I think Oliver knows now how darn cute he is. Every now and then he'll put on this huge grin and then pretend he's being bashful if you look over at him. But it's clear he totally loves the attention!
As cute as he is, he's still a handful, which I suspect will remain so until he outgrows the toddler stage. Sigh... He's still very much in the here-and-now, meaning that no matter how much we try to prep him for the next step, (getting ready to go, getting in the car, etc.) he can throw a huge fit if he's not ready to stop what he's currently doing. His main methods of communication are whining, pointing or thrusting things at you. But whether toddlers are verbal or not, their communication remains very self-centered, as in they believe that just because they ask for something, they'll get it, and get it immediately.
Oliver is still fascinated with animals, but he just likes looking at them from a safe distance. Our neighbors brought over their very docile mutt and Oliver was excited to see the dog, but the best he could do was venture close enough to give the dog a quick pet on her back before darting away. Our neighbors have chickens, but when they picked one up to bring it over to him for a closer look, he made it clear he had been fine with the fence between our yards separating them. The animal he's least hesitant to pet is a cat, which I find ironic since both sides of Oliver's family are firmly dog-lovers.
We assume while Oliver remains curious about the world, there's still so much he doesn't know about, and well, sometimes random things scare him. We were outside playing in the front yard and he freaked out when I dragged the garden hose around to water the window boxes. And he didn't like the sight of dad dragging pieces of an exercise machine we were loading in the car to bring to a friend's garage sale. Then we were at the coop, where Oliver likes to push his own shopping cart. Checking out can be difficult, because it's rare Oliver is ready to leave when I am, but suddenly he abandoned his cart and ran towards me in the check-out line. Then I saw what had terrified Oliver into actually listening to me - an employee had been walking towards him with an aisle-wide mop. Perfectly timed!
Sippy cups are one of those modern-day conveniences that make me wonder how parents of previous generations survived without. Well, kids in the "olden days" probably just spilled a bunch, broke a few glasses and then mastered the cup long before modern-day babies do. I bought every sippy cup imaginable, starting with a fancy and expensive one by Born-Free, down to the Take 'n' Toss ones, four for $3 at Target. After enjoying the mess-free ease of sippy cups, I finally decided I'd have Oliver give it another try with the Doidy cup I'd bought for him months ago. It's a small plastic cup with handles, but a key design feature is the slanted mouth, which means Oliver can more easily see the contents and not have to tip the cup back as far to drink. Oliver does pretty well when I give him water, small quantities at a time, but because he sometimes likes to stick his fingers in the cup or dump its contents, I'm not ready to have him give up the sippy cup. But it's a start.
After a really cold spring, Oliver was finally able to wear shorts a short time ago for the first time since possibly September. Clothing doesn't seem to cause sensory issues with him, so I didn't think anything of putting shorts on him. He immediately knew something was different and tried pulling his pant legs down the rest of the way and started to freak out a little when he couldn't. He did calm down when I explained he was wearing shorts and the pant legs are supposed to only come down to his knees. It's funny where that line is for little kids of what makes it alright with the world and what doesn't.
Along with shorts weather came Oliver's first skinned knee! It's disconcerting how scraped up Oliver is now, but a friend pointed out that skinned knees are like a milestone for kids. Like any toddler, he likes to move and he's trying to run, but still lacks coordination, so hence an uptick in the number of spills he takes. A particularly bad fall required his first band-aid, which he was really intrigued by.
I also think he can now recognize himself in the mirror, which a friend had told occurs around 18 months. He's always loved looking at himself in the mirror, but the image looking back at him has just been a curiosity. When he was a baby, he would try to "catch" his reflection, but now he has recognition that if he moves his body, the image in the mirror follows suit, and he gets really excited. He'll crouch down and pop back up or just dance and jump around in front of the mirror and point at himself.
We're dealing with some sleep issues with Oliver. Nap time is rarely a problem, but maybe that is the problem, because this kid loves to nap. And then bedtime comes, and even though he looks and acts tired and willingly goes to bed at his normal time, he'll toss and turn for an hour, hour and a half. We're assuming it's not another ear infection since he hasn't had a cold and isn't exhibiting any other signs except sleeplessness. Our guess is that either he has a whole bunch of teeth coming in, (he still only has five, so they've gotta come in some time) he's napping too long in the afternoon or a combination. We've been experimenting with not letting him nap too long and then trying to put him to bed 15-30 minutes later in the evening. I'm hoping it works itself out - and soon.
Kiera, Matteo, Oliver and Soren
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
20-Week Ultrasound
My 20-week ultrasound was last week and the baby is healthy. Despite my rapidly-growing stomach, I often have a feeling that an alien growth form has taken over my body and not that a baby is growing inside of me (I felt this way when pregnant with Oliver too). So the ultrasound provided me not only the reassurance that the pregnancy is going well, but also a reminder that something truly miraculous is happening inside there.
The biggest letdown is that after the anticipation of the 20-week ultrasound for the rare opporunity for a glimpse of your baby, the quality of the "pictures" was underwhelming. When I was pregnant with Oliver, I had an ultrasound around six weeks, when he was so small that the ultrasound technician had to show me where to look, then at 11 or 12 weeks, when I could actually tell that was a baby up on the screen and lastly around 20 weeks, when the technician switched the monitor to 4-D and oh my gosh, that's my baby!. Those images blew me away. This time around, not only was there no 4-D, but the images from the anatomy scan appeared rather grainy, and frankly, just weren't that exciting to look at.
We did find out the sex of the baby, which, of course, was exciting. Surpisingly, I've been totally cool with finding out before the birth and Chris and I are both happy and excited. Our lips are sealed though. You can try pumping Oliver for information, but given that he's just learning to master the word, "Hi!" I say, good luck with that!
The biggest letdown is that after the anticipation of the 20-week ultrasound for the rare opporunity for a glimpse of your baby, the quality of the "pictures" was underwhelming. When I was pregnant with Oliver, I had an ultrasound around six weeks, when he was so small that the ultrasound technician had to show me where to look, then at 11 or 12 weeks, when I could actually tell that was a baby up on the screen and lastly around 20 weeks, when the technician switched the monitor to 4-D and oh my gosh, that's my baby!. Those images blew me away. This time around, not only was there no 4-D, but the images from the anatomy scan appeared rather grainy, and frankly, just weren't that exciting to look at.
We did find out the sex of the baby, which, of course, was exciting. Surpisingly, I've been totally cool with finding out before the birth and Chris and I are both happy and excited. Our lips are sealed though. You can try pumping Oliver for information, but given that he's just learning to master the word, "Hi!" I say, good luck with that!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Limits of a Stay-at-Home Parent
I finally admitted my limits as a stay-at-home parent. When Chris was pitched the opportunity to be a part of what he described as the coolest project at his company, a project based 60+ miles/1 hour, 15 minute drive from our house, I said no. Then I said no to the second idea floated by his bosses, a position that would have required travel, but destination, frequency and duration undetermined. Chris understood my concerns, but thought either prospect could be workable if he could pin his bosses down for the exact timeline of the project or how often he'd have to travel. But I knew that no matter what the company could have promised, supposedly shorter hours to make up for the longer commute, or more vacation time to make up for extra travel, I'd be miserable if I relented. With Chris's current travel and school schedule, I feel like I had become a 24/7 stay-at-home, single parent. I simply need him home more. A lot more. And reliably more.
I had always thought that as a stay-at-home parent, I'd have it all covered. No need for daycare, nannies, housekeepers, take-out for dinner, grocery delivery services or any other services I'd read about dual-earners utilizing to keep the kids safe and occupied and the household running. Even if staying home with kids was a career sacrifice for me, the flipside was that Chris's career options would be limitless.
With my current pregnancy coinciding with the heaviest travel and work load of Chris's project in Dallas, I've humbly learned I can't do it all, 100%, all the time. Caring for a child all day, day after day, with no relief, is physically and emotionally tiring and isolating in only a way a fellow parent can understand. Acting as a single parent wears me out and makes me anxious. Most days of the week I don't have my co-parent to back me up if I wake up sick one morning, (or, well, just pregnant). I'm left to handle Oliver's bad days by myself (come on, all toddlers have their good days and bad days and they change at a moment's notice) and don't have the only other person who knows Oliver as well as I do to debate with whether the problem is an ear infection, and worthy of a doctor's visit, just teething or a bad night's sleep. I can't be two parents at once, the one who takes Oliver outside to play on a beautiful afternoon or reads him books while the other gets dinner ready, or the one who takes him somewhere fun while the other does errands. If I had any doubts about whether I couldn't just suck it up for a little while longer, I imagined life in the fall with a new baby added to the mix and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the facade of the super-stay-at-home mom.
I still feel guilty about being the reason Chris turned down something he was really excited about. I feel like if his career stalls because no other good opportunities come along or he's unhappy with whatever he does end up working on, it'll be my fault. That's the emotional, wants-to-please, wants-to-make-everyone-happy side of me talking.
The rationale side of me knows there's no such thing as super mom and that for every decision Chris makes about school or work, it will have an impact on his family. It's reasonable to be worried that a job will be too demanding for him to have anything left to give to his family, as much as a well-intentioned and devoted to his family as he is. I'm wondering if maybe parents of young children just have to climb the "ladder" slower or make different decisions about their careers than their single or empty-nester co-workers do. And that's whether they have a stay-at-home spouse or not.
I had always thought that as a stay-at-home parent, I'd have it all covered. No need for daycare, nannies, housekeepers, take-out for dinner, grocery delivery services or any other services I'd read about dual-earners utilizing to keep the kids safe and occupied and the household running. Even if staying home with kids was a career sacrifice for me, the flipside was that Chris's career options would be limitless.
With my current pregnancy coinciding with the heaviest travel and work load of Chris's project in Dallas, I've humbly learned I can't do it all, 100%, all the time. Caring for a child all day, day after day, with no relief, is physically and emotionally tiring and isolating in only a way a fellow parent can understand. Acting as a single parent wears me out and makes me anxious. Most days of the week I don't have my co-parent to back me up if I wake up sick one morning, (or, well, just pregnant). I'm left to handle Oliver's bad days by myself (come on, all toddlers have their good days and bad days and they change at a moment's notice) and don't have the only other person who knows Oliver as well as I do to debate with whether the problem is an ear infection, and worthy of a doctor's visit, just teething or a bad night's sleep. I can't be two parents at once, the one who takes Oliver outside to play on a beautiful afternoon or reads him books while the other gets dinner ready, or the one who takes him somewhere fun while the other does errands. If I had any doubts about whether I couldn't just suck it up for a little while longer, I imagined life in the fall with a new baby added to the mix and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up the facade of the super-stay-at-home mom.
I still feel guilty about being the reason Chris turned down something he was really excited about. I feel like if his career stalls because no other good opportunities come along or he's unhappy with whatever he does end up working on, it'll be my fault. That's the emotional, wants-to-please, wants-to-make-everyone-happy side of me talking.
The rationale side of me knows there's no such thing as super mom and that for every decision Chris makes about school or work, it will have an impact on his family. It's reasonable to be worried that a job will be too demanding for him to have anything left to give to his family, as much as a well-intentioned and devoted to his family as he is. I'm wondering if maybe parents of young children just have to climb the "ladder" slower or make different decisions about their careers than their single or empty-nester co-workers do. And that's whether they have a stay-at-home spouse or not.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Mother's Day and Another Planting Season
When Chris asked me what I wanted to do for Mother's Day, I insisted I didn't want to do anything more than start the garden. This pregnancy has taken so much out of me that when Chris heads out of town most Monday mornings, I wonder how I'm going to make it until Friday when he arrives back home. And then despite how much he's worked during the week, Chris puts himself on near full-time Oliver duty on the weekends. He takes him to the zoo, goes on walks and pushes him on the swings at the park. I don't have to be in charge of every snack, meal and clean-up, can go out at nap time and don't have to be home by Oliver's 6:30 p.m. bedtime. For those two days, at least, I remember how much easier and more enjoyable parenting is when you have someone else to trade off responsibilities with. So honestly, I just want Chris to keep doing what he's doing whether the calendar says it's Mother's Day or not.
With my low energy due to both pregnancy and a cold, gardening was a perfect activity. We ended up making two trips to the garden store, and while we're not quite ready yet here in Minnesota to plant anything other than hardy crops, we finally planted some flowers. Our house came with flower boxes lining the length of the porch, but I never got around to planting anything our first summer last year. After getting what turned into a pep talk from an employee at the garden store near our house who pointed us towards annuals that were inexpensive enough to plant and just see what happens, we settled on Impatiens. They look pretty dinky right now in the flower boxes - you can barely see them from the sidewalk - but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that if I can keep them alive, (that's the hard part for me!) they'll be looking beautiful in a few weeks.
As for the rest of the yard, we made the first step in our modest plans for adding color to our small city lot. Although the former owners had done simple and tasteful landscaping, Chris and I were so unfamiliar with plants that once we got behind on maintenance, we lost track of what was a weed and what was not. Last fall, we decided it'd be less stressful to start with a clean slate, even if that meant undoing the work the former owners had put into the yard, and we completely ripped out some of the garden plots. The empty patches of dirt committed us to putting something new there this spring. Whereas I had previously been overwhelmed with all the options for flowers and how to make the garden look good, I realized that something was better than nothing and adopted the strategy of picking plants in varying heights and colors, and like the flower boxes, will just have to see what happens.
I finished planting what I had planned for the weekend before the thunderstorm and downpour started. The rain ended up altering the one official Mother's Day celebration we had planned, a picnic my brother-in-law organized in honor of my mother-in-law and me. Instead, we "picnicked" on my in-law's living room floor (picnic basket, blanket and all). Our indoor location had the advantage of the big-screen TV, on which my father-in-law showed us the videos he had taken of Oliver the last couple of months. It was almost as much fun to watch Oliver watch the videos as it was to watch the videos themselves. I really think Oliver recognized himself! Either way, he enjoyed sitting in Dad's lap and having some rare television time.
With my low energy due to both pregnancy and a cold, gardening was a perfect activity. We ended up making two trips to the garden store, and while we're not quite ready yet here in Minnesota to plant anything other than hardy crops, we finally planted some flowers. Our house came with flower boxes lining the length of the porch, but I never got around to planting anything our first summer last year. After getting what turned into a pep talk from an employee at the garden store near our house who pointed us towards annuals that were inexpensive enough to plant and just see what happens, we settled on Impatiens. They look pretty dinky right now in the flower boxes - you can barely see them from the sidewalk - but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that if I can keep them alive, (that's the hard part for me!) they'll be looking beautiful in a few weeks.
As for the rest of the yard, we made the first step in our modest plans for adding color to our small city lot. Although the former owners had done simple and tasteful landscaping, Chris and I were so unfamiliar with plants that once we got behind on maintenance, we lost track of what was a weed and what was not. Last fall, we decided it'd be less stressful to start with a clean slate, even if that meant undoing the work the former owners had put into the yard, and we completely ripped out some of the garden plots. The empty patches of dirt committed us to putting something new there this spring. Whereas I had previously been overwhelmed with all the options for flowers and how to make the garden look good, I realized that something was better than nothing and adopted the strategy of picking plants in varying heights and colors, and like the flower boxes, will just have to see what happens.
I finished planting what I had planned for the weekend before the thunderstorm and downpour started. The rain ended up altering the one official Mother's Day celebration we had planned, a picnic my brother-in-law organized in honor of my mother-in-law and me. Instead, we "picnicked" on my in-law's living room floor (picnic basket, blanket and all). Our indoor location had the advantage of the big-screen TV, on which my father-in-law showed us the videos he had taken of Oliver the last couple of months. It was almost as much fun to watch Oliver watch the videos as it was to watch the videos themselves. I really think Oliver recognized himself! Either way, he enjoyed sitting in Dad's lap and having some rare television time.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Where do you rank?
Baby names will be a big topic around our house in the next couple of months and now the Social Security Administration, with the release of the most popular baby names for 2010, has given us a new round of data to consider as we mull over name ideas. http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/baby-names2010-pr.html Yup, I was that parent who compared every name idea Chris and I came up with to the top baby name list to make sure our choices weren't too "popular."
For someone who didn't want a super popular name for my child, (although I may not have succeeded - time will tell) picking a top 10 name doesn't mean anymore that there'll be five other kids with that name in your child's kindergarten class. According to the Social Security Administration, "Three decades ago, a third of all babies had names that were in the top 20. Last year, only 14 percent of babies had names from the top 20." But that also means that a name like Oliver, in 88th place nationally in 2010, might not be much more "unique" than Ryan in 23rd place or Aaron in 55th place.
It was fun to look at the website, which can sort names by year and by state, and show trends over the decades, and see where Oliver, Chris and I ranked. Oliver was the 305th most popular boys name in 2000, but made a steady rise to 98th in 2009 (42nd most popular in Minnesota) and then rose to 88th place in 2010. Meanwhile, his dad, Christopher, had the third most popular name in his birth year of 1982, but dropped to 10th by 2009 (and only 63rd in Minnesota). It probably doesn't surprise you that Kirsten didn't make the top 100 in her birth year of 1979, (293 to be exact) but the name has taken a steadier decline since 2000 from 255th place to 845th place in 2009.
So, where does your name rank?
Sociologists have apparently been having as much fun analyzing names as I have. As the percentage of children with the top names drops, it shows our generation is experiencing more freedom from naming traditions, such as naming a child after a grandparent, or giving a name from one's culture, and in turn, are opting for names that are "unique" or that truly suit our tastes. But the diversification of names heightens what each name says about parents' tastes, values or dreams for a child.
The author of the book The Baby Name Wizard, Laura Wattenberg explained,
Her example of an office dress codes explains her point. What would you surmise about the personality, values and tastes of a young man who wears a blue suit in a law firm where everyone wears dark suits compared to the man who wears the same blue suit to work at a software company with no dress code whatsoever? Even traditional names that have staying power, like John or Elizabeth, carry more weight now than they did 50 years ago. Two generations ago, we wouldn't have thought about a name saying something about the parents, but now they do.
So I don't know what that says about Chris or me that we chose the name Oliver, or even what the names Kirsten and Christopher say about our own parents, but the theory is interesting. Whatever sociologists (or our family and friends) think about our name pick for Baby 2.0, it'll have been a compromise been "unique" and "not too popular" (me) and "normal" and "just something I like" (Chris).
For someone who didn't want a super popular name for my child, (although I may not have succeeded - time will tell) picking a top 10 name doesn't mean anymore that there'll be five other kids with that name in your child's kindergarten class. According to the Social Security Administration, "Three decades ago, a third of all babies had names that were in the top 20. Last year, only 14 percent of babies had names from the top 20." But that also means that a name like Oliver, in 88th place nationally in 2010, might not be much more "unique" than Ryan in 23rd place or Aaron in 55th place.
It was fun to look at the website, which can sort names by year and by state, and show trends over the decades, and see where Oliver, Chris and I ranked. Oliver was the 305th most popular boys name in 2000, but made a steady rise to 98th in 2009 (42nd most popular in Minnesota) and then rose to 88th place in 2010. Meanwhile, his dad, Christopher, had the third most popular name in his birth year of 1982, but dropped to 10th by 2009 (and only 63rd in Minnesota). It probably doesn't surprise you that Kirsten didn't make the top 100 in her birth year of 1979, (293 to be exact) but the name has taken a steadier decline since 2000 from 255th place to 845th place in 2009.
So, where does your name rank?
Sociologists have apparently been having as much fun analyzing names as I have. As the percentage of children with the top names drops, it shows our generation is experiencing more freedom from naming traditions, such as naming a child after a grandparent, or giving a name from one's culture, and in turn, are opting for names that are "unique" or that truly suit our tastes. But the diversification of names heightens what each name says about parents' tastes, values or dreams for a child.
The author of the book The Baby Name Wizard, Laura Wattenberg explained,
The more diverse naming styles become, the more we are going to read into somebody's name," Wattenberg said. She analyzed baby name statistics from the U.S. Social Security Administration to calculate a measure called "Shannon entropy" from the field of information theory. This measure is used to describe the information contained in a message — in this case, how much is communicated by the choice of a name. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40452893/ns/today-parenting/t/baby-names-reveal-more-about-parents-ever/
Her example of an office dress codes explains her point. What would you surmise about the personality, values and tastes of a young man who wears a blue suit in a law firm where everyone wears dark suits compared to the man who wears the same blue suit to work at a software company with no dress code whatsoever? Even traditional names that have staying power, like John or Elizabeth, carry more weight now than they did 50 years ago. Two generations ago, we wouldn't have thought about a name saying something about the parents, but now they do.
So I don't know what that says about Chris or me that we chose the name Oliver, or even what the names Kirsten and Christopher say about our own parents, but the theory is interesting. Whatever sociologists (or our family and friends) think about our name pick for Baby 2.0, it'll have been a compromise been "unique" and "not too popular" (me) and "normal" and "just something I like" (Chris).
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