PrairieTide

Katie's Newest Lines

2008-05-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

"That's my mommy!"

"Where's daddy?"

"No potty!"

"Mommy has a big bum!"

Ah, such a sweet child... For a while there around her second birthday, Katie always refer to herself by name. She'd say "Do you want a snack, Katie?" It's like she was saying the phrase she wanted YOU to say to her. "Hey, Adult! Ask me if I want a snack, already! I'm starving here!"

Lately she's been trying out pronouns, though "you" and "me" and "I" are a bit of a confusion. For instance, when I go to put her in her carseat, she'll say, "I help you. I help you. I HELP YOU!" At first I thought she was offering to do something for me, but what? I'm not the one who needs to be strapped into that darn carseat! With the urgency heating up with each repetition, it was time for some mom quick thinking. Then I realized what she was asking was a little assistance getting her small bottom into that big, clumsy seat. She's mimicking what she hears, and what she hears is the adults in her life saying something like "Do you want me to help you?" which is close to "I help you", kinda.

Today, during our morning carseat strap-a-thon, I said the usual, "Climb into your seat, cutie-patootie". Once again, she looked at me like I was crazy. The seat is bigger than her by half, so I'm not sure why I made a point of asking her to climb into it by herself each day. It must be something I read in that Montessori book. Anyhoo, I do it every day, and she looks at me like I'm crazy, and then usually says, "I help you." But today, ah today. Today was special. I still got the "crazy lady" look. But she found a new word today. She said, 'You help me" thereby getting the "you" and the "me" in the right place. Brilliant child.

City Museum

2007-10-15T21:12:00.001-05:00

Here's the view of the outside of the City Museum in downtown St. Louis. I took 24 college students to the museum (what a fun part time job!). This is a great place! A group of artists designed the museum entirely out of recycled materials. At some museums, you look at art. At this museum, you play in the art.

The two airplanes you can see in the foreground are linked by a series of catwalks and slinky-like climbing tubes. I scaled the catwalks and made it to both planes, but nothing could entice me to cram myself into a slinky suspended from a chain four stories above the earth.

While climbing in one of the planes, I cracked my head on a metal beam. My head ached the rest of the day (oy!). Most of the students got some sort of bump or bruise while playing in the art. Art can be dangerious business.

Camo

2007-09-30T20:12:00.001-05:00

Take a close look at this picture. See anything unusual?

Randy just showed this picture to me on the Internet. It's worth sharing!

Groovy

2007-09-19T21:08:00.000-05:00

Like the tie-dye t-shirts? The students I work with wanted to do tie-dying at the party we held a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to practice a little before the big event, so Randy and I made these four t-shirts for Katie.

We ordered the dyes from the Dharma Trading Co. (Lost fans will be relieved to know this company has no connection with the Dharma Initiative). They are chemical-reactive dyes, which results in a lot brighter colors than the old Rit dyes we used at Girls Camp.

Using these dyes is a bit complicated. You need to soak the cloth in a soda bath before applying the dyes. Preparing the dyes takes some time, too. One of the students who made a shirt got a small burn on her arm from the soda bath (she was wearing gloves, but the liquid splashed over the top of her glove). So while the students at my college loved this project, I'm a little hesitant to do another round without some assistance from one of our chemistry professors.

Meet Me in St. Louie

2007-09-09T21:53:00.000-05:00

Fun in the Science Center Toddler Discovery Room.

Sure, we traveled 150 miles to get to St. Louis, but Katie's favorite activity was still reading books.

Labor Party

2007-09-03T21:34:00.000-05:00

Here's an exciting recap of our Labor Day Weekend.

That's a BIG Froggy!

Give me five!

Children's Museum Car "Vrrroooom"

Tractor Time with Daddy

Raise your hands if you are cute!

2007-08-19T20:26:00.000-05:00

New Katie tricks:

She can climb up on the couch, and then she will usually climb back down without landing on her head (usually).

She can climb up both sets of stairs, though by the time she reaches the top she lets out a big sigh, "whew!"

Katie can pick out the book she wants to read.

She also lets me know what snack she wants to have, and she usually always wants cheese.

On occasion, she'll utter a two word sentence. Tonight she said "bye wa" (short for "bye-bye water") when we emptied her bathtub after her bath tonight.

She can do some "potty talk." She can say "peepeepee" and "poopoopoo" and "potty."

She can "help" with all kinds of tasks, like putting clothes in the drier, washing off her high chair tray, and drying her own hands.

Have I mentioned that I think she is brilliant?

Birth World

2007-08-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

It was about this time two years ago that I found out I was pregnant. Lately, I've found myself thinking about all the books I read while I was pregnant. These days, I kind of miss "birth world." Before I was pregnant, I had no idea there was this whole community of women who were intimately involved with birth and pregnancy, every day as a career. Midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, labor and delivery nurses, obstetricians.

It's the kind of life path that never occurred to me as a college student. It is a fascinating world, and reading about it is the next best thing to experiencing it. While it is interesting to contemplate, I'm not ready to experience pregnancy again at this point!

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife, by Peggy Vincent. This author became a midwife in the late 80s, when the return of the professional midwife was a very new trend. She'd worked for several years as an labor and delivery nurse when she got her midwifery degree, and she hoped to practice in a hospital setting. At that time, hospitals were not ready to allow midwives onto their labor floors, so Vincent began a home birthing practice. Her book is full of stories about some of the many home births she assisted. She's quite a storyteller, and the births vary from being funny to really interesting to down-right scary. There is one delivery that is particularly harrowing, so if you happen to be pregnant or really hormonal, you may want to keep an eye out for this chapter and skip ahead.

A Midwive's Story, by Penny Armstrong. Here is another author who became a professional midwife in the late 80's, while hospitals were very reluctant to allow anyone other than OBs practice in their maternity wards. Armstrong was also an experienced labor and delivery nurse when she became a midwife. She then had the chance to practice as a midwife with the Amish community in Pennsylvania. Initially, she also planned to do her deliveries at the local hospital, but administrative resistance at the hospital, and cultural resistance among her patience encouraged her to begin doing homebirths. Armstrong also has a flair for storytelling, and her perspective on Amish life is really interesting, too. Her stories about women giving birth at home, after completing monumental amounts of housework just hours before delivering, is inspiring, to say the least! Like Baby Catcher, the book also has one particularly harrowing birth story, so be warned!

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin. This is a childbirth book, with lots of great tips for getting through childbirth naturally. It's not a nonfiction account of a midwifery practice, like the other two books, but the book includes a lot of stories about various deliveries Ina May has assisted, and it paints a fascinating picture of what life is like on The Farm. The Farm is a old hippy commune in Tennessee. Somewhere along the way, the women on the commune decided to give birth at home, and to assist each other with their births. A number of women who lived on the commune became practicing midwifes, and Ina May was the lead midwife of the group. She's developed a number of very effective natural childbirth methods, and her practice has a very low c-section rate. But the really fascinating picture in this book is what life is like on The Farm. Personally, Utopian societies are just not what they are cracked up to be. I have a feeling life on The Farm is very intense, and whatever kind of religious life they have created is rather strange. This might be a great place to give birth, but I wouldn't want to live there!

Embarassing!

2007-07-29T21:04:00.000-05:00

When I saw this book title at the library, I just had to check it out and read it myself: Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask)

I know it is going to be a few more months before Katie starts asks why she can't go pee-pee standing up, and it will probably be a few more years down the road before we need to have that special talk about birthcontrol options, but I like to plan ahead...

This book was actually written with quite a bit of humor. The authors are both doctors. One is a pediatrician and one is a psychiatrist. From the book, it sounds like they also do quite a bit of speaking to parents about how to talk with kids about sex. It sounds like their presentations are usually packed to the rim with anxious parents.

What is the basic concern of all these parents? The authors sum it up thus: "How can I help my daughter have a healthy attitude about sex, and how can I keep her from having any?"

The authors then list a number of "mini lectures" they feel parents should have with their kids over the years. Their perspective is that parents should start young. Junior high is time time they feel parents should be discussing the big "S" topic, because by the time high school rolls around junior has already heard a lot on this subject from someone else. And starting the conversation after age 14 just gets more and more awkward and uncomfortable for all interested parties.

The book also promotes the idea of keeping the conversation going, beyond the initial "birds and the bees" talk. So if your kid is reading Romeo and Juliet, ask him what it was those two were doing when the birds began to sing. And if your young one is assigned The Scarlet Letter, ask her what that letter stood for, anyway?

Om

2007-07-08T12:53:00.000-05:00

My latest favorite book about parenting is Mommy Mantras: Affirmations and Insights to Keep You from Losing Your Mind. The book contains a whole bunch of mantras, little sayings really. Things to bring to mind during the...oh...10 or 12 difficult parenting situations that may come up on any given day. The authors, two child psychologists, then share stories from their own experiences about how these mantras have come in handy for them.

There are mantras for getting through a visit with your in-laws ("take what they can give"). Mantras for getting along with your spouse ("ignore the score"). Mantras for the working mom and for the stay at home mom ("give up the guilt"). Even mantras for coping with tantrums in public ("be invisible").

I ran into this book around Mother's Day. The title immediately brought to mind the mantra I recited to myself during the first few months of Katie's life. I'm not sure where I got the idea of reciting a mantra, but it helped me stay calm when I was feeling a little out of control.

My mantra was "I'm grateful for Katie." I remember saying this to myself in the wee hours when I'd hear Katie start to cry...again. I'd say it to myself while we were going through a rough patch with the whole car seat and driving thing. And I'd whisper it to Katie's sleeping form after she'd finally settled down for some sleep.

It was a useful thing for me, because becoming a mom was my choice. Randy wasn't particularly keen on the idea of giving up our comfortable couple-dom, and it was really me who lobbied for the idea of having a baby later in life. It was something I really wanted to do, even though I knew next to nothing about babies and kids. So it was a useful way for me to remind myself that this new phase in my life was something I'd chosen for myself. I needed a little reminder to keep those feelings of...oh I don't know, longing for the past I guess...at bay.

During the last few days, Katie's been on edge. She's got two molars working their way to the surface, and I can actually see a little blood on her gums, poor thing. So she's had a bit of a fussy mood these last few days, and bedtime can seem like it's a long way off. I know if I can keep her engaged in fun activities, the whole day goes a lot more smoothly. But then I can only work up the enthusiasm to go to the park so many times in one day. So I've been reviving my mantra again. It works. It keeps me thinking about what I'm supposed to be doing with my day.

So what are your parenting mantras?

Pictures from Paradise

2007-05-31T21:28:00.001-05:00

Hawaii was awesome! I can still rememer the great feeling of sand between my toes and warm water lapping at my ankles. Are we already back in the Midwest?

Major "thanks" to Wendy, Nathan, and family for being such wonderful hosts. We had a fabulous time!

Tiki Land--More Sun and Fun

2007-05-25T01:20:00.001-05:00

Hanauma Bay. Wendy took me snorkling for my first time since I visited Hanauma Bay back in 1989.

The first thing I saw when I looked under the water with my mask was some kind of water snake or eel. It was bright orange and white striped, and it was swimming right at me. Like a true snorkling pro, I screamed and skittered out of there on my haunches. It took me a while to start enjoying watching little creepy things poking out of the reef.

Once we got started, I was a nervous to breath underwater. I got a little panicked, but Wendy gave me lots of good advice and calmed me right down. I liked how she would stop and ask me how I was doing as we went along.

Once I got the hang of kicking with my fins on and breathing through my mouth, I started to relax and enjoy the experience. The reef was quite shallow (maybe low tide?), so it felt like we had to kick really carefully not to scrape against the coral. The coral was funky and bumpy, and we saw lots of fish. One fish, two fish. Red fish, blue fish.

Nathan and John, ready to go snorkling.

John did really great snorkling. He was just like a little fish himself out there in the water.

Katie trying out the waves. The surf was very gentle, but still a little scary for this girl. She said "bath" as we played in the water.

She also spent a lot of time today waiting for us while we went swimming. Someone was always with her, but it was still a lot of time to just hang out one a little towel in the shade. She just kept to her towel, singing to herself and babbling in her secret baby language. She never did venture off the towel onto the sand. So far, this girl is not crazy about touching icky stuff like grass or sand.

Note to travelers. If you visit Hanauma Bay in the near future, don't forget to stop by the snack bar on the way out. They have some chocolate macadamian nut cookies that are worth the cost of the airplane ticket to the islands alone.

Tiki Hut Tours--Photo Update

2007-05-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

Blue Hawaii

2007-05-22T01:35:00.000-05:00

Aloha! We made it to Hawaii!

The Rubsam Clam is staying with with sister Wendy and her family in their lovely home near Waikiki. Little Katie survived a 16 hour flight in good humor the whole way, and after two days, she's adjusted nicely to the time difference.

We've already waded in the surf, eaten pineapple, watched hula dancers, and gone to a barbeque. We've got sand in our shoes and sunburns. So we're practically locals now!

The cousins have kept Katie well entertained. This evening before bedtime, she was crawling like crazy, trying to keep up with John and Emily. Emily has decided she wants to teach Katie how to walk. This involved a mild fall, but Katie survived unscathed. Katie definately likes being around other kids!

Wendy and clan have been very gracious hosts. They greeted us with beautiful flower leis at the airport. They've taken us sightseeing, let us raid their cupboards for snacks and cereal. And they've even provided diapers and wet wipes for the wee one.

Next on the agenda: Pearl Harbor, walking tour of downtown Honolulu, and a hike to a waterfall!

Lift and Separate

2007-05-14T13:23:00.000-05:00

I broke down today and bought two new nursing bras. I feel like a new woman.

I've been limping along with a collection of saggy, baggy nursing bras for months. My old bras are from the "Iron Maiden" line of nursing bras. Whenever I'd spot myself in one of these quasi-burp clothes in a mirror, I'd think to myself, "It's official. I've become my grandmother."

And the pity of it is, I spent a fortune on what could be taken for fishing drag nets. I went to a specialty shop to be sized by a supposed expert. Even though the bras looked like they were woven from stainless steal, my chest drooped lower and lower as the year went on. Recently, my nipples began dragging below my belly button. I'm too young to begin singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" every time I get dressed in the morning.

Well something had to give. I put off this purchase for way too long. Why? Because how much longer am I going to be nursing anyway?

Ah, I used to love nursing. Until just a couple of months ago, nursing was the highlight of my day. Nowadays, we can still have our sweet nursing moments. Like when Katie is drifting off to sleep at night, and her little hand pats my breast to say "nighty-night." Otherwise, nursing a 13 month year old must be like nursing a monkey.

In fact, this weekend while we were at the zoo, I spotted a nursing monkey. The mama monkey could travel hand over hand the length of the enclosure with her fuzzy little baby latched on through the entire journey. I felt a twinge of sympathetic nipple pain at the sight of it.

As far as nursing goes, Katie has been a really healthy baby, and nursing must have something to do with it. She's had one bad throw-up illness, and a series of snotty noses. Knock on wood, we made it through the worst of the cold season this year. For a healthy baby, I'll put up with some nursing gymnastics. Especially now that it won't look like I'm wearing a life-vest under my summer t-shirts.

Go Girl

2007-05-13T20:44:00.000-05:00

Fun new things Katie can do:

Pose for a funny picture at the zoo.
Take a step or two away from the couch and into my arms.
Scribble with a crayon.
Notice the animals at the zoo and laugh when she seems them.
Point at things she wants.
Push around her toddler rocking chair like a walker.
Throw a ball a foot in distance.
Turn pages in a book.
Stack one block on top of another.

She is also picking up baby signs pretty well. I'm really glad we did baby signs with her, because otherwise I don't think I would recognize her cute babbling as actual words. Here are some signs she can do:

Milk
Bath
Down
Up
Ball
More
Daddy (but not Mommy yet)
Hat

Today, I was reading her a book with baby pictures in it, and I did the sign for baby, and she did it back for me. She did it a few times as we were reading the book. She's brilliant! Brilliant, I say!

Postscript: Despite how it looks in the picture above, I am not pregnant. I like to think I am not that chubby, either. Sheesh!

April Birthdays

2007-04-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

We have a lot of April birthdays in my extended family. So let me share a big Happy Birthday to all those who had the good fortune to be born in the beautiful, springtime month of April!

One special April birthday is my own Katie's. My sister Mary said to me once that "time moves slow and fast at the same time" when you have a baby in the house. This seems very true to me. Nothing drags more slowly than a day spent with a teething toddler. Yet the year overall has sped right by.

The day before Katie's birthday, I kept remember significant moments from the year before when Katie was born. At 1:00 PM, I remembered that was the time my water broke. At 6:00 PM, Randy and I went on a long walk, hitting all the good hills in our neighborhood, trying to get the contractions started. At 9:00 PM, we went into the hospital. At 11:00 PM, we came home from the hospital. Then at midnight, contractions started for real.

Starting Katie's second year, I feel a little more confident about this parenting gig than I did this time last year. Katie can do so many new things, it is amazing to think she is the same tiny person we brought home from the hospital. Babies don't stay small for very long!

Luck of the Irish

2007-03-17T19:28:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day

from

Our Little Leprechaun

Protocol

2007-03-12T14:38:00.000-05:00

So we've been trying out some new playgroups. We've met lots of nice moms and cute babes.

I also realize I'm not exactly "hip" on playgroup protocol. For instance, as Katie sat on the floor chewing on a block, I heard a couple of moms say "no biting the toys" to their kids. If the kid made a move towards testing their teethies on a toy, the mother quickly swat the toy away.

Granted, chewing on toys spreads colds. But this is basically how Katie plays with toys. She wouldn't know what else to do with the little gizmos in her hands if I said "No biting, sweetie."

So this make me ponder, if I were to enforce a "no chewing" rule, would it only apply to toys at playgroups? Or all brightly colored plastic objects?

Ah, so many rules, so little time. There is a brave, new mommy world out there, and I'm still a newcomer.

And She's Off!

2007-03-04T19:18:00.000-06:00

Katie started crawling this week. Real crawling on her hands and knees. She's been scooting on her tummy backwards for a few months, but this is the first time she's started propelling herself forward.

How was I able to tempt her off her bum and into crawling mode? By dangling the much-desired-but-forbidden remote control before her eyes. Before she knew what she was doing, Katie had crawled the length of the couch.

We've had fun this week encouraging her to crawl more. She chased after a broom one day, which really got her to scamper about. And cheerios have prompted her to crawl under the table. She is still a bit of a timid crawler, to date. We have plenty of books on bottom shelves, and if she wanted to, she could cause some real mischief. So far, she is content to just crawl a few steps towards her favorite toys. Maybe when she gets her confidence up, Katie will streak off towards the garbage pail and wreck some havoc.

Getting Ready

2007-02-28T20:50:00.000-06:00

I've got Harry Potter on the brain.

First off, after rereading Book 5 and Book 6, I decided I needed more. So I read What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7. The book is full of predictions about the upcoming HP book. The writers have combed the previous books for clues, and they stake their claim in what is coming in the last book. They include fun things like the "odds" that various characters make it out of the new book alive (Draco, it doesn't look good for you). It includes extensive chapters on whether Dumbledore is alive or not, plus the whole debate about whether Snape has gone evil is included, too. The book is a fun review of all the stuff that happened in the previous books, and I enjoyed all the analysis.

By the way, this book is published by the nerds...er, ah, volunteers...at mugglenet.com The website includes several Editorials that include amazingly detailed literary analysis. If I were back in grad school, I think I'd write a paper about a new breed of literary analysis spawned by the internet. I'd call it "obsessed fandom literary analysis." If you bring a bunch of people who read a book repeatedly together on a website, they bring a lot of interesting insights to the book.

For instance, at the end of Book 6, there is that mysterious note in the locket from RAB. The folks at mugglenet.com think RAB is Sirius Black's younger brother. One bit of evidence to support this theory is that when the book is translated into different languages, the last initial changes to the first letter in the word "black" in the new language. Now that is something that only an obsessed fan would figure out!

Not that I'm an obsessed fan, but this week I've been reading something truly, truly nerdy. I've heard about fan fiction, but I've never bothered to read any before. Fan fiction is where someone uses the characters from a favorite book or movie to write a new story. Apparently there is oodles of this stuff on the internet. With my recent spat of Harry Potter-itis, I ran across an online novel called Living with Danger. In this version of the tale, HP grows up in a loving home, instead of with the Dursleys. It is kind of like "Muppet Babies", because all of the original characters show up as kids. The writing is super cheesy and amateurish and I'm embarrassed to admit I've been reading it. But hey, July is a long way off for a Harry Potter fan.

My Cuties

2007-02-19T19:39:00.000-06:00

With Valentine's Day just behind us, I thought I'd post a picture of my two favorite people.

Awwwwww.

Here are the great things Randy and Katie enjoy doing together:

Katie knows the sound of Randy coming in the door at the end of the work day. She gets very excited, and she "dives" into Randy's arms as soon as she sees him.
Randy makes up funny, nonsense songs while changing Katie's diapers.
Randy likes to carry Katie around the house and show his pictures to her. Katie is quite taken with some of his brigher-colored paintings.
More than once, I've come in to the room to find the two playing together. Randy will have Katie sitting on the floor between his legs with all of her toys spread around them in a big circle.
Randy is very good at reading Katie books. He does all the voices just right. Such a sweet daddy.

Look! No Hands!

2007-02-13T16:24:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture of Katie standing on her own, unassisted, for about five seconds!

I can't help but be delighted with Katie learning to take "baby steps." Everyone tells us there is no reason to rush Katie towards walking. Lots of experienced parents say that things just get crazier once these little people get more mobile. I've had any number of people say to enjoy her while she enjoys sitting in my lap.

But practicing walking is just so fun! And when you've got a whole lotta playtime in front of you, practicing walking is a great way to fill the time. So, yes, I've been encouraging Katie to walk. I'm guilty of propping her up on the side of the couch and letting her practice pulling up on my lap. The giggles are worth it.

Games to Play with Baby

2007-02-05T16:57:00.000-06:00

We've got a case of cabin fever here at Prairietide. The temperatures have been below 10 degrees all weekend, and the wind is just wicked. So this happy family has been in hybernation for a few days.

Here are the games that Katie likes:

Bouncing on my knee while I sing "This is the Way the Lady Rides."
The "I found your bellybutton" game.
The game where I put my nose against Katie's and say, "Boo!" Cracks her up ever time!
Patty Cake
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
Peek-a-Boo. Sometimes I go into the next room and say "Peek-A-Boo" around the corner. This is kinda fun, but somtimes it's a little too scary.

What else? I've made shakers out of plastic bottles and pasta noodles. Looking in the mirror is always a winner. A nice mirror can even cheer Katie up if she is teary. There is also the favorite, "Stand Up in Mommy's Lap" game. And who could forget the "Cling to the Couch for Dear Life" game?

Then there are board books. Katie has really been enjoying her books lately. I have a boardbook with photos of babies doing signs. I've been showing Katie this book for months, but it is just now that she has started to enjoy the pictures. She'll look through this book for a long time.

Katie has enjoyed the Sandra Boynton books for a long time. I think it is the simple drawings, the bright colors, and the fun stories that are the big appeal. Lately, she's started to like the book Everywhere Babies. This is my favorite board book that we have. It always chokes me up when I read it. This this past weekend, Katie started looking at the pictures very intently. It's like she recongizes the pictures a little.

The weather report makes it sound like we're in for a cold spell. So what indoor games do you have for babies?

Congrats!

2007-01-31T13:49:00.000-06:00

Wow! 38 years of marriage!

I was going to write a longer post, but the princess has just awoken from a much-too-short nap. So let me just say, Mom and Dad, I think you are the best.

Enjoy your special day together!