2014 off to a good start...

Many of you were concerned for my sanity when you read my recent morning madness blog (after laughing your heads off at me, of course).  So I wanted to reassure ‘my readers’ that life has become much more manageable and calm these days.  Ivan has started to take a faster route to work in the mornings, freeing up just enough time to drop baby off to her dayhome (but I think this mysterious coincidence might have had something to do with the bad press he got in that blog).  Either way – I’m happy!  Getting one child ready in the morning is much easier than two.  So Rya and I now get a few more minutes of beauty sleep and can take our time since I’m actually able to get myself ready at the same time and head straight to work instead of the whole pajama mama scene. 

The smoother mornings may be one factor – but I think there are many reasons that I’m finally starting to ‘like’ Mariah again.  Last year was a bit rough with her, since she really took the ‘terrible two’ thing seriously.  She used to have at least one tantrum per day for most of 2013, and seemed very irritable most of the time.  I think another factor was that she was getting her back molars, which took about 6 months to come in, and left her as a hot cranky mess most of the time.  Consequently, I was a hot cranky mess most of the time too, and Rya and I used to drive each other crazy.  I feel like we growled and kissed our teeth at each other more than we actually spoke to each other.  Which brings me to another factor – Mariah has always been pretty verbally advanced…but even at that rate, her vocabulary as a two year-old was fairly limited.  She spoke in full sentences, but didn’t always have the exact words to express how she felt or what she wanted.  Ever since she turned three a couple of months ago, Mariah has really blossomed into the sweet little girl I’ve always dreamed of.  Don’t get me wrong – she still has her moments, and I’m sure she always will.  But for the most part, she is pretty happy, calm, and dare I say ‘reasonable’.  Whereas she used to tantrum if she wasn’t given arbitrary objects before, which seemed to be a power struggle…now she only really gets upset if she feels something isn’t fair.  For example, if I were to break a cookie in half and split it between Mariah and Kassiah, Mariah would not be happy if she didn’t get the bigger piece.  But even this usually starts with some whiny complaining before hitting sheer anger, so I have a chance to de-escalate her.  And in between those times, Mariah usually is usually busy playing pretend by herself or with her sister, if she’s willing.  Mariah lines chairs up and pretends she’s driving; pats her dolls to sleep; hides in closets to escape monsters; goes shopping in our pantry; or bakes cookies in the kitchen set her dad built for her.  Mariah is also a focused little artist who can sit and draw for an hour – taking time to put the right parts on a face, or drawing 3 circles for a snowman.  One of Mariah’s favourite activities is going to the movies with mom or dad.  Whereas some kids have a real hard time sitting quietly, Mariah has been going to the theatre since she was 10 months old!  She now sits in her own booster seat and stares intently at the screen the whole time.  Last time she whispered ‘someone’s scared’ pointing to her cabbage patch doll and telling it to take deep breaths (I guess she must be the child of a therapist).  She loves telling people about her movie history – if anyone says the word ‘frozen’ in any context (like her Oma saying the screen was frozen on skype…or me asking Ivan to pass the frozen peas).  Without a hesitation she exclaims “Hey, member when me and Tan and daddy and Matthew went to see the movie, Frozen?!?”.  Mariah's understanding of her maturity is in very concrete terms.  I've commented on her being 'bigger' when she does something by herself like flipping her coat on...so when she asks for something that I say she's too young for (like having a sip of Coke) she says "but I AM bigger!".  Before I paint a perfect picture of Mariah, I should mention that she recently got in trouble at school for saying a ‘bad word’.  Ivan & I spent the evening accusing each other of 4 letter words she could have overheard from our mouths.  But when her teacher finally told me Rya had said ‘poopy penis’, I had to choke back a laugh and be thankful that she used the proper anatomical term (granted with an odd adjective), since daddy taught her they’re called dickies.

Little Kassiah is finally starting to grow past the baby stage, into toddlerhood (although I feel like she will always be a baby!).  Her current word list is: ‘Kuk’ (stuck), Dada, Mama, “Yaya” (Rya), Hi, Bye, more, this, that, ‘peesh’ (please), boob, and no.  She really loves music and usually dances and sings around the house with her daddy.  Lately I’ve been teaching her the “do, ray, me’s” and she ends on a cute little “me, me, me, me” vocal lesson.  Another grown up thing about our little baby is that she has the hair of a wild woman.  Even after a haircut just two weeks ago, Kassiah’s hair is so long and thick that she uses both hands to brush it off her chubby face when she has pulled her pony tail out.  Mariah was never super affectionate (and still barely gives hugs and kisses), but Kassiah sticks out her lips with a ‘mmmm’ waiting for a kiss when you request one.  And she still loves to be carried and cuddled as she ‘twerks’ as her Auntie Lisa calls it – doing her funny little I’m sleepy dance, by sticking her bum in & out.  And despite my many planned cut-off markers, this almost 20 month old is still breastfeeding!  I’ve had really mixed emotions on this topic, which I’ll blog about in more detail sometime.  But for now, I’m gonna keep letting her snack for ‘a couple more months’ and be thankful that she she's too slow to ask for it in a full sentence!  

Bana's house

When I had started searching for Kassiah’s dayhome, one of my main questions was ‘will you be the only one taking care of my child?’ (with the hope that the answer would be ‘yes’).  As a parent who happens to be a social worker, my biggest fear about dayhomes is that it involves my child receiving care ‘behind closed doors’ and one of the risks is that there could be friends or family members in the home who I wouldn’t want around my child.  Sure enough, when I first met Shabana (or “Bana” as the kids affectionately call her), she initially laughed when I asked if her family helps with the dayhome, explaining that her husband works full-time and her kids are young adults who have busy lives of their own.  At that time, the answer came as quite a relief to me, since I didn’t know much about them and was happy to leave it at that.  However, as the months have passed, Bana and I have both proved ourselves wrong!

At first, I noticed that Bana’s husband seemed to get pretty excited if he made it home from work before Kassiah had left – offering her a gentle wave and sometimes an Indian sweet or a cookie in exchange for a smile.  Some days when I rang the doorbell expecting to see Bana, her daughter Sarah would emerge instead with Kassiah happily in her arms.  Bana assured me that Kassiah and Sarah were becoming ‘best friends’.  I thought that was pretty sweet, but can’t say I was too surprised since I like to think our ‘Chubz’ is ridiculously cute and Sarah seems drawn to kids.  But the next step did surprise me a bit: eventually even Bana’s grown son, Bilal, became one of Kassiah’s many ‘best-friends’.  Bilal has been home a lot lately, and I think all of his time around Kassiah has made him quite fond of her…and vice versa.  And lastly – Bana’s sister has been in town for a couple of months…and sure enough…guess who became Kassiah’s latest ‘best-friend’?  She loves our little Kassiah so very much that she even sewed her a beautiful dress for her Christmas gift.  It's a beautiful pink and white lace dress with each detail sewn in with the same love that the family gives our little Kassiah each day.

It really seems too good to be true, that Bana’s dayhome happens to literally be ‘around the corner’ from us.  And to top it all off, Bana is not only from Karachi, Pakistan – where Ivan’s and my parents grew up…but even from the same ‘Hussain-D’Silva town’.  This means that Kassiah gets to enjoy the luxury of some Pakistani cooking sometimes – like ‘Kichari’ (dal & rice) for lunch with a doggy bag saved for dinner…or homemade paratha for breakfast.  And yet another reason why I love Bana’s dayhome is that, unlike most dayhomes, she is not filled to the brim with kids.  Regulated dayhomes are allowed 6 full-time kids total and Bana currently has 2 part-time girls and 2 part-time boys in addition to Kassiah.  Thursdays are her ‘full-house’ days when all the kids are there…but otherwise she usually has three, which makes it more manageable for her, and more suitable for an affectionate baby like Kassiah who loves her time with Bana.  On Wednesdays – Kassiah even gets VIP treatment from Bana and the whole family since she is the only one there!  I once called to let Bana know Kassiah was sick on a Wednesday, thinking she would be relieved for a rare, but well-deserved, day off – but she actually sounded disappointed like she and her family were going to miss her : )

I must say that this process of having Kassiah truly become part of Bana’s family has been a wonderfully pleasant surprise.  Ivan and I don’t have to deal with the additional stress of having to worry what Kassiah’s days are like – since we are sure they are filled with love and good care.  When I give Bana’s family some small Christmas gifts as a thank you for everything they do, I’ll also share a copy of this blog so they know just how much we appreciate what they do for Kassiah each day.  And I have a feeling that even when Kassiah outgrows her dayhome and transitions into school in a few years, we will still make the short trip around the corner to visit her second family!

Morning Madness

Hands down, the hardest part of going back to work has been the process of learning how to get our entire family ready and off to our respective work/school/daycare each morning.  As a dose of reality for those single readers who complain about how tired they are each morning (poor you), just wanted to share a typical day in our home…

Disclaimer: The following description involves excessive use of bribery and negotiating, which I do not endorse as appropriate for dealing with a toddler.  However, in the morning, my parenting style tends to switch into survival mode. 

6am – Ivan & I wake up.  He gets showered and ready double time and I do the basics…if I’m lucky – hit the can, brush my teeth, tie my bedhead into a pony tail and perhaps switch from pajamas into sweats.

6:30am – Ivan wakes Kassiah up and gets her dressed.  I open Rya’s door, and prevent a meltdown by allowing her to wake up on her own with the bit of light and noise that seeps into her room over the next few minutes.  I head down to the couch with Chubz, who says ‘this’ while she points to my boob and grabs it out of my shirt if I haven’t already done so.  While she nurses, I brush her hair and stick a couple of pig tails in it.

6:45am – Ivan bolts out the door, usually forgetting his lunch and/or cell

phone, to make his daily 45 minute commute to the other end of town (which as Torontonians we would have scoffed at, but as Calgarians – that’s quite a trek).  Usually Rya wakes up around this time, so Chubz and I go upstairs to get her and I walk back down with one in each arm.  I plop them both on the couch and put on some good old Sesame Street.  I gently warn Rya that we need to get ready for school soon and she stalls by saying something like ‘just a minute, I need to watch t.v. first’.  I negotiate with her to avoid another meltdown.

6:46am – Rya says ‘pee-pee’ so I take both girls to the bathroom and sit Rya on the pot where she simultaneously pees and asks for a treat, like a well-trained dog.  I hand her a fruit snack and she says ‘and one for my sister’ – so I hand her another and Chubz is very grateful.

6:47am – I start changing Rya’s clothes and she stalls by saying something like ‘just a minute, let me eat my treat first, like quickly, like hurry’. I negotiate to prevent another meltdown and pretend I have control by saying ‘okay, but then you have to get ready nicely’. 

6:49am – I start to change Rya into the clothes I have already laid on the couch the night before, while she squirms and complains they’re itchy.  Then, I give Rya her asthma puffers, get her to gargle, and then brush her teeth.

6:52am – I try to brush Rya’s crazy hair, she yanks her head away saying it hurts so I quickly get the worst knots out and throw it in a pony tail that looks almost as messy as my own.

6:53am - I leave Rya on the couch and take Chubz to the mud room to wrestle on her boots, mitts, hat, and jacket, before heading into the garage to stick her in the car.

6:55am – I return to the couch with Rya’s outerwear, only to be told that she ‘needs’ some random object, like a highlighter or flashlight, from the farthest end of the house.  I tell her no and she starts to lose her mind a little so I drop an F-bomb in my head and search for her object.  I pretend I’m in control by saying ‘Rya, I will get it and then we need to get ready nicely, okay?’

6:56am – I put on Rya’s boots, mitts, hat, and jacket – then she tells me she wants a different coloured set today so I switch them in a desperate attempt to get her out the door. 

6:58 – I come back in the house to collect my own jacket and sanity, before starting the car.

7:00 – drive around the corner to Kassiah’s dayhome and carry her to the door, while dropping at least one of her boots in the snow. 

7:05am – drive a few more minutes down the road to Rya’s daycare, therapizing her on the way about ‘let’s try no crying today’.  I get Rya out of the car and head toward the door, but she insists I let her touch the Christmas tree light before heading inside…and I unenthusiastically oblige – seeing that it represents the light at the end of the tunnel.

7:06am – sit down in a big comfy chair in the lobby with Rya to ‘take a deep breath’ before heading into school.  I help Rya out of her outerwear, into her indoor shoes and hand her off to her teacher.  I give her a thumbs up and she tries to the do the same – but usually uses her pointer finger by accident.

7:08am – I head back to the car, getting dirty looks from the other parents who somehow must have a mysterious hair and makeup team helping them get ready in the morning.

7:13 – tell myself I don’t need Timmy’s today and then find myself driving to Timmy’s.

7:25am - get back home to shower, change, and treat myself to an omelette as a reward for my hard work.

8am – head out for work to ‘start my day’!!!

"I'm in love with a girl, nearly twice my age"...

I recently realized, that when Rya turns 3 this December (which is in itself pretty crazy to think about)…she will be twice her sister’s age for the only time during their lives!  As the song title suggests, Chubz obviously loves her big sister and often copies everything she does – as a younger sibling I can say this phase lasts approximately forever.  But for now Rya usually follows Chubz around a lot more and loves to scold her for any reason she can think of.  By this age, Rya had already developed a very strong personality and was a ‘no nonsense’ type of baby.  For the most part, Chubz is a lot more mild mannered and easy going – but she does occasionally demonstrate her temper, when Rya triggers it.  When Rya snatches Chubz’ toys away on an hourly basis, Chubz screams…walks over to the next nearest object – grabs it with a “ha! I wanted this anyway” type of look, throws it down on the floor for attention…and if she’s really mad, throws herself on her stomach too and stretches up one of her legs while she pretends to cry (which is quite amusing since it looks like a well performed yoga move).  When they’re not busy fighting with each other, here’s what each of them are up to lately:

Rya’s favourite movie this year is ‘The Croods’ – a movie about Cavepeople, from which Rya really relates to the main character, “Ip”.  Ip is a Cave teenager who loves adventure and the outdoors.  In the summer, Rya is usually barefoot in the backyard, climbing on something or other – and the bottoms of her feet look just as dirty as Ip’s do.  Rya has watched the movie so many times that she often pretends she’s a little Cave Woman who hears noises and shouts “quick – hide cave” as she scurries into a closet or dark corner.  Rya has been using complete sentences really well, especially since starting ‘school’ in August and some of her famous recent lines and stories have included:

-“Have you wait, okay mama?” – delaying anything I try to ask her to do like brush her teeth

-“No, I sleepy, wake up my brother” – in the morning when she’d rather sleep in than get ready.  And yes…for some reason she recently started insisting that Kassiah is her ‘brother’!

-Rya apparently has vivid bad dreams and her reports of them in the morning have included a repetitive dream about a boy taking her shirt away, and pushing her out of a tree!  Or the latest nightmare – she awoke shrieking and I later learned she was certain there were ladybugs in her bed, since I had threatened that bugs might come if she brought a granola bar there. 

-Other bedtime quotes have included: “I not kicking you mama, I just lub you” – while digging her feet into my back at bedtime; “I AM TALKING SOFTLY” when I ask her to whisper so her sister doesn’t wake up; and my favourite “no mama, I not sleepy, I just tired”

-Okay, I lied, my real favourite quote happened recently when we were watching a cute documentary called ‘Babies’ and she saw a naked baby boy.              

            “Mommy, he have a thingy…like a dicky”;

            “Yes honey, it’s not a dicky, it’s a penis” (while in my head “seriously, Ivan? Could you not     

            call it something appropriate when she questions yours?”)

            “No mama, it’s a dicky!  I don’t have a dicky”. 

            “Okay, whatever it’s a dicky…nope only boys have dickies, you have a vagina”

            “No!  I only have a peanut!”

As per usual, Chubz’ update will be more concise since she doesn’t seem to do or say too much just yet.  

-Her newest skill is that she has become the mystery bathtub pooper.  It used to be an occasional funny occurrence, but now she does it so often that we all shout ‘Chubz – no! – including Rya who is usually scrambling out from next to her, trying to escape the floater.   

-As many of you who have carried Chubz will know, she can be quite a squirmy wormy…especially when she’s sleepy.  Ivan calls it her forbidden dance – where she sticks her bum in and out while snuggling into your shoulder before she passes out.  

-She may have learned from me to let out a dramatic grunt when she lifts heavy things – but for her this means anything, whether it’s a ball or a piece of paper.  

-And finally, although she doesn’t say too much, her cutest word is ‘this’ – which she says with the cutest little voice and corresponding body language when she points to and begs for my boob.  Yes – she is still breastfeeding against my will at this point, which I promise to blog about soon too. 

Dr. Bumblebee

As some of you may already know, I’ve spent several years trying to find a good family doctor.  I realize that there is a shortage of family doctors in many areas, and that I should probably feel lucky to even have a selection to choose from.  But I think it’s very important to have someone you can trust and feel comfortable with, since most of us will probably need to talk with about some pretty serious physical and mental health issues, at some point. 

Since our move to Calgary, I have probably had about 5 ‘meet and greet’ appointments, which I usually left feeling disappointed and underwhelmed.  I honestly don’t think my standards are too high – the qualities I look for are: good with kids; basic social skills - like eye contact and a smile now and then; a good understanding of post partum; and sensitivity to mental health issues.  Needless to say, most of the doctors I met were lacking in one if not all of these categories.  I had actually given up my search and decided that my ideal doctor didn’t exist, until he literally walked into our lives…

Ivan and I had taken Rya for a walk-in appointment and in came a doctor with the biggest smile I’d ever seen.  He greeted us  both and then sat down in front of Rya and spent a few minutes admiring her pink boots and asking if they had a pair in his size.  Before placing a hand on her, he made sure to make friends first – getting down to her level to catch her eyes, and showing her his stethoscope and light.  Then he joked that he had lost his bumblebee and asked permission to look in her ears and throat for it.  Rya even thinks his name is Dr. Bumblebee, which I suppose is fair since his real name – Dr. Mkhabela – is a bit harder for her to pronounce : ) Dr. Bumblebee won Rya over that very first day and won Ivan over just as fast with his ‘Eddie Murphy laugh’ as Ivan describes it.

To be honest, I had thought Dr. Mkhabela was too good to be true, so I went back on my own to put him to the test.  I’ve been on anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medication since my post-partum issues with Mariah, and have been continuously trying to decide whether I should try and wean myself off.  When I brought the concern to Dr. Mkhabela – he was as sensitive and non-judgmental as I could have hoped.  He did not make a decision for me, but engaged me in a discussion about the pro’s and con’s of stopping medication.  Together we decided to hold off until next summer since winter months can be especially tough on a person’s mood.  It was a decision I was comfortable with, after a conversation where I really felt heard and supported. 

Each time we go back, Dr. Mkhabela seems to have this same genuine passion for his work and kindness in his approach.  He is so natural in his skill, yet also seems consistently aware of his words to try and maintain his own personal high standard of care.  In conversations, I’ve noticed him independently correcting himself from saying ‘should’ to presenting options to his patient.  And when he booked an appointment with me to review a ‘plan of action’ for my health concerns (which no other doctor had done), I happened to see him look at his list of questions – silently gazing over the ‘overweight’ section – and I’m pretty sure I heard his wife in his head saying “If you know what’s good for you, you will not ask this new mom about her weight!”, as he discretely skipped over the section. 

I can’t begin to explain how happy Ivan and I are to finally have a family doctor who has gone above and beyond our expectations.  Last time I was there, I asked if he was looking for a bumblebee when he checked my ears, and sure enough I got his hearty ‘Eddie Murphy’ laugh : )  Dr. Mkhabela has joked that he should put bumblebee stickers on the ceiling to distract kids when they are lying for an examination.  So I recently went on a search of my own and managed to find some.  At my next visit, I will hand him a copy of this blog as well as some bumblebee stickers!