Crib Crazy

As soon as we fix one problem in our household, another one tends to crop up. When last I left you we had just transitioned Emma from her cradle in our room to a crib in my office slash guest room. The very next day, you wouldn’t believe who suddenly got it in his head to climb out of his crib.

Yes, that’s right. My seventeen month old son, Henry.

It has been a long time coming. All of the signs were there. Henry has mastered climbing into my glider, his father’s wingback chair, the dining room chairs, even the bed in our room and the guest bed. We’ve had quite a few scares when it comes to these stunts – if you’ll recall, when Henry climbed the guest bed he fell backwards onto the hardwood floor. While he was startled and gave me a heck of a fright, not ten minutes after he was trying to climb right back up on the bed. He is, in a word, fearless.

It was only a matter of time. Henry has been able to rest his arms comfortably on top of the crib for some time now. There would be times when I would go in to get him after a nap and find that he was toeing that line, literally – his toe would be up on the railing, his arms reaching to wrap around the top of his crib but I didn’t worry about it. I knew it would be soon but I kept thinking not yet, not yet. And then it happened. Just like that. The first Sunday after Gordon returned home from Pennsylvania, the first full day of Emma sleeping in her crib, he did it.

Henry had just woken from a nap. I wasn’t quite ready to get him up yet so I let him whine in his crib, as I often do, content that he’s contained sufficiently. Then the whining got… insistent. Higher pitched. Then a little frightened sounding and a tad pained. Sometimes Henry will get his leg stuck because he has turned himself wrong way – instead of going length wise, he’ll get width wise and gets his little legs and feet kicking out. I figured that this was the case and made my way leisurely to his room.

Books, Books, and More Books!

I love books. I would even go so far as to say that I have a long-standing love affair with books, one that predates my husband or even my first crush. My favorite book growing up as a child was The Velveteen Rabbit. I shudder to think how many millions of times I must have asked my mother to read that book to me and she did, tirelessly, over and over again. Part of it was the illustrations and the other part of it was the mystery – toys that talked, fairies, a toy turned into a real rabbit. It was magical and opened my eyes to the wonder of the word. A gift so priceless but one that I hope to pass on to my children.

When we found out we were pregnant with Henry, I went on a subconscious book hunt. I say subconscious because even when I wasn’t meaning to look for children’s books, every time we attended the Nashville Flea Market we would undoubtedly come away with them. Dozens of them! I would go into a stall, see a selection of children’s items and immediately gravitate towards them. As I lovingly flipped through the different toys, dolls, card games, and books, whenever I would happen across one from my childhood, I would put it aside and then go off to barter with the seller. I wanted to share a part of my memories, my childhood, with my child. Of course, more often than not the literature loot that I often carted off had nothing to do with my own childhood and was instead what I thought my child might enjoy. A book about talking ducks? Of course! Children being mischievous? Naturally.

Thankfully it seems that between Gordon and I we have managed to instill an interest, if not a love of, books into our son Henry. Even though he’s only 17 months old, he loves nothing more than to bring you a book so that you can flip the pages and tell him what they mean. The look of concentration on his face is fascinating to me. Of course, there are some books he can have and some that he can’t because he hasn’t learned how to treat the books with respect yet. For the most part, nearly all of the board and sturdy books are at Henry level – there so whenever the mood strikes him, he can bring us a book to read to him. More often than not this just leads to the books being thrown around on the floor until he finds the book he’s looking for or just because he likes the noise but when we read? Oh, when we read it’s magic. He stops what he’s doing, comes closer, sometimes sitting in my lap and sometimes just standing, and listens. There’s something mesmerizing about having the attention of a toddler who is often so full of energy.

A Note to New Mothers

A while back, someone I know asked (in all seriousness) ‘When do you stop being a new mom/dad?” Answer: Never. No, I’m serious! Hear me out! Even when your baby is no longer a baby, when they become a toddler, then a pre-schooler, a grade schooler, a middle school kid, a high school teenager, a college aged young adult, so on and so forth, it is still a new experience for you as a mother (or father, no discrimination here!). Until you are aged and your memory fails, you are still a new mom. At least in my mind. Isn’t that a frightening thought? The learning is never over, it just gets easier with time.

When I asked Gordon if I could still be considered a new mom a few months ago after the birth of Emma, he said no. I told him, you’re right, I’m no longer a new mom but now I’m a mom to two which is a whole new ball game. Not only that, but it’s two under two. And it’s a baby girl where the first time it was a boy, which is a whole new ball park! So while I may be used to being a mother by now, especially to a newborn, I was still new to this. Motherhood. Being a mother to two, being a mother to a little girl versus a toddler boy. And that’s the other thing – a toddler boy! Everything is changing with him every single day. Every time we think we have him figured out, he changes the rules and we have to step it up a notch or twelve. I think most of the time he’s too smart for his own britches but that’s another story…

I have a few women that I know who have taken the next step in their womanhood, that into motherhood. Most of them are friends, one of them the wife of a friend and a mere acquaintance. A few of them I have written, a few of them I still need to write but in the past few weeks I feel like I’ve given the same advice over and over again and I thought – well, maybe someone I don’t know needs to hear this just as much as they do. I know I wish I had had this to read when I was first sailing through the uncharted waters of motherhood. Here are my little tidbits. I hope they prove useful!

Budget Budget BUDGET

I feel like the word budget has suddenly become my catch phrase. What you probably don’t know about our little house hold is that I’m sort of in charge of everything. While I often defer to my husband, when it comes down to it I’m the one with the facts and figures. I was the one who helped us purchase our house. I’m the one who takes care of the bills. I’m the one who takes care of the children. I’m also the one who tries, sometimes in vain, to maintain control of the house. Hey, there has to be a little give somewhere. I’m not Supermom although I like to pretend to be.

When Gordon went away to Pennsylvania for the week, we got dangerously low in our finances. And I mean like less than $30 in our main bank account. Since we don’t have a savings account this was bad, worse than bad. If I had ordered one more pizza or Gordon had to buy some food using something other than his credit card? Boom. We would have been flat broke. You can imagine how this put the fear of – well, I would say God but we’ll say Money God instead – in us. So that weekend of his return, we had a little heart to heart and considered our options.

Truthfully? There really aren’t any options. We’re just going to have to spend less since Gordon is our only source of income. We’re a one income family with two small children under the age of one and a half who live in a new house, in a new neighborhood, in a new town, in a new county, in the same state we’ve always lived in. The cost of living? High. Gordon’s paycheck? Not so high. Since I’m not consuming any gas in my car at the moment, we only have Gordon’s car to worry about financing. Then of course there’s the bills not only for this house but also for our old house. The bills for our old house aren’t terrible, less than $30 a month for both electricity and water then another $70 for interest (long story) but still… It all adds up. I mean, that’s $100 right there, just gone!

Here at this house, on the other hand, there’s electricity, water, internet, land line phone, Netflix, mortgage, etc. Which is the equivalent of one paycheck each month. Since we only get two paychecks a month normally, sometimes three? That’s huge. Ginormous. And the cost of diapers, wipes, formula, and food aren’t getting any cheaper which is what eats up the rest of our budget.

Since the scare, though, I have been placed in charge not only of our bills (which I was already in charge of) but also in keeping a closer eye on our bank account. That means tracking every purchase. Right now the idea is for me to put every receipt into Excel and track it that way but I’m not sure how well that will fly. After all, I was supposed to start the Sunday prior to July beginning but I haven’t entered a single receipt yet. Why? Because I simply don’t have time!

Solo-Parenting, Day Six

Today was my last day of solo-parenting. What started out as a five day stint turned into a six day stint when Gordon arrived in Pennsylvania and found out that the four day class was in fact a five day class – four days in class, one day of review and testing for the certification. While the instructors of Gordon’s class were willing to work with him and the other mechanic from Gordon’s dealership, the company that employs the instructors was not. Gordon’s hotel stay had to be extended by a day, the rental car’s contract had to increased, and flight arrangements had to be cancelled and remade. Then on top of that, due to weather, Gordon’s flight was late in taking off and therefore late in landing. When I was expecting him home in time to be able to help me put Henry down, he arrived long after but at least he came home. In one piece.

And boy were his arms tired from  flying home.

I, on the other hand, felt like today breezed by. It was probably the fact that I knew in 10 hours, he would be home. 7 hours. 4 hours. 2 hours. When the flight got put on hold, I held my breath a little. Please oh please, I begged the travel gods that be, let my husband be able to fly home today. Let him be home in time to go to bed with me. Let him be safe. And thankfully, the travel gods smiled down on me 🙂

Remember when I went to bed last night? It was just a little before 10:00 and just as I was powering off my laptop, Emma woke up. So I gave her a bottle, put her back in bed, and dreamed of a night with fewer wakes. It was a nice dream if one based purely in fiction. After the 10:00 bottle and my notoriously shaky resolve when it comes to lack of sleep and ease, I ended up pulling her into bed sometime around 2:00 and keeping her there for a few hours. I do think around 4:00 I roused myself enough to give her another bottle because the novelty of being a human pacifier had worn off and then put her back in her cradle. Another waking around 5:30 – even though I had put up a blackout curtain in the hopes that she would sleep longer! – and back into bed with me. So it went until 6:40 when I finally gave up and got up with her. Her brother followed shortly after, a little before 7:00, and suddenly we were back on our old schedule. My fear that he would have magically transitioned to one nap in one day had proved unfounded. Thank goodness for early morning dirty diapers!