You've Got Mail

We have an older home with one of those mail slots that drop the mail into a box in the wall. From inside the house you lift a small door to retrieve the mail. This is a pretty nice set up because mail ends up inside the house, but not all over the entryway floor.

The mailbox has also become Baby M's favorite toys. He lifts the door, he closes the door. He takes the mail out. He puts things that aren't mail in. In the past week I have found nail clippers, a pink hippopotamus, a mini-pumpkin and some coasters in the mail box. The anticipation of mail is a big part of our day. When we hear the ca-chunk sound of letters dropping into the box we both perk up. "Should we check the mail?" I ask Baby M. He bounces up and down with glee and trots over to the mailbox. He lifts the door and happily pulls out all the letters. On cranky days I will drop in some old letters and ask him to check the mail. Sometimes we check the mail 3 or 4 times a day. Perhaps Baby M has found his calling.

Preschool Panic

I am one of the last moms in my playgroup to start looking into preschools. Many of them began touring preschools when their babies were 4 months old, and a few before the child was even born! Despite the conventional wisdom that in West LA you need to start looking at preschools before your baby's umbilical stump falls off, I told myself that I would not even start thinking about preschool until Baby M made it to the one year mark. But now Baby M is one, so its time to start figuring out the preschool process.

Women around here can get pretty crazy when it comes to preschools. I know one woman who toured 20 preschools trying to find the best fit for her son. Another woman sent a panicked email to our neighborhood mailing list when she discovered that the tours for her preschool of choice were already booked for the year. Angelenos can buy books, attend seminars and hire private consultants to help guide them through the preschool selection process. All I really wanted was a fun place not too far from home where Baby M could get used to being in a group and following directions from an adult other than myself. Of course I want the school to be safe and the teachers to be nurturing and most importantly for Baby M to enjoy his introduction to school. It seemed simple enough, but now my head is spinning-- should I go with Montessori or Waldorf? RIE or Reggio? Academic or Developmental? I know that you're supposed to pick the model that is the best fit for your child's personality, but Baby M's personality is just beginning to become evident. I have no idea what he's going to be like at 3.

My best guess at this point is that he's going to be a typical boy. Already he prefers cars to stuffed animals, points excitedly at trucks, chases balls and runs through the library screeching. I recently finished The Trouble with Boys by Peg Tyre. This excellent book explores the achievement gap between school age girls and boys and traces the problem back to boys earliest exposure to school -- preschool. The author convinced me that for the average preschool boy the following are key requirements:

1. Play based curriculum
2. Acceptance of noisy play
3. Acceptance of aggressive play, as long as not dangerous
4. Big classroom with room for running around
5. Blocks, balls, building toys
6. Plenty of free play in addition to instruction
7. Teachers help students with transitions between activities

I am still just beginning my preschool search, but I will definitely look for a school with these traits. Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be many more blog posts about preschool over the next year. Apparently if I don't get my name on a waiting list by the time he is 2, Baby M will end up being taught in a dungeon by a monkey.

Mall Rats

If we don't get out of the house at least once a day Baby M gets very cranky. We generally go to the park or library but I am always looking for interesting places to take Baby M, preferably places that are nearby and free. Last week we did a free trial class at Gymboree. Baby M had a blast climbing over the mats, chasing after balls and blowing bubbles. He especially liked climbing headfirst into an inner tube and then curling up like a bug in the middle. I considered signing him up for their program, but it is $74 a month plus a one time $50 membership fee which is a little more than I wanted to spend. However, once the weather gets bad $74 a month to avoid seeing Mr. Crankypants might be worth it. In addition to the weekly class the Gymboree membership also includes "free play" times so we could visit a couple of times a week.

Another fun excursion we had recently was to Westside Pavilion. This mall is often overrun with stroller pushing moms and nannies, but now that school and pre-school has started up it is a little less crazy. I think mall activity is in a lull before the holiday madness starts up. Anyway, we started out at the Three Cheeky Monkeys toy store where we bought some stomp rockets for a friend's upcoming 4th birthday and Baby M got to play with some wooden trains, ride a Rody and laugh at a wacky puppet. Next we headed over to the food court so Baby M could toddle around on a giant banana and crawl through an enormous soda cup. This was his first time in the mall play area; up until now I've felt that he was to little to hold his own against sugar crazed 2 year olds, but he did fine, screaming with joy and cautiously avoiding the high traffic areas. Then we walked by the pet store to watch the puppies tumbling around in the shredded newspaper and finally ducked into Barnes and Noble to read a few stories. Baby M happily fell asleep on the way home. Sucessful outing!

Baby M is 1 Year Old -- That's WILD!

Baby M is 1 year old. I know I am supposed to say, "I can't believe it's been a year already" but it really does seem like it has been a year since we brought him home from the hospital. Yes the last few months have flown by, but I remember back to last year when we measured Baby M's age in days and looked forward to weekly milestones that seemed to take forever to arrive. We waited for his colic to "peak" and eagerly counted up to week 8, week 10, week 12 , until finally (week 16?) he started crying a little less and smiling a little more. There were long days when I would look at the clock and think, "only 5 more hours until bedtime." Actually, there are still days that I do that.

We celebrated Baby M's first birthday last weekend with a simple party at Lindberg Park in Culver City. In Los Angeles kid birthday parties can quickly go overboard with bounce houses, petting zoos, ice sculptures, etc. I certainly had no intention of throwing that kind of party, but I did want to do something more than my typical party which consists of burgers on the grill in the back yard. Every party planning guide instructs you to start with a theme so that's where I started. Initially I proposed a theme of Asian Pop Culture. I had this crazy idea that I could somehow re-create MOCA's Murakami opening party on a 1 year old scale by shopping at Giant Robot and Mitsuwa. My husband gently suggested that this might be a little overly ambitious. So I considered a variety of other themes including Ugly Dolls (discarded after they were featured too prominently in Cookie Magazine) and Robots (discarded after a friend had a robot themed party for her toddler which included her husband dressed up as a robot in a costume that, no kidding, took him 20 hours to make) and finally settled on Where the Wild Things Are. I love this classic children's book and the mischievous little boy in the story has always reminded me of Baby M. Despite the facts that this year is author Maurice Sendak's 80th birthday and Spike Jonze is currently working on a live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are, there was very little available in the way of party decorations, favors, etc. I ended up making custom invitations and bubble labels using my computer and found an ornament from Hallmark to use as a cake topper. It wasn't a ton of work, but my tip to other slacker moms out there is to look through the party themes available at your local party store and then just choose from those. Of course, as my husband repeatedly pointed out the party was really about Baby M and our friends and family probably would have had just as much fun if the party had been themeless. Still, I am pleased that we ushered in his first year with a bit of fun and originality.

Sleep Training Wimp

So I have a confession to make. My almost one year old baby does not sleep through the night. He wakes crying 2-3 times a night and I grudgingly make my way down the hall and nurse him back to sleep. He does not nap willingly and in fact must be nursed to sleep on my queen sized bed. If I try to get up after he falls asleep or even detach his greedy little mouth from my breast he will wake, sit up, scream and refuse to go back to sleep. I don't like to admit any of this and try not to bring up the topic of sleep, although after a year of not sleeping I suspect the bags under my eyes and a tendency to sound like George W might be tipping people off to the fact that I have failed at teaching my child to sleep. (Today I told an acquaintance that I was afraid of Baby M getting "strampled" on the playground, my own little Bushism combining "stampeded" and "trampled").

It's not that I don't know what needs to be done; I've read plenty of sleep books and gotten all sorts of advice from well meaning friends and strangers. Part of the problem is that there is always a good reason to postpone the sleep training-- we're leaving on a trip, or just got back from a trip or Baby M is sick or teething, etc. etc. Another part of the problem is that Baby M is a particularly stubborn baby who really doesn't like the idea of going to sleep. And the final part of the problem is that I am a wimp who can't let my baby cry. Yes I have read The No Cry Sleep Solution and the Baby Whisperer's "Pick Up Put Down" method and they do not work for us. Baby M does not care if I am in the room, rubbing his back or singing him a lullaby, he will jump up and down shaking his crib rail and screaming until he chokes. Perhaps the old PUPD method would have worked when Baby M was smaller, but I cannot repeatedly lift a 23 lb baby up and down without throwing my back out. I really wanted to believe Jodi Mindell's claim that after breaking the nurse to sleep connection my baby would be sleeping through the night within 2 weeks, but after months of reading Goodnight Moon and putting my baby into the crib awake, he still is up a few hours after he goes to sleep. So I'm left with Weissbluth's "Extinction / Graduated Extinction" or the Sleepeasy Solution both of which require some crying.

I know a bit of crying is not going to hurt Baby M, and if it helps all of us get some sleep it may be worth it. I admit that I am more often grouchy and short tempered because I am tired. And since I have to nap with Baby M that means when he is awake I spend time doing chores instead of interacting with him. As plenty of people have pointed out he used to cry when I put him in his carseat and I still just gave him a kiss, turned up the radio and went on my way. But somehow the idea of him alone in the dark, crying out for me and not getting an answer just kills me. I remember being a young child and calling out for my mother, if she hadn't come I would have been devastated. Plus, as someone who was prone to histrionics as a teenager I know how lousy you feel after sobbing uncontrollably for an hour-- puffy eyes, snotty nose, your whole face hurts.

But even with these mixed feelings, every few weeks I tell my husband, "okay, this weekend we're doing sleep training" but every week I wimp out. I wonder what this means for my parenting skills? Am I already a bad parent? Am I going to be one of those mothers who can't discipline her kid? Am I going to end up with a bratty Baby M? I mean if I can't teach my baby to sleep, which is a biological imperative, how am I ever going teach him to share on the playground or say thank you or stand up for the funny looking weird kid that everyone else teases?

Snack Trap

Every few months a fad sweeps through my weekly playgroup. A new product appears and suddenly every mom has to have it. First there was the JJ Cole Essentials Blanket, which caught on because it really is fabulous. It's water resistant, folds up nicely into a little bag and is machine washable. Then there was the prickly purple ball from Gymboree and the Little Tykes stroller car. The latest trend is the Snack Trap, a small cup with a unique slitted lid that allows babies to retrieve snacks but prevents them from spilling Cheerios all over the floor. Additionally, the Snack Trap allows a baby to carry around his snack and feed himself whenever he gets hungry. At this point I am the only mom in the group still feeding her kid out of a tiny Tupperware bowl with a snap on lid. Meanwhile, Baby M has turned into a little scavenger, wandering from blanket to blanket, picking up abandoned Snack Traps and gorging himself on Cheerios. So I decided it was about time we got our own Snack Trap, if for no other reason than to give the other tots equal opportunity to pilfer Baby M's snack stash.

After failed trips to Target and Babies R Us, I finally tracked down Snack Traps at the Right Start in Westside Pavilion. I rinsed out the little green cup, filled it with Baby M's favorite mix of Cheerios and Gerber Puffs and headed out to lunch with some old co-workers. I settled Baby M into the restaurant high chair and gave him his cup of treats. He happily thrust his little hand through the lid and started pulling out Cheerios. However, he did not eat the cereal, he just threw it on the floor. Then it became a game to get every last treat out of the cup, with no interest at all in eating the snacks. After a few minutes he learned how to use the flaps on the lid to flick the Cheerios at my friends and our extremely patient waiter (who was given an excellent tip and many apologies). Depending on where he ends up falling on the nerd-jock spectrum Baby M is going to be really good at either Tiddlywinks or Quarters. Needless to say, for now we'll confine our Snack Trap use to the park where no one will be bothered by flying Cheerios and where there are plenty of birds and squirrels to clean up after us.

Boone Children's Gallery

Today Baby M and I went to the Boone Children's Gallery at LACMA. The gallery is a large room with tons of activities for kids and it's free! The current exhibit is called Construct and there are tables for drawing and painting, big easels for painting 4 foot high masterpieces, giant foam building blocks and more small wooden blocks than I have ever seen in once place. At 10 months, Baby M is a little too young for most of the activities although he loved climbing around the giant foam blocks and taking the wooden blocks off the shelf. As more kids arrived, including at least 3 Zoes (who knew Zoe was such a popular name?), the block area started to get a little too dangerous for Baby M so we walked around and looked at the creations by other kids and read a book called Building a House.

While at the gallery I signed Baby M up for NexGen, a LACMA program that offers free general admission to anyone under 17 and one accompanying adult. What a great program! After we finished at the Boone Children's Gallery we browsed the gift shop at the Page Museum (and validated our parking), crawled around on the grass in Hancock park, grabbed some lunch and then headed back into LACMA to check out a few of the galleries. We looked at some Picasso's, a Rothko, and a bunch of Kandinsky's before Baby M started getting fussy and it was time to go home. This was a fun outing and I think we'll do it again soon. I think it would be even more fun for slightly older kids.