The Journey to DC… (daycare, that is)

It’s official. My son starts daycare next week! Hurray hurray! Not only is he going to daycare, it’s the amazing government subsidized daycare (Centre de la Petite Enfance for my Quebec friends) that is located onsite at my company. I am living the dream. The suburban corporate working mother dream, that is.

For six wonderful months, my amazing mother and my son’s beloved Grandmaman (or “Gaaaaa” as he calls her) has been babysitting my son while I am at work. I am so thankful that she has been able to do this. Not only did this avoid us having to send him to an expensive private daycare but it also built a wonderful bond between my son and his grandparents. She is an extraordinarily patient person who had to draw from reserves of strength and energy that she probably didn’t know existed in order to spend long days with a toddler. But she never once complained and told me often how much she enjoyed it and how much she loves him. Who could ask for anything more? I know that on the days when she had other appointments and I had to work from home to stay with him, I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration, so she is a better woman than I am.

When I got the call from the daycare a few months ago telling me they had a spot for my son in September, I was ready to throw a party to celebrate. In Quebec, there is an excellent program which subsidizes daycares to provide affordable childcare to parents. The problem is that government subsidized daycares are so popular that waiting lists are notoriously long and spots are highly coveted. I put my son on this waiting list when I first learned I was pregnant. They knew about my pregnancy before anyone else! When I wasn’t hearing from any of the dozen or so daycares on whose waiting lists we were registered, panic began to set in. I was starting to look for semi-private or home-based daycares for my son. Fortunately those spots are easier to come by, but I was still holding on to hope that he would get in to this particular daycare.

The day has almost arrived and I am so excited. I know it will be a challenging transition, but I think it will go well. By all accounts, my son is so ready to start interacting with other children and he’s desperately in need of new experiences and stimulation. When we visited the daycare last week, he was so excited it was hard to tear him away when it was time to go home! I’m sure there will be moments where the novelty will be at its peak and others where he will not want to be parted from mommy but when the routine becomes established, it will be good for everyone.

Wish me luck! Read all about it right here next week!

Travels with toddler

Ahhh vacation time… a concept that usually inspires enthusiasm, rest, relaxation and much happiness. Before having a child, my husband and I would almost always choose a beach destination where we would arrive, drop our luggage in an all-inclusive resort room and head to the beach. Where we would sleep. For seven days straight.

If ever there was a time in our lives when we could use seven days and seven nights of sleep, it’s now. But alas, the reason for our exhaustion is also the reason that it’s simply not an option for us to do that anymore. Not if we want to spend any quality time with our 18-month-old son.

So times have changed. This year, we headed to the ultimate land of family vacations: Florida. We rented ourselves a condo, a car and bought tickets for a day at Sea World. Yup, times have changed.

All things considered, it was a wonderful vacation. We spent two weeks on the beach, disconnected from home and had lots of fun as a family. Some wonderful things happened, some funny memories were made and we will not forget this first of our family vacations together.

On the wonderful side, my son FINALLY started saying “Mama”. It took him some time, but once he began, it was so lovely to hear him say it over and over again. He says it so sweetly that I feel like he’s saying he loves me every time. It has not yet reached the nagging, whining stage, so please let me savour it as long as possible!

We went to the beach almost every day. My son really enjoyed the warm, shallow water, the soft white sand and being able to run free along the water’s edge. I think we may have only missed three days of beach the whole vacation – once when we went shopping in Orlando, once when we went to Sea World and on the last day, when it rained and my husband had a raging fever and stayed in bed all day. That last day was oh so fun. Thank goodness for the most amazing mall (Westfield Countryside Mall in Clearwater) about 15 minutes from the condo, which had an indoor playground designed for toddlers and a cute train that takes parents and kids on a ride through the mall. Even the family bathroom was fun, with tons of toys and things to play with.

Renting a condo was really perfect for our needs. We were able to cook our own meals, pack our lunches for the beach, wash our towels and bathing suits in a washing machine, we had wifi and a great selection of channels on TV and the condo complex had its own pool. But let’s face it, a vacation that involves cooking, laundry and cleaning is not the most relaxing of vacations, is it?

My son was also not in his familiar comfortable bedtime routine or bedroom, so getting him to sleep was a nightly challenge. No, let me rephrase that. It was a nightly epic battle. In those times, I felt like a horrible, mean, surly mother because my frustration would escalate to points of anger and yelling that really didn’t help the situation. There were many nights when my son finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion at 11 pm, far from him normal 7:30 pm bedtime. And it didn’t stop him from waking up at 7 am the next day.

Let’s not even talk about airplane travel with a toddler… Let’s just say that it involves a serious amount of toys, books and abuse of any available videos. Thank goodness for my iPad and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse videos I had downloaded before we left. I know you’re not supposed to let kids under 2 watch TV, but well, some situations call for it. Okay, many situations, but that’s a debate for another day.

As far as vacations go, it was definitely different from our last vacation. It was the start of something new for us. As with all new parenting experiences, we learned a lot and maybe the next time, with appropriately managed expectations and newly-learned coping mechanisms, we won’t sweat it! Or maybe we will. Who knows… All I know is that I now understand the expression “I need a vacation from my vacation!”

And we're back!

Source: facebook.com via Baby on Pinterest

Oops, has it really been a month since I last posted? Dear readers, I’m sorry, I know I broke the number one rule of blogging, which is not to let much time go by between posts!

Well, it’s been a crazy month which might explain my absence from cyberspace. It all started when my mother (and primary childcare provider) went to Greece for three weeks for a well-deserved vacation. After she took such good care of my son for so long, how could I begrudge her a vacation? So in that time, I was using and abusing other relatives for baby-sitting services and working from home. Needless to say, although I had much to blog about, I had no time to do so!

Then we took our first-ever family vacation since my son was born. We went to Florida for two weeks, so that brought on a whole other level of frenzied preparation, and then while on vacation, a whole new set of life learnings. 

So I spent three solid weeks with my son, at home and on vacation. It was exhausting.  Now I need a vacation for myself. I’ve never been happier to go back to work, where there is quiet and a constant supply of hot coffee!

I promise to provide a post-vacation report on travelling with an 18-month-old very soon! In the meantime, I have to finish unpacking, catch up on my work e-mails and (hurray!) start getting my son ready for his big daycare debut in less than two weeks.

A woman's work is never done...

A quiet moment

Source: traveltips.usatoday.com via DoubleTree by Hilton on Pinterest

A few years ago, I used to travel for business fairly regularly. These days I don’t have the opportunity to travel as often, which is appealing to me as the mother of a 17-month-old child. Life is less complicated when you don’t have to leave the house at 7 am to catch an early flight from Montreal to Toronto. Today, I took my first business trip since returning to work from maternity leave. Until last night, I wasn’t too stressed about it. After all, it’s just a day trip for some meetings in Toronto, something I’ve done millions of times.

My own preparation for the trip involved absolutely nothing.  In fact, less than for a normal day at work, since I had no lunch or gym bag to pack, no errands to plan for on the way into the office. I simply needed my purse, my laptop and my boarding pass. At the last minute I threw a 3 month old issue of Today’s Parent into my bag in case I found myself with time to read on the plane.

But suddenly last night I remembered my son. Oops. My trip meant that my mother would have to come over early to babysit, I couldn’t prepare his lunch and snacks for the day in the morning like I normally do – and since I would be arriving home later than usual, what the heck was the plan for tonight’s dinner? So I scrambled to get it all done last night after coming home from doing groceries after dinner while my husband looked after putting my son to bed.  

But I’m not complaining. It’s par for the course. Business travel when you have kids requires a little extra planning. No biggie.

What I found disorienting today was the fact that I had forgotten how much time you spend waiting around when you travel. As the mom of a toddler, I just don’t spend time waiting around anymore. I have to-do lists and I am always trying to accomplish something, whether I’m working or I’m home. Idle time is normally planned and scheduled. In other words, if I sit down to watch TV for two hours at night, it’s on purpose.

Even with my blackberry and laptop on me and meetings planned for the day, I still underestimated how much time I found myself with at the airport and on the plane. The kind of time that in the past did not seem to go by as slowly. These days, I am amazed at what I can accomplish in an hour. I can zip through items on a to-do list and multitask like nobody’s business. So once I had accomplished whatever work I could possibly complete, read an entire magazine while chatting about vacation plans with the colleague who was travelling with me, I thought, what the heck am I going to do on the flight home? Especially when I found myself seated next to an empty seat (yes!).

I briefly contemplated taking a nap, which would have been so gratifying. But I’m not a pretty sleeper. I am the person whose head rolls around the seat, mouth open with a trail of drool running down my chin. Since I would like my professional integrity to remain intact for a little longer, I opted against the nap.

There was no in-flight entertainment, since I was travelling aboard a small regional jet on a short flight.

I suppose I could have sat alone with my thoughts for the hour and stared peacefully out the window at the view below, but that would have inevitably led to the abovementioned nap, so that wouldn’t have been a good idea.

So I’m blogging. And as I write this I’m truly amazed by the speed at which I now operate. How many things do I cram into my time now? How hard is it for me to disconnect, really? My mind is constantly racing, thinking, planning, plotting, working. Thinking about projects, assignments, the office, my job, my son, my home, my husband, our plans, our upcoming vacation, what we have do at home, what’s for dinner, what’s planned for the weekend,  finding time to go to the gym, what I’m going to write about in my blog, when I’m going to find the time to write my blog, what’s happening on Facebook, when will I read this month’s book club selection, and oh, I have to remember to fill in my son’s forms for daycare before August 6^th.

Whew. I’m exhausted. Maybe I will take that nap after all.

Talk that talk

The words are starting to emerge from my son’s mouth, usually garbled through the ever-present pacifier that he is refusing to relinquish (but that’s a post for another day!) I’m finally starting to feel like my son and I are communicating, sort of. There’s still a lot of whining and pointing when he wants something specific, but now he’s starting to use what sound like real words to communicate.

Like many other children, his first word was Dada (or Daddy, which he uses a lot as well). Naturally, Dada was thrilled with that one, but from what I hear it’s pretty common, because it’s one of the easiest things to say. No offense, Dada!

Next up was “l’eau,” the French word for water. My little guy is growing up trilingual, and spends most of his time with his Grandmaman who speaks to him exclusively in French, so it’s natural that many of the first words are coming out in French. Speaking of his grandmother, he’s now starting to occasionally pop out the odd “G’mama” when he sees her or when our car pulls up to her house.

Source: google.com via Aubrey on Pinterest

He loves The Cat in the Hat and the book “Go Dog Go” where he learned one of his new favourite expressions “Go go go!” And when the Euro soccer tournament was in full swing, he learned to associate kicking a soccer ball with the word “Goal.” In keeping with the evolution of using words that start with a “go” sound, he’s now saying “good,” especially when he likes a particular food.

Most of these words are pretty simple, but he does have a few more sophisticated words in his lexicon as well. Whenever a plane flies overhead (and it happens often since we live somewhat close to the airport) he points to the sky and makes a sound that could be interpreted as “avion” (the French word for airplane). Finally, once or twice he has said the word “dangereux” (French for dangerous) which his grandmother says to him fairly often when he comes close to touching or doing something he shouldn’t. That word required some creative interpretation to understand, but we believe that he was trying to say it.

What amazes me more than the words though is that he understands almost everything we say to him now, and he responds to our questions and instructions like “give me your hand” or “show me your nose”. He also has sounds that he makes for certain things, like “broom broom” for cars, trucks, and basically anything motorized or on wheels. He barks in a high-pitched voice when he sees dogs, and makes a similar sound for birds.

With the newfound ability to communicate comes a newfound level of frustration, though, and for all the fun he’s having learning words, he gets upset sometimes when we don’t understand him. I guess it’s only normal that he has so much he wants to say but his language doesn’t always correspond with ours. Especially when it’s a mash-up of three languages. I’m never sure if the word he’s trying to say is English, French or Greek!

Lately, we have been watching videos that we took over the past year and it is absolutely astounding to see what a difference a year makes. A year ago, my son was a chubby baby who couldn’t even sit up on his own. Today he’s a toddler who runs (a lot), has an almost full set of teeth and babbles incessantly. He loves other children and is always trying to hug them (usually taking them down in the process but that is also a post for another day). He’s truly becoming his own person every day.

I survived our first night apart

It's 8:30 am on a Sunday morning and I'm sitting in my eerily quiet kitchen drinking a still-hot cup of coffee. I'm acutely aware of the emptiness of the high chair next to me and the lack of mushed bananas on the floor. I can actually hear the sound of my husband sleeping down the hall.

Why so quiet, you ask? My son had his first sleepover at grandma's last night while we went to a wedding. And I still haven't called to check in. I want to savor this moment just a little longer. And not seem like an overbearing mother who can't be apart from her child. The latter is by far closer to the truth than the former.

I just know that my poor mom, bless her, had to wrench herself out of bed at 5:30 this morning (at the latest). And I slept blissfully and unawarely through it. But I must say that even thought I woke at 7:30 am after a late night and a few drinks I feel more rested than I have in 17 months. Which goes to show that 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is more beneficial than 8 hours of broken sleep. Also taking Advil before bed really does prevent hangovers but I digress.

But I really miss that little guy and I especially missed our morning cuddling so I think it's time to wrap up this blog post, wake my hubby up and go get our little monster.

Have a great day friends!

One little monkey getting on my nerves!

At almost 17 months, my son is officially driving me crazy. On one hand, he’s at that fun, amazing stage where he’s learning new things, slowly starting to talk, and performs non-verbal party tricks on command (“show me your belly” “where’s your nose?” “Cut the pickle! Tickle tickle!”) He’s a constant source of amusement and entertainment to those around him and is learning to work a room like a stand-up comedian on amateur night (you can see the spark in his eyes when people laugh at his antics “They’re responding! This works! I’ll do it again!”)

But he just. Never. Stops. This kid could teach the Energizer Bunny a thing or two about going and going and going and going. And he wants to touch EVERYTHING. Especially if it lights up, makes noise, or involves buttons and switches. Unfortunately he can tell the difference between real “grown-up” gadgets like (iPads, blackberries, cameras and stereos) and his many, many toys that do the exact same things without consequences (like long-distance phone calls, erased photos or electrocution).

The thing that really gets me is that while he has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he understands everything we tell him, he pretends not to understand when we tell him “no”. He actually finds it funny to hear us say no, and laughs while he repeats the offending action.

Are all kids like this at this age, or is mine particularly mischievous? This past weekend, he gave me that mischievous smile so many times I actually began to understand why people used to spank their children so often. Fortunately, I can’t bring myself to raise a hand to him.

This weekend, he had an encounter with a Pomeranian. For those of you who don’t know what that is, picture a tiny, fluffy, yappy dog. Smaller than a toddler and light enough to be lifted by its tail with one hand by my son. I know this because it happened. Twice.

Seriously?! Can I just get an effing break?!

The thing is, for all his antics and energy, my son is truly a sweetheart. He is ultra affectionate and very liberal with hugs and kisses. When he sees other children, he runs over and gives them hugs. He scares the bejeesus out of the kids he hugs, but he truly has good intentions. The thing is, he’s big and strong for his age, and sometimes he takes them down with his hugs, but he’s just so happy and excited that his enthusiasm gets the best of him.

I never thought I would have such an exuberant and ebullient yet exasperating child. I’m a pretty calm and patient person, or so my coworkers think, but this kid just tries my patience these days. Keeping up with him is a herculean task.

When I got to work this morning after a (very) long weekend, I was actually happy to be in the office where I could sit in relative quiet and not have to chase anyone or peel a child away from potential electrocution or pissed-off lap dogs. Up until this past weekend, I was really looking forward to my upcoming two-week vacation. Now I’m not so sure…

Somebody please reassure me!