Names, nurseries ...

"Nina, what do you think we should name your little brother, if it's a brother?"

"ummm... hee hee ... ummm ... HINK!  HINK! HINK!" (breaks out in giggles)

"You mean Henk, or Hinke?" (both Dutch names)

"Ummm, I want HINK!" (giggles)

"Can you think of any other good names?" 

"umm.... Boo! I want .. Boo! "

"You want a baby brother called Boo?"

(hysterical giggling) ... "how 'bout, Poo?"

"Nina, we can't name your baby brother 'Poo' ... "

"Poo! Poo!" (giggles)

(.. more giggles)... "how about: HINK?"

In other news, I had a *bad* day yesterday.    First I fiddled all the final details of my grant application, which I wanted to submit a month ago but which got delayed for various reasons. Then, on the point of submission, I realised that while I had thought the minimum font size was 10pt, it is in fact 11pt. I was sure I had looked, months ago. Perhaps they changed it. In any case, the point was, I had to make about a 15% cut to the whole thing. And of course the government here is probably going to cut science funding so massively that no new grants will be funded and perhaps even those that have already been awarded will be cut back, so the entire font-related fine-tuning exercise is almost certainly completely pointless. But naturally, having prepared this entire proposal, I'm hardly going to drop it because of this, so of course I had to cut it back, attempting to preserve its coherence and content blah blah blah blah. After that soul-sucking exercise it is now done, out of my hands, and awaiting its final rejection.

Then I came home, thinking, thank goodness for Nina, we'll spend some time together, it'll be all fun, and relaxing; we'll do some puzzles, take a bath. And H-, our childminder, gave me a little card as she left. And in the card she explained that she's been offered a job running her own horse yard and won't be a childminder and that this is her 1 months' notice. And that she'll miss us, especially Nina, and wants to keep contact etc etc. 

Still: the panic hit. No childcare, no H-. Huh. We have been extremely lucky with H-, as she picks Nina up and drops her off (so nice!) and in between, they go to tons of places and have lots of outside time and stimulating fun things to do. A- was in London at the time, and not back till after 10. After the whole grant thing, and I guess what with the pregnancy hormones, I was just so upset. Nina's known H- since she was 4 months old. Will she think that A- or I could just suddenly not be there one day, not be putting her to sleep at nap or bedtime, not be cuddling her? Was that why she was so difficult when H- was gone for two weeks? I could barely keep from tears. A few days after H- stops, I have to be in Amsterdam for a meeting. Shortly after that A- will be away for 10 days. Total disruption.

We knew she wouldn't have the same childminder forever. We knew, actually, that the situation was going to change some time in the next few months, though I thought maybe H- would just be based somewhere else, or something. I know Nina will adapt, we'll explain it to her carefully and repeatedly, we'll keep in touch, we'll try to go visit, and have H- over here as much as we can at first.

So I called A- in London. Unlike me he is not the least hesistant to call strangers on the phone and ask them loads of questions. Within an hour he had identified a few other options, including a nursery (no, not plants, it's a daycare) that we have heard of through friends. It is nearby; they have an Outstanding Ofsted rating (the best), they seemed to charge reasonable rates (this was outdated; like everything else in this godforsaken place they are exorbitantly expensive, at least 50% more than we'd be paying in Canada from what I can tell, though they are still on the lower end of what it's possible to pay), and they appear to have vacancies. We visited today. Apart from some possible issue about which of their two locations Nina would be in, it seemed great. So maybe we'll just do that. 

Does anyone have opinions about childminder (ie home care) vs nursery (ie daycare)? Good/bad memories or experiences? Will Nina get a million colds, even more than usual? I guess I think she's ready for a nursery now, with all those other kids and more things to concentrate on and manipulate and try, in a setting that includes a preschool for when she's 3 ... I'm certainly ready for a setting that never cancels at the last minute and is open from 8 to 6 and is flexible after 6 and can even take care of Nina until A- comes home really really late, like if I'm at a conference... any thoughts?

Oh, the bathrooms ...

When does a very recently toilet trained toddler have to go to the bathroom?

- right after you leave the house

- just after you pull onto a freeway, a long, uninterrupted freeway

- right after you have finally successfully negotiated a night-time pull-on nappy and full-body pajamas and struggled with every single little snap

- well, naturally, your toddler will need to go when when she feels like she is going to do a poo. However this may have no relationship to poo actually emerging. In fact the need can persist with very high frequency for hours, mysteriously disappearing the minute the actual toilet is nearby

- just as you are nearing the front of the passport control line, or of course, the endless Ryanair baggage drop off line, which is of course longer than a check-in line would have been, but of course everyone has checked in already because it costs 20£ not to check in online ...

- just as people in the departure lounge *finally* start moving through the gate. At this point you, naturally, explain that there isn't enough time - it's *finally* time to get on the PLANE! 

- 15 minutes after people in the departure lounge started moving through the gate. Now you, naturally, explain that while you were wrong before, now there *really* isn't time...

And then, on the ramp between the gate and the plane door, your toddler will announce, cheerfully: there's a poo in my nappy, mummy!  

I've seen more public bathrooms in the past month than I would usually see. Almost all were clean. It's fine, really. Nina's doing well and I wouldn't have wanted to put off toilet training for my convenience  (I have a renewed appreciation for the convenience of disposable diapers). It doesn't really go well with modern air travel, is all. But then, is there *anything* that goes well with modern air travel? 

Oh right, I forgot: ibuprofen. Perfect match.

Bummer I can't take that these days what with being, er, 16 weeks pregnant ...  Didn't I tell you? 

a BUS towel!!?

Our news: toilet training is pretty much done, with a few little issues here and there. The only really sad part of it was on about the second day, or maybe the third day, when there was a little accident, and we were on our way to the bathroom and I said, Nina, you're doing really well! and she said "no I not". It was so heartbreaking to see her discouraged and feeling like she was failing - which she wasn't! It just wasn't easy. Of course the other side is that she's very pleased now that it's all working well. I'll spare you all any more details.

In other news A- is now commuting to London twice a week, leaving me home alone with Nina after she gets dropped off. We've been having fun - taking long baths, calling relatives, not really bothering much about dinner, making castles out of blocks .. and all that. It's good. I guess we should be going out to playgrounds, while it's still light enough after work, but frankly I'm pretty tired after work and the idea of walking extremely slowly to a playground just never appeals. Nina can walk really fast, actually; the slow speed comes from fiddling with every rock along the way, which takes a while even if it's only a couple of blocks. I guess we could drive to one, but then we'd have to come home and park - not an easy job in our neighbourhood after about 6pm. Biking? Tired. 

Actually Nina's great about playing in our bedroom while I relax for 45 minutes after she gets home. She puts her postcards through the edges of our wardrobe doors, then opens the doors and finds them again. Or she gets Dolly, Pengie and Payeh and variously puts them to bed and gets them up again, in the moses basket, using towels and baby blankets. Or she hides under the bed and says "where's Nina?". Or she jumps on the bed, shouting "No more MONKEYS jumping on the BED!". Or "hush-a, hush-a, we all fall DOWN" (crash).

One really funny thing happened last thursday after her bath. She's gotten into this mode of doing everything to delay bedtime. She doesn't really say she doesn't want to go to bed, it's just that she won't stand up and get out of the bath, and she won't climb on to the change table or let me put a nappy on her for overnight. She negotiates as many stories and songs as possible. I leave her awake now and she goes to sleep just fine (YAY!!!!) but it's gotten back up to about 40 minutes between starting the whole process and leaving her. Oh, and she'll want to go to the bathroom, and have a drink of water, and get another teddy bear, and on, and on, and on, and on. 

So, I was trying to pry her out of the bath, and she kept not standing up, and not being willing to come out. All the water was gone. So I said she had to come out now or I'd (...get THIS...) take her BUS TOWEL away and she'd have to stand on a NORMAL TOWEL.(My parents bought her this super-cute tea towel with a great bus on it). I waited, left the room, came back, tried again, no luck. So I took it away. Oh my GOD the DRAMA! Naked kicking screaming rolling on the floor! Screaming! on the FLOOR! Some MORE! Rolling around naked in the hallway, kicking the door to the basement, then trying to climb back into the empty tub, thinking that of course this time I'd have to give her the BUS towel. She tried to climb the bathroom door. I had to pretend to be serious while trying to stop laughing SO hard. In the end I had to pretend to really seriously lose my temper, and threaten to leave her in the bed with no milk and no stories. By this time I was getting pretty frustrated, so it wasn't hard. And wow, she calmed right down right away, let me brush her teeth, and everything. I guess I have to get more firm, or the bedtime will start taking an hour.

Despite that big one Nina doesn't have many big tantrums. Overall she's so full of life and so full of joy. The hands-shaking full-bodied gleeful anticipation about being able to stand and dry off on a bus towel, about throwing a balloon into the air, or stirring the dough for the zucchini cake: it's pretty cool. It's worth the occasional naked screaming ripper of a tantrum.