solo, day 12

The home stretch is here: one more day. Some days haven't been at all bad, and in fact, I think that if we'd both been healthy this would have been no trouble. I think what's hard about parenting, or at least, one of many things, is the extreme unpredictability and emotional chaos. How can the child who is happily helping me empty the dishwasher one minute, cheerfully thanking me for passing her another spoon to put away, be in the throes of an unintelligible screaming fit three minutes later, over who knows what? Is it that she's "overtired" - the explanation for all aberrant behaviour? But it wasn't past her usual bedtime, although I think her usual bedtime is perhaps a bit late now that she's at the nursery. After that, she basically had a tantrum over every single goddamned stage of bedtime. Now, you wouldn't think there'd be many stages, would you? I mean, get the pajamas on, read the stories, and into bed. Oh no! you'd be wrong. There was the crying over wanting to go back out and walk to the bedroom (I had carried her, cuddling her because she was getting over the first tantrum and had said she was sorry. oops). There was the tantrum over whether to climb on to the change table herself - yes, she wanted to, but naturally, not any time soon... typical. Then back to the walking to the bedroom one. Then one about the stories. Then getting into the bed. Then one about the light - wanting it on, although I've decided it shouldn't be left on while we're not in there because it's a fire hazard (damned English wiring - how can 6 bulbs go out in one week? we go through them like they're going out of style, which, of course, they are, being incandescent. Grr). By this point, she *was* too tired. 

  Ok, enough of that rant. Feels good to get it out, especially since it's not like I've had social contact with anyone for the last 11 days. The one-hour wait in the doctor's office doesn't count, nor does the 10-minute conversation with the doctor establishing the fact that her ear is fine and despite intermittent fever and listlessness and ear pain and rash pain and incessant snottiness and disturbing, sleep-disrupting, lung-ejecting persistent endless oh-god-when-will-they-stop night-time coughs, she does not seem to need antibiotics... 

  In total: I need a drink. Not the red berry tea I'm planning to have, mind you. A real drink. Ideally this drink would be followed, throughout the evening, by several other drinks, in the company of good friends, and since this is a fantasy anyway, old friends, the kinds of friends you just never replace, no matter how many nice new friends and acquaintances you make. I miss you, guys, if you're out there.

  So, is there good news? well, I guess she doesn't have an ear infection or a UTI, and she's now asleep (very good news). Other than catching every bug in the kingdom (all of them viral, dammit, or we'd have cured them with drugs by now) she's doing well at nursery. Hannah, with considerable devotion, made a replacement for the piece of the bus puzzle that we lost the first time we opened it, and Nina is absolutely delighted.  She makes that bus puzzle every single day. Probably the most hours of entertainment 5£ has ever bought.

   And finally, I think I've been awarded my first major research grant. They wanted a new impact plan with more specific objectives but have recommended it to be funded. It's good -- it's good for my career etc etc but also, I believe in the work and if we're successful we will reduce the cost of a vaccine, one that's currently used widely only in rich countries - so we'd help, is my point. Not that I have time to do the work, of course, although we'll have postdocs. Are academics the only people in the world who struggle really hard and compete for the grants to allow them to do more work, for no extra pay? Anyway, it's good.

solo parenting, day 6

Ok, so all's well until somebody gets an absolutely terrible cold. I felt it coming on on Monday, then taught my computer lab class on tuesday, then .. what a nightmare. The worst moment, I think, was when I wouldn't let Nina open the sticky hard-to-open door herSELF, in a moment of impatience, and told her I'd be waiting in her room with her milk and her stories if she wanted to come in. Now, in my defense, this was after a LOT of moments of patience, some of which had to do with that very same door, mixed with a LOT of sneezing on my part. She threw a massive tantrum, of course, as any tired toddler who's just been told suddenly that she can't do something HERSELF is prone to do. So, I found myself sitting in her room crying, with her standing in the kitchen crying, and I was thinking, couldn't I have had 2 more minutes of patience? 

   Wednesday was worse, cold-wise; went to a couple of meetings that I felt I really shouldn't cancel. I came home and slept, watched dvds and tried to work (unsuccessfully). We had some other screaming disaster, I don't remember its details. These come right at bedtime. Yesterday was fine. Today she did the dinner thing, where she won't eat, but she loses it when you try to do the dishes. I gave in ('cause I'm a sucker) and said she could play for a while and try again. 20 minutes before I wanted bedtime to start I convinced her to try again. And again, she didn't want to eat, and even choked on a bite and spat it back out. But she still wouldn't let me take it away; I had to calm her down off a tantrum just to brush her teeth. Then I noticed she felt warm, and her nose had gotten runnier. I am taking up compulsive hand sanitizing, but I don't think there is any chance she could catch something and not transmit it to me. Little vector. But I don't know what I'll do if I get something else.

    In other news, apparently at a somewhat chaotic moment at nursery when they were getting all the kids' coats and mitts on, Nina calmly said "We've been through this". I guess I say that, as in, "come on Nina, we've been through this, we have to brush your teeth before bed"... But she's always just fine there, and when I pick her up, she says "I had a great day!" and she gives me a huge big hug and a smile.

    6 days down, 7 to go.

 

solo

A. is away for just about TWO WEEKS. So, to keep myself amused (on top of my 5 PhD students, my 6+ hours/ week of teaching, my prep for talks I'm giving and my toddler care) I figured I'd blog more. The good news is that, after following through that one time, Nina now says "remember, I was just playing, and mummy lift me up... climb in when mummy SAYS", and by and large, she does it. So that's good.You don't have to follow through too often, with Nina - she learns, and takes us more seriously with other things. Next up: the frequent dinnertime battle, in which Nina doesn't eat, and goes off, only to have a PANIC ATTACK when she spots someone doing the dishes and/or packing leftovers away. At that time, she screams, runs into the room, and whines "I want to eat my dinner". It's annoying. I usually just slowly get her to eat it by explaining that we eat at dinner time, and that we clean up, otherwise it gets messy at our house, blah blah blah. One of these days I'll have to put it away and actually not give it back, precipitating a wakeful night. Although really, it's only been once in the last few months that she's actually woken up in the night asking for the food she didn't finish. I just can't face it now, with A. away.

     I was away last week, at a conference in Amsterdam. It was good, busy, nice to sleep in a hotel room with no toys in it, and with ample heating (my GOD! my towel dried between my nighttime bath and my morning shower! HOW is it POSSIBLE? and it's so unecessary: they supply more than one towel per guest... and it's heated along the entire, short, middle-of-the-night visit to the bathroom, so you don't have to fumble in the dark for your wool slippers and then freeze your tush off... you get the idea, especially those of you who've been here). Nina would have loved it there. I had a view over the water, so there were lots of boats, and I could see trains entering the central station, and streetcars. I can't wait to go back, with her next time. 

     So, solo parenting: so far so good. Yesterday we hung out all morning, made bagel dough, and cleaned the floors. Cleaning the floors can provide almost an hour of entertainment if your toddler wants to hold the mop with you, and then take a turn doing the whole floor HERSELF. Had lunch, had nap, went to zoo very quickly because they close at 5, had whiny crankiness because I didn't realise she was hungry, came home, had leftovers, shaped bagels, put toddler to bed, boiled and baked bagels, watched Jamie Oliver's food revolution on youtube, and that was it. Fun show. And the bagels are great.

    Today: rushed to get Nina to nursery before I had to teach at 9, but made it. Then I walked over to pick her up, heard about how well and how quickly she's adjusting to it there, and how good she always is and how much fun she has and all, and we retrieved our stroller. It had stayed there all weekend. Then we came home, made some bus puzzles, had some homemade mac+cheese with grilled asparagus, took forever eating dinner (as above with the screaming panic), and then had a bedtime. Not bad.

  

Halloween

It's halloween. We're going to a neighbour's place for hot apple cider (non-alcoholic for some, stronger for others, sigh ..) and then taking Nina for the English version of trick-or-treating, which I gather is much like ours, only scaled back a lot. And some people think you should only go to households that have said they're ok with accepting visitors. Heck, people, just don't answer the door if it bothers you that much, I say. As a parent, and with a feeling of great betrayal to the child I used to be, I think it's a great idea that they don't collect 1kg of candy here. Nina's got a real witch's costume, which Hannah provided (ah, I'll miss her). I'm going to wear my velvet cloak and some lipstick and go as a witch's mummy.

Anyway, we've got our little witch, but she's asleep, after much tantruming when I wouldn't let her climb into the cotbed HERSELF. She was delaying and delaying and I said that if she didn't climb in I'd lift her in, and then, oh my god, I *followed through* and lifted her in, and the screaming started. She was, quite literally, hopping mad, holding the footboard of the bed and hopping up and down in anger. It was frustrating but hilarious.  The thing is, I've been thinking that I only had to take the bus towel away the one time - now we have no more trouble getting out of the bath ever. And it's the same with the pajamas - there was a week when we had pajama tantrums and now they are gone. So I have high hopes that this will disappear too, but the fact that she is really too big for a bed that's actually a sort of socially-acceptable cage is looming, and its acceptability is diminishing. Hmph. 

Anyway, on to something more positive: Nina likes puns. She has a book, The Snowy Day (which I'm sure many of you know well, or remember vaguely). She sometimes refers to yogurt as "dahin" (basically, pronounced as a nasal version of "day"). So I said "Is it the snowy dahin?" and she thought it was HILARIOUS. She's still chuckling over it. On wednesday when we went to Sainsbury's, she said "hee hee, we're going to SPAINbury!" She also loves it when we open a book, and start saying the text of a different book. She says: "Papa's TEASING me! Tease me again! Again!" 

Baby

It's real, it's still in there, it jumps around and kicks and puts its hand on its face, and apparently it is perfect, at least as far as they can tell:

Hi there, little Hink. 
 

Learning

I taught Nina the word "learning" yesterday. Naturally it was in the context of a bus, a double decker bus, and the fact that she always wants to make the two bus puzzles that she can do completely independently. One of these is a 12-piece yellow double decker bus, and if you flip all the pieces over, it's also a red one. The yellow one has animals as the passengers and driver and the red one has people. She worked out how to do the yellow one by herself really quickly, and since then has always made that one. Yesterday I told her that if we made the red one together, then she would learn how to make it herself. So we made it, and she said "I'm learning". Lo and behold, one attempt later and she could make it herself. 

Here are a couple of things I've learned in the past couple of days: 

 -- Don't tell your friend that your toddler is completely toilet-trained, even if he asks, and even if is apparently true, unless you wish to have a poo-related drama in a bath. That was rough. 

-- When a kid says she has to poo, then doesn't, [repeat several times], then says her "bum bum" (read: "girl parts") hurts, and wants rash cream, and then demands a bath, she is probably going to poo in the bath

-- After your kid does a tiny little poo in the bath, don't put her back in the bath!  (How dumb is that? How many degrees did we say we had?)

-- Toddlers are adorable, affectionate little creatures with an incredible knack for manipulating parents into delaying bedtime

In other news, amoxicillin doesn't seem to help with my chronic congestion. The midwive suggested acupuncture, which I may pursue. She also, however, suggested a home birth, and hypno-birthing. Granted, I had asked about lamaze classes (there aren't any, can you believe that?), and I gather that hypno-birthing may be a version of meditation/breathing techniques for labour, which I would actually like to learn about if it weren't called something that sounded alarming. And I had asked about how fast labour might be - it was very quick last time at 6 hours start to finish - in part because we're wondering how to set up very rapid care for Nina when I go into labour. Giving birth at home, particularly if it happened during the day when Nina's at nursery or when friends are available to take her: well, it would be great not to be stuck in a loud, disruptive maternity ward with dreadful food for one or two days, and it would be better for Nina to see us right away. I guess. So all good, as long as nothing goes wrong - and that's, of course, the crucial point. 

Anyway, I looked up acupuncture for congestion and there have been controlled trials showing that it is effective, although it doesn't seem (in these trials) to eliminate it completely. Hmph. It is apparently quite widely used in pregnancy. Learn something every day. Anyone reading this have any acupuncture experience?

 

bagels and snotty noses

Well, not only is our child potty trained, with a few hiccups (polite phrase for them) here and there (a less polite phrase would be something more like "a few endless angsty whiny hour-long repetitive bathroom-leaving-bathroom-entering dramatic disaster-producing episodes"... but these seem to have stopped, so we'll go with "hiccups") ... our child is also nose-trained. I seem to have successfully, if perhaps temporarily, convinced my child that her hand will get sticky if she uses it to wipe her nose. Now she urgently says "I NEED to BLOW NOSE!". We STILL all have a blasted COLD. This is week 3. It started on Sept 19, for me, for her a couple days earlier. She's been well in between, but I haven't, and let me tell you, it sucks. I hate it. Amps isn't that well either. I'm coughing and congested at night, Nina's got a runny nose and Amps is coughing and feeling unwell. And I can't take anything, like a decongestant, or a gravol, without taking at least some risk with the baby. Blah. Teaching starts next week - it hasn't even started yet! If this season's anything like last year I'm going to have trouble pulling my teaching together...

Anyway. On Sunday, Nina helped me make some bagels. I haven't made them since I was pregnant with her - there was even a little note on the recipe that they had turned out too small, "but pregnant", I wrote in the margin, as if to explain that of course I would naturally want *big* bagels. (Actually, I remember not being able to eat much at a time, suddenly feeling massively full after 6 bites. Some of that is coming back now, but with this pregnancy at least the nausea has been better. It's the headaches and the endless cold that are problems)

Anyway - bagels. I love them. When we lived in Montreal I could get them whenever I wanted - literally - I had the best ever bagels, fresh as could be, available 24 hrs a day at Fairmont and St Viateur, not too far from where I lived, and near my favourite brew pub too (Dieu du Ciel. I can't start talking about food and drink in Montreal or this post will never end. And the deps! And the Chu Chai! And, and, and ... sigh).

But here? Well, if one is able to go to London, one can apparently get pretty good bagels. Consensus on the web indicates that the best are to be had a ways north of the centre, and/or in Brick Lane. Now, it is MUCH faster for me to make bagels than it is for me to go to Brick Lane and back. A very thorough internet search reveals that good bagels are categorically NOT to be had in this city. English ale? Yes. Bagels? No. Well, bready non-bagel toroid objects from the supermarket, yes, but these are NOT bagels. Bagels, as you know, are boiled before they are baked, whether you like NY bagels, Montreal bagels, or whatever. They are chewy, they are a bit crispy on the outside, they are fantastic with cream cheese and they are the ideal breakfast. 

Nina loves playing with dough. She loves putting things in the mixer, and turning it on, and watching it mix. She loves standing on a chair and helping me, pretty much whatever I'm doing. It's great. (In fact I've figured out that she can put all the cutlery away, leaving me to unload the rest of the dishwasher without interruption).  She liked putting her finger through and making the holes. She shaped her own little piece into a mini-bagel, and she loved eating it. In the end, they were a bit small (but of course I'm pregnant), and they are delicious. Next time I'll have a longer second rise. She loves eating them. And I do too, and somehow, making them felt like reconnecting with who I was before Nina, someone who had time to make homemade bagels, only this time I have someone to share it with who is making them for the very first time. 

Before the new baby comes I want to get to some more concerts, get to the chamber music club to play the grand piano, and do all those things I'll probably pause again, now that my child is the advanced, mature, age of .. er .. 2.

 "I TWO! Mummy .. is... " (let's say 27 for now.)

Well, if anyone wants the bagel recipe, leave a comment and I will post it (that'll save me some effort: no one ever comments! but that's ok folks, this is all for me, for Amps, for Nina, for, well, posterity).