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December 8, 2004
**NOTE: I actually wrote this entry a few weeks ago, but couldn’t find my password, so I couldn’t post it. Just got my password, so here it is!
*********************************************I just emailed iParenting and requested that they move my diary to the “Completed” section. Since Hana was a baby (she is now 2.5 years old), I have loved this forum to keep track of our lives and to correspond with others in the Iparenting community, especially through the diaries. Cliché, cliché, cliché….but I have met (in person and online) many really fascinating women through this site, and have especially loved following the transitions of some diaries to blogs. I still read a few diaries here on iParenting (Allisun, Allie, Eloise, Corinne), and follow many who moved to their own blogs (Melissa/Domesticana, Brooke/Urban Earth Mama, Julia/Here Be Hippogriffs, Summer/Summertime, Indigo Girl, Heather /The Daily, etc.), plus an endless list of new blogs that I keep stumbling upon and falling in love with (Dooce, Bluepoppy, Cease Cows, Rainbowcake, So Close, Suburban Bliss, Raising Chooks, CrazyUs, etc) .
I don’t currently have any plans to start-up a blog, but, never say never. Right now I just don’t feel like I have the inclination or dedication to keep a public diary/blog, so I am (and have been) taking a break. I do occasionally have pangs of guilt for not keeping up with any sort of written documentation of our day-to-day life. To keep a diary or record of some sort feels like a gift to Hana, and I do hope to get myself back on this track in some form or another. Right now, doing so privately feels more “right,” not out of concern for our privacy so much as because I feel so much pressure when I don’t frequently update writing that is, at least in part, meant for public consumption.
So. This will be my last entry. Sniff.
Things in our household and life are good. We just love our new house (we moved in May) and our new neighborhood. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…I really feel at home here.
Mike is enjoying his job (he started this new job in the spring). He works primarily from home, but travels to his territory a few days a week. It is not overnight travel, but his territory is 1.5+ hours north of us, so it seems like “travel” (vs. commuting) nonetheless. It is convenient and somehow comforting to have him working from home. Hana is still in daycare, but to know that he is almost always just minutes from her is so nice. To know that I can call him at 2pm and ask him to marinate the flank steak is nice. That he is usually the one to get Hana off to school each morning is oh-so nice for me (such a timesaver). He didn’t coach football this fall (in past years he has been receiver coach for our local high school) but still actively volunteered with the team, and going to those football games is one of Hana’s greatest joys. Also, her “Uncle T” played his last year of high school football, so there was added incentive to go to the games. She loves the band, knows a fair amount of high school cheers, and seems genuinely interested in the game (I am not).
Hana absolutely adores her school (daycare) and we do too. She is there from about 9-3 M-F. Her teachers are incredible….warm, caring, smart, creative, funny, playful. She gets lots of hugs all day long, creates some pretty amazing artwork (and frankly, a lot that goes straight to recycle), goes on frequent field trips and walk-a-bouts (through the neighborhood), sings songs, rides bikes & scooters and plants vegetables and flowers, dances, bakes breads and muffins, listens to many varied stories from the teachers and “reads” her own books, plays dress-up and creates all sorts of imaginary play. She loves her friends and looks forward to seeing them each day. She eats all-homemade food for snacks and lunch. I’ve eaten at school several times, and can attest, the cook, “Grandma Kay” is GOOD! Everyone at the school is very committed to the kids and to their “life’s work,” and it is just, all-around, a feel-good place. I’m planning to join the school board and look forward to getting to know some of the other parents better and becoming more involved (good god, PTA, here I come? Scary).
I am happier at work now than I have been in the last couple of years. It is not because anything at work has actually changed, but rather, I have changed a bit. My outlook is better, for one (glass half-full vs. glass half-empty) and I’ve just come to accept my varied blessings in this job and at this company. It is not perfect, and I still don’t feel the kind of passion I’d love to have for my work….but, it is usually interesting, the pay & benefits are good, and I have a management position that provides me with an office and a lot of freedom & autonomy. The other thing that I think really affects my perspective on work is that Hana is older now. While I miss her each day (of course), I no longer feel guilty leaving her to go to work, and to be entirely frank, I often relish this time away from home. I am working, but it feels like MY time, and I really need that. I don’t think that I am cut-out to be a stay-at-home mom to a toddler. I don’t have the patience, and I too desperately need my own space and time to maintain my sanity. I could do it, but it would be a challenge for me to give Hana everything I think she deserves full-time, around the clock. Given that I have to work (to maintain our current lifestyle, which is not extravagant), I choose to see the benefits. Work gives me some needed time to myself and of late, is offering some interesting & challenging projects that have kept me engaged. School provides Hana with structure, a great social outlet, incredible learning opportunities, and most of all, a lot of love & friendship. And selfishly, I really adore the fact that I can run a few errands after work while she is at school, playing outside (that usually coincides with when I pick her up and she is often bummed out she has to leave before she gets to play outside in the afternoon). I often use an hour or so after work to grocery shop, pick up dry-cleaning, stop at the library, etc. etc. To complete all those little errands I dread taking a 2 year old along for!
Hana is incredible. What mother wouldn’t say that? But she is. She is beautiful and funny and noisy and curious and playful and silly and a little bit wild. She asks WHY about everything, and settles for nothing less than a truly reasonable explanation (“Because” is not adequate, ever. Unless she’s answering someone else’s Why. Then she expects her “Beee-TAUSE!” to suffice.). She is still a very physical girl. She is a jumper, a dancer, a runner, a wrestler, a climber. Her favorite games are Chase, Hide & Seek, and jumping on the couch, the bed, or flipping herself over and off of the side of the armchair. The layout of our house provides the perfect race-track for her and she is forever begging us to chase her. When she plays hide & seek, she dutifully counts to ten while SHE hides, and then when we say “Where could Hana be?” she usually shouts a subtle clue, such as “IN THE CLOSET!” from her hiding place.
She also needs physical contact in a way that is so endearing it just melts my heart. When she settles down or is sleepy, she needs to caress. She doesn’t like to BE caressed, but she likes to stroke my (or anyone else’s) arm, rub my ear, wriggle her hands between my cuffs or waistband so that they rest against my wrist, or my waist. When she climbs into our bed (most every morning, about 5am), she wriggles her little feet between my legs, and those little hands under my rib cage, until she is wedged snugly between me and something else, whether it be the bed, my clothes, the duvet and/or Mike. She is such a snuggler. She drives Mike crazy with what he calls her “wandering hands and feet.” We have to be very careful to keep nails clipped, or we end up scratched and nicked. Having my baby girl snuggled up next to me in bed remains one of my greatest delights of all time.
She is also, when up-and-running, fiercely independent. I suppose most two-year olds are, but it is a comment we hear a lot out in public (as in, “Wow, she is sure independent”). She wants to do everything herself, from getting dressed, to brushing her teeth and her hair, to getting her own cereal, to pouring her own milk, to buckling her own carseat, to putting on her own shoes. ETC. She wanders off in public without concern, which is dangerous and, as she (slowly) seems to be learning, unacceptable. She has already perfected the art of hiding in the clothes racks at department stores, a game that has brought me very close to a heart attack, I do believe. I adore her independence but it is also incredibly frustrating, especially when I am in a hurry. She is feisty too. And temperamental in a way that can annoy me to no end while making me smile with admiration and pride all the same. She most certainly has strong opinions and likes and dislikes, and doesn’t hesitate to voice them.
She often has a hard time with transitions. She often protests about going to school/the park/a friend’s house/grandma’s house/home/the store/the library/the bank...but she doesn’t actually not want to go to these places or see these people, SHE JUST LIKES TO PROTEST! She doesn’t like changing from her pajamas into her clothes, or vice versa, or to put her shoes on when its time to go, or to take them off when she gets home. She always proclaims a strong attachment to whatever she is currently wearing, as if she can’t BEAR to take it off (yet also pitches a fit when I ask her to put the very same, say, shoe, on the next day). She often wails about bathtime before we put her in, yet bathtime is one of her favorite parts of her day (once she’s in the tub). Then she wails when its time to get out.
What is this about? I’ve determined that she just has a hard time right now changing from this-to-that. I think she inherits this from her grandmother (my mom) who decidedly does NOT have a go-with-the-flow type of personality, especially with regard to change. That, or she is just being two. I’ve started giving her warnings (ie. 2 minutes until we leave for school, 2 minutes till bedtime…), which seems to help. Although she certainly doesn’t understand the concept of minutes, it does help prepare her for the upcoming turn of events, and she seems to transition easier. Using a 2 minute and 1 minute warning seems to work (even if they don’t actually fall at the 1 and 2 minute mark) best.
As part of this transition-thing, she is also often shy for the first 5 minutes or so of seeing someone “new” (even if that means, say, her grandparents, who she sees as least once a week), but I swear, it’s all just an act. J She warms up in about 5 minutes, and from there, is on a roll. Her favorite things to say are “Whats-a-going-on-here??”(usually shouted), “I tired” (said in a very exaggerated exhausted voice when she doesn’t want to do something), “I DO IT!”, “Yook! Yook!” (= look, look – b/c she is often seeing things she thinks are REALLY noteworthy), and “I YOVE YOU!” (my favorite).
Hana is still addicted to her binky, but has finally weaned (from breastfeeding) in the last couple of months. The weaning has been a gradual, slow process….so slow, in fact, that it took me awhile to even fully realize that she is successfully weaned. And I am not sad at all. I feel like we just rolled along with what was best for the both of us (meaning, we slowly “negotiated” our way to weaning), and made the transition so slowly that neither of us really even recognized what was happening. It was non-traumatic (is that a word?) and comfortable.
The binky is another story. Perhaps she transferred all her unseen (to me) angst about weaning to an even stronger addiction to the binky. She LOVES it. When she can’t have it (which, in theory, is anytime she is not laying down on her bed, but I tend to be a pushover), she likes to just carry it around, twiddling & flipping it between her fingers. At school it sits in her cubby in a plastic Tupperware container, and she NEVER fails to ask for it when we leave. She is also very attached to her doll, which is creatively named either “Baby” or “Hana” depending on her mood.
She loves to play with other kids, and seems to prefer big kids to younger kids or babies (except for the doll), and also seems to prefer gross motor activities (playgrounds, gyms, parks….running, dancing, jumping, climbing, skipping, hopping…) to fine motor-skill type activities. She talks to her baby a lot (rocking her, putting her to bed, taking her grocery shopping, on walks, etc.) and often has involved scenarios playing out between her Little People and other plastic figures, where she is the “voice” for each character in the scene she creates (which are usually about some normal daily activity we do at home). She also really loves building towers with blocks, Legos, cars/trucks/trains, and reading (either being read-to, or “reading” to herself). She does imaginary play by herself in her room, but usually only for short periods of time. On that perhaps-connected note, recent TV/movie faves are Charlie Brown, Alice in Wonderland, Caillou, and Strawberry Shortcake. Lion King, Finding Nemo , Sesame Street, Dragon Tales and Arthur are perennial favorites.
(Speaking of Strawberry Shortcake, WHY are the 80’s coming back????? What’s with the strawberry shortcakes, care bears, ponchos and rainbow shirts/belts/socks/hats? I feel like I’m suddenly re-living my elementary school years).
Potty-training is going so-so. She’s pretty much got the pee portion of the event down pat, and has accidents very infrequently. The poo side of things is more problematic. She does not like to poo on the potty. For a time, I thought maybe she just didn’t recognize that sensation in time to get to the potty, but I’m fairly sure now that it simply an aversion to doing this deed on the potty. I’ve resorted back to diapers when I know she hasn’t yet gone (during the day, ie. while at daycare) because I can be fairly certain it will happen that afternoon, and I get tired of constantly begging her to sit on the potty, and frankly, I don’t feel right about forcing her to poop there if she doesn’t yet want to.
We’ve had a mellow and relaxing Fall in general. It has been nice that Mike was not so committed to football coaching this season; we’ve actually had him around quite a bit! You know how weddings (and babies too) seem to always come in a big influx? That was this fall for us. We’ve been to several weddings, which makes for a good excuse to get a babysitter, get out, have a few drinks, dance, enjoy a nice (and relatively free) dinner & dessert. The weddings have all been to-the-hilt, top-of-the-line type of weddings—just gorgeous, great food, great bands or DJs, lots of fun. Halloween was also quite an event. We first made-rounds to various relatives’ houses, and then hit our neighborhood. Wow. It was like a giant street party. Swarms of kids and parents, literally. Houses fully decked out, lights and ghosts strung up from house-to-house and over the streets. Many “haunted houses” and a big charity haunted house ($1, all proceeds donated to a children’s charity) at one of the beautiful big homes on the lake. The neighbors just below us told us that they got 350 trick-or-treaters. It was quite a spectacle, and Hana LOVED it. She rarely seems to be overwhelmed by activity and people, but rather seems to revel in the hustle-bustle, so she was very much in her element. She loved racing from house to house and picked up on the idea of trick-or-treating in no time. Bubbles the Clown (truly, a professional clown) lives just below us, and she required all trick-or-treaters to sing a song (Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels on the Bus, Mary had a Little Lamb and other such classics…) in order to get candy. Hana never wanted to leave her house, and would have stood there all night singing songs with other kids if she had her druthers. She was nonplussed by the haunted houses and scary decorations, and loved her costume (she was a generic purple dragon courtesy of Old Navy, but she thought she was Zak & Wheezie—friendly-two-headed purple dragon--from Dragon Tales).
Mike & I have talked about having another baby, but I think we’ve decided to wait awhile. At times, I feel a really strong, physical desire to be pregnant again, and to have another baby. I really, really look forward to being pregnant and giving birth again, and I loved mothering an infant. Sometimes the desire to experience that all again is so strong I feel it like an ache in my bones, or my heart.
But, but….I’m not sure I’m ready yet, or that we’re ready yet as a family. We only plan (“the best laid plans…”) on having two kids, and part of me wants to delay this next baby a bit, since I know it is very likely to be the last time I will be pregnant or nursing or caring for a newborn (etc.). All my life I have looked forward to being a mother, and being faced with the end of my childbearing so quickly strikes me as sad. I’m not sure I’m ready to face that quite yet. I hope that after having a second baby, the prospect of no more babies will feel more liberating than heartbreaking, but I don’t know.
Raising a toddler has also taught me that I really need space and time to myself. I don’t consider myself an introvert, but I’ve learned, by way of living with a 2-year old, that if I don’t get some time to myself and have some order to my days, I get cranky and irritable, and am not the kind of mother I want to be. Because of this insight, I feel like I will be a better mom if I space my kids out a bit further. There are many women out there who are just incredible with a passel of young children. I have friends and neighbors with 2, 3 or 4 kids just months or a couple of years apart, and they are marvelous with those kids. They are able to juggle the incessant demands of babies, toddlers and preschoolers without breaking a sweat, and with ease and tremendous flexibility and serenity. I am not one of those women. I know that an older child (say, a 4 or 5 year old) has new and different demands, and has also had longer to grow used to being the “one and only.” So I can’t guarantee that spacing our kids will necessarily be easier. BUT, I still feel that it will work out better for us to wait, and that I will be a better to mom to both my kids if Hana is a little bit older and more autonomous before we add a new baby to the mix.
We are leaving on Saturday for a week in Palm Springs with my parents and my grandmother. I am really looking forward to a week of leisure in the desert sun. We will also celebrate Thanksgiving down there, which will be such a fun and laid back way to spend the holiday. Hana can hardly wait to get on the airplane and to swim in the pool each day, and I know we’ll have a great time.
********************************************************************************************Its now December 8, and I just got my password to post this last entry. We did have a great time in Palm Springs over Thanksgiving, although it wasn’t quite as hot as I would have preferred. Nonetheless, we did enjoy a week of lounging, and that was great.
I’m feeling quite well-prepared for the holidays this year. I’ve already got most of my Christmas shopping done, and the gifts are all laid out in their respective boxes in the basement, just waiting to be wrapped. We’ve got our tree up and decorated, and the lights on the front and back of the house. We had a fun trip up north to several U-Cut tree farms with Mike’s family, and it was a great day together.
Mike & I are having a big holiday party on December 17th at our house, and in anticipation of 40(ish) guests at our house (yikes!), we’ve finally wrapped up many outstanding home improvement projects. That feels GREAT. Now I’m working on the food & drink menus and grocery lists for the party.
Hana is absolutely loving all the Christmas lights everywhere, and is very into Santa and the reindeers and all the novelty of Christmas this year. We will probably be going to see Santa next week. We’ve taken her by the Santa at the local shopping center by our house, and also to see another one at the mall. She didn’t get her picture taken either time, but she did get to stop and talk to Santa, and she did very well both times – very brave, although I wonder if it was all simply because Santa was bribing her with candy canes! Whenever someone asks her what she wants for Christmas, she says “An Annie dog!” Our friend recently bought a ($700!!!) Yorkshire Terrier puppy (Annie) and Hana is absolutely IN LOVE with that dog. When Annie is at our house, Hana is absolutely gleeful.
As a result of this sheer joy and love for Annie, Mike & I have been talking about getting a dog. We’ve gone around and around on every aspect a million times….what size of dog, what age of dog, what breed of dog, etc. etc. Talk about beating a dead horse. We’ve taken her to some animal shelters to see the dogs, we’ve talked to several purebred rescue organizations about various breeds….And I think we have ultimately decided, for now, to hold off on getting a dog. Age 2 seems like a difficult age, because with small dogs and puppes, she doesn’t really understand that the dog needs to rest, needs time and space, and can’t be carried around everywhere. I don’t feel like it would be fair to a small dog or puppy to subject it to a 2 year old, given that the dog may well feel threatened (or just really damn annoyed). Hana really is not very interested in bigger dogs right now, and our house and yard aren’t really fit for a bigger dog (in an ideal world). We will most likely consider this all again at a later date, but I think we got tired of trying to make a decision about a dog. So…we got a cat. She is 6 months old (Sunday is her name) and we found her at a local shelter. She is very, very sweet, and Hana was very excited about her. We can’t actually pick her up until this afternoon because she had to be spayed yesterday. Our previous cat, Bala, died recently, and we have really missed her. It will be so nice to have a kitty back in the house again.
I wish you all a very happy holiday season and a wonderful year in 2005!
Jessica
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