Update from the Trenches...

Some of you have waited with bated breath to find out if we got our double Chariot. I am very happy to report we did indeed secure one of those beauties from craigslist and we love it. I have to admit though, I still don't entirely know how to fold it down. And I haven't tried popping off the wheels even once. The task looks a little daunting and I have played the "but I gave birth to the girls" card every time the deed had to be done. Listen I'm not proud but that's what happens when you have to learn how to fold down four different types of strollers in one year. I'm also mechanically challenged.  But because of the Chariot I am walking/jogging for an hour three times a week and enjoying it very much. I think ALL Olympic athletes should train using a double Chariot (especially those bob-sledding types). Once you run or jog without pushing two kids, you'll feel like Donovan Bailey sprinting to glory. It's that easy. I kid not. 

The second update is about the "pee in the bottle" post. I am happy to report we got our sample and it was pretty darn easy. Our little monster got up the morning of my birthday, bellowed she had to pee, and asked specifically for the sucker known as "mummy". I thought the whole spiel about internal organs worked on her. Not at all. She was excited about peeing on my hands while I tried to "catch" her pee (sounds like material for a Japanese game show, eh?). The samples are safely in the fridge and awaiting the opening of the lab tomorrow morning. Thanks for asking. 

Message in a Bottle...

Today I had to try and get my 3.5 year-old fusspot to pee in a bottle. I don't wish this task on anybody. I'd rather try and milk a raging bull. At least you can reason with a bull. The whole task went downhill when she announced she had to go potty and her daddy yelled (more like shrieked) from upstairs, "GO GET THE BOTTLE, SHE HAS TO PEE! HURRY UP!!!!!. Needless to say, she was screaming by the time I made it upstairs with the bottle. My poor husband has no prior experience dealing with little girls. He didn't have a plan in place or anything. He thought he could just spring the whole idea of peeing in a bottle on her and still have her cooperate. Boy, was he wrong!

You see my husband was an athlete and he thought he could tell her a story about how he had to pee in a bottle in front of somebody to get drug-tested. Talk about trauma for a little girl. She plugs her ears in public washrooms because the flush is "too loud!". And her daddy thought a good ol' drug-testing story would do the trick. I'm booking the therapist now.

So tomorrow, on my birthday, I have to get her to do "the deed" and get the sample to the lab. I used my motherly charm to get her to at least agree, in principle, to the concept of me holding a bottle under her while she pees. I even told her she could pee all over my hand & she thought that was funny. But that was today, tomorrow is a whole other day. Sometimes her brain resets itself at night and she has no recollection of the agreement we made the night before. Translation: I'm expecting more screaming tomorrow.

As for my motherly charm, I told her a lab technician would look at her pee under a big microscope (she kept saying telescope but that's okay, it is sort of "moon" related). She thought it was funny someone actually had a job to look at pee under a microscope. And then she seriously asked me what they would be looking for. How the heck should I know, was my first thought. And then I remembered my official title: CEO of the Why Question Answerer. So I launched into this whole spiel about internal organs, specifically the kidneys, lungs, liver etc. She seemed happy enough after that but only time will tell.

Wish me happy birthday tomorrow and don't judge me if I bribe her with a birthday cupcake or two. It's almost midnight and I still haven't figured out how to get the pee in the bottle. I'm off to google land.

The Skinny Gene...

The Globe and Mail had an interesting article on baby development this week. Apparently the growth charts we use to chart development in Canada are different from the World Health Organization's charts. So the "curve", as doctor's refer to it, is different in Canada and the United States. Kids that are considered normal on our charts are actually considered overweight or obese on the WHO charts. As a parent of a kid in the low percentile (charting under 25% for height and weight) as a one year-old and now is completely off the chart as a 3 year-old, I find this pretty promising. You see, I just thought my skinny gene kicked in and my dear girl would end up being a distance runner. Now I can renew hope of her becoming a tennis star.  

This charting is serious business for some parents. They brag about little Johnny being in the 95th percentile for height and weight. I want to scream at them, "it's not his score on the bar exam, people!". Now the head measurement is another story. If little Johnny's cranium was in the 95th percentile, that might tell us he has a big brain in there somewhere. I know, I know, it could be just telling us his head is just a melon on a toothpick. Check out this scene from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" on YouTube. You'll know what I mean. Heid move! (said with Scottish accent). 

Okay back to baby development. So if your kid is off the charts on the low-end, the pediatrician is supposed to ask if he or she is meeting their milestones and if not, they send them for testing. When I heard this whole "milestone" thing, I had to laugh. Does sarcasm at three count as a milestone? I'm not too sure. She's got some really good dance moves and some not so good ones. Is it because she's a light weight? Thank goodness the WHO chart has an answer for all this. Breast-fed babies usually drop in weight around 6 - 9 months and stay slimmer than the formula-fed babies. I don't know what I was fed as a kid but I had to turn 30 before I made it over the 100 lb barrier. And yes, it is a barrier for some of us (like the 4 minute mile). Nowhere in all this chart stuff do they mention the parents' genes. I know what happened to my kid. My skinny gene kicked in and she's going to end up sitting in the front row in all her school pictures. Her friends will give her nicknames like "skeletor" and "skelly". She'll put back more food than a Japanese sumo wrestling champion in one sitting and still end up with a figure like a super model (except without the height). 

In the end we all turn into our parents anyways and there's not a lot we can do about it. I made my mother's tuna casserole a few weeks ago and I'm coping well. 

In all seriousness, if you have a 6 to 12 month year-old baby and you want to learn how to make your own baby food, avoid feeding him or her junk food, find out what foods to start with etc. try "Yummy in My Tummy" by the Liandrea dynamic duo. They are nice people (with big brains).

Bringing Monster Home...

I had my first baby in 2004 and like many new mothers, I had great expectations of what motherhood would be like. I figured, naively, I would nurse my baby for at least a year, feed her organic pureed baby food at exactly 6 months, and have her sleep on her own in her crib every night by just putting her down. Even though my husband and I were both terrible sleepers as children, I still thought life would be different for our little angel.

Our little angel is now 3.5 years old and if you turn your computer off and listen very carefully, you should be able to hear her screaming. Even if you live in outer Mongolia. She's done brushing her teeth and is getting ready for bed. Bedtime has been a challenge since she came out of the womb. Even the nurses at the hospital knew something was different about this little, dare I say, monster. They kept referring to her as an "alert" baby. We didn't know what that meant until a few days after we brought her home. Alert = screams her head off

No, she didn't have colic. She had something worse. It's called "curiosity". We realized something was up with her when she was a couple months old and she was screaming her head off in her crib one night. It had just snowed and the snow plows were clearing up our street. We thought maybe the noise woke her up and it did but that's not why she was crying. She wanted to SEE what was making the noise. And from that day on we realized it was easier to show her what was making the noise instead of trying to put her back to sleep for several hours (while enduring the aforementioned screaming).

Needless to say, we've made some mistakes along the way. Sometimes I wish we could have kidnapped our midwife and forced her to live with us. No judge with kids would have put us away for that one. At least not one that heard the screaming. I stumbled upon a little gem a few months ago that would have helped us greatly. It's like having a midwife in your own home (except without the kidnapping charges). It's a parenting DVD called "Bringing Baby Home". Notice how they use the word "baby" and not "monster". Anyways, it's from a production company (read: two moms with 6 kids between them) called "Liandrea". It's like a prenatal class that never stops giving (if you put it in constant loop on your DVD player). Try it, you may end up slightly better off, if not much better off, than me.