Just Powers

When you’re 22-months old, the two greatest things in the world are trains (”choo choo”) and merry-go-rounds (”why-oh-why”). If you say “choo choo” and “why-oh-why” over and over again, it sounds a little like the lyrics to a Kajagoogoo song. And then that song becomes another one of the greatest things in the world.

(As an added bonus, Emma is wearing her new horsey Halloween costume she just got from her friend EJ.)

Hi.

I’m back. Not that I expect you to really care, since I have neglected you for so long. But nevertheless, here I am. And if any of you are still there, hi.

I would like to say that I have been doing something worthwhile since I have been gone. Something like working on the Obama campaign in Ohio, or helping victims of Hurricane Ike in Texas, or doing research on Sarah Palin in Alaska (um, yeah - WTF?), or working with Chris Dodd on the bailout plan. But alas I have not been doing any of these things.

I have mostly been sleeping, and yelling at Mike, throwing up occasionally, and feeling sick constantly. Yep. I’m pregnant. Which would be great news - really, IS great news - except for the fact that I am probably the most miserable pregnant person I know. Which is where I am now. Miserable. Sick. I am twelve weeks now, due at the beginning of April, to which you will respond - Great! The bad part is almost over! - except not so much. With Emma my miserableness lasted until around 18 weeks, so you could have six more weeks of my moaning before I start being able to marvel in the miracle. (So sorry Mike).

There is so much to catch up on - I know I owe a 20-month update on Emma (which is sitting in my draft folder right now) and a 21-month update (which I have not started, and probably never will) not to mention updates on what she is doing NOW.

The biggest thing is happening that she is talking up a storm. When we had our 18-month checkup and she really was not talking much, at all, the doctor said not to worry, but to call if we felt concerned at around 21-months. Well, pretty much ON her 21-month birthday, Emma started talking - repeating words we said to her and saying some that we had no recollection of ever teaching her in the first place. I know a lot of parents who kept track of their kids first words, and what words they knew at particular points in time, but honestly she learned so many words so quickly that I can’t even keep track anymore. I know at 19-months she was saying “bohbee” for bunny (although I think we figured out later she was actually saying “baby” which makes a little more sense) and “down rain” and “sorry”, but there wasn’t much more language until the last few weeks when she just became a torrent of words.

The other major development is that Emma moved to her big-girl bed last week and is now sleeping in it full-time. This has Mike and I reeling, but she seems really happy about it, so we are determined to NOT dump her back in the crib and insist she STOP GROWING UP. The whole thing happened kind of under the radar - she decided one day that she wanted to sleep in the bed for a nap (we set it up in her room right around the time we found out we were going to need the crib for someone else, sooner rather than later). That night, after the successful nap-in-the-bed, we looked at each other, shrugged, and asked her if she wanted to sleep in the bed again. To which she responded with vigorous nodding of her head. And that was it. We are planning (sniff) on moving the crib out of her room (sniff) this weekend.

Sheesh, there is so much more to talk about, Obama, McCain, Palin (seriously, WTF?) not to mention economic crises (I spent $250 at the grocery store this week - and we don’t eat meat. Something is very seriously wrong) and the second installment of “Bad Mother Moments”. I promise I will be back again. Right now I need to go take a nap.

So, we are back from San Francisco and adjusting slowly to the time change, but I wanted to be sure to do a follow up post with all the stuff we did in the second half of our week. Mostly because I will forget the trip ever happened by next month and I will need to go back and read my posts so I can tell Emma all about it when she gets older.

Wednesday: Al Gore was the guest speaker at the AFSCME convention on Wednesday morning and I just knew that Emma would be completely captivated by the man-who- would-have-been-President, so we went. Hm. Yeah. She didn’t even make it to Gerry McEntee’s introduction of Mr. Gore before we needed to leave so others could enjoy themselves. We stood outside the auditorium and listed for a few minutes, then gave up and headed to our old standby, Yerba Buena Gardens.

We rode the carousel and walked around the gardens and the waterfall at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and then I decided to walk some of the streets to the east of the gardens. Within about five minutes Emma was asleep in the stroller so we headed back to the hotel and she took a marathon three hour nap.

When she woke up I decided to take some advice from Cry It Out Mike’s post about what to do in San Francisco. We walked up to Market Street and over to the Tenderloin in search of the playground Mike mentioned in his post. It was a long walk, but it was nice to be walking and to see a part of the city we hadn’t seen. The playground didn’t disappoint and Emma even found a friend in a two year old boy who she raced down the slides with for a good 15 minutes. While we were there I dropped my phone and the screen shattered, making it impossible to get texts or call out because I couldn’t see the address book. This was a situation that would clearly have to be dealt with, probably before leaving San Francisco. If only there was someplace in San Francisco where I could get another phone that would do all the things my current phone could do… Oooh Ooohh Apple store - iPhone!!! Mike still swears I dropped it on purpose.

For dinner that night we decided to do room service. It was a little decadent but kind of fun for the three of us to hang out together in the room.

Thursday: Mama needed a brand new phone so at 7:30 am Emma and I got in line with the other geeks at the San Francisco Apple store and waited. By 9:00 I was walking out of the store with my little piece of sunshine new phone. Emma was remarkably good during the wait and really only started to cranky about the whole thing as we were finishing up.

With phone/GPS/camera etc in hand Emma and I headed for the 30 bus. We were going to the Exploratorium which was across town but according to Doodaddy and Emma’s Grammy, was worth the trip. We got on the gloriously uncrowded bus and started our trip, but something didn’t feel quite right so I asked a fellow passenger if we were headed the right way and she told me we wanted the bus behind the one we were on. Now, here’s the thing: when you are traveling in a city you don’t know, with a toddler, and a backpack, and a stroller, you definitely don’t want to be on the wrong bus.

Crud. I hauled us off the bus and waited for the next one. At which point Emma decided that she was tired of being pushed around by me. She spent the rest of the ride pointing at all the things outside the bus that she wanted to do. That big playground up on Columbus (just as we got to North Beach I think?) made her so angry that her head started to spin around. Luckily this bus was almost as empty as the first 30 bus we were on so we only really annoyed a handful of people.

We spent the morning at the Exploratorium and I think it more than made up for the torture of the bus ride. We ate lunch there and then I decided to walk around a little before heading back to our own neighborhood. The Marina District, where the museum is, is absolutely gorgeous and I suspected if I just walked around that corner there, I might just be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge. BINGO. We found Crissy Field and a lovely beach that overlooked the Bridge. The weather was clear and beautiful so we were actually able to see the bridge and Emma loved running on the beach and looking at the water.

We headed back to the hotel on the 30 bus and Emma fell asleep on my lap somewhere in Chinatown. For dinner that night we joined Mike and our friend and Mike’s co-worker Crystal at Sanraku - a sushi place in the Metreon. Emma ate a bowl of edamame and at least a pound of tofu and noodles.

Friday: Emma and I headed out for breakfast (at Mel’s Diner again - I know! I’m a glutton for punishment. But the pancakes are really good) when Mike left for work, then came back to the hotel and went to the swimming pool. By the time we got back to the room and took a shower, Emma was completely exhausted, I think the trip was starting to catch up with her, so she went down for a nap at about 10.

Mike’s convention was over and he was finished with work by noon on Friday, so he joined us back in the room and once Emma woke up the three of us went to lunch at the Organic Coffee Company at 4th and Mission (great sandwiches). For Mike’s one day of site seeing in the city we couldn’t decide between going back to Fisherman’s Wharf or heading to the Haight and maybe even the Mission. Since Emma had woken up almost every day of the trip barking like a sea lion, it seemed like maybe she was voting for the Wharf, and although our top pick would have been the Haight, we were completely powerless when she started barking like a sea lion, so the Wharf it was.

We rode the cable car to the water and took a decidedly touristy boat ride of the San Francisco bay. It was an hour long and drove right under the Golden Gate Bridge and then around Alcatraz. It was actually really fun - the weather was the most perfect it had been since we arrived and we got a great view of the bridge, San Francisco, and Sausalito. After the boat ride we walked to Pier 39 and saw the sea lions again. Even while she was barking like one, Emma was too terrified of them to let me put her down. We had just enough time for a ride on the merry-go-round and dinner at one of the cheesy seafood places on the pier before heading back home on the cable car. This time we got a seat on the outside and right up front which was really fun.

Saturday: Time to pack up and head home. Luckily we had a little bit of time to kill in the morning so we dumped our bags at the hotel front desk and headed for the Ferry Building. The farmer’s market that is there every Saturday morning was so much fun to see and the food all looked out of this world. I even saw a booth for Rancho Gordo beans - who I order from all the time and love love love. We headed back towards the hotel just in time for Emma to ride the carousel at Yerba Buena Gardens one last time.

The flight home was unremarkable and pretty pleasant actually. I managed to score a seat for Emma which was key, and has convinced me that toddlers should never ride on the laps of their parents, except maybe for short flights (like the one we are taking to Burlington VT at the end of the month).

What a great trip. I will be honest and admit that I was a little overwhelmed at the beginning and was having trouble enjoying myself, but I got the hang of it eventually and had so much fun. I think it was a lot for Emma for take in and she seems like she might still be catching up on her sleep, but she seemed to have a really good time too.

I know that most of the cool kids were in San Francisco last weekend for BlogHer, but Emma and Mike and I are in town this week for the AFSCME Convention. Mike is working behind the scenes to make sure the convention goes off without a hitch, so he is working pretty hard and is not getting to hang out the way Emma and I are. We did have dinner with him last night though, so that was cool.

So here is a quick recap of our trip so far:

Saturday: As we walked up to the gate to board the plane that would bring us to San Francisco the flight attendant looked at us and said “Oh, we don’t do children.”

Huh. Really? REALLY Ms. Flight Attendant, you don’t do children?

I think Mike and I both laughed at her because she very quickly corrected herself and said “We don’t do early boarding for children”.

Huh. Thanks United.

The flight itself was a little hairy since we decided not to buy a seat for Emma. But I will leave that for another post.

Once we settled into the hotel, Mike had a meeting so Emma and I explored the area around the hotel. We quickly discovered that Yerba Buena Gardens is right across the street from the hotel, and there is a very nice merry-go-round there too. And in San Francisco, if you buy one ticket on a merry-go-round, you get two rides. Ok, not really, but you do on the Yerba Buena Gardens merry-go-round. Which seems like it would be wonderful, but really in the end just makes it harder for a merry-go-round obsessed toddler to stop riding when the time comes.

Sunday: Emma and I started early (around 7:30) and went for a walk to Union Square. There were some artists just setting up for the day and we browsed some of the art. We found one that I loved of a little girl on a merry-go-round, so I bought it. This trip is starting to have a theme. After wandering the Union Square area for a while we went to the hot breakfast bar at Whole Foods which is just two blocks from the hotel. Then we wandered around Yerba Buena Gardens again, rode the merry-go-round and watched the very beginning of the theater festival happening that day in the Gardens.

Monday: Emma and I decided to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast, just to see what it was like. The bad news was that it was $25 for the breakfast buffet. The good news was that Emma ate at least $25 in raspberries and I ate at least $25 in smoked salmon. Jen and Emma: 1 - Hotel: 0.

My big plan for the day was to go to Fisherman’s Wharf via cable car so we walked to Powell Street and stood in the looong line to get our Muni passport (because I had a brain cramp and forgot to do it at the airport). Then we stood in another long line to wait for the aforementioned cable car. Needless to say as each cable car passed by us and we didn’t get on, Emma would let out a little yelp in protest. Luckily there were lots of pigeons to distract her.

We finally made it to Fisherman’s Wharf. We found out way to Pier 39 which kind of reminded me of Provincetown in Cape Cod. We grabbed a crepe and a lemonade and went to find the sea lions and eat. Emma loved/hated the sea lions. Wouldn’t let me put her down, but didn’t want to walk away. Luckily there was - you guessed it - a merry-go-round right in the middle of the whole pier, so she was quickly distracted. We rode the MGR and headed towards home.

Once home I finally got up the nerve to email Doodaddy - a San Francisco local and one of the blogs I read almost daily - to ask him for recommendations on things to see and do in San Francisco. He wrote back almost immediately and invited me to join him and Boobaby and Cry it out Mike and Emmeline in Golden Gate Park the next day.

Tuesday: Emma woke up barking like a sea lion. We decided to try Mel’s Diner for breakfast. While the food was fine, the touristy theme restaurant thing just didn’t do it for me. In the end I think I will probably just return to Whole Foods for breakfast in the days to come. Mel’s cost me $20, and there were no raspberries or smoked salmon. Hmph.

Emma and I hopped on the N train to Golden Gate Park. We had some time to kill before meeting Doodaddy, Boobaby, Mike and Emmeline, so we headed to the Children’s Playground. After another ride on a merry-go-round - the most exotic one of all so far - Emma played on the swings, removed at least half of the sand from the sandbox and slid down a few slides. I think she was relieved to be doing something she was used to, albeit in a strange place.

We walked to the Arboretum, our meeting place, and met Doodaddy and Boobaby, Mike and Emmeline. We spent about an hour at the duck pond, feeding the ducks, eating a picnic, which Doodaddy and Mike were nice enough to share, and practicing diving in the pond. Ok there wasn’t any actual diving, but I am pretty sure I was the only thing preventing Emma from going headfirst into the pond with the ducks. Doodaddy and Mike gave me some more advice about things to do in San Francisco and were just all around welcoming and friendly.

We boarded the train to return to the hotel for nap time and two stops later Emma was asleep.

So far we are having a great, if exhausting, time. Being the sole caretaker of a toddler in a city I am not familiar with is much more daunting a task than I originally thought. Thanks so much to Doodaddy and Mike for being friendly faces and helping us feel at home!

At some point early on in this month the toddler fairy came to visit our house. She waved her wand over Emma while she was sleeping, and *poof* our baby was gone and our little girl was here.

Yeah. I guess it didn’t happen that way, but her transformation from baby to little girl did happen this month - with startling rapidity.

No more drama this month with sleeping or separation anxiety. Just lots of new facial expressions, more dancing, more singing, and a serious ratcheting up of the cute factor.

Emma lost her second great-grandmother this month, and I lost my Grandmother. I have been feeling her loss acutely but am thrilled that she got a chance to meet Emma and spend some time with her before she passed away.

Gram’s funeral was highly surreal. It was held at the Dupont Funeral Home in Bristol, Connecticut which is in a house built by her grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, in 1903. Gram spent many family holidays there as a child, and later married my Grandfather in the house. To stand in a room that was once my great-grandfather’s bedroom, at my grandmother’s memorial service, while I held my daughter, was a little mind blowing.

We drove to Connecticut for the funeral and Emma was wonderful. We left at 5 am and got four hours of driving in before she needed to stop, which meant we were almost there. On the way home we left at around 4:30 pm and didn’t need to stop much either since a lot of the drive was after her bed time.

Once we got through the funeral and made it back home, Emma had places to go and people to see.

A few months ago Mike’s dad got to choose a gift from his company as a thank you for an unimaginable number of years of service. He looked through the options and the only thing that jumped out at him was a Eureka! mansion tent which he guessed maybe his granddaughter might enjoy rattling around in.

This month we tested the tent for the first time on an overnight camping trip with Emma’s friend EJ, who brought his parents along for the ride. Emma had her own room (no, seriously, she did) and the tent held up well during the torrential downpour that started at about 3am. We went on a hike with Emma, taking turns carrying her on our back, which she enjoyed. Enjoy would be a strong word to describe how Mike and I felt about the hike. *Happy to get to the end of it and to have survived* is probably much more appropriate. The camping trip was lots of fun and we are hoping to be able to go at least once more before the we wimp out because of cold weather.

The weekend after the camping trip was the best weekend EVAH. My friend Kate left her idyllic life in Vermont to come visit us in hot and sticky DC. She brought her cute-as-a-bug son Jack, who is 10 weeks younger than Emma, and there was great rejoicing. We hung out, went to the zoo, played in the Silver Spring fountain and just generally had a great time. Emma loved playing with Jack but seemed a little stressed by the end of the weekend. I think all the FUN was getting to her. Plus since Jack’s daddy couldn’t come, Emma’s daddy was doing double duty, which she was NOT a fan of.

Clearly we kept Emma pretty busy this month. She still had time to learn “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and now walks around the house singing “Down rain! Down rain!”. At some point during their visit, Kate was trying to get Jack to say sorry and Emma obliged by saying “sorry!” loud and clear. Mike and I practically fell out of our chairs since we had never heard her say it before. So she is picking up a few words here and there. Being the perfectionist she is, I think she is just waiting until she can get a word *just right* before using it regularly. We can wait. I do love listening to her little voice though.

Things are pretty fun around our house these days.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family reunion - Dynasty

To those folks who are convinced that Emma looks just like me…I guess you are right, but just barely!

I always knew it would happen. The minute I gave birth to Emma I began bracing myself for the moment when Mike became the parent of choice. She has consistently chosen me over Mike for the last 18 months but every time he starts to look sad about this I have reminded him “Look, I get a year, maybe two, and then she will be all about her daddy, for the rest of her life.”

Since she has had such trouble going to sleep lately, I have been the only one putting her to bed for a few weeks while we try to establish a consistent routine and figure out what works. Even though she has gone to sleep with no problems at all for a week or two, we have been afraid to jinx it by switching it up and start having Mike put her to bed too.

Tonight, after I brushed her teeth and washed her hands, we were on our way to the bedroom when Emma suddenly veered off towards the kitchen. She found her Daddy there and reached out for his hand and led him to the bedroom, where the two of them got her pajamas out and started the routine for bed. Mike and I looked at each other over her head with our eyebrows raised, and I took a step back and let Mike take over.

I thought when this happened I might feel pangs of jealousy or sadness. Instead I feel such joy that Emma has two parents she loves and feels safe with. No doubt the jealousy and sadness will rear their ugly heads at some point, but for now I am just happy to have a night off.

Update: Tonight, one night later, Emma went to kitchen, found her Dad, took his hand, then turned and took my hand and led us both to her room to get ready for bed. To say we were both little puddles on the floor would be an understatement. We just can’t believe this kid is for real sometimes.

I have heard a lot of people talk about the fact that when you have kids you become abnormally obsessed with their poop and love to talk about it with anyone who will listen.

Actually, not so much for me. My obsession is with Emma’s sleep. I think about it, worry over it, dream about it and talk to everyone about it as if it is the most important thing IN THE WORLD. Last week I went into a 20 minute description of Emma’s sleep issues with an unsuspecting but very nice mother at the park. Oddly, as I write this, I realize I haven’t blogged about it too much. Lucky you.

For the last two months, Emma has gone from being a model sleeper to my worst nightmare. She used to go into her crib drowsy, look at us as we said goodnight and left the room, and then roll over and go to sleep without a peep. We rejoiced, we high fived, we secretly thought we were the best parents in the world.

On the day she turned 15 months, she decided to make it very clear who is the boss when it comes to her sleep. Only once in the last two months has she gone to sleep without crying. Sometimes it is a quick, whimpering cry - those are happy times. Other times it takes us two hours to get her to sleep - those are the why-did-we-decide-to-have-kids-we-obviously-are-the-worst-parents EVAH times. We aren’t really sure what happened to cause her hatred of sleep. There have been a string of events that might be behind it - vaccinations, teething, sickness, travel, weaning from the nighttime bottle (which is uh, not going so well. Please don’t tell our ped…I plan on lying about it when we see him in a month.) If anyone knows about a 15 month old “screw this sleeping thing” phase that kids go through, I am all ears.

But maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Just now, not 20 minutes ago, my old Emma came back to visit. I put her down for a nap, she watched me leave, and rolled over and went to sleep. Aaaaahhhhh.

No doubt she will bring me back down to earth tonight - bedtime seems to be worse than naps for some reason - but I can always hope that the stage has finally come to an end.

And also, if anyone has any tips about weaning off a bottle at bedtime, please let me know. We have been able to switch her from the bottle to a sippy cup with milk at bedtime - but really isn’t that just cheating? Still milk, still the sucking action. I am torn about whether to go cold turkey on the sippy cup or whether to just go a little more slowly and trust that she will wean herself when she is ready. In the past we have leaned more towards trusting that she will do what she needs to do when she is ready, and it has worked, but I don’t want to set my kid up for future therapy centered around dependence issues just because I didn’t know how to take the bottle away. Which is not to say I am under any illusion that she will not already be in therapy for something else I have done to her…

Taking turns from Justpowers on Vimeo.

I took this video back in January and never got a chance to put it up. I remembered it the other day and decided the cute factor far outweighed how late I am sharing it with you.

I met a FellowMom today. I like to think that I am pretty outgoing and make friends easily, but honestly I have found the task of making new mom friends to be a little daunting. So when I connected via email and a local moms Yahoo list with the mom of two kids who attend the same day care as Emma, I was excited to meet her. We agreed that we might meet today when we picked our kids up.

I arrived at daycare and met FellowMom. She seemed very nice and her kids are great, which is always a good sign, although I, like a dork, was as nervous as the first time I asked Mike if he wanted to get together sometime. We exchanged pleasantries and when our kids got restless we made the “Well, I guess I gotta run” face and got in our cars to go home.

On the way home I was in a left turn lane at a stoplight - with an arrow that must be further away than normal or something, cause I have almost missed the light more than once - and when the arrow turned green the person in front of me didn’t move.

“Argh-I-hate-everyone-why-can’t-anyone-drive-can’t-they-see-the-light-changed-what-
the-heck-are-they-waiting-for-oh-wait-this-is-the-light-I-always-miss-maybe-I-will-just-
give-this-slacker-a-little-horn-action-and-then-they-will-finally-move-their-butt” I thought. I tapped lightly on the horn once or twice and the driver waved in the mirror and started to turn.

As we turned, I looked a little more closely and realized…well you know exactly where this is going. The driver was FellowMom.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Way to go Jen.

And I wonder why I have trouble meeting people.