Thaw before reheating.
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Will’s new preferred mode of waking up from a nap:
First step: Moving at once from a peaceful lie-down to suddenly sitting straight up on his knees.
Then: Letting out a primal call to let the world know he is awake (single fist raised to the air, optional).
Third: Leaping forward in a full-throttle crawl toward Mom or Granna, even if they are in another room.
And finally: Shaking head back and forth while grunting, laughing, and yelling.
That’s my baby!
I’m back at my Mom and Dad’s for a few days. Will and I have been here more in the past 2 weeks than we have been in our own home. Why? FREE CHILDCARE.
And so I rant.
The situation for childcare is disgraceful, ridiculous, and disappointing. As if women have any other choice BUT to stay home with their children! We have no options. (Heaven forbid we act like a civilized society and offer flexible work schedules, a reasonable work week, fair pay, good vacation, and have universal health care that doesn’t depend on a privileged type of employment.)
All we want is 20-25 hours a week. Not full-time. And it doesn’t exist!! The $10/hour we pay Margarita (our spanish-speaking Salvadorean grandmother), even if she does make us tortillas and clean while Will naps, is too much for us to use more than a few hours a week. What is a family to do? We need HELP.
I wish my parents lived next door!
New photos from Will’s birthday, the zoo, and other fun stuff:
Playing Peek-A-Boo with Dad at breakfast!
Talking up a storm to us while he plays with his tool chest.
Maybe we could make a thought bubble coming out of his mouth?
Now that Will is happily eating more diverse foods, the quality of his solid production(s) have changed as well.
Smell, color, shape, size, consistency. And the potential for constipation. Paul is handling it all very well, considering he feared this more than other part of parenting.
Then this afternoon, while having a nice conversation with neighbors on the street, Will begins squirming and finally bears down with an unmistakeable, red-faced grunt.
Can’t wait until potty training time.
I’m not sure when I poked Paul and asked him to get the baby. (Thanks to Paul for being such a great dad to get up and get Will in the middle of the night!) I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Paul and Will are currently sleeping off the rough night cuddled on the couch together.
We’re wondering if Will is feeling under the weather (he has been sleeping a lot during the day and particularly clingy with me)? Or maybe more teething? (All of his lower teeth seem to be on the verge of cutting at once.) Either way, it has him a little frazzled and Mom and Dad exhausted. (Happy and in love with our little man, but exhausted!)
On the 20 year anniversary, the events of December 2-3, 1984 remind me of my personal commitment to making the world a better, safer, world for all people. I believe that my privilege of education, resources, and connections means that I have the duty to speak out against the wrongs of the world. This tragedy, and the tragedy that continues, is one of them.
A wonderful site to learn about the disaster and on-going ramifications:
http://www.studentsforbhopal.org/what_happened.htm
A good site to learn about the history of Union Carbide and its involvement:
http://www.bhopalexpress.com/facts.html
To quote the bumper sticker: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
Will has a difficult time falling asleep. Once asleep, we have a difficult time moving him to his crib to continue sleep, or, if we successfully get him in the crib, keeping him asleep in it. So, for the last three (four?) nights, Will has shared a bed with us for most, or all, the night.
Not that we mind sharing the bed with him too terribly much. But he is squirmy! It means that we are waking up at all hours with Will pushing and rolling and kicking and punching. (Seriously, he does all those things!) He somehow managed to get himself completely perpendicular to us so that Paul and I have a width of roughly 4 inches of bedspace each. Really. The bottom line is that neither of us have slept much in the past few nights.
I can remember when Will was only a few weeks old and it felt like we would never overcome the difficult challenges with breastfeeding. Now, it is hard to believe it really was that difficult and challenging. I know that this whole sleep episode will be the same years from now… that we will barely remember the difficulty. We may even wishfully look back to these days with longing for those sleepless moments with our little baby boy. I know that eventually this problem will go away. (As my mother says, “I can guarantee he won’t do this when he’s 18.”)
But for now, it feels like it will never end — we can’t wait to get a restful night’s sleep!
The most beautiful house in New Orleans! December 1st, 2004.
