fun the past few weeks (barring the sleep deprivation, of course), I just HAVE TO talk about it.

Savi will laugh loud and happy when she sees the doggies (and the cat). She loves it when we carry her and run with the dogs in the back yard. She has figured out the she can roll all around from one dog to the other when she is on the floor of the great room. She will “talk” to them since she has figured that they “respond” to her. Charlie very often comes and sits right by her too. Iris, he crazy one, will bring her tennis ball and put it in front of her. Lucky (the cat) will come by and rub his head against her hand …and she will promptly respond by holding his ears and trying to eat him ;) … ( I know what you folk without pets are thinking ;) …NO, we folk with pets really do not let our babies EAT our animals ..so you rest easy there !)

It has been just six months since we had Savi and we are back to being a family again …sitting around together, eating together and playing together. Very soon, we will be going on walks together (will spring ever be here ???).

One happy family …just bigger but back in action!

Stranger Anxiety is hitting my little one big time. Isn’t it too early for that? What does a 6 month old understand? Yeah right!

It did not take very long for us to realize that we need to come up with a survival kit for friends and family that come home. We had to or very soon we are bound to be devoid of any social life whatsoever.

So, all ye who cometh, please arm yourself with these and you might survive the screaming horror.

1. Dogs: Bring a dog or two. Or a cat. She loves them. She will love you.

2. Your cell phone: If you cannot rent a dog, make sure you bring your cell phone (what is it with kids and phones!!). The cell phone does not guarantee you the length and quality of time that a dog/cat would, but you can get by. She loves them …the buttons on your phone. I *think* she prefers a flip phone ;)

3. A Tag Blanket: Don’t even worry about bringing a toy for her, cause it is really the tag she cares about. Tela from WMAG discovered Taggies - a toy company. Don’t go out an buy a Taggie toy either, just any thing with a tag will do.

4. Your acting skills: Barring the physical props, I have noticed that singing/dancing/acting skills go a long way. Exaggeration is the name of the game. Do learn up some nursery rhymes. She has a wide range she recognizes but the spider song is her favorite.

5. A bottle of wine: This is really for the hardworking and sleep deprived parents ;). Assuming you are a incredible hit with my little one, the dad and I will enjoy a little relaxation, while you “enjoy” our little one.

Please come home. You are welcome any time!

A coworker said that at the six month mark his daughter became a real person. All of a sudden.Just like that. He did not know what it was about 6 months, but the blob of a baby ceased to be a “blob baby” and became a “person baby”??? Whatever, I thought.

Savi is going to six months old this week and I have got to admit that I experienced a markedly different baby this weekend. For one, she talks and talks and talks. There is no stopping her. She will yell if we walk across the room and try her best to get our attention. He smile of victory is most adorable when we turn around and look at her :). She is obsessed with making a show of her physical strength …she will turn around and lunge back and forth within a split second, push and pull her toys around and protest loudly when she is not happy.

I get a feeling that these were the characteristics that my coworker was referring to when he said “person”. I also get the feeling that this is the start of something scary. Wish me luck :)

Three months before my little one was born, I bought the Baby Einstein 20 DVD set on Ebay. I was so convinced that I would need them. There was no reasoning really. Just that I had “heard” a lot about them. I did not question myself much at all.

Out pops my baby and something happens…I start to question EVERYTHING.

E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. I hear that having babies does this to us ( amongst other things ;))

And so, I questioned Einstein. Baby Einstein.
I questioned it quietly though …within the confines of my brain and my home. I did not want to engage in any debate before I had the Einstein experience myself. I watched a couple of dvds and had Savi watch them too. She just stared. She was mildly captivated. She did not coo or laugh when she watched them. It did not seem like a big deal. I was secretly relieved …;)

As the weeks pass, my little one is less and less interested in the Baby Einstein dvds. (Oh no! she is not going to be a genius ;)). She loves watching the dogs and the cat instead. She bursts into laughter when the dogs get close to her. She is all smiles when I enact her nursery rhymes ….

So, I had forgotten all Baby Einstein until I talked about it with a friend a couple of nights back. I googled all around and found a pretty thorough article on the Mothering website. It is a great read. While(unlike the author Ann) I am not set one way or the other about my kids watching TV, I do believe that my child does not yet need to watch TV since there is plenty she can learn just by interacting with us on a daily basis. I have no justifiable NEED for Baby Einstein.

So for now, I choose to shelve the Baby Einstein DVDs. But I would like to hear from folk who think their babies actually benefited in definite ways from watching these DVDs and why? I wonder if there is a way to give my little one the minimum amount of time with Einstein to make sure that she will be a “well-rounded genius” ?? Okay, that is an oxymoron …but you know what I mean ;)
Or do people out there think I should shelve these DVDs forever and forget they even existed???