mommapalooza

real princesses wear pants

I've slowly let my guard down, and thought that it would be perfectly harmless to let Madeline play with some princess-themed items. A book here, a movie there, the dress-up outfit, tiny dolls, etc. … and now I'm suffering with the consequences of that decision.

For the past three mornings, as I've assisted Madeline in getting dressed, she's told me that she has to wear a dress or else she won’t be pretty, like a princess. No capris, no practical shorts. Only a dress. Madeline is only three years old (and barely three years, I must add!) and she’s already holding herself up to this pretty=princess=dress standard. I’m surprised by how passionate she is about this issue, and how stricken she looks when I take a pair of shorts out of her chest of drawers. Her feelings are real, though I wish that she was just having a laugh.

Why do people have to fuss over little girls so much more when they're in dresses?  It's so superficial, and my little girl needs to know that she's lovely no matter what she's wearing, or even that what she's wearing doesn't count. 

something you don't see everyday

Yesterday, Madeline and I were waiting at a red light to make a left turn. It was a long light, and so I was looking around, marveling at how all of the sidewalks are covered with three feet of snow. It's not a good time of year to be a driver or a pedestrian in St. John's, really, as the snow-covered sidewalks mean that pedestrians are walking on the roads, both major and minor.

Where was I? Oh yes, waiting at the red light. As I was looking around, I saw a woman on foot round a snowy corner, while pulling her small child on a sled behind her, all on a very busy road. Then I saw a huge pick-up truck make a right turn around the very same corner, and stop just short of running the (helmet-less) child over. Am I the only one who thinks that pulling a child on a sled (very low-to-the-ground and thus very difficult to see when you're in a vehicle) on a busy street is a bad idea?

I met two local moms when I was out knitting last night, and they said that sledding on the street is completely normal. I'm flabbergasted!

is there an age requirement to start a petition?

Dear Head of Children's Programming for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,

My daughter hasn't been napping very well this week. Actually, she has barely been napping at all.

Many parents would blame screwed up sleep schedules on switching off of daylight savings time, but I'm blaming you and your televison station's newly unveiled preschool programming schedule. You see, my Madeline used to watch the last 10-15 minutes of George Shrinks after she finished her lunch every weekday, while I cleaned up the dishes. As soon as the end credits began to roll to the backdrop of the jaunty George Shrinks theme song, she'd jump up, turn off the tv, and announce "Naptime!" And, yes, she really would take a nap.

After lunch on Monday, we discovered that the noon - 12:30 NLFD time-slot was now occupied by the Gill Deacon Show, which hardly enchanted my toddler long enough to sweep the crumbs from our sandwiches off of the kitchen counter. And at 12:30, Madeline wasn't ready for her nap. Instead, she was quite insistant that we wait for George to come on.

Do you know what three days without a nap does to a routine-loving two year-old? What is does to the state of her home and the state of her mom? Please, please, please return George to his proper time-slot ASAP!

Sincerely,

Laura, Mom of a Disgruntled George Shrinks Fan

the gig's getting old

Has anyone ever paused, mid-thought, to wonder, "What would Mick Jagger do?" 

Maybe it's a bit of a stretch, but Chris and I have a groupie problem. I'm not sure if it's one that Mick and Keith could relate to, but it's causing some degree of strife in our household. Madeline, as it turns out, is a one-person groupie, and the object of her devotion is me. Only I am worthy of reading her stories, tending to her bath, accepting the half-eaten Mum-Mum wafer that she's offering from the back seat of the car, getting her snack, wiping her hands, unbuckling her carseat ...

... hmm. As a re-read what I've typed, I realize that maybe I have it all wrong. Perhaps she's not my groupie - maybe I'm her indentured servant! Ugh! But I digress, really ...

This preferential treatment is annoying. Madeline has a dad who would love to cuddle her on his lap and read Franklin. Instead she insists "Mommy read!" as if I haven't read her a book in months when it's the 23rd picture book of the day and the dishes that I'm in the middle of washing aren't at all important. The result of this is that Chris feels slighted and I feel like I have more responsibilities than I can manage. Ironically, the old issue of Today's Parent that I brought to the gym earlier this week had an article on this topic. The folks there had a few insights, speculating that the reason why Madeline wants me to read Story #23 is because I read Story #22 - it's what she's used to. They don't suggest that the other parent merely toss in the towel, but rather acknowledge their child's feelings first and talk about that a bit.  I laughed when I read that, imagining Chris saying, "Madeline, I can see that you're feeling upset that I'm going to read the story when you want mommy to read it" while Madeline has turned into a sputtering purple creature trying to drag me to the sofa by my back pocket ...

The good stuff for this Friday:

• I recently discovered that Madeline likes beans. She'll gobble chickpeas and black beans in soup up like they're peanut M&Ms, but I was surprised to see her scarf up the green beans at my parents' house this summer. She wasn't a fan of the batch of pureed green beans that I made for her a year and a half ago ... Anyway, I brought this tidbit up as it's Bean Week over at familyfood with a recipe for lentils with pancetta and chicken with any bean chili, which I am hoping to try one night next week, if I remember to put the ingredients on my grocery list and then remember to bring the grocery list to the store ...
• Just in time for the holidays, Chapters/Indigo has launched an online toy store. They have some really cool stuff - lots of Melissa & Doug, Crocodile Creek, and the nifty art/craft stuff from Alex.
• What to Look for in a Daycare is another smart post (really, is there any other kind?) by Mary P over at Partners in Parenting. I haven't embarked on a daycare search yet, but I probably will be doing just that in about four months, so I'm glad to have stumbled upon this post. Even the comments are good reading!

no offense, brown cows ...

This morning I was flipping through my October issue of Today's Parent while Madeline sat beside me, eating her blueberry waffle, and noticed an advertisement for Nestle Quik. The ad caught my eye because the entire thing seemed to be trying to make the case that adding sugary, chocolaty stuff to regular milk is still nutritious, at least compared to soft drinks and juice. Well, maybe, but I still take umbrage that some people out there are trying to urge parents and their kids to take an otherwise nutritious glass of milk and adulterate it with empty calories. I know that some children probably won't drink any milk at all if it wasn't flavoured, but I doubt those families need to be marketed to at this point.

I still shake my head whenever I see the tv commercial from the Dairy Farmers of Canada that specifically advertised chocolate milk! I love chocolate milk, but I can't understand why this product needs to be set apart for an advertising campaign. Does it make a difference to dairy farmers if I buy two litres of skim or two litres of chocolate milk?

... and that ends my Thursday rant.

a tale of two potties

Three potties, really.

There are many great things about having a toddler in St. John's, but shopping isn't one of them. There are only four places in town to buy potties, and all of them consistently carry expensive, bulky ones that sport flashy colours or require batteries so that they play music. Not really what I wanted for Madeline's introduction to potty-learning. What I wanted was the small, unassuming Baby Bjorn Little Potty (but cheaper - they certainly don't cost a mere ten bucks in Canada).

I found a lovely Bjorn-esque potty at one of my formerly fave diapering shops in Ottawa. Actually, I found a "for for $26" deal, and I thought that was fabulous, considering that the house we're in has two floors. So I ordered on May 16. Found out that they were out-of-stock a couple days later, but expected in two weeks. Emailed to check on the status of my order on June 8th. Called the shop to get the scoop on June 15th. The proprietor told me that the potties still weren't in stock, and then told me that it would be cheaper anyway to buy a Bjorn potty because of the shipping charge to Newfoundland. Yeah. If I could find a Bjorn potty here. I'm not sure if my feelings are justified, but that conversation really irritated me. I ended up sending an email to cancel my order on June 15th.

Then, I ordered an authentic Little Potty from this place in Vancouver, after doing a bit of research on pricing and shipping costs (I did find out a few days later that I could have got it for less out of the States, but usually things don't work out that way for me). I received an electronic receipt at the time of order, and I received a credit card receipt today via snail-mail. Only the shipping charge on my credit card receipt is four dollars more! Gah! I've sent an email to the store, and now I've pretty much concluded that this whole potty-learning exercise is doomed even without any participation from Madeline.

do the right thing

On a fairly regular basis, I find myself observing other parents and wondering how on earth their infants and toddlers are ever going to learn anything if they aren't given the opportunity to try, or the opportunity to do something right.

My first experience with this was about a year ago - I attended a nutrition seminar from Raymond Parenting. It was held at the home of a friend of another mom that Madeline and I met in Gymboree class. There were about a dozen babies, of varying ages, in attendance. I think that Madeline was the second-oldest; Allison, the daughter of the hostess, had just turned one. Allison had all sorts of fun toys (perhaps from her recent birthday), and all of the mobile babies swarming around her plastic Fisher Price house because it was the coolest toy they'd ever seen. Of course, Madeline was trying her best to stake out a piece of real estate by the toy house as well.

I knew that babies around Madeline's age experiment with touching and often push and shove aggressively because they don't realize how strong they are, but I watched as Allison's mom would repeatedly and immediately haul her daughter away if she got near another child who was playing with the plastic house, or if another baby approached Allison, she'd grab that kid and remove him/her to a distance that she judged acceptable.  I understand that she didn't want her daughter pummeling another baby any more than she wanted someone else's baby to start beating on Allison, but I was kind of dumbfounded as I watched Allison's mom continue to enforce buffer zones around each of the older babies throughout the entire presentation. I mean, how did she know if Madeline was crawling towards Allison to knock her over or to give her a sweet pat on the shoulder? Madeline admittedly had a history of hair-pulling, but she'd recently turned a corner and was interacting with the other babies really well. She lately had delighted in giving "gentle touches". I fail to understand why Allison's mom didn't want to give her daughter and the other babies the chance to do something right and assumed that they were just going to do something wrong.

It's important to Chris and I that we allow Madeline the opportunity to do something right - the chance to walk down a flight of stairs safely before scooping her up and carrying her down, the chance to drink from a grown-up cup at a restaurant before removing it from her reach, the chance to climb up to the slide at the playground safely on her own before lifting her right to the top. I don't think that this is overly permissive parenting as much as it is an opportunity for Madeline to learn something about independence and a life skill or two. I guess I just don't understand it when I hear of other parents who don't allow their 15 month-olds to feed themselves with a spoon because "it would be too messy" or take their 20 month-olds on errands without strapping them into a stroller because "they might run off". It may be a little more effort to take the time to teach the mechanics of eating or the importance of holding hands in public places, but it's worth it to let your kid know that you trust them to make good decisions, no?

danger is her middle name

Madeline has always lived a little on the wild side. I think it began with her learning to roll over when she was twelve weeks old and it just snowballed from there. Fascinated with electrical cords? Check. Standing up in the tub? Check. Climbing down the stairs without holding onto anything? Check.

Her latest stunt is the one that worries me the most. Two times today, when I went to take her out of her carseat, the straps were loose. The first time I noticed this, I kind of thought that maybe they weren't tightened enough in the first place. But when we were leaving the Y today, I made sure that they were nice and snug on Madeline's shoulders. When we arrived at home, six minutes later, they were loose again. Just a couple of inches, but enough to be negate their life-saving functionality. My best guess  is that she is able to reach the lift up the harness adjuster on her Marathon, and then lean forward a bit, which would indeed loosen the straps by a few inches. Ugh!

canadian content

There's an online petition circulating with the intent to urge the Harper gov't to honour the childcare funding agreements that were signed by the previous Liberal gov't, instead of pulling the funding.

no place like home

My favourite room in our house in Calgary is Madeline's. Our home is of the fixer-upper variety, and her room was the first one that we really finished up in a timely fashion. We removed the icky wallpaper border, painted the walls Wildflower Honey yellow, painted the metal closet door in Teal Bayou, found a throw rug for the newly refinished oak floor, and installed new baseboards.  Madeline has new furniture, cute framed prints of colourful animals on her walls, and a Care Bear wall hanging that matches her turquoise closet door. My mom even made a turquoise valence for her window. I keep a handmade quilt over the back of her glider.

In contrast, Madeline's bedroom here in St. John's is probably my least favourite. I know that we're renting, so I really shouldn't let it bug me, but it does. It looks like we added a crib, toy bin, and diaper pail to a two-star hotel room. I guess the big dark furniture doesn't really convey an air of whimsy or fun.  There are two dull prints in cream frames over the bed. So blah! And the bed is the only place in the room to sit while nursing, except its kind of high so I'm technically "sitting-up" instead of "sitting down". Not particularly comfortable.  When I'm in there I just want to leave as fast as I can. Maybe it will grow on me. Maybe I ought to find some inexpensive decorations.

I don't know if Madeline really minds her new room. She loves playing in the empty shower stall in the attached bath :)