If you have your child in day care, every so often you get a pang of guilt. Usually it comes most often on the days you leave him and he wails like you've betrayed some sacred trust, which happens occasionally, or on the days when you don't really have that much work to do and are just hoping to go back to bed for a few hours or find something good on TV.
Most of the time, though, he's in day care because you do in fact have to get some work done, to keep him in diapers and Pirate's Booty snack food and so forth. But sometimes there's that guilt -- I'm letting virtual strangers take care of my baby! These are 9 hours of his life I won't be spending with him!
Recently Jack moved to the "Shooting Star" class at his day care, which I'm very pleased with since I believe his previous one was Pufferbills or somesuch, and I don't even know exactly what that is. I think I'd rather my son be a shooting star than some sort of poor man's version of a penguin.
Anyway, in his new room they've started providing daily sheets at the end of the day which recap his day's activities. We get to find out if he ate his meals well, fantastic, or was not hungry; if he was sad, happy, or energetic (we've yet to get a sad); and if his sleep was "good" or "restless."
At the bottom is a space that reads "The things I did today were:" with a bunch of lines to fill in. And I don't mind saying, I absolutely live for these things. They totally thrill me and break my heart at the same time, in a good way.
7-17: "The things I did today were: climbed slide, ran, jumped, danced, sat, listened to a story, put together a puzzle, and looked at the frog." (There's a frog in an aquarium type thing in their room.)
7-26: "The things I did today were: played with puzzles, pop beads, string beads, pails and shovels, and stacking toys."
7-28: "The things I did today were: playing in the sand table, stringing wooden beads, and playing with the legos. We had a fire drill and it made a very loud noise - it was scary but I was very brave."
I know his teachers write these things; obviously I know that. But still, I just see him there with the fire drill, with an alarmed look on his face, yet maintaining a certain security in the knowledge that it would be okay. Being brave. And singing and dancing, and playing with Legos, and listening to stories.
All stuff we do with him, the four days a week he's not in day care, but all stuff it makes me happy that he's doing there. I read these daily sheets and it's like I'm right there with him.
Which I guess kind of explains this blog, too.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Toys, Puzzles, and Words
Jack is taking an interest, at last, in his toys. So many things he's had for six months - a pirate ship, for example, and various little toy cars and trains - he typically ignored, but no longer. Now he can sit with his pirate ship for 20 minutes, assembling the pieces of the mast, taking them apart, and assembling them again. He runs the trains across furniture, our legs, and Charlie's back (Charlie accepts it stoically, which is nice), saying "Wheeeeeeeee!" and "Choo-choo!" He finds a spot to sit -- recently on the slightly raised threshold between the kitchen and the sun roon -- and sits, then rolling his engines forward as far as they can go. He smiles and says "Wooooooooooooo!"
Then there are puzzles. It used to be that he would just spend time carrying the pieces around, or wrecking it as I assembled it. Now we assemble it together, and he sits patiently as I help him position pieces correctly, waiting to wreck it only AFTER I've completed it. He picks up pieces -- like the two halves of the penguin -- and says "Pengwin!" and then places them in the general vicinity of where they're supposed to go. Tonight he spent several minutes trying to properly put the polar bear head in place; it seems like only yesterday he was running around the house with it saying "Puh-bll"and considering throwing it into the bathtub or down the back stairs.
This brings us to words, and the way his mother beams with pride over what our doctor told us yesterday at his 18-month (sigh...) appointment. "He's very advanced verbally." (Pause to beam with pride myself.) And it's true; Jack probably knows even more words than he uses, or at least, he connects a lot of words with things, and knows a lot more words that he might not necessarily associate with things -- but he's getting there. In the morning, he wants cereal, banana, juice. He likes "booty," which, er, is a "healthy" snack food, Pirate's Booty, which is basically popcorn (um, but healthy). He wants "My milk," and can say please ("Peas!") and thank you ("Atchoo!"). He'll repeat things back to us, immediately, which has us watching our language more than ever. In the bath tonight he asked for his duck ("My duck!"), noticed the faucet protector ("Big duck!"), and requested I get his seagull out of the net hanging on the shower wall ("Seagull!"). So, yeah, he knows a lot of words, even if he doesn't always pronounce them correctly. If I'm not careful, I might slip into his language on occasion myself.
Like saying "nigh-nigh, and atchoo for reading."
Then there are puzzles. It used to be that he would just spend time carrying the pieces around, or wrecking it as I assembled it. Now we assemble it together, and he sits patiently as I help him position pieces correctly, waiting to wreck it only AFTER I've completed it. He picks up pieces -- like the two halves of the penguin -- and says "Pengwin!" and then places them in the general vicinity of where they're supposed to go. Tonight he spent several minutes trying to properly put the polar bear head in place; it seems like only yesterday he was running around the house with it saying "Puh-bll"and considering throwing it into the bathtub or down the back stairs.
This brings us to words, and the way his mother beams with pride over what our doctor told us yesterday at his 18-month (sigh...) appointment. "He's very advanced verbally." (Pause to beam with pride myself.) And it's true; Jack probably knows even more words than he uses, or at least, he connects a lot of words with things, and knows a lot more words that he might not necessarily associate with things -- but he's getting there. In the morning, he wants cereal, banana, juice. He likes "booty," which, er, is a "healthy" snack food, Pirate's Booty, which is basically popcorn (um, but healthy). He wants "My milk," and can say please ("Peas!") and thank you ("Atchoo!"). He'll repeat things back to us, immediately, which has us watching our language more than ever. In the bath tonight he asked for his duck ("My duck!"), noticed the faucet protector ("Big duck!"), and requested I get his seagull out of the net hanging on the shower wall ("Seagull!"). So, yeah, he knows a lot of words, even if he doesn't always pronounce them correctly. If I'm not careful, I might slip into his language on occasion myself.
Like saying "nigh-nigh, and atchoo for reading."
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Ready For Bed
Tonight I was putting Jack to bed, sitting in the chair with him on my lap, and we were reading "I Spy," this 30-year-old, falling apart hardcover edition that we'd had when we were kids. On each page are pictures of common objects and things - a door, a house, a car, an apple, a rabbit, etc. And he was into it, maybe as into it as any other book I've read to him, which is probably only partly due to it being a good children's book, and partly due to him being 18 months old, and getting smarter, and more interested, and having more of an attention span.
Anyway, at some point I thought it was getting near that time, and so I put the book aside, and was going to turn out the light and rock him a bit, and instead he got off my lap, walked the two steps to the shelf where I'd put the book, grabbed it, and brought it back to me. And I said, well, all righty then. Guess we'll read a little bit more.
It got me thinking that sometimes I'm a little impatient with others; other adults, other kids, Jack. My mind moves a little too quickly at times, and sometimes I've left one thought behind and moved onto the next one without even realizing that I glossed right over the previous one that's still important to somebody else. I thought it was time for Jack to sleep, I thought he'd had enough of that book - and I was wrong. He had a few more minutes, and he hadn't had enough of "I Spy."
Sometimes, like tonight, I see Jack running around, which he's doing, hugging his Mommy's legs, and mine, patting Charlie ("Teddy!"), drinking his water (his, not Charlie's), and playing with his toys. And I want those moments to last forever. I don't want them to end. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. They're just too beautiful.
Of course, there are times when he wants to stay up and it really IS time for bed, but there's a happy medium there between making sure he doesn't stay up too late, and putting him to bed too early. And the next time my mind is racing about to the next moment rather than the moment we're in, I hope I recognize it, and take a step back. Him going to bed five minutes later isn't the worst thing in the world. Reading an extra five minutes, sometimes, is one of the best.
We read the book for about 5 more minutes, me pointing out different pictures, him recognizing some of them (train! boat! big car!), me being patient. And then I put the book aside, turned out the light, and he put his head on my chest. And I sang him froggie went a' courting or somesuch and put him to bed. And not much later, he went to sleep, because he was ready.
Anyway, at some point I thought it was getting near that time, and so I put the book aside, and was going to turn out the light and rock him a bit, and instead he got off my lap, walked the two steps to the shelf where I'd put the book, grabbed it, and brought it back to me. And I said, well, all righty then. Guess we'll read a little bit more.
It got me thinking that sometimes I'm a little impatient with others; other adults, other kids, Jack. My mind moves a little too quickly at times, and sometimes I've left one thought behind and moved onto the next one without even realizing that I glossed right over the previous one that's still important to somebody else. I thought it was time for Jack to sleep, I thought he'd had enough of that book - and I was wrong. He had a few more minutes, and he hadn't had enough of "I Spy."
Sometimes, like tonight, I see Jack running around, which he's doing, hugging his Mommy's legs, and mine, patting Charlie ("Teddy!"), drinking his water (his, not Charlie's), and playing with his toys. And I want those moments to last forever. I don't want them to end. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. They're just too beautiful.
Of course, there are times when he wants to stay up and it really IS time for bed, but there's a happy medium there between making sure he doesn't stay up too late, and putting him to bed too early. And the next time my mind is racing about to the next moment rather than the moment we're in, I hope I recognize it, and take a step back. Him going to bed five minutes later isn't the worst thing in the world. Reading an extra five minutes, sometimes, is one of the best.
We read the book for about 5 more minutes, me pointing out different pictures, him recognizing some of them (train! boat! big car!), me being patient. And then I put the book aside, turned out the light, and he put his head on my chest. And I sang him froggie went a' courting or somesuch and put him to bed. And not much later, he went to sleep, because he was ready.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Sit Game, Airplanes, and Haircuts: How Jack Spent His Summer Vacation
Sometimes there's just too much to remember, too much to write about, to cover it all. This is why blogs should be updated daily, but that's hard to do on vacation. So I'm going to start with some of the best memories from our summer vacation to the East Coast, and sprinkle in some of the worst...
- In Vermont, visiting Nana and Baba Richardson (the name Jack's Irish cousins came up with for my parents), Robin and Michael McArdle (sister and her husband), and their four lovely children, Jack seemed fascinated by his older cousins - 11-year-old Laura, 9-year-old Niamh, and 4 1/2-year-old twins Abbey and Mikey. He followed Abbey around, got horsie rides on Laura's knee, let Niamh carry him around like a sack of flour, and had the occasional tense moment battling for toys with Mikey, who wasn't used to there being another boy around hogging some of the attention.
Jack taught everyone in the McArdle family what they called The Sit Game, which - as I've mentioned in a previous blog - basically involves Jack telling everyone where to sit, then crossing them up by telling them to sit elsewhere, or commandeering their seat for himself and directing them to another chair, and then repeating it for the next, oh, indefinite amount of time. When Emily and I played golf with my Dad, Jack played The Sit Game with Robin, my Mom, and whatever kids were around. The game was made particularly entertaining by the fact that two of the chairs on the porch were kid sized, and not at all meant for adults; that didn't matter to Jack. "Sit," he'd say. "Sit." And so everyone did, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Everyone seemed to enjoy this game a lot, as did Jack, since they played it basically every day.
- In New York, visiting Emily's sister Cathy, husband Ian, and their three kids - Reanna, 6, and Stacey and Lyndsay, 4 - as well as Mom Pat and Papa Earl (their name for him), Jack didn't play much of The Sit Game. That's because he was captivated by playing on their deck and paved driveway, which had the attraction of being under the daily route of a lot of airplanes from nearby Westchester County Airport. Jack would hear a plane and stop, look up, point, and say "Airplane!" This did not get old for him, or for us really, because it was so damn cute.
- The New Yorkers gave Jack a large, riding Thomas the Tank Engine toy, which he wheeled around the driveway on, or got pushed around on by (mostly) Reanna. They also had a little car, presumably Reanna's, which he got a great kick out of. So basically when he wasn't standing and pointing up at the sky, he was sitting and wheeling around saying "Car. Car. Car," or pushing the buttons on the train and saying "Choo-Choo!" Good stuff.
- No vacation is complete without minidramas, and there were certainly several on this one. For one, Reanna wanted Jack to sleep in his crib in her room, and we had no problem with that, and so he did. This went well on some nights and not so well on others, like the one where he woke up and was, evidently, terribly scared. Emily and I (sleeping in the finished basement, two floors from where Jack was wailing) were awakened in the night by Cathy holding Jack, his eyes like saucers, staring at us through the darkened room. Not sure whether he'd be okay to go back upstairs to his crib or needed to sleep down there with us, we tried to ask him what he wanted. After a long silence, a wretched, miserable, "Momm-MEEEE...." escaped his lips, so we brought the crib downstairs and that's how the night worked out. Other nights he either slept through or Cathy was able to get him back to sleep, while Reanna evidently slept right through all of it. Or at least most of it.
- Then there was the incident which began with The Phone Call (Robin calling from Vermont to say that one of her children had picked up lice in Ireland the previous week), followed by The Panic (finding a bug in Jack's hair), followed by The Haircut (Jack going from looking like a member of The Beatles to looking like River Phoenix in Stand By Me - Buzzcuts 'R' Us, thank you again Aunt Cathy). Followed by the frequent shampoos and baths, which Jack had previously enjoyed but now wailed and cried all the way through, being as he didn't really get to play during them - he just had us searching through his head. At the moment we appear to be all lice-free, but we're still making daily checks. That wasn't the funnest.
- Back to the happier moments, which included a trip to Billings Farm in Vermont (we saw lots of cow butts and Jack got very close to a lamb and then a chicken which clawed at its cage and either hurt him or at least scared him, judging by his reaction); Jack drawing pictures with Niamh (his signature style is one we refer to as "diagonal scrawl"); Jack playing for hours with the three girls at Cathy's, including puzzles, markers, and a thrilling puppet show put on by Reanna; and Jack meeting Emily's friend Karen's 8-month old daughter (he got jealous when she held him) and Sue and Dave's two-year-old daughter Emma (they played in a toy house in the back yard, both sitting at the little table as though having breakfast together). Jack laughing when Michael tickled him, happily chasing my parents' dog Molly around the house, and playing tee-ball at Cathy's. And I have to add, figuring it out so quickly that he could set the tee up, put the ball on it, and then whirl around saying "Bat!" and careening off to find the bat. That's m'boy. Good times.
There's one particular moment, though, that I won't forget, or at least I hope I won't. Jack and Abbey found their way into my parents' room, and climbed up onto their bed. Standing on it, they could see my Mom's wall mirror across the room, and Abbey began running around and jumping up and down. (Mom and Dad, if your sheets were a bit rumpled one night last week, that's why.) Jack, watching her, did the same. And then they were both jumping up and down, watching each other, watching the mirror, and running in circles. And laughing and laughing. And I just sat there marveling, laughing, and sorry the camera was downstairs.
Moments like that are what vacations should be all about, and fortunately, sometimes they are.
- In Vermont, visiting Nana and Baba Richardson (the name Jack's Irish cousins came up with for my parents), Robin and Michael McArdle (sister and her husband), and their four lovely children, Jack seemed fascinated by his older cousins - 11-year-old Laura, 9-year-old Niamh, and 4 1/2-year-old twins Abbey and Mikey. He followed Abbey around, got horsie rides on Laura's knee, let Niamh carry him around like a sack of flour, and had the occasional tense moment battling for toys with Mikey, who wasn't used to there being another boy around hogging some of the attention.
Jack taught everyone in the McArdle family what they called The Sit Game, which - as I've mentioned in a previous blog - basically involves Jack telling everyone where to sit, then crossing them up by telling them to sit elsewhere, or commandeering their seat for himself and directing them to another chair, and then repeating it for the next, oh, indefinite amount of time. When Emily and I played golf with my Dad, Jack played The Sit Game with Robin, my Mom, and whatever kids were around. The game was made particularly entertaining by the fact that two of the chairs on the porch were kid sized, and not at all meant for adults; that didn't matter to Jack. "Sit," he'd say. "Sit." And so everyone did, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Everyone seemed to enjoy this game a lot, as did Jack, since they played it basically every day.
- In New York, visiting Emily's sister Cathy, husband Ian, and their three kids - Reanna, 6, and Stacey and Lyndsay, 4 - as well as Mom Pat and Papa Earl (their name for him), Jack didn't play much of The Sit Game. That's because he was captivated by playing on their deck and paved driveway, which had the attraction of being under the daily route of a lot of airplanes from nearby Westchester County Airport. Jack would hear a plane and stop, look up, point, and say "Airplane!" This did not get old for him, or for us really, because it was so damn cute.
- The New Yorkers gave Jack a large, riding Thomas the Tank Engine toy, which he wheeled around the driveway on, or got pushed around on by (mostly) Reanna. They also had a little car, presumably Reanna's, which he got a great kick out of. So basically when he wasn't standing and pointing up at the sky, he was sitting and wheeling around saying "Car. Car. Car," or pushing the buttons on the train and saying "Choo-Choo!" Good stuff.
- No vacation is complete without minidramas, and there were certainly several on this one. For one, Reanna wanted Jack to sleep in his crib in her room, and we had no problem with that, and so he did. This went well on some nights and not so well on others, like the one where he woke up and was, evidently, terribly scared. Emily and I (sleeping in the finished basement, two floors from where Jack was wailing) were awakened in the night by Cathy holding Jack, his eyes like saucers, staring at us through the darkened room. Not sure whether he'd be okay to go back upstairs to his crib or needed to sleep down there with us, we tried to ask him what he wanted. After a long silence, a wretched, miserable, "Momm-MEEEE...." escaped his lips, so we brought the crib downstairs and that's how the night worked out. Other nights he either slept through or Cathy was able to get him back to sleep, while Reanna evidently slept right through all of it. Or at least most of it.
- Then there was the incident which began with The Phone Call (Robin calling from Vermont to say that one of her children had picked up lice in Ireland the previous week), followed by The Panic (finding a bug in Jack's hair), followed by The Haircut (Jack going from looking like a member of The Beatles to looking like River Phoenix in Stand By Me - Buzzcuts 'R' Us, thank you again Aunt Cathy). Followed by the frequent shampoos and baths, which Jack had previously enjoyed but now wailed and cried all the way through, being as he didn't really get to play during them - he just had us searching through his head. At the moment we appear to be all lice-free, but we're still making daily checks. That wasn't the funnest.
- Back to the happier moments, which included a trip to Billings Farm in Vermont (we saw lots of cow butts and Jack got very close to a lamb and then a chicken which clawed at its cage and either hurt him or at least scared him, judging by his reaction); Jack drawing pictures with Niamh (his signature style is one we refer to as "diagonal scrawl"); Jack playing for hours with the three girls at Cathy's, including puzzles, markers, and a thrilling puppet show put on by Reanna; and Jack meeting Emily's friend Karen's 8-month old daughter (he got jealous when she held him) and Sue and Dave's two-year-old daughter Emma (they played in a toy house in the back yard, both sitting at the little table as though having breakfast together). Jack laughing when Michael tickled him, happily chasing my parents' dog Molly around the house, and playing tee-ball at Cathy's. And I have to add, figuring it out so quickly that he could set the tee up, put the ball on it, and then whirl around saying "Bat!" and careening off to find the bat. That's m'boy. Good times.
There's one particular moment, though, that I won't forget, or at least I hope I won't. Jack and Abbey found their way into my parents' room, and climbed up onto their bed. Standing on it, they could see my Mom's wall mirror across the room, and Abbey began running around and jumping up and down. (Mom and Dad, if your sheets were a bit rumpled one night last week, that's why.) Jack, watching her, did the same. And then they were both jumping up and down, watching each other, watching the mirror, and running in circles. And laughing and laughing. And I just sat there marveling, laughing, and sorry the camera was downstairs.
Moments like that are what vacations should be all about, and fortunately, sometimes they are.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Airplane!
Jack's summer vacation began on an airplane, ended on an airplane, and in between there were a lot of airplanes. Appropriately, all of us are kind of jet-lagged, so I'm going to have to write this blog tomorrow. G'night.
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