Updates

Just a couple updates...

1) Looks like my little one my be making progress towards being DONE with nursing. We spent the weekend at my parents' house, and yesterday morning, when he woke up, I said, "Do you want water, or Mommy milk?" And he promptly said, "Water!" He was easily distracted by going to play with my parents (as I went back to sleep!) and never asked for Mommy milk. Today wasn't so successful-- he did ask for Mommy milk, and, let me tell you-- nursing again today after not nursing yesterday was FREAKING painful. Ow ow ow OOWWWWW! Reminds me of those newborn days. Hopefully, we are nearing the end... stay tuned. Most women say they end up weaning around their 4th month of pregnancy because it just hurts too damn much.

2) So, it was my birthday last Wednesday, and guess who called me? My uncle. Yeah, the uncle I mentioned in my last post. I called to say happy birthday and to congratulate me on my pregnancy (my cousin had told him), and we ended up talking for like 20 minutes or so. He asked a lot about Chickie and was thrilled to hear about his development and escapades. He also put my Grandma on the phone, and thankfully, she was having a good day and was pretty lucid, and our conversation ended up being really nice and not maddening (think a "Who's on First" routine from hell). So, that was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps all is not lost on this front.

3) Chickie moved to a new room at daycare, and the transition has been... bumpy but slowly improving. The drama is long and involved and probably not interesting enough to explain blow-by-blow in this blog post, but the gist of it is this-- when I picked him up last Monday after his first day in the new room, he promptly started asking-- no, begging-- for water, and even cried tears when I couldn't get it for him right away! It turns out that Karen, the teacher in the new room, doesn't allow sippy cups and pacis in her room-- the kids have to drink from regular, open cups. My kid never learned how to do that-- he drinks from a straw cup. So, the poor kid hadn't had anything to drink that day, so no wonder he was begging for water! Yeeeesh. I was LIVID. Sure, I don't want him to drink from a straw cup on his wedding day, but how come no one told us about this so that we could support the transition at home and start working on useing a regular cup at home? Also WTF is up with this one-size-fits-all care-giving? That's not the way I parent. And what's the rush?? He has his whole life to learn this stuff, and just because he started a new room, that doesn't mean that today's the day he's ready. Why not introduce it gradually? Oh, and the reason I know all this is that Patrice, one of the teachers from the Toddler 1 room (she's rad and I love her, and she knows Chickie really well), moved with the kids to the new room, and she told me all of this at pick-up.

Anyway, the next day, I marched into that room in full-on Mama bear mode, ready to advocate like HELL for my kid. Well, it turns out that Karen is totally lovely, and she was sad that Chickie hadn't taken to her and hadn't accepted food or water from her (OK, fine, but it's not my kid's job to make you feel good-- it's your job to sit back and give him space and a chance to get to know you). She said that they don't have special cups or pacis in the new room because they don't have a sink to wash everything (there's a sink in the old toddler room). OK, makes TOTAL sense! But again, why the hell didn't anyone tell us this? Apparently, a pamphlet was in Chickie's mailbox, but the mailbox moved to the new room, so I never saw it. (And when I read the pamphlet, it says that the goals of the Toddler 2 room include learning to drink from a regular cup, but it says NOTHING about all sippys and pacis being history... hello??!?) So, Karen and I cam up with a compromise-- I will send Chickie's straw cup with him every day in his lunch bag and bring it home and wash it each night. They will offer him the straw cup if he's totally refusing the regular cup.

AND, they introduce the potty in the Toddler 2 room. I'm all for exposing kids to the potty at a young age (God knows Chickie has seen me do my business about 80 million times, and we flush his poops down the toilet and say "bye-bye" to them), but the LAST thing I want is for him to be pushed. He'll do it when he's ready, and I do NOT want to deal with a power struggle around this. (Um, have I mentioned that my kid didn't eat solid food til he was nearly a year old?) So, needless to say, I freaked out when Patrice said that Karen was putting the kids on the potty... I did mention to Karen that we have had power struggles in the past and that I did NOT want my kid to be pushed, etc.

So, anyway, there's more to the story, but that's the general idea... it's amazing how quickly I went into animal mode and was ready to bear my teeth to advocate for my sweet little thirsty boy! But really, I think I was nice and charming through my bared teeth. We'll see how this week goes... my boy is definitely slow to warm up, so hopefully, this week will be better.