daycare – Page 2

My mom called to remind me that she needs her daily blog fix. In an effort to be a good daughter, I rapidly finished up this post I’ve been working on all week. So, here it is . . . I hope you find it worth the wait!

Another crazy week . . . Micah has been struggling with a stuffy nose all week, and I’ve been running around like a mad woman and trying to get some work done. As you already know, we started off the week with our 4 month checkup (see my last post).

On Wednesday, we went to our playgroup. Micah thoroughly enjoyed himself – he talked up a storm, smiled at everyone, played with his friend Emily’s Hop ‘N Pop (a travel activity center), and just had a wonderful time. The pictures don’t lie!

I can’t believe how big he is getting – and so grown up! He is playing like a “big” boy now. He was spinning the dials, and pushing all the buttons, and having so much fun. We got home in the afternoon, and I got some work done while Micah napped. I had a BBYO Adult Board meeting that night, so Elliot was on Daddy duty for bedtime.

On Thursday, I got up early to head to a conference in Baltimore. The plan was to have Micah join me. Needless to say, nothing went as planned. Micah woke up super early (around 5 am) and was HUNGRY. I actually thought that would give us great timing – usually, when he wakes up early, he goes back to sleep for 3 (sometimes 4) hours, which would allow us to get out the door around 9:30 or so. Apparently, Micah had other plans. He would NOT wake up until 10:45. He was sound asleep, and he would not be woken up. I had a work emergency, so I was dealing with that. When Micah finally got up, he was grumpy. I fed him, and finally got him dressed and ready to go . . . and he decided to have a poop explosion (a SUB as we call them). I changed him again, and we headed out the door.

I made it all the way to downtown Baltimore . . . just in time for the lunch rush. We couldn’t find any open garages, and right at that moment, Micah got fussy – he was ready to eat again. Realizing that by the time I found a spot, and fed Micah, and got over to the conference it would be practically over, I threw in the towel on the conference. Instead, I headed a few minutes further north and decided to meet up with my SIL Jen and the girls. We met at Panera for lunch . . . and I promptly discovered I did not have my regular diaper bag with my hooter hider. I had the emergency diaper bag, so I tried to nurse Micah using a receiving blanket as a shield. Micah was more in the mood to play with the blanket and smile at me, but every time I tried to stop nursing him he shrieked. It was a fun experience. Lunch was . . . chaotic . . . to say the least. I was dealing with nursing challenges, and Jen had accidentally forgotten my niece Peyton’s shoes. We spent the whole meal trying to keep her from walking on the ground. With all the craziness, I think we ended up staying at Panera for only 10 or 15 minutes – we couldn’t wait to get out of there and try to regain control of the situation.

After lunch, we headed back to their house. Paige and Peyton were great with him. He laughed, he played with them, and we had a pleasant afternoon. His cousins even gave him a few toys to bring home – with lots of lights, buttons and music! He has been having so much fun playing with all of these toys.

My nieces were adorable (as always). Unfortunately, they tend to fight a lot. Paige, however, takes everything away from her younger sister, Peyton, and tries to push her around. On this particular occasion, Peyton wanted to eat some goldfish they were supposed to be “sharing.” Paige is very good at “sharing” – as long as she doesn’t have to share with Peyton. She will share with me, with Micah . . . with pretty much anyone else, but not Peyton. I didn’t exactly see the whole exchange, but Paige took the goldfish, and somehow Peyton ended up biting Paige’s finger . . . hard. She meant business . . . Peyton dug in and was ferocious and shaking her head with fury while she bit down. She intended to teach Paige a lesson, and was standing up for herself – the poor thing was tired of being pushed around! Tough situation for Jen – Peyton needs to learn not to bite, but she was also trying to stick up for herself because Paige was being a bully. I thought she handled the disciplining/comforting very well – I was impressed!

Then, Peyton decided she wanted to pee on the potty. We took off her pants and diaper, and she sat on the little potty. Paige then decided she wanted the potty and tried to shove Peyton off. We eventually convinced her to use the real toilet, but not before the two girls had a shoving match on the mini potty. Somewhere along the way, Peyton decided to pee on the floor. I think the fact that she is showing interest in the potty is pretty exciting as she is only 18 months old! We headed back upstairs, and it became apparent that the girls were tired. When they went down for their nap, we headed home.

I made it home just in time to meet with another contractor. We are considering putting an addition on the house (crazy, right, since we just renovated the inside). That went well, but Micah had a SUB while the contractor was here, and we had to bathe him and put him to bed while trying to talk costs, look at options, and discuss business. It was a bit chaotic!

My frustration of the week has been that Micah has been waking up hungry early in the morning lately. This morning, he got up at 4:30 again (2nd time this week, and we had one night that he woke up at midnight to eat), so I brought him into bed and fed him. He fell back to sleep right after eating, and he woke up again at 8:30. We got up and dressed, and we decided to try out an exercise class called Stroller Strides. We met our friend Erica there with HER son Micah, and we had a good time. It was a good class – I’m pretty sore! After exercise class, Micah went back to daycare for a few hours – his second “trial” run. I think this visit went better – they did not over-feed him, and he did take a bit of a nap. Unfortunately, we did have another meltdown at bedtime, so perhaps they are connected. I wish I knew what to do! In the meantime, I gave him a bottle of pumped breastmilk, and he guzzled it down before he passed out.

This weekend, we are thinking of trying rice cereal for the first time (since breastmilk alone doesn’t seem to be quite enough for Micah these days) . . . it should be interesting (and I promise, there WILL be video). My question is – will he end up with more cereal in his mouth or his hair? I’m a bit scared. I keep seeing him stick his hands in the cereal and putting them straight in that luscious hair of his. I then imagine the cereal getting all hard and sort of . . . shellacking to his hair. We may end up needing to give him a buzz cut before the weekend is over. My mom suggested a shower cap – we may need to experiment!

Today was Micah’s first day at child care at The Children in the Shoe, and I cried my eyes out! He is now officially a Little Star (I had it wrong before . . . I thought he was going into the Lambs classroom). I always knew he was a superstar!

Our day was crazy (as usual). We went to our playgroup this morning, and we brought a kosher for Passover birthday cake we baked for one of the other moms. Nothing fancy, but it wasn’t bad for a Passover cake.

Micah had a great time at playgroup! He played on the playmat, and his friend Juliet couldn’t stop running her fingers through his hair (okay, more like grabbing a chunk, but at that age, same thing!!) They were even holding hands for a while. I think some of the other women took some photos – I will try and update those later.

We stayed a little too long at playgroup, and I needed to race out of there and get gas for Elliot’s car. We finally made it to the daycare center at 2:00 – about 1/2 hour later than I’d planned. I brought him back to the room, and left him there. As I walked out . . . I started to bawl. I was just so sad to leave him. I was worried he would be afraid with all the strangers, and I didn’t want him to be sad or lonely. I kept thinking they wouldn’t talk to him enough and that he would not get enough stimulation. Crazy, right? It also worries me that many of them speak with an accent, and I worry that hearing poor English will affect his language development. I went to the office and filled out all the paperwork, and then I went back and checked on him. He was sitting in a bouncy seat, playing with a blue stuffed elephant. He wasn’t smiling and chatting like he does at home, but he looked like he was fine, so I ran out of there in a mad race to get to my meeting on time!

My meeting went well – I won’t bore you with the details, but it looks like I have a chance at another contract. After my meeting, I checked in with Elliot, and he was about to pick Micah up from daycare. I raced home and waited for them. When Elliot walked through the door with Micah, he was clearly happy to see me. He couldn’t stop beaming and laughing, and he was just so happy to be with me. I can assure you, the feeling was mutual!

Micah did just fine . . . he enjoyed playing with the blue stuffed elephant while he sat in a bouncy seat, and he took his bottle. They said he was happy and easy the whole time – he even got a wonderful report card to prove it!

All in all, he did really well, but I was a bit frustrated with his caretaker, Aneta. When we arrived, Micah was asleep. We decided to place his car seat in the crib so we did not wake him up (I told her he desperately needed to nap for an hour or two). So, after we placed him in the crib . . . she woke him up to put in his paci “so he would sleep better.” HELLO – how does WAKING A BABY UP help them sleep better? I did my best to bite my frustration back, and I went to the front office. I came back to check on Micah before I left, and he was quietly playing. DH picked him up at 4:30, and he was napping – but he had JUST fallen asleep. According to Aneta, Micah took 5 ounces. I told her he probably shouldn’t need more than 4 – I have a feeling she force-fed him the last ounce instead of taking the bottle away when he was just comfort-sucking. I’ll have to have a discussion with her about not over-feeding him. Needless to say, his belly hurt a bit when we brought him home, and he had a meltdown around 7:30 because he had not gotten enough sleep during the day. We’ll have to work that out.

I had to run out after nursing Micah to attend a viewing – the father of our family friend, Pat, died last week. I made it back a little after 8, and Micah was still in melt-down mode. Elliot managed to get him to sleep for a few minutes, but I needed to nurse him again before he finally drifted off. I guess my little guy just needed a bit more mommy time. He was SOOO over-tired today.

Update. . . . 1:02 am. It has been a rough night. Micah was hysterical at bed time, then woke up again at 8:45 and needed to nurse. He went back to sleep, but Elliot and I have needed to run upstairs MANY times to reinsert the paci. I was getting ready to pump when the fussing started again. I reinserted the paci, but he didn’t seem satisfied, so I picked him up and decided to nurse him again. While I was nursing him, he was making this horrible rattling noise – he was extremely congested. We used that blue nasal squeegey to clear things out (he did NOT like that) and I finished nursing him. He is currently asleep, on his side, but it is a very restless sleep. I think we’re in for a long night and an early morning! Maybe daycare did really throw him off more than we thought.