Moving Up...

My daughter is moving up to the next class at her daycare starting Monday morning. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I hope it is a good thing. She will probably not move up again until the Spring which is in about another 6 months or so. My only concern is that they are dividing up her class. Her class is made up of 8 children who are all born between June 18 and August 28th. They're all on about the same level developmentally with some a little farther ahead and some a little farther behind. I like to think that my daughter is a little farther ahead based on the talking I've heard in the class. However, they aren't examining the children to decide how to divide them up; they're going by their birthdays. June and July in the older class, August in the younger. Since my daughter is an August birthday, she goes in the younger class.

One of the things that I like about daycare is how they learn from each other. Even when it is things that I don't want her learning (biting, shoving, "mine", etc.), I know that they do learn a lot from each other. So, I asked who else will be in the class with them. Some of the kids out of the next youngest class (12-18 month olds since she is in the 18-24 month old class) was the answer. These kids, I am told, are at least 4 months younger. Honestly, she won't learn from them. Most likely, she'll just bully them. Much as I hate to admit it, I think my daughter's a bully. I'm not happy about it, but I'm a realist. In my opinion, she should be in with older (bigger) kids who she can't push around as easily. Children who are 4 months younger are easier to push around than the current group. Maybe she'll stop biting. Only because it will be easier to rip the toy out of the younger kid's hand. They'll be no need for biting. I guess if she gets to be too much of a bully, they can always move her up again.

Plus, in the next few months, I have big plans for my little girl. We are going to get rid of the dummy if it's the last thing I do. I'm just trying to decide the best time. I want it to be gone for at least a couple of months before the baby is born. Here's my reasoning. We are going to take the dummy away. When I do it, I want there to be no dummies in the house. Period. If I wait until after the baby, the baby will probably have a dummy (I haven't decided on this yet since I've had such a hard time getting my daughter to give it up, but I don't think it hurts infants to have it; realistically, it doesn't hurt my daughter to have it, but that's beside the point). I don't want my daughter to lose all of hers and start taking the baby's dummy. So, I still have some time, but not too much. However, I need some daycare cooperation on this one. I need to know that they aren't going to give it back to her. Not sure how to work this. I can get rid of it over a weekend to get her used to taking naps without it, but I have to know that daycare won't give it back to her (again).

Also, there will be some potty training. That won't be until after the baby though. I don't need the stress of her getting mostly trained and then relapsing because she's not getting enough attention. So, I've decided potty training can wait. I'd like her potty trained by 3. That's my goal, and for now, I consider it realistic. She already has a potty chair, and she likes to sit on our toilet at home. What a waste of money on the potty chair. However, what usually happens is she gets her little butt arranged on the seat and then says, "Hand." This originally meant, Mommy, I'm afraid I'm going to fall in, please hold onto my hands. Now, however, if I give her one hand, she then wants the other hand. At that point, with a big grin on her face, she breaks into "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." She knows the rule is no playing on the potty. But, Daddy usually breaks down and plays a little row-row when he thinks I'm not looking (and once in a while, I play along, too, because I can't resist the grin--it's such a self-satisfied-look-what-I-got-you-to-do grin). But, she does like to try and go to the bathroom (usually at inconvenient times). Usually nothing comes out though. This is one milestone I'm not ready to get to yet. But, again, I want her with older children at daycare when we get there. She's not going to learn to go sit on the potty from younger kids who aren't ready.

I'm blowing this way out of proportion, I'm sure. I think things will be good. In fact, as I was leaving for work this morning, her new teacher in the next class stopped me and asked if she could call me for about 10-15 minutes this weekend some time. It's a "Let's talk about what's important for my daughter in this class" talk, and I think that's an excellent way to start. I can express my concerns over her biting, warn her the pacifier is going bye-bye soon (so she better be prepared), and discuss how potty training works as she gets older. I really like the teacher, so hopefully, I'm just over-reacting and there will be no problems.

Part of my problem is that I'm stressed about my daughter's upcoming birthday. My mother-in-law is coming in on her birthday and staying through the weekend. I love my mother-in-law. I got really lucky. So that's not what's stressing me.

What's stressing me is that it looks like my grandmother is coming in as well. Because my mother-in-law will be staying with us, I'm sure my grandmother will tell my mother (because she never tells me; only guilt trips my mother) that she made all the effort to come see us and she didn't get to see my daughter nearly as much as she would like. But, she may surprise me.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Harry Potter....

Well, I'm about 4 pages into Harry Potter. After running errands after work yesterday, I went home, did laundry, did dishes, gave my husband a haircut, my daughter a bath, and didn't have time to get started on Harry Potter. Probably just as well. I would have stayed up late reading it. I've heard so many things about it. Some love it, some hate it. I guess I'll have to read it to see what I think.

I'm hoping for better than the 5th book. I thought he had settled into the teenage routine in that one. He always seemed so depressed and angry. I just wanted him to snap out of it (I know from experience that you can't just snap out of depression). I know he had a lot on his mind, but that one was kind of depressing to read in my opinion.

Unfortunately, Mimi and Dede went out of town, so I don't even have someone to take my little munchkin off my hands so that I can read all evening. I guess I have to wait until she goes to bed. Oh, this mothering stuff is so hard!

We tried to see if my daughter would watch another animated movie besides Nemo. We pulled out all of the movies that we have that are animated. So, we tried The Jungle Book. She used to love that one. When she was about 6 months old, I could put her in her exersaucer in front of the TV and put it on the song, "The Bear Necessities." I knew I had 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to myself. I believe that a mother's sanity is worth plopping them in front of the TV at an early age.

No go on The Jungle Book. "I want watch Meno."

So, I guess I'm stuck with Meno. Realistically, there are much worse things. There are many movies that I couldn't stand to watch a second time. And we won't even get started on Barney. So, Meno it is.

And I was so excited to see that the picture that I put in actually worked. My first picture was Nemo. Hmmmm.....I think I'm spending too much time watching kids' movies......

Finding "Meno"

A couple of years ago, Pixar and Disney put out a little film you may have heard of. It's called Finding Nemo.

Well, in a recent moment of desperation, I turned Nemo on for my daughter to watch so I could get some work done around the house. Unlike other Disney favorites, it didn't have too much of a story for her to follow, so I let her watch it.

I should have known it would be a mistake.

First of all, according to my daughter, his name is "Meno" not "Nemo." No matter how hard we have tried to fix this little part, she refuses to call him Nemo.

"Can you say Neeeeemooooo?"
"Meno."
"Neeee...."
"Meno."
"Can you say Neeee.....?"
"Meno."

Okay, fine. Meno it is. So, now I have to remember to keep calling him Nemo so that she'll eventually learn it correctly. But that's hard. He may be Meno forever.

Second of all, she doesn't understand that there are two different clownfish in the movie. Which is kind of funny when you think of it. I'm not sure how it works out in her head that Nemo keeps going back and forth between the ocean and the fish tank. Actually, I don't think she actually realizes that there's a story to it (although I could be surprised). I think it's like one big fish aquarium to her.

And lastly, I've almost got the movie memorized. I have to admit that I can actually still watch it. Every day.

My daughter's daycare has a fish aquarium in the hall. There are often kids gathered around tapping on the glass. I think they have a Nemo theme going on. There are two clownfish, a Dory (I have no idea what kind of fish that is, but most people know what Dory looks like), and a yellow fish like the one in the aquarium who gets really excited about the bubbles.

I'm sure that my daughter will want to watch Meno tonight. Probably in the middle of something I want to watch. That's usually the case. We start watching a show, and she will come up and say, "I wanna watch Meno."
"In a little while."
"I watch Meno."
"Not right now."

Then she walks over and sits in front of the DVD player silently willing it to start playing Nemo.

In completely unrelated news, my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has arrived at my house. Let the reading begin. Except tonight is hair cut night. As well as do all the laundry and clean up the house night. And my husband is making homemade (well, sort of) pizza for dinner. So I'll probably do the dishes. And my little princess needs a bath. So, I'm guessing that when I wake up at 2:00 in the morning, I'll probably just get out of bed and go read. And I'll regret that tomorrow when I'm falling asleep at my desk.

Has Anyone Seen...

the pregnancy fairy? You know, the one who brings you a trouble-free, stress-free, wonderful second trimester. She has missed her appointment with me.

I am willing to grant that the first trimester will include morning (ha! that's a joke) sickness and sleepiness followed by bouts of insomnia. Lots of hormones and such.

And I am willing to understand that by the third trimester, I will be a big as a house, so my back will hurt and I will be ready to be done with pregnancy and holding my little guy/girl in my arms.

But seriously, all the books say that around 12 or 13 weeks, magically, you don't feel as sick, you don't feel as tired. Energy returns and you're feeling better. I'm 16 weeks, 2 days, and the magical fairy hasn't come to relieve the fun morning sickness that lasts all day, and I feel like I need a nap every afternoon. Apparently, when I filled out my appointment slip, I forgot to include that I have a child already who is almost 2 who is trying my patience and pushing me to the point of a nervous breakdown.

Oh, and I don't appreciate her sending me fun third trimester stuff ahead of time. If I wanted to know exactly where my hipbones were, I would get an x-ray. I don't need to feel them moving around. The backaches can go away too.

So, yes. Most of these are my fault. My OB's nurse-practioner told me to graze all day so that I never get too full or too hungry. Well, I try (trust me, I do), but I can't do that very well at work.

And I would probably do better to have a set bedtime schedule and go to sleep at the same time, get plenty of sleep and get up at the same time each day. It would probably help if I didn't hit the snooze 6 times every morning. Sometimes 7. It would be fewer if I had a normal alarm clock. Before this one, every alarm clock I've ever owned goes off 9 minutes after you hit snooze. Never understood where they got 9 minutes, but whatever. This one is 7 minutes. So, you can do the math. 7 minutes, 7 times per morning. Alarm set at 6. I get up at 6:42 some mornings. But most mornings, it's 6:49. Why don't I just set the alarm for 6:45 and get up when it goes off? Good question. Habit, I guess.

And a few careful back exercises designed especially for pregnant women would probably do wonders for me. However, I've never been big into exercise.

And the feeling of my hips spreading. Well, knock on wood, that only happened yesterday, and it better not come back. Or else I'm going to kill me a pregnancy fairy.

Vocabulary of a Toddler

My daughter is getting to be a pretty good talker. Over the past couple of months, her vocabulary has expanded, and she strings words together into sentences. Some of my favorites are:

"Go 'way." This, quite simply put, is go away. She uses this if you're bothering her or if she isn't getting her way.

"I want do the dishes." Thank goodness. I figure in a few months, I won't have to do anything but the knives.

"Don't wan' it." This one is used to for anything you're trying to give her whether she wants it or not. Most of the time, she'll say, "Don't wan' it," followed by, "Mine!" (another favorite of hers).

Sorry I haven't been around. I've been feeling like crap for the past couple of days. A summer cold, I think. I just sit at work wishing I could go home. I did actually go home yesterday afternoon.

My daughter's biting has continued. I don't know what to do, but I don't think daycare is concerned. When I came out of her classroom the other day on our way home, the director was walking down the hall, and she saw my look of ....I don't know....exasperated desperation. She told me that they just keep working with them. They eventually learn that you can't bite other kids. I think if my daughter was older it would be a bigger deal, but she's not even 2 yet, so they know only so much can be done. I just want to know if my child is the only one, you know? Are there other little cannibals in the class?

Well, I'm tired of using my daughter and my husband, etc. So, I have to come up with some names I can insert to use for the members of my household. For the baby, I'm thinking Little Bugger. That's what I call him/her when I'm talking to my husband anyway. So, that just leaves me with two more names to come up with.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!