Monday, April 12, 2010

A Milestone!!!! LOOK WHO'S TALKING

My 22 month-old daughter started talking. Not that she wasn't babbling stuff in the past. The difference is, I now UNDERSTAND what she is saying!!

I was thinking back to the biggest breakthrough with my 3 year old. Walking? No. Sleeping through the nite? No. Potty trained (no he is still not potty trained). I realize now, it was our ability to communicate via language. It brought us closer together.

There was just too many things that a cry could mean, but now "more milk" means "I want more milk!" "Hold me" means "hold me", and "Dont do it" means "dont do it!" although I'm a little surprised that she was trying to communicate 'dont do it' for so long, and I was oblivious. What the hell was I doing that she didn't like?

It's sort of like having a dog, that after two years, looks at you and says "how about a bagel?" Things will never be the same.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Nanny or Grandma ?

As I walk my kids out in the city streets with their stroller, I look at all the other women toting kids on their weekday errands. First off, none of them are men, or stay at home dads like me. In fact, during the week, very few look like mothers. The bulk of them look like elder women, who are the child’s caretakers during the week.

So I came up with a game as I walk down the crowded streets, eyeing each elder caretaker. I call it ‘NANNY OR GRANDMA?’. It’s pretty simple. I just try to guess if the caretaker is the child’s nanny, or their grandma. You can usually tell if you see them interact. Grandma’s tend to be very warm yet strict with the kids. (They are also usually the same nationality, but that isn’t always the case). The nannies tend to be more checked out and disengaged with the kids. They don’t seem to have the kids totally covered up in winter clothes, they don’t talk to them as they walk, and they will have a ‘stop and chat’ with other caregivers, not even realizing the kid is ignored in the stroller for 10 or 15 minutes at a time.

It sort of makes me sad for the working mothers who have entrusted their children to the nanny, hoping for their kids to have a fun day, while the mother works to make money to pay for the half-assed substitute version of herself. I hate seeing a nanny pushing a sleeping kid in a stroller. My feeling is, if the child is sleeping in the stroller, then the nanny should have had that child at home. Serve the kids needs first, not your own. You’re getting paid for it.

Now, with Grandma, it’s different. Grandma’s spoil, and grandma’s love, and they don’t do it for a paycheck. I personally believe that a Grandma takes the child out to have a fun day, and if the kids pass out from exhaustion in the stroller, it’s because they had such a great morning, they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

I could be wrong. I never get to see what home life is like. There may be reasons they need to take napping kids out of the house on the cold city streets. I suppose if I was currently working, then we would to entrust a nanny, (our kids' Grandmas don’t live nearby) and hope that they are doing their best to represent our intentions with the kids. I guess I should consider my kids lucky, that at least they have a parent, even if it’s an overwhelmed dad, who is there for them on a daily basis. Who would have guessed.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Both Kids Vomiting

I have BIG GUILT.

I heard my 20 month old crying last night, but ignored it. She's cried in the middle of the night before, and I've gone to her, but there was never anything wrong. She just woke up and wanted to be held. Eventually she goes back to sleep.

But Friday night, I ignored her crying, and I have guilt.

Guilt because when I went to get her Saturday morning, her crib was covered in dried vomit. It took a while to figure out what it was, it was so crusted already. She seemed in good spirits though, and she ate her breakfast without a problem, so I assumed she got sick and woke up her normal self.

So I have guilt for not going in there at night, but that wasn't the BIG GUILT.

You see, I assumed she was good enough to put in the car, along with her 3 year old brother, and go to the mall. Both were strapped in their car seats in the SUV when she looked car sick. Hmmm. But there was no time to react, as she vomited all over herself, the car seat and the car. Several times. That's when I realized, she really is sick. And then I had more guilt but still not the BIG GUILT.

I took her home, and babied her the rest of the day and into the night. I think the 3 year-old was jealous as he kept saying that his stomach bothered him too. But I ignored his words. I thought, 'he loves his sister so much, he is having sympathy pain for her'. That was, until HE then he suddenly projectile vomited all over the carpet.

I have both kids vomiting! And now I got the BIG GUILT.

Taking care of sick kids wasn't something I learned in college or even in my job, before I became the stay at home dad. I had no idea what to do. If it was me, I want to be alone, curl up in the fetal position on my bed and sleep. But for some reason, kids don't want to be alone when they're sick. They want to be babied, especially babies!!

I have been through pedialite, pedialite popsicles, gatorade, anything to keep fluids in them, but it keeps coming up. Ugh.

Cut to now, about 72 hours later. I haven't really slept, and I've been up to my eyeballs in vomit. But I'm happy to say that both kids are now in full recovery and sleeping now. My stomach is turning, but I'll just power through it. I don't have time for a stomach flu.

I hope to get over my BIG GUILT, but I know the next time one of my kids tells me they dont feel good, I'll be all over it.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

My Average Day with the two kids

It’s nap time so I got time to write…..

The three year old sleeps in a ‘big boy bed’, (aka a toddler bed), which means he can get out of bed at any time. The 20 month girl has to scream from her crib to be saved when she’s awake….. But since the house is quiet, and fairly clean, I can write….

Here’s how my day goes.

7am - The kids wake up, right as my wife is leaving for work. With a little luck, she can say goodbye to them on her way out. I get the kids out of bed, do diaper changes for both, get them sippy cups of milk and turn on the DORA THE EXPLORER. Don’t knock TV, it gives me time to use the bathroom, make coffee, and grab the paper.

By 8am, the day is in full swing. I need to get the kids dressed, and feed them breakfast because our daily adventure (different on each day of the week) begin at 9am. Unfortunately I don’t really get time to shower, and if I do, it’s a quick one with the door open where I listen for the kids stealing the plunger near the toilet. Breakfast is an ordeal, and I’ll save that for another post….

9am – Monday thru Wednesday my three year old has nursery school from 9-1130am. I walk the three blocks with him (the youngest tagging along). I wait outside the door with all the other nannies, mostly African American and West Indies, and help him with his jacket and Spiderman backpack. Once he’s good, the youngest and I are free to have mini adventures for a few hours. Sometimes we run errands, sometimes we go to the Children’s Museum or Manhattan, and other times we go play on the swings in the park. Lately I have organized play dates for her and other kids in the neighborhood. The nannies come to our house and play with my little girl for an hour or two. I spend most of my time silently comparing her development to the other kids her age. I have tried to have conversations with the nannies, but it’s nothing compared to the watercooler talk I had in my professional world before I was laid off.

11:30am – 12:30pm Playdate activities over, I head to school to pick up the boy, always checking his mailbox to take home his latest painted ‘masterpiece’. We come home and I go into full lunch mode. From grilled cheese, to PB&J, mac and cheese, etc.. I make lunch time the kids food meal, and dinner the healthier meal. Lunch is an ordeal, and I’ll save that for another post…

1pm – I try to gauge how tired the kids seem. As much as I would like for them both to go down for a nap right at 1pm, it takes about an hour of wind down before I can officially say both are napping. There are diaper changes, story time, songs, etc… It’s a full blown day care in my place, and I’m the daddy day care scout leader.

2-3pm – I can safely say that this hour is for myself. I can check my email, make phone calls, even write a blog. I wish I could nap at this time. I need to take a nap at this time from the go-go-go seven hours I just had, but I can really ever go down. I usually catch up on my TIVO and give my wife an update on the kid’s day so far. Some times I pay bills. Sometimes I clean the house.

Now my kids wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, but they both wake up from nap time at 3pm clingy and cranky. It can 20 minutes to get them to feel awake again. I’m either just holding them, getting a graham cracker snack, or just dealing with meltdowns. Sometimes a combination of those at the same time.

3pm-5pm is improve time. There’s no adventures to have at parks, schools or museums, no play dates. It’s just play by ear time. We play toys or I put them in the double stroller and go grocery shopping, the drug store, or just stay at home and play with toys. It’s the time of day where I look at my watch the most because the day seems to move the slowest. I’m waiting for 5pm to get them dinner, they’re touching everything, breaking everything, and destroying the house I just cleaned up when they were napping. I fight the urge not to turn on the TV and veg out while they watch repeats of Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba. (By the way, have you seen Yo Gabba Gabba? That’s for another post…)

5pm – I try to make a healthy dinner. No ‘lunch time foods’ like applesauce and jello. Vegetables, corn, chicken, fish, etc… My oldest is a very picky eater and doesn’t like to try new things. You guessed it, it’s an ordeal.

6pm – The best part of my day…. BATHTIME!! I suppose I don’t have to bath them every night, but they love it, and I love it. They both get into the bubble bath and we play with bathtoys and waterbuckets. They take turns picking their ELMO COLOR, that is, what color we are going to turn the bath water using these colored dye pucks dropped into the tub. Their favorite color is all of them… (aka brown). I try to make bathtime last at least a half an hour, then dry them off and get them ready for bed.

6:30-7:30pm – TV TIME!! My second favorite part of the day. They get 45 minutes of TV of their choice, including DVDs! We’ve watched every Disney movie 50 times, commercials and all. Our current nightly favorite is SNOW WHITE. They dance when Snow White dances with the dwarfs, and they pretend to be the magic mirror. More about this hour on another post!

7:30pm If I’m lucky, my wife will come home right as TV time ends and bed time begins. She’ll spend time with them and we’ll each put one of them down. If she’s not home, which is 3 of the 5 days a week, then I have to pull a carefully orchestrated maneuver off. I have to keep the oldest one occupied while I give the one-year old rocking chair time, and then I have to hope the baby stays down while I read stories and sing songs with the older one. This entire process takes about an hour. I wont bore you with the details of stories and songs, however let’s just say there is some amazing throwbacks to my favorite movies and TV shows of the 70’s. The stories, the songs, it’s my most creative time of the day.

8:30pm – My wife is usually home and we discuss dinner. We order in, since the kids are down and it’s too late to start cooking. We both are sound asleep by 10pm, barring a child not waking up, which happens frequently. But I’ll save that for another post….

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

About Me and My Kids - FIRST POST

Hi. I'm a 43 year-old Dad.

A Dad of two kids... two VERY YOUNG kids, one and three. And this is a blog about my life with those kids.....

See, I used to have a big time job managing hundreds of people, having important conversations with important people. Then I got laid off, and I became... Dad.

My wife is still a mover and a shaker, a big-wig with a blackberry in her hand all day long. She leaves for work early and comes home late. She travels a lot. That leaves me as the main parent in my kids lives. And this blog is about my adventures with the little ones. The good, the bad, and the diapers.

Don't get me wrong, my kids are great. I love my kids and would do anything for them. But they're, you know, kids. Very young kids. Play dates, sippy cups, naps, bath time, tantrums, you name it. And I will.

It's funny. When I got laid off, I thought, this will be a great opportunity to connect with my kids in a way I have never done. But I got much more than I bargained for. I know there every move, every movement, every bowel movement, before they do. I cant help but laugh at the fact that... I'm Dad.

The truth is, I'm not really the best parent for kids this young. I can't wait for baseball practice, European vacations, alumni parent's weekend, and watching the Godfather movies with them. But they're not there yet, and wont be for a decade. I do my best to keep them safe and healthy and to keep my sanity.

No nanny, no grandma, no break from the mundane life of young toddlers. Just a Dad and his Kids.