By the way, if you're keeping score

Third night in a row of peaceful sleep last night (yay, more Vick's on the feet and chest and no coughing!). Myself included. I think I only woke once or twice. She didn't even fight going to sleep. Her ear wasn't even as gross this morning.

Today at drop off, since we were late, I got to leave her in music class, which is her favorite thing in the world. They gave her a pretty pink scarf, and I passed her off to the teacher and didn't hear a peep.

Yes, it counts...two days in a row of no screaming at drop-off. Darn it, it's Friday. I fear we may lose this peaceful streak with the interjection of the weekend. Ah well, the two good days were great while we had them!

Toddlerhood is tough

This morning she said "otameel, oatmeel". It's the cutest thing ever. She sounds like a little person. Ever had a pet for a long time and you always wondered what they would sound like if they could talk? You get the idea. I love when she says new words so clearly and almost perfectly. It's like I'm talking to a 2 year old or something. She's still 19 months. Well, 19.5 to be exact. She watched me make her oatmeal and was fascinated. And it was only the microwave and water.

She usually enjoys oatmeal, but this morning as I sat her down to eat, she took one bite and started screaming. Unhappy. She kept eating. Unhappy. I'm tired of asking her what's wrong, like I can fix it, so I gave her some milk and fruit and let her just do what she was doing. She calmed down after a bit. I think she was so hungry that she was ticked she had to use her hands to slowly get bits of oatmeal into her mouth (I tried to thicken it, credit here)...since she still stinks at getting the spoon to her mouth without dumping all her food out.

Paul left while she was eating and I was only half dressed, which was fine, except these days the child gets oral antibiotics, ear drop antibiotics, and forced tooth brushing and forced hair brushing. The ear drops go OK, but the oral meds are hit or miss. If you leave it out for her long enough in the little cup, she'll get curious enough to go over and take it all. But sometimes if you just ask her to take it, these days she'll either be cooperative and drink up, or just downright refuse. She used to love taking meds, it was so easy. Now it's on her terms (just like the tooth brushing). Adding more time it takes to get out the door. I was tired of the games this morning, so I had to resort to holding her down to get the meds in. That was no fun but at least she didn't spit it back at me.

All of this resistance made us late getting out the door. At least she still enjoys putting her shoes on at this time.

After changing her poopy diaper (just great), which amounted to more resistance, I could actually feel my anger building, and the loss of control that would soon follow if we didn't just get out the door soon. I don't think I even finished getting myself dressed. We just fled and were still late.

I am getting tired of "nice mommy" and she is only 19.5 months old. It's about time to put the smack down. Too many games just wear me out and drag on and on. You can't blame me for trying...trying to just give her a chance to do the right thing...or trick her into doing the right thing. Any parent who's been here before recognizes my mistakes and realizes I'd eventually come to this conclusion myself...that for the most part it's going to be mommy's way or else.

Wait, I thought they said "No Halloween?"

Do you remember the shoe incident at Anna's daycare (click here, if you need a refresher)? Jac-o-lanterns are too representative of scary, satanic halloween apparently.

So imagine my surprise as I got a peek into their art room as Anna and I were walking down the school's hall this morning when I saw wicked, scary halloween witch pictures all laid out for the pre-K kids to color and paste for art class! If that's not traditional scary halloween, then I don't know what is. Anna's little pumpkin shoes look like nothing compared to this!

Note to self: ask the school director what their real intentions are for halloween dress since it's not clearly laid out in the parent hand book. Not to be confrontational, just to be clear.

No Halloween

My mom (Nanna) sent Anna-Marie some pretty cute jac-o-lantern halloween "crocs" in the mail yesterday. Anna loved them right away and this morning wanted to wear them to school. They come off kinda easy for a kid hard at play at school, but it's her half-day there and so I just brought along a back-up pair for when she does yank them off or trips onto her face and her teacher's had enough of them.

When I got her to the classroom I explained why I brought back-up sandals. She explained it's a good thing I brought back-ups because the kids aren't allowed to wear anything that is representative of halloween to school...huh? She said jac-o-lanterns are not allowed because they're scary. But Anna can wear a shirt with a simple pumpkin on it. She can't wear a shirt with a scary cat on it, but a regular happy black cat is fine. I think I got a quick mental reminder that Anna attends a Luthern day care/school. Ah-ha!

Anyone remember your witch trial history?

I am reminded to go review my history. Especially Pagan/Wiccan.

In the meantime we need to filter her halloween attire for school...

It looks like we get fall back

The weather today has been beautiful!

Anna is back at school. I hope it went well...I mentioned her latest oppositional behavior stints to her teachers and they just looked at me like, "yeah, and...?"

Did I mention I am new at this?

Just in case, I left them with a new bottle of Children's Motrin :)

Anna's home today

As I was taking Anna down the hall to her classroom today, I overheard one of the Infant teachers saying she was going home because she felt sick. Hmmm, bummer, I thought. Then I heard her co-worker telling her that Ms K (Anna's teacher) and Ms J (sometimes Anna's teacher, in the Toddler room next to Anna's) were home sick today.

Stop right there! Didn't JK text me this weekend that her toddler, BK had a stomach bug, and wanted to know if Anna caught it yet? Could this be going around her classrooms?

I poked my head in, apologized for interrupting, and asked for elaboration on the symptoms. Yep: all stomach illness. I backed up, phoned Paul and asked him if we'd be able to keep Anna home today with him. He agreed that nobody likes toddler vomit, so in an effort to avoid our share, Paul agreed to take Anna with him to the clinic today.

I told the administrator, thanks but no thanks, we'll wait for this to pass, and maybe see you tomorrow or Wed. She agreed that was probably best.

I am out of town this weekend, Fri through Monday. On top of vomiting toddler, we don't want vomiting Spacedaddy, or even putting Spacedaddy in a position of feeling like crap over the weekend such that it's tough to take care of Anna. Last year when I went on this same trip, Paul had an appendicitis attack but held out till I got home before going to the ER for surgery! ;) It was not a fun feeling being far away when Paul was home sick with the baby. This year he'd have a toddler to chase around as well (and potentially vomit to clean).

The risky side of this delay in sending her back to school tomorrow or Wed is that this virus could still very well get her when she goes back, thus pushing the sickness into the weekend when, if she caught it now, she'd be over it by the time the weekend came, leaving then only me and Spacedaddy to take it on, likely over the weekend ourselves.

I am not sure there's a way to win this one, but we will try.
Thanks to TJ for toting Anna around this morning with MM. I hope she didn't give you too much grief. She loves you and we thank you :)

It's picture day at Anna's school

I swear she left the house with a bow in her hair. Halfway through the ride, I heard "uh-oh?!" and she was handing me her bow. Since she has a cute new haircut, I tossed the bow back to the seat. No need. She's darling without it. But she did have a new shirt and nifty new pink Converse tennis. I hope she cooperated for her photos. There's way too much pressure on picture day! Last year it was easy since she was a slobbery, cute little rolly baby, and babies just look cute no matter what. I didn't even really have to dress her special. But now I think I'm the only mom this year who didn't put that bow in her hair!

At least she looked especially cute while her face was red through her screams while I left her this morning. Good times.

More screaming at drop-off today

All I could say to her teachers was, "sorry, sorry" as the other empathetic toddlers joined in unison. Even in her new pink shirt and pink matching cool converse shoes, it wasn't pretty. After a kiss, I fled quickly.

Day Care drop-offs

I know Anna likes her day care/school. She gets nothing but good reports and I can tell she's learning stuff. I've dropped in several times over the past 15 months and she's happily playing with others or involved in something like a book. I see no suspicious behavior at home that I could correlate with something fishy at her school. But as I figured, this week the drop-offs have been especially hard.

Paul used to do the drop-offs and I would get the pick-ups. Since she was always a clinger/crier from month 12 on, I figured he got the raw end of that deal (although there was a period of about 2 weeks where she would just chew me out the second I showed up to pick her up...HOW DARE YOU LEAVE ME ALL DAY?!). Anyway, this week has been the worst we've ever seen of her screaming just as we walk into the door.

She happily trots down the hallways leading up to her classroom, pointing at stuff and telling strangers HI! Then as we get to the door of her classroom, the hesitation sets in. I try to coax her in with fun stuff instead of hauling her screaming on my own. But no, the coaxing isn't working. Today I led her in by her hand and when we crossed the door threshold, I looked down and her little scalp was actually red. In looking closer at her face, she is already in the middle of one of those big, quiet inhales that signals that an ear-piercing scream is forthcoming on the exhale. Yep, there it went. Just enough to show me that there's no sign of the canine teeth erupting anytime soon.

Anyway, I picked her up and we all tried to distract her. All three teachers, and even her toddler buddies tried, but she wasn't interested. I had no choice but to pass her off to Miss P as about two of the other toddlers started their sympathy crying. "I am so sorry" was all I could say, over and over. One screaming toddler = two more screaming toddlers.

When I dress her in the morning, and decide whether I'm going to do her hair all cute, I wonder what would look best and obtain more sympathy from her teachers while she screams as I leave in the morning.

As I passed her off to Miss P, she said something about the fact that it's obvious she's an only child. She didn't say it in any derogatory way or anything, and I didn't take offense. I actually agreed. Does this mean that non-first borns don't pull this crap because their parents don't have time to dode on them and give in to every demand? I think this is true anyway from what I've heard of parents with more than one kid. Anna's not usually so clingy, but I don't know...there are other first-borns in Anna's class. Do they cry too? Or is it only MY child? I am jealous that the other parents can just walk their toddlers in, tell them bye-bye, and leave without the drama. Honestly, I don't think she does this because she is spoiled, really. I have seen spoiled, and from what I've seen, this ain't it. I think she does this because she is smart and she is very much a part of our little family at home. Anna has brains behind her eyes and she knows "what's going on" and has always preferred consistency. That has been lacking for her since she was moved into the Toddler rooms at age 12 months. It has just never been the same. So now here we are, post-Ike, new teachers, new friends, new classroom. So yeah, she's taking it a little harder.

There is plenty of stuff out there telling me all about what separation anxiety is, and how some are worse than others. Fortunately, I think Anna's on the middle of the spectrum since her cries stop shortly after I leave and she is fine the rest of the day. But, like the car seat screaming phase, I am surprised at the fact that this has lasted 6 months! Before Ike, some days she'd cry, and others she would be fine. Now, she SCREAMS. I guess it'll take about another week or 2 till she gets it under some level of control again.