Rambling Reflections of a Tough Day.

(Last posting until January 2008).

“Okay. If I get up by seven, shower; and she’s up by 7:40 a.m., we can be out the door by…nine,” I think to myself. “Damn, she’s moving all ready. What time is it? Six fifty-three. It’s going to be a long morning,” I sigh with a smile as I turn over and see Taylor staring at me with hunger in her eyes. Our day has started early; my morning window of opportunity just shrunk by at least 30 minutes. Damn.

My day is comprised of a series of routines: I know, with relative precision, when Taylor usually wakes up, between 7:20 – 7:40 a.m.; I know when she goes down for her nap, between 10 – 10:40; and I can guess with startling accuracy when she’ll wake up from that nap. I also know how I can tire her out a little quicker than she is accustomed to, an outing in the freezing temperatures, bundled in her pink snowsuit, usually does the job; but I still find myself constantly crashing through those windows of opportunity as I try to squeeze in all those weekly “must-does”, which can only be completed during normal business hours, of course.

This morning was no different. As mentioned above, Taylor woke early. By the time she was changed, fed, dressed, changed again, and fed again; and I quickly showered, dressed, started the van, prepared her travel bag and bottles, grabbed a small fleece blanket and a couple of teething toys, and thought about shoveling a cup of coffee down my throat, it was nearly 8:20 a.m. Great; the drive through window at the bank opens at eight and the tire place opens at 8:30 a.m. “Even if,” I think to myself, “we get stuck behind one or two people in line we’ll be one our way home before Taylor begins getting fussy.” I abhor the idea of being in a male-dominated business and being stared at by ignorance. “Heck, maybe I can even stop at the hardware store and pick up that last Christmas gift for my father.”

By 8:40 a.m. I was on my way to the tire place. “Should I stop for a medium coffee with milk at McDonald’s?” I ask myself. I decide to skip the $1.65 Newman coffee in order to be one of the first in line for a set of winter tires. (Yes, I know it’s December, but we just bought the vehicle last week.) I still find it hard to swallow that I’m now one of those drivers of a minivan that frequents drive-thru windows. I never would have imagined….

“Did the dealership tell you about the tires for that vehicle?” Is the smug retort I receive from the glorified cashier at Tire Warehouse.

“No,” I reply. “What, do they not make them anymore?” I jocularly inquire.

“You know, you’re late.”

I pause, probably raise an eyebrow, and wait for his denouement. He doesn’t; so I willingly step into his trap. “I’m humble; and if allowing myself to be the butt of his stupid joke maybe I will get the tires put on the van that much quicker, laugh away idiot,” I think to myself. I ask once again about the tires and what I am late for. He replies that the tires will be expensive, because they are 17-inch tires and “they don’t make very many of them” (whatever the hell that means!), and I should have purchased snow tires at the beginning of the season and not waited until after the third snowstorm.

Annoyed, I tell him, again, that I just purchased the vehicle. He doesn’t catch on– so much for public education! Instead, he tells me for the third (or maybe it’s now the forth time) that I should have purchased snow tires weeks ago.

I’m no longer humble, nor polite. Realizing I have just wasted my morning window of opportunity, I pack up and drive home.

Damn.

Deep End of the Pool.

Being a parent, I mean actually being a parent: planning, participating, developing, loving, caring, worrying, engaging, reflecting, hoping, wishing, praying, etc., and not tossing the kid off for someone else to raise, means swimming in the deep end of the pool, constantly, incessantly. It means immersing oneself in one’s child’s (rens) life. That is not to say, and please do not misunderstand me, that children who spend large amounts of time with grandparents, a nanny, or even daycare providers are not loved– this is just not true! Heck, the more time Taylor spends with grandma and grandpa the happier she is. All I need to do is mention we are going to Grandma’s and Taylor’s face immediately glows with anticipation. What I do mean is that, as I am finding out, quicker than I thought, children are all encompassing and, as steadfast as I have been against saying this, life changing.

For example, I have never been an ultra-clean person. Yes, I do enjoy an orderly and clean house, but I have never been, um…retentive, so to speak, about it. At one time I thought the dirty dishes could spend a lonely night in the sink without being washed and put away; the living room rug only needed to be vacuumed once every week or so; the shower did not need to be sprayed with Tilex until a little mold appeared, and since no one will ever look under the couch, why bother dusting underneath it? Boy! has my beliefs in cleanliness changed.

I have, with great pride, become a little retentive when cleaning our apartment. While it still looks a little cluttered here and there– my wife and I are closet packrats– our apartment is cleaner than it has ever been. The turning point in my not-so cleanliness occurred a couple of months ago when Taylor’s teeth really started coming in. At first, she was a three-fanged little monster for quite a long time, two teeth on top and one on the bottom. Then, seemingly overnight, another four teeth appeared! Besides chewing on anything that remotely fit in her mouth, it seemed like the girl couldn’t wait to put everything, I mean everything, into her mouth. The one thing she loved to eat, to my astonishment and horror, were lint bunnies: little round balls of dust, dirt, and hair, which, when the hair curled over, look like bunny ears, that magically pop up everywhere. I found them skidding across the hardwood floors, magically materializing out of the carpet, perching silently on the footboard molding, clinging to Taylor’s toys, hiding under the couch or on top of the orchids; they were everywhere. Had they always been there? I guess so. But while they, lint bunnies– along with all kinds of newly discovered filth-like dust devils, smut (flakes of dirt, not the other kind), grease and grime, were only nuisances before, they have become my archenemies. My new allies: Tilex, Pledge, Formula 409, Fabreze, Lysol, Murphy’s Oil, Clorox, and Comet all have joined with me to fight against these dirt demons. But like a drunken uncle at the family Christmas party, no matter how hard I work to rid our apartment of the little devils, they keep re-appearing. Damn the dirt!

Life has changed, for all of us. There are days I sit back and wonder what I have done all day, besides chase Taylor around the house, read to her, read with her, feed her, change her, play with her, run errands, finish chores; plan, prepare and cook dinner, and try to spend of a little bit of time doing something for myself– like writing or journaling or reading. Life has changed; and even though there are days that I feel like a completely useless member of society I know, in my heart of hearts, that my most ransacked day at home is more important, to at least the two most important people in my life, than my best day at work. And that more than anything positive or, more often, negative others say about our family decision reminds me of how important and absolutely final raising our daughter is. Time passes without warning or quarter. Yes, our lives have changed. They have changed for the better.

A Mini Adventure.

We have all heard the stories of friends or family members trading in their used vehicle at the last possible moment, just before it dies, with tall tales of smoke billowing from under the floorboards, stealing each precious breath as they careen down the highway, praying the ‘ol jalopy makes it just one more mile before quitting for good; or stories of incessant grinding and clanking coming from the engine as the adventurous narrator screeches his or her vehicle to a halt at the glass doors of XYZ dealership. Most of these accounts one must take in stride, usually just going along with the story to appease the teller. Well, not all those car stories are exaggerated.

I had owned my Hyundai for six years before it began acting up. Besides regularly scheduled maintenance, for six years the vehicle cost me nothing. It was an inexpensive, quickly paid off; pre-owned fleet vehicle when I bought it in 2001. But last month something happened to the poor girl. My wife and I knew it was time to trade her in while the running was good, but financial worries changed our minds and we decided to spend the money needed to keep the car in good health for another five or six months. About a grand and thirty days later, this tale begins.

Our car was in trouble: the vehicle’s fifth gear, overdrive, sporadically refused to engage after downshifting up steep hills. I, more optimistic than sensible, hoped ignoring the slippage would solve the problem; and if that did not work then by having the transmission fluid and filter changed and the transmission sensor reset, I hoped all would be straightened out. On top of this bill we added muffler work and a timing belt change. Sounds like a lot of work, right? But at the same time, one cannot own a seven-year-old vehicle an honestly believe they will never have to spend money on it. The cost, at the time, was simply written off by us as the cost of owning an aging vehicle.

It is easy to look back and see the writing was on the wall: the car was dying. Yet, for six years the price paid to keep the vehicle running in tiptop shape was merely scheduled maintenance. How were we to know it was resting on death’s doorstep? In addition, while I may not be a mechanic, I have listened to NPR’s Car Talk a few times, and I have talked with a mechanic or two in my days. (Okay, so I’m not very qualified in this area.) The one theme I’ve discovered throughout listening to Car Talk is that if the car needing repair is worth more to the owner than the costs of that repair then one should keep the car. My car was worth more than the $1000, or so I thought!

All our hopes were dashed a few days ago when my wife drove the Hyundai to work. On the way home she had to stop twice on the interstate to let the transmission cool, because the vehicle refused to go over 50 mph or shift into 4th or 5th gear. The final nail was hammered into the vehicle’s coffin that night.

The next morning, using Auto Trader, my wife was able to locate a relatively close dealership with one or two vehicles of interest. One vehicle in particular, a Mazda mini van, appeared to match all our desires: a larger vehicle, but not too large; possessing the ability for one to relatively easily move from the front seat to the back seat, and listed at price we could afford.

Our trip to the dealership was an eventful one. I had not realized how close to death the poor Hyundai was. The 35-mile drive south on the interstate ate up nearly 1/2 a tank of gas, eight gallons worth, because the automatic transmission refused to shift into 3rd, 4th, or 5th gear unless traveling downhill. Trust me when I write this: thirty-five miles at 47 mph on the interstate makes for a long drive– and it upsets a lot of drivers.

Pulling into the dealer lot with the Check Engine light now glowing an unlovely, radiant yellow, we prayed that the dealer would agree to take the Hyundai as a trade-in and we would find a decent vehicle to drive home. We knew there was no possible way the Hyundai would make the return home. And, if we were unable to find a vehicle we liked on the lot we would probably have to feign a purchase and request an overnight test drive before committing to a new vehicle– and neither of us wanted to go that route.

Five hours later, minus one dead Hyundai and plus one new-to-us Mazda 5 and a suitable car loan, we were on our way home in comfort. I never thought I would be a mini-van man; and although we’ve only had the van a few days, and I have only driven for a few dozen miles, I like it. The room, the comfort, the ease of loading and unloading, seating Taylor, and the ability to move from the front seat to the back seat without exiting, makes this vehicle (or ones like it) darn near a necessity for traveling with kids.

I pray this new vehicle will serve us as well as our last. I have no problem shelling out monies for standard maintenance: oil changes, tires, breaks, the occasional exhaust piece, etc., so long as we are not hit with the big repair bills. At this point in time, we can use all the breaks we can get!

Learning To Share.

I have spent the last week, at least bits and pieces of it, teaching my daughter to share, to relinquish her thievishly acquired doohickey’s from around the house– basically anything she can get her hands on. I was shocked a few weeks ago when visiting family in Pennsylvania when my daughter refused to return an item to her aunt after she snatched it off the kitchen table. Thinking that she did not want to give up her prize to a “stranger,” I asked for Taylor to hand over the item to me. She refused. My wife’s pleading request quickly followed. My daughter, again, refused. I was appalled, embarrassed. Taylor, our daughter, continued her selfish little hoarding of objects throughout our stay, to our consternation.

One of my sister-in-laws attributed Taylor’s act of selfish behavior, which I happen to find not only enlightening but also mind-blowing, to the consequences of original sin. Original sin, if one can take a step back with me in time for a moment to the days of catechism class with Sister what’s-her-face, is the Christian belief that humanity’s original parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God’s one law given to them at the beginning of humanity: do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve disobeyed (please do not get hung up on who tempted whom). When they disobeyed they committed the first sin, the original sin. Consequently, their “fall” caused sin to enter the universe for the first time and Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden of Eden, never to return. We, all of humanity, are now born of sin and must (I’m cutting a few steps out here) accept Christ as our Savior if we want to enter heaven.

Romans 3:22-26: "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

But until Taylor has the cognitive ability to choose between right and wrong, it is our responsibility as her parents to teach, educate, indoctrinate, or drill the difference into her tiny little head; for, as I have already explained, she, as with everyone, is naturally inclined to be selfish. I have resisted the temptation to exchange item for item: a toy for the car keys, a cracker for grandma’s reading glasses, to cure her of her greedy covets. I have seen the predictable consequences of the tit-for-tat teaching. Too often that mindset evolves into the belief that doing the right thing is an option, not an obligation; and I want Taylor to learn the opposite.

To break her of her newly acquired habit of feverously clutching and refusing to let go of those items she has touched, last week I began offering her desirous objects, such as small stuffed animals and plastic, reflective trinkets, for her to hold. Then, calmly and with open palm, I would ask for them back. At first I received nothing, no abatement. In time however, slowly, steadily, wearily, the object was passed back to my waiting hands. “Hooray!” I praised. “Good girl,” I said with jubilation as I briskly rubbed her back and smiled ear to ear. I repeated this activity, continuously, until we both tired of the game. My scheme worked. She was learning to share.

I have incorporated the lessons I learned from teaching Taylor how to share (note: teaching life-long skills are never taught in one or two sittings. I imagine we’ll be prompting Taylor to share with others for a while) into other lessons as well: building walls using rubber blocks, taking apart Lego blocks, and opening and closing the small plastic door on one of her toys. Taylor is learning; I’m learning too.

I was told early on that parenting is a whole lot of common sense mixed with trial and error. While I have found this to be true, I have also found that common sense has a sneaky way of revealing itself after, and only after, one has floundered with folly for a little bit. Teaching Taylor to share was obvious, but how to properly do it was another. Parenting is not easy. It seems that no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I reflect some things workout all right and some need more attention. Thank God this lesson worked.

Decoding The Cry.

I’ve noticed over the last few postings I’ve mentioned that Taylor cries a little now and again. It strikes me as odd that until now I have offered little advise on how to decode those cries. Since, as I’ve read and been told, every baby behaves a little differently, one may want to take what I have to say on the subject of crying with some reservation. However, the five categories of crying my wife and I have witnessed are supported by a number of texts (primarily the What to Expect… series), friends, and family members.

We have found, through personal experience and research, that babies have five distinct types of crying: The hungry cry, the overtired cry, the boredom cry, the pain cry, and the sick cry. Each cry, if one is able to hold back long enough to observe, which is never easy, especially in the beginning, is accompanied by several recognizable physical behaviors, which can help in understanding the type of cry and the steps one can take to decipher the crying riddle. While I am not attempting to write a definitive analysis on the subject, I offer an aid, a cheat-sheet of sorts, to decoding the cry.

The hungry cry: This cry, as with many of the cries, usually starts with a few visual clues before the actual crying begins. When Taylor is hungry she has a tendency to become overly loving and affectionate: she will run or crawl from across the room, chattering in delight, throw out her arms to be picked up or claw her way into your lap and hold on tight. This is inevitably followed by a “puppy dog” stare, face rubbing from one side of her face to the other in your shirt, and finger sucking, lip smacking, or her chewing, called rooting, on your shirt. We have found that if these visual clues are missed Taylor quickly becomes impatient, antsy and fussy– just before she begins a singsong type cry. The cry begins “short and low-pitched…that rises and falls rhythmically and has a pleading quality to it.” Depending on how hungry she is, the visual clues may come several minutes before the crying starts; once the crying starts it quickly progresses from “I’m hungry” to “damn it, feed me!”

The overtired, uncomfortable, or “damn it, feed me” cry: This cry can cause confusion and we have found ourselves, more than once, fumbling through the list of possible solutions to stop the cry: trying to burp her, trying to feed her, checking if she is too hot or cold, checking her diaper, etc., etc., etc. before finally figuring out what Taylor demands. This cry, by far, is the most frustrating cry. By the time one finally figures out what the original complaint is it’s often too late. There are multiple issues one must address. For example, just the other week we were at the beginning of a long car ride. Taylor gave us several physical clues to her hunger. We, unfortunately, forgot to pack her bottle’s nipple. By the time we stopped and purchased a new nipple Taylor was very hungry, very hot, and soaking wet from crying. The inevitable exertion from crying on her bladder helped her to pee, a lot! And because we woke her before she normally rises she was overtired and did not want to sit in her car seat any longer. The overtired and uncomfortable cry begins as a whiny, continuous cry that quickly escalates into a full-blown ranting of shrieks and shrills.

The boredom cry: Also known as the manipulative cry. The first time I experienced the boredom cry was two days after Taylor turned six-months-old. We were in the car heading home from my parent’s house when, about an hour into our drive, I heard her begin to coo. What does a coo sound like? Take a deep breath and audibly yawn. During the exhalation, and just before the noise you are making stops, is what a coo sounds like. A baby’s coo is that same sound held at a continuous pitch for two or three seconds, intermittent with a pause for him or her to take a quick breath of air. Do not be fooled: unless you have spent the time to train baby that you will not react to this cry, baby is making this sound because he or she knows you have reacted to it in the past; and he or she is expecting you to react. If you do not…expect to hear the overtired, uncomfortable, and “damn it, feed me” cry real soon. There are ways to soothe a coo crier, for instance, while driving I now react to Taylor’s cooing by singing a couple of nursery rhymes. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The pain cry: This is an easy one. The cry, a shrieking and ear piercing distress, is panicky, long, loud, and, literally, breathtaking for baby. There are no physical pre-clues or prompts. It is gut wrenching, and it will scare the heck out of you if you do not see it coming. Usually, the physical clues as to what was hurt will manifest itself shortly after the crying begins: touching the hurt area, hiding his or her face (fear), or, in the case of infants, arching of his or her back (internal pains: gas, acid reflux, cold milk, etc.).

The sick cry: This cry often sounds forced, moan-like, and frail. It will be as though baby just does not have the energy to make a real cry. This is a red flag! When accompanied by lethargy, a fever, refusal to eat, and / or diarrhea, take baby’s temperature, pull out your baby medical reference book, and have the pediatrician’s number handy.

Until baby is able to talk or use sign language, his or her crying and what you can pick up from their physical clues is the only way they can communicate to you what they need. It took weeks for my wife and me to begin figuring out the subtleties of the different cries. I estimate we spent tens of dollars throwing away warm formula, because Taylor was not crying for food; and we wasted barely wet diapers, because Taylor was not soiled, before getting a handle on how to decode the cry.

The ability to accurate decipher the five types of crying is not easily acquired. There are days I still frustratingly turn to my wife and say, “I have no idea why she’s crying! You need to take her,” as I walk away for a few minutes. By at least acknowledging there are reasons behind every cry, having the willingness to attempt a diagnosis, and experiencing quite a few successes in those diagnosis, we, as parents, not only have more confidence in our parenting abilities, but Taylor is a happier baby, too.

Earplugs Are Not For Crying Babies.

Three weeks, four pediatrician visits, one terrifying midnight trip to the ER– complete with a set of chest X-rays, and countless sleepless hours of worry, our daughter was feebly diagnosed as a colicky baby. What a crock! We have all heard the stories of parents suffering months of sleeplessness and headaches because their baby was colicky. This was not going to happen to us. When we were told by more than one pediatrician, specialists, no doubt, there was nothing we could do to cease our baby’s uncontrollable crying and we should consider purchasing earplugs to help block out her shrills and inconsolable cries, we took our daughter’s medical care into our own hands. My wife, a nurse by training, knew the diagnosis was lackluster and began investigating what truly made a colicky baby, colicky.

After hours of research, questioning, and relentless investigation we purchased four items: Tiny Tummies (simethicone drops, which are commonly used to treat colic in Europe– the drops also go by the brand names Mylicon and Phazyme); a bottle-feeding Boppy pillow (a half-donut pillow shaped as a “c” available at Baby’s R Us, or half the price at Target) for our daughter to sleep inside of; Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow bottles; and, Earth’s Best organic, whole grain rice cereal to blend with her Similac Alimentum milk. (Alimentum, although expensive, is designed for sensitive digestive systems because the protein is extensively broken down and easily digestible.)

While our daughter’s crying proportionally lessened, it still persisted. We returned to the pediatrician; however, this time we were armed with the latest medical knowledge and our meager successes. We demanded our pediatrician re-diagnose Taylor. She did. Conclusion: Taylor was suffering from acid reflux, not colic, and was promptly prescribed liquid Zantac. Within one week’s time, Taylor’s colic “magically” disappeared.

Colic, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a miserable medical condition that is reported to affect one out of every five babies– although some believe these numbers are inflated for two reasons: doctors’ misdiagnoses and ignorant parents. (Ignorance, used in this context, means “lack of knowledge” and not the commonly assumed meaning: stupidity.) A Colicky baby differs from an ordinary crying baby: the cries are panicked, long, sometimes shrieking, and they are unable to be soothed.

There is no medicine known to completely treat all colicky babies, and all the medicines available have side effects. Yet, what medication does not have side effects! Some experts believe excessive gas to be the cause of infant colic, since many colicky infants do seem gassy. However, the same experts are unsure if the gas build up causes the colic or the colic causes infants to become gassy from their inconsolable crying.

Taylor’s little digestive system remains a concern for us, at times. Her finicky belly still cries out for a dose or two of the simethicone drops every couple of weeks, and she is easily constipated by too much iron-rich formula or too much solid food. But thank God her “colic” episodes, which were actually complications arising from persistent acid reflux, are well behind us. I just cannot imagine what hell we would be going through if my wife hadn’t questioned Taylor’s repeated misdiagnoses? Earplugs are not for crying babies, and when it comes to our daughter’s health the convenient diagnoses are unacceptable.

Ages 4–5

Four-year-olds are exuberant explorers of their world. They are beginning to distinguish fantasy from reality, and they are working out relationships within families and friends.

They love words, so read a lot of poetry, and books with rhythmic language, repetition, and chants like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and The Cat in the Hat.

Sheila Rae, The Brave
By Kevin Henkes

Mama Don’t Allow
By Thacher Hurd

Frog and Toad Together
By Arnold Lobel

Froggy Gets Dressed
By Jonathan London

Red Riding Hood
By James Marshall

We’re Going On A Bear Hunt
By Michael Rosen

The Cat In The Hat
By Dr. Seuss

Sylvester and The Magic Pebble
By William Steig

Talking Like The Rain: A First Book Of Poems
By X.J. Kennedy

The Mitten
By Alvin Tresselt

Ages 3–4

Children of this age like to think they are independent, yet cared for, so classics like The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Where the Wild Things Are are perfect for them.

Introduce stories like The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but leave the fairy tales like Snow White until later.

Seek out books with imaginative language and silliness (like Sheep in a Jeep and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) so you can try out new words and enjoy funny situations.

Madeline
By Ludwig Bemelmans

The Snowy Day
By Ezra Jack Keats

The Gingerbread Man
By Eric Kimmel

Make Way for Ducklings
By Robert McCloskey

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
By Laura Joffe Numeroff

The Tale of Peter Rabbit
By Beatrix Potter

Good Night Gorilla
By Peggy Rathmann

Read-Aloud Rhymes For The Very Young
By Jack Prelutsky

Where The Wild Things Are
By Maurice Sendak

Sheep In A Jeep
By Nancy Shaw

Ages 1-2

Between the ages of 1 and 2, introduce books that the child can participate in, like books that require you to lift a flap or pull a tab.

Children like to make all kinds of sounds, so show them books with animals, and books with trains, trucks and other machines. Continue with lots of nursery rhymes, songs and action rhymes.

Stories for this age should be short, colorful, and without unnecessary detail.

Ten, Nine, Eight
By Molly Bang

Mr. Gumpy’s Outing
John Burningham

Freight Train
By Donald Crews

Little Elephant
By Miela Ford

Where’s Spot?
By Eric Hill

Zoom City
By Thacher Hurd

I Love Animals
By Flora McDonnell

“More, More, More,” Said the Baby
Vera Williams

Piggies
By Audrey and Don Wood

The Wheels on the Bus
Paul Zelinsky

Ages 0-1

Christmas ideas:

It is never too early to begin reading to a child. Newborns can’t understand words, of course, but they respond to the sounds of familiar voices and to the closeness that comes from being held.

Start off with Mother Goose rhymes, lullabies and other songs. Then, begin to introduce very simple stories like Goodnight Moon. Let the child have some board books of his or her own to hold, look at and chew on!

Choose books with photographs of babies like The Big Book of Beautiful Babies, because babies love to look at people like themselves.

Here are some age-appropriate book selections:

Moo Baa La La La
By Sandra Boynton

Goodnight Moon
By Margaret Wise Brown

The Big Book of Beautiful Babies
By David Ellwand

Mary Had A Little Lamb
By Sarah Josepha Hale

Pat the Bunny
By Dorothy Kunhardt

My Very First Mother Goose
By Iona Opie

All Fall Down
By Helen Oxenbury

Pat-A-Cake and Other Rhymes
By Joanna Cole and Stephanie Calmenson

Old Macdonald
By Rosemary Wells

I Went Walking
By Sue Williams

Sharing Books.

From July 2000 to June 2001, the Vermont Business Roundtable distributed 7000 tote bags to all Vermont families who had babies born in the year 2000. Yes, it’s now 2007, and darn near 2008, but the message is still the same: Reading to and with your child is important for his or her development.

The follow information, and the next few postings, was published by the VBR and the Vermont Department of Libraries in 2000. I did not obtain their permission to distribute this information, but I’m willing to take the chance of breaking a couple of copy write laws to get this message out.

Tips on sharing books with very young children:

1. Read often and regularly. Set aside a special time to read, but don’t limit books to that one time.

2. Choose books that you like, so as to share your enthusiasm with your child.

3. Talk about the book with your child– point out things on the page, and relate the book’s story to the child’s life and experience.

4. Don’t expect total attention from all young children! Some particularly active ones need to be doing something else, like coloring or playing with blocks, while you read.

5. Read with expression, and vary the pace and volume of your reading.

6. Make songs and rhymes an integral part of your family’s life. Use time in the car or waiting for an appointment to sing together and do simple action rhymes.

7. Have lots of books and other reading materials in the home.

8. Reread you child’s favorite books as often as you can stand it!

9. Begin to build your child’s home library so she or he can have the joy of ownership and constant availability.

10. Take your child to the public library often to select books and to participate in programs.

11. And most important– have fun!

Buy A Book or Two.

“What should we buy him for his birthday?” My wife asks as we walk, arbitrarily, up and down the toy aisles shopping for our eight-year-old nephew.

“How about a book,” I reply. Disconcertingly, my wife disagrees with my feeble suggestion and instead we purchase him a National Geographic Deep Sea Jellyfish Aquarium for $34.99. Maybe we should have bought him a book instead?

According to the 99-page study, “To Read or Not to Read: A Question of Nation Consequence,” released on November 26, 2007, and reported on by CBS news on November 30, 2007, the National Endowment for the Arts has found an increasing number of adult Americans are not even reading one book a year.

It gets worse.

* Only 54% of nine-year-olds read every day for “fun.”

* 72% of employers deem high school GRADUATES as “deficient” in writing English.

* On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading.

* Reading scores for American adults of almost all education levels have deteriorated, notably among the best-educated groups. From 1992 to 2003, the percentage of adults with graduate school experience who were rated proficient in prose reading dropped by 10 points, a 20 percent rate of decline.

* In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24, the college years, read a book voluntarily, down from 59 percent in 1992.

* American 15-year-olds ranked fifteenth in average reading scores for 31 industrialized nations, behind Poland, Korea, France, and Canada, among others.

* Money spent on books, adjusted for inflation, dropped 14 percent from 1985 to 2005 and has fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s.

* The number of adults with bachelor's degrees and "proficient in reading prose" dropped from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent in 2003.

What should we be buying our friends for Christmas? How about a book; or two?

(Thanks for the link Rob!)

Hell Hour.

Hell hour begins the moment my wife walks through the front door and lasts until Taylor’s bath time. My wife cannot wait to kick off her nursing shoes, hang her canvas tote bag in the foyer, strip off her scrubs, take a shower, and unwind from her stressful day with a few minutes in front of the mindless TV. I, on the other hand, after spending the last ten hours caring for Taylor cannot wait to hand her off, finish preparing and cooking dinner, open a beer, and talk to a real, live adult about anything. Regardless of what we want, squealing with joy and frantically waving her arms, all Taylor wants to do is jump into the arms of her mother! Hell hour, as described by Peter Baylies in his book The Stay-At-Home Dad Handbook, are the hours that can make or break your day, marriage, or your sanity. Hell, and the havoc that briskly follows on its heals, unveils itself in our house at 3:45 and withdraws around 6:45 p.m.– just in time for my wife to make her escape to the serenity of a quiet bedroom and for me to begin Taylor’s bedtime routine.

I first encountered these hours from hell coming home from work while my wife watched Taylor three days a week. (The other days Taylor was in childcare or in grandma’s hands.) Virtually every one of these days for the first four months my wife and I were irritated with one another: my wife wanted to hand Taylor over to me so she could quickly pull together dinner and begin her college work; and I wanted an extra half-hour to take a shower and change before attending to Taylor for the remainder of the night. We both felt taken for granted. We became frustrated, and we argued about these transitions three days a week. It was only when our roles were reversed and I was the one waiting at home for my wife to walk through the front door that I clearly saw the folly of my ways and understood, for the first time, what torture Hell hour was for my wife when I was the one walking through that same door.

In time, we have developed a strategy to rein in these uncontrollable hours of hell and share the responsibilities of childcare before they get out of hand. While my wife and I still desire our individual reprieves, we now meet each other half way. Taylor still wants her mom more than anything in the world when she comes home, but my wife, now, snatches her off her feet and hugs, caresses, talks to, and plays with her for several minutes before passing her back to me. Our playtime together is then brought to unprecedented levels in an attempt to distract Taylor for a few minutes while Mom quickly settles into her new role, mommy. For the next two hours my wife takes over as the primary care giver while I immerse myself in finalizing dinner, escape upstairs for my nighttime shower, and finish whatever chores left undone. By 6:45 I return, refreshed, to the role of the primary provider, while my wife is able to say her good-nights and retreat to the solitude of our bedroom until it is time to put Taylor to bed.

Our after-work routine is not perfect; it is wrought with compromise. In a compromise neither side gets all they desire, but for now it is working for us.

Routines.

As a stay-at-home father there are days, like today, that I feel like one arm is tied behind my back, one leg is anchored by a lead weight, my cognitive abilities are awash in emotions, and I still have to function as a loving, caring, concerned father and husband who has been tasked with several “must do” errands in and outside of the house until my wife’s reprieve. Thank God for routines.

At one time my wife juggled three responsibilities at once: going to college, working during the weekends, and motherhood, while I taught high school English Monday through Friday. During this time Taylor spent a portion of her waking hours in childcare. This was a time when Taylor was “out of sight, and out of mind” while I was at work. That is not to say I did not think of her and absolutely abhor the idea of a stranger raising our daughter (hence, one of the reasons I’m at-home now), but for five days a week I had a break from the endless and sometimes mundane childrearing regimen. It was only when I began my new career as an at-home father that I realized when it becomes you who is there when your daughter first wakes, it is you who changes, dresses, feeds, plays, reads to, attends to, and places her down for a nap, on top of doing the housecleaning, grocery shopping, and dinner planning and cooking, that you realize there is a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than you first imagined. I have no idea how I would survive my days at home without the structure routines create out of chaos.

It has taken me quite some time to figure out how and why creating routines with my daughter is important. I thought, like many others who have never experienced the joys and headaches of staying at-home with an infant, that, my days would be filled with ample downtime and leisure to work on and complete projects at will. I imagined my mornings lounging on the living room couch, reading an online newspaper, and slowly sipping my coffee, while my contented baby played with her toys at my feet. Well, I wish that dream was a reality. The reality is that a hungry baby wants to be fed, grabs everything in sight (especially, computer screens and coffee mugs!), and demands constant attention after slumbering away ten hours of their night. Without the routines I have established there would be no possible way I could even begin to enjoy some of the downtime that finds its way into my afternoon.

Much like the birth of our daughter, I had no idea what I was to encounter my first few weeks alone with her. I remember journaling “Okay, today is my first day. Now what?” Followed by a list of prospective fun things we could do together like finger painting, visiting a petting zoo, and attending an outdoor concert. However, I quickly determined that a five-month year old does not possess the most rudimentary fine motor skills needed to keep paint off his or her face, the carpet, or the cat. And it takes more than will power and obstinacy to plan a trip or spend several hours away from the convenience of a crib, changing station, running water, a clean carpet, and a variety of toys.

The routines I have established with Taylor are mediocre at best, designed to make it through the day more than optimize our time together, but I’m learning. Most disconcerting for me has been Taylor’s nap and bedtime schedule; they have, therefore, become the two routines I have focused on extensively. Other routines, such as her morning routine, preparing for a car ride routine, and feeding routine make life easier for both of us: For her, she knows what is coming and what to expect. For me, it gives me a quick look into whether or not she is ready to perform the desired task I ask of her. I cannot explain how complementary it is for complete strangers to say, “I can’t believe how calm, peaceful, and happy your baby is. You don’t even have to bribe her to stay quiet!” No, I don’t. She is quiet because she knows it is, for instance, shopping time. She knows because I prepared her for the car ride, prepped her for the hour long grocery store shuffle, and created a check list so that we can get in and get out of the store as quickly as possible. She is calm and quiet because I have done my part: I changed her before leaving for the store, fed her before entering the store, brought one of her favorite teething toys for her to play with, and she knows as soon as we finish shopping it becomes uninterrupted play time with daddy until mommy gets home.

As we enter the cold season I wonder how it will affect our routines. Already her cheeks are red and chapped by the wind and cold weather from being out on the playground. I imagine over the next few days I’ll begin creating a stricter routine schedule, which details not only household chores but out-of-the-house activities as well, especially since I will be beginning my first online course after the holidays. Routines work. Although they are not as much fun as spur of the moment adventures, they are a necessity to successfully navigate one’s day with a happy baby in tow.

Another Milestone.

Taylor reached another growth milestone the other day. With her ankles and little pink Robeez shoes suspended over the lip of the infant car seat and the five-point shoulder strap unable to comfortably lie across her shoulders without stubbornly rubbing against her neck, she has outgrown her rear-facing car seat. When did she grow so much? Is she really over 22 lbs. and 26 inches long? It seems like only yesterday she was wearing 6/9-month infant clothes; and now her barely fitting, dragonfly embroidered dungarees look more like a pair of capris on her than Levis!

I remember how excited I was my first few days at home with Taylor before the responsibilities of becoming the primary caregiver had sunk in. I intended to treat those first few days as a mini vacation before creating those dreaded routines I had read about in the What to Expect books and our first few free copies of Parenting magazine we sent away for while waiting in the delivery room at the local hospital nearly nine months ago. I have never been one for creating routines. My style, as affably commented on by a good friend last year and quickly seconded by the high school students I taught, can be described as organic. I have always enjoyed wandering off the beaten path, becoming lost in the details, and drinking my morning coffee lackadaisically throughout the day. Little did I know on June 20th, 2007 those days were over.

I was a rookie at-home father for about a week before the severity of the staying at-home decision forced me to make a choice: remain a rookie and flounder for the next year or learn how to become a veteran childcare professional. While I still feel like I am transitioning between being the primary moneymaker and the primary provider, at least understand my new job a little better.

My growth as a stay-at-home father has paralleled Taylor’s physical sprouting. At first, the two of us were stuck inside our small apartment, venturing out only for groceries, stamps, and the occasional trip to the bookstore. The hazy, hot, and humid Vermont weather caused prickly heat rashes to flare up across her sensitive pale skin as quickly as my fear of public scrutiny curtailed our movements outside the home. What would I do if she started crying uncontrollably in the grocery store line or if she pooped while I was contemplating buying a Herman Melville or Nicolas Sparks novel at Borders? My God, what would people think? Is this guy a doofus? Where’s the baby’s mother? Like the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, I felt the world staring down and judging me. And I “knew” they were staring at me, because I am a man doing a “woman’s” job, right; shame on me.

The cooling weather of late summer and early fall, her physical growth, “grandma’s” constant support and advise, and the self confidence in my abilities to take care of whatever problems arose magnified 100 fold the pleasures of staying at-home. Oh, I also learned that dishes should be washed immediately after their use, the stove’s surface is not self cleaning, dinner takes a lot longer to prepare than it ever did, laundry is now my responsibility and all articles of clothing do have their own particular place on the shelf, creating a home environment, that means, at the very least, dusting and vacuuming, needs to be done more than once per week, and my wife works hard at her job. I cannot expect that when she walks through the front door it is like a tag-team wrestling match: she is not “it” and I should not expect her to take over watching, caring, and entertaining Taylor the moment she finishes with her shower.

As Taylor passes her ninth month of life I feel like my gestational period of being a brand new stay-at-home father is also passing. I am making progress by bringing her to new places and meeting new people, even when she is fussy or tired; long drives are considered a mere nuisance not a short-term imprisonment, and routines, like the dreaded bedtime routine, are considered challenges and not hindrances.

This winter holds great promise. Already we are planning trips to both sets of families, my parents to the north and my wife’s family to the south. Between now and then I am finding new places to visit with her, looking for playgroups to join, since the playing outside is getting a little cold, and finding new ways to help her look at old things in a new way. Over the next several months we’ll continue our growth together and slowly experience life in a whole new, confident way.

O! Neighbors of Mine.

O! How does it feel,
Oh neighbors of mine,
To waken from slumber divine,
And feel as if you were waken from steal wailing on steal?

To wake, blurred vision from your doze, forty winks, siesta, and beauty sleep
By the crying babe of mine.
And you can do nothing but ponder in the deep,
Dark night and ask, “Where the hell is that noise coming from?”

It’s from a teething tot,
An aching little girl.
Whose mouth lacks the comfort
That we all have, because hers dos make her shrill.

Welcome to the neighborhood my collegial friends,
Oh yes! I do mind your underage, drunken parties,
Loud muffler, romps and rants and Play station games, nightly, relentless.
Oh yes! It was I who called the landlord the other night to end your soirees.

How does it set,
To be disturbed while you slept,
And be at the losing end of the neighborly apartment pact?
You ask how I feel about your time lost?

Sarcastically… egregious.
But now she’s sleeping just wonderfully, thank you for asking–
No thanks to you, your phony kindness,
Or the pounding on the wall at three in the morning.

Goodnight,
Sweet dreams,
Oh neighbors of mine!

Grandpa's Homemade Thanksgiving Gifts.

Bedtime Dilemma.

“All you need is a belt of scotch,” my father suggests, “that’ll help out your bedtime routine.”

“For me or for the baby?” I inquire.

If there is one thing my wife and I cannot agree upon it is in the consistent implementation of our daughter’s bedtime routine. We have the easy part of the routine down. Around seven o’clock the bathwater is filled. For the next fifteen minutes it is wash and splash time in the sink; between 7:30 – 8:30 it is peekaboo time, block time, ball rolling time, music time, etc., and when she begins rubbing her nose and forehead back and forth on the play quilt it is story time. I love story time. The problem however, begins around 8:30 and on rare occasions lasts later than10 p.m. The bedtime separation anxiety our daughter experiences and the crying which follows at least three or four times a week is enough to break one’s heart and stretch one’s patience.

Putting our daughter down for the night has not always been an issue. For the first six months after our daughter was born we subscribed to the theory that our daughter will fall asleep for the night when she falls asleep. This method seemed to work perfectly for the first six weeks when she slept about as much as she was awake, before gradually falling out of favor. By the third and fourth month this method, known as systematic awakening, clearly was not working– but we had no choice. My wife, working part-time on the weekends and finishing up nursing school as a full-time student during the weekdays, needed her sleep. Me, I was working full-time and had a good friend who kept my caffeine drip filled throughout the morning, an excellent mentor teacher providing me with decades of sacred lesson plans, and enough teaching materials from prior employment, liberated resources (thank you RJH!), and life experience to at least slosh my way through the workday with puffy, bloodshot eyes and dragging feet.

Our daughter’s bedtime routine is complicated by the fact that she is still sleeping in our bedroom. I know, I know; her crib needs to be moved to another room. Unfortunately we are stuck in an old, small apartment and between what we want to do and what can be done. Sadly, our second bedroom is not heated. With the outdoor temperatures quickly dropping into the teens we feel we have little choice but to suffer the consequences of sharing our bedroom with our daughter.

I have read up on the different methods and techniques to put the little one down for the night, and boy are there are a lot of them! But putting her down is not the problem. The problem is keeping her down for the night. I subscribe to the cold turkey theory of slumber. While letting baby “cry it out” does sound harsh and cruel, it works– at least it worked for a little while. My wife, on the other hand, endorses the Ferberizing “conditioning” method. This tactic, named for Dr. Richard Ferber, involves repeatedly soothing and consistently decreasing the amounts of reassurance, in the forms of a back rub, pat or whisper of love, from mom or dad. From my point of view, the problem with the Ferberizing method is that it takes too long for the conditioning to condition, and it is much too easy when one is tired to scoop baby out of the crib, rock her back and forth, or put her on the our bed until she either stops crying or falls asleep from sheer exhaustion, which is exactly what we should not be doing at 9:30 at night!

I’m not saying that the cold turkey method works all the time, it hasn’t. While I have accepted that my daughter will probably cry a little if she is not as ready for sleep as I want her to be, the cold turkey method also too easily dismisses the signs and symptoms of other issues (teething, for instance) and chalks up the baby’s crying up to fussiness. And any set of parents can tell you a crying baby to a mother is comparable to pricking oneself with a tack– neither can be ignored for a prolonged period of time. So what is the solution?

In The Republic, Plato says it is impossible for one to know what they do not want without first knowing what they want. I know that when nine o’clock rolls around I am more than ready to place our daughter down for the night, turn on my 15 watts reading light, open one of the novels sitting on my nightstand and relax for the next hour. I have accepted that my daughter will probably cry a little if she is not as ready for sleep as I want her to be. I can accept that; my wife cannot– hence our bedtime woes.

As we struggle to compromise or find an absolute solution to our bedtime dilemmas, pray for us. Pray that our daughter will miraculously be able to read our minds and fall asleep at the convenient hour of 7:30 p.m. and sleep, uninterrupted, until 7:30 the following morning; or pray that we are blessed with the knowledge of figuring this problem out; or pray that someone out there knows what we should be doing.

Doesn’t she know that sleep is a good thing?

Traveling With an Infant.

One dry-sack, two stuff sacks, one tank bag, a few nylon straps, and a couple of bungee cords¬– that’s all I needed to carry our camping gear, clothing, and personals for a two week motorcycling trip. Our packing motto was “If you didn’t bring it, you don’t need it.” Oh, how things have changed! I never could have imagined how much effort one needs to put into planning and executing a simple five-hour trip when there is a baby in the back seat.

I used to love to travel. Give me a destination, a tote bag to fill with some clothes, a full tank of gas, and a cup of coffee for the early morning start, and I could be on the road in half an hour; and I would be comfortable. It does not work that way anymore. Now I need to make a list to remember all those crucial items needed to survive a few days away from the abode with baby: Similac, Beech Nut jars, rubber covered spoons, paper towels, travel highchair, folding crib, infant Tylenol, diapers, more diapers, wet-wipes, toys, baby blankets, flower-patterned bodysuits, etc., etc., etc.

This weekend’s list was created 24 hours in advance, items checked when found, brought up or downstairs, and crossed off when stacked by the backdoor for the chilly early morning car-loading extravaganza under the 75 watts porch light. The time it took to prepare and load all of the supplies required for the two-day stay several hours away from home was daunting. I never imagined how much “stuff” one family needs away from home with a baby. I cannot help but think that it was not all that long ago I quietly mocked the flocks of caravans loaded with kids and half their house and garage as they traveled down the highway towards some weekend getaway.

Every care was taken to prepare for our trip: a checklist, a visual check, and a second set of eyes to make sure we had it all. Ironically, the one item we forgot to pack was the first item we needed– the baby bottle nipple. Fifteen minutes and a bout of crying later we purchased the wrong Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow nipple, twice. Another hour of calming a now hot (from crying), wet (the milk’s got to go somewhere), and fussy baby our little angel finally descended into an untroubled sleep outside of Hartford, CT. The remainder of the trip was spent in relative peace and quiet. Even after she woke up as we bounced across the George Washington Bridge in New York City, our little one remained playfully content all the way to our destination.

We are now in the market for a mini van. Yuck! But, the idea of being able to fit all our new “necessities” in the back of a vehicle and having the luxury of being able to move to the backseat to take care of the tot without stopping, posthaste, off the interstate is alluring.

What did we learn from this experience? First, the checklist worked. The nipple overlook was an anomaly. If anything, we over-packed. Second, the more room in the vehicle the easier it would have been to care for the baby. Stopping on the interstate or at rest areas every couple of hours to jump in the backseat caused more dangers to passing cars than the emissions a larger vehicle would cause to the ozone layer. And third, one must be flexible. As the old adage goes “Ya get there when ya get there.” I, more than my wife, nearly lost my cool on the drive down. It is frustrating having to lean over the front seat and into the backseat with a bottle or toy in tote to soothe a bored baby as one’s spine is compressed against the vehicle’s ceiling.

With all the setbacks, new experiences, and frustrations traveling a reasonable distance with an infant is more than possible– just be prepared for the inevitably unforeseen stumbling and bumbling along the way!

The Decision.

The decision for one of us, my wife or me, to stay home with our little girl was an easy one. Both of us grew up in strong, loving, caring home environments and we adamantly believe that it is our responsibility as parents to provide our daughter an equivalently strong, loving, and caring home environment as she matures. As for which one of us was to stay home…I qualified best for that job.

Three years ago I walked away from a good career in policing. The pay was competitive, health benefits were excellent, and the city possessed an attractive pension. In other words, there was a lot to lose by leaving. But the job was killing me from the inside out. Job stress, more than any other factor, caused me to reconsider what a twenty-five year stint in blue would inevitably do to my health. The statistics, provided by the esteemed Cooper Institute in Houston, Texas, could not be more telling: The average life expectancy of a retired police officer is ten years. Ten years! No thank you. The physiological and psychological affect of stress on a police officer, whether from working in a large city or a small town, has been compared to the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) soldiers recovering from combat zones experience. The primary difference between the two is the intensity and the longevity of the stressors. Obviously a soldier will experience a greater and more intense stress in battle than an officer ever will on the street. However, the police officer does experience the same unrelenting hyper-awareness– only the police officer experiences it five days a week, 52 weeks a year, for 25 years. For me, the writing was on the wall after only a few years on the job. I knew that if I wanted to enjoy my life before and after retirement I needed to get out. I did. I returned to graduate school, earned a master’s degree, and began teaching in the public school system. Around the same time, my wife also returned to school and has recently earned her RN degree.

Financially, my wife’s profession easily pays double what I make as a teacher. It did not take long for us to determine which one of us would remain at home: me. How many years will I be the primary provider (an idiom I’ve subscribed to myself)? I am not sure. But for now my job is to raise our daughter in a world that still frowns on the idea of a household where the mother works full-time and the father is a "Mr. Mom."

A little more about me.

We started our family a little later than some. Thank God my wife and I look younger than we actually are! I like to think that our age gives us the wisdom to overcome the stumbling blocks of youthful, emotional, and sometime irrational decisions younger parents make. Yet, maybe my wisdom is little more than a mixture of some life experience, a dash of higher education, a splash of pride, and all of it whipped up with a whole lot of wishful thinking and reflection. Whatever it may be, I am doing the best I can to raise our daughter in a world fraught with scary characters, iniquitous schemes, and seemingly irrepressible vanity.

Over the last dozen or more years I’ve spent my calling working as a police officer and a public high school teacher. Needless to say my point of view sometimes points in odd directions– contrary to the commercial opinions expressed by the masses. I would like to think that those jobs, and the countless other menial jobs I’ve held over the last twenty-plus years, has sharpened my outlook on life, politics, society, and our educational system. Maybe it has.

My life changed at the dawning of 2007 with the birth of our daughter; it changed once again when I quit work to be a stay-at-home father. I’ve thought about blogging for sometime. I have decided to do it for two reasons: First, practice makes perfect. I plan to return to the classroom at some point in time. Writing, like any skill, quickly becomes rusty without constant attention. Second, I love to write; and perhaps what I have to say can be of use to someone else– only time can tell.