Who needs preschool?

This is Aaron climbing into his friend Grant's playhouse on Memorial Day. He tried to insist at first that he couldn't do it on his own, but he seemed to manage OK when we refused to help him. There isn't a step on that side and it's about 18"-24" off the ground. He can climb onto our dining room chairs, though, so I knew he could do it.

I had been contemplating putting Aaron in preschool around the time the new baby comes. He enjoys social interaction with other kids and I thought it might ease the transition. But one day it hit me - we can't afford preschool AND a nanny to watch the new baby. Paying the sitter more to watch both kids will be substantially less expensive than even part-time preschool plus a nanny for one child.

If my company takes off and he seems more in need of a structured environment, maybe we'll revisit the issue. I don't think he needs to go to preschool - it was just a child care alternative for him, one that would expose him to more kids. Thom didn't even go to Kindergarten and he turned out OK.

Besides, Aaron already knows all his uppercase letters, some of his lowercase letters, he can count to 13, recognize the digits 0-9, knows maybe 2 dozen words by sight, and since we bought him a puzzle of the United States 10 days ago, he has learned where about 1/2 the states go on the map. He's learned all this through play. He showed an interest in letters and numbers and so we "taught" him as we looked at books and played with magnetic lettters and numbers. And after watching him memorize random plants in the seed catalogue, we figured he'd be pretty good with a map of the US. But we didn't set out to teach him these things - it was just a natural part of his play. He seems to enjoy learning. So I think he'll be ready for Kindergarten even if he never attends preschool.

I am hoping to find ways for Kim to get him involved in more group activities, though. Since he likes kids, I think he'd benefit from more social interaction. He does go to a sing-along and to story time at the book store, but I might see if there are more structured group activities in our local community that she can do with him where he can interact more with other children.

Aaron's 2 year checkup

On Friday, Aaron had his 2 year checkup. Thom and I both went with him. Now that he is a "big boy", he got to stand on the big kid scale with just his shoes off, instead of being stripped naked and placed on the baby scale. He was also measured standing up instead of lying down. He wasn't too sure about the thing that slides down the wall to the top of his head to verify his height (he watched it coming down and said "no head"), but eventually we got him to stand still.

He weighed in at 31 1/2 lbs and his height was 34 1/4 inches. The pediatrician later told us that put him around 50 percentile for height and 75 percentile for weight. The last time he was weighed, when we went to the ER a few months back, he was still under 30 lbs, which had surprised me since he seemed to be gaining weight every time I picked him up. I thought he'd be over 30 lbs, but didn't expect him to be over 31 lbs. She also wrote down Thom's height and my height, and I believe she estimated he'll end up somewhere around 5'10" or 5'11".

We met with Dr. S, a different ped than usual. I had wanted to get a second opinion about having his blood tested for lead. His regular pediatrician, Dr. C, had given us paperwork at his 18 month checkup to take him to get his blood drawn to check for lead. Based on the survey we had filled out at his 12 month checkup, I didn't think he was at high risk for lead poisoning. So I didn't see the point in subjecting him to a blood draw for no good reason and Dr. C had been too rushed and brought it up towards the end of the appointment so I didn't get to ask her more about it. I asked Dr. S about it and she also didn't see a need in our case. She said she's only had one kid come back with high levels of lead. And after all the toy recalls due to excessive levels of lead last year, she sent more kids for testing than usual and none had elevated levels of lead in their blood. So I'm comfortable skipping that test.

Dr. S told us we should take him to see a pediatric dentist and gave us two suggestions for where to take him. Our family dentist had said to start bringing him in around 3 but she said the new recommendations are to start taking kids to the dentist as early as one! But not to the family dentist - to a pediatric dentist. So we'll look into that. We wanted to take him to see one of us get our teeth cleaned first and since I have a cleaning in July, we might wait until after that to schedule his appointment. He's pretty good about his nightly brushing - first I take a turn, then he takes his turn, which is usually more about chewing on the toothbrush than brushing. Sometimes, if he is feeling generous, he'll offer Daddy a turn, too. Dr. S also told us we should start using a flouride toothpaste instead of the infant toothpaste we've been using.

During the visit, she also asked us some questions about his development. She started to ask about words and I said I'd counted at least 200. She said she just wanted to make sure he had at least 20. She asked if he was putting words into short sentences; he is. She asked how he was doing with sharing; he does pretty well if we tell him to share. Later she said she thought he was very bright, although I'm not sure how she could judge based on the information she asked for and what she saw. She thought since he was bright, he would go one of two ways on potty training - either he'll train early or he'll be delayed because he'll be smart enough to outwit our efforts.

Fortunately, Aaron only needed one shot that day - his second Hep A shot. It was painful for him, but he did pretty good. She told us to bring him back after October for a flu shot, especially since we'll have a new baby.

Also, because of the baby, she suggested that Thom and I, along with other primary caregivers, such as grandparents, get a DTaP booster if we hadn't had a tetanus shot in the last 5-10 years. She said they don't do straight tetanus anymore - they do the combined Diptheria, Tetanus and Pertussis (whooping cough). She said whooping cough has been going around and it's a good idea to up our immunizations in preparation for the newborn. I'm guessing I'll have to wait until after the baby is born to get any shots.

I'd gotten in the habit of sometimes calling Aaron "my baby". He now tells me "no, no baby". He's apparently a "big guy" now that he is 2.

Eating our vegetables

I've known about the idea of community supported agriculture (or CSA, or farm co-ops) for awhile now, perhaps since my book club read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I've also been interested in the idea since hearing about problems with "factory farming" from friends who have read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and from my own reading of his book In Defense of Food. I believe smaller CSA farms are more sustainable and better for the environment than large, corporate owned farms. They also tend to be organic farms, which I think is not only better for the environment, but makes for healthier food. But as much as I like the idea of organic produce and buying locally, it has always seemed too expensive. Especially when I go to the local farmer's market where my $20 budget tends to yield less than a grocery bag of produce.

But then we found out that friends or ours were members of a local CSA. And I was shocked at how affordable it is. For $30 a box, which you can pick up either every week or every other week, depending on your needs, you get about 2 paper grocery bags full of organic, farm-fresh produce. The reason they can sell it so affordably is that members pay by the quarter and take whatever is in season. So they have a reliable market and can plan accordingly since people commit to 3 months at a time. I imagine in the winter months, we wouldn't get as much produce, despite paying the same amount per box, but it still seems like quite a deal.

We signed up for a trial membership of 4 boxes, which we'll pick up every other week. We got our first farm share box last week. It included:

A bunch of asparagus
A small bunch of arugula
3 medium beets
3 medium Bok Choy
About a dozen carrots
celery
chard
2 large cucumbers
2 large heads of green lettuce
Spring onions
About 8 oranges
A large bunch of parsley
A bag of Spring Mix
3 pints of strawberries
2 large zucchini

I gave some to our nanny and still couldn't fit it all in the produce bins of our refrigerator.

We hesitated to sign up at first because a) we thought we might get too much overlap with our fruit trees and our own garden (we had already put in 7 tomato plants) and b) we were afraid we'd end up wasting a lot of the produce because we don't eat a lot of vegetables and because we wouldn't get to choose which vegetables we received.

But we've been talking about how we should be eating more veggies and I've felt bad for not including more veggies in Aaron's diet while he is young and learning food preferences. Given how affordable it is and the potential upside in our diet, we decided to sign up for the trial and see how it goes.

The first week has been great. Getting our first box was like Christmas - I couldn't wait to see what was inside. And the fridge full of produce has inspired me. The first night, we had salad, and I steamed carrots for Aaron and gave him some cucumber for the first time (which he seemed to enjoy). Then I pulled out The Flavor Bible, which lets you look up an ingredient to see what goes well with it, and I've put together a couple of new dishes I would never have tried otherwise.

The first new recipe I tried was a simple chicken stir fry using bok choy, carrots, celery, shallots, garlic and mushrooms, all ingredients that The Flavor Bible indicated would complement the bok choy. It came out really well and Aaron ate everything in it.

For some reason, I got it in my head to try making a quiche using some of the veggies. Since swiss chard isn't something I normally cook with, I searched online to see if anyone else was making quiche with chard. They were! So I pulled out the Flavor Bible and discovered that chard is indeed good in egg dishes and is complemented by (among other things), garlic, bacon, mushrooms, oregano, cheese, polenta and shallots. So I created a quiche with an oregano polenta crust and a filling that included the other ingredients. It was a big hit with Thom (probably because I sauted up the veggies in a little of the bacon fat) and something we will definitely make again.

Then last night, I had no appetite and we couldn't decide what to make. I wasn't opposed to pasta, but haven't been in the mood for a tomato sauce at all. I was trying to think if we could make some kind of sauce with olive oil and garlic, like we do in the summer when our cherry tomatoes are coming in and we cut them in half, toss them with garlic, olive oil and fresh chopped basil. Then I remembered that we had the flat leaf parsley. So I looked it up in the Flavor Bible and found that it goes with pasta, tomatoes, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic. It wasn't as good as the tomato/basil pasta we have in the summer, but it was pretty good for something we threw together at the last minute, and a good use of the parsley which I had no idea how to use.

I feel good that we are eating more vegetables and more variety of dishes. We had gotten into a dining rut recently, especially with my lack of appetite and reduced energy. Despite my lack of appetite, I do tend to perk up over the idea of eating something new, so the CSA plus the Flavor Bible has been a huge help in improving my diet, which is important to Baby 2.0. We'll see if our enthusiasm lasts the remainder of the trial membership, but right now, I feel like we will become permanent members. Trying to add more vegetables to our diet by planning meals and then shopping just wasn't working. Getting the produce and then planning the meals seems to work out much better with my way of cooking.

If you are local and are interested in what farm we joined, send me an e-mail and I'll let you know. They have drop-off sites throughout the county. Otherwise, this website Local Harvest http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ will help you find a local CSA farm if you are interested. Even in urban areas, you'd be surprised how many local farms are out there if you know where to look. I've even found a local farm on this site that sells eggs from free range chickens as well as the chickens themselves and heritage turkeys, which we plan to look into.

Baby 2.0 - 20 Week Ultrasound

We had our "20 week ultrasound" last Monday. It was really only 18 or 19 weeks, but this is the only detailed ultrasound we'll have during the pregnancy. My OB/GYN's office has ultrasound machines that they use for the 8 week ultrasound, but we go to a different location for the 20 week ultrasound which is performed by a dedicated technologist who takes measurements and looks for any abnormalities, such as spinal defects. The 20 week ultrasound also comes with glossy pictures printed on 5"x7" photo stock instead of the ticker tape pictures from the earlier ultrasound.

In the picture below, you can see the baby curled up with it's head to the left. I also just realized that the arm is up by the head.

We had hoped to find out the gender of the baby at this ultrasound, but were disappointed. Aaron was very clearly a boy and the tech took a picture of him that left no doubt. But this tech just said it looked like a girl to her, but she wouldn't bet her life on it. She showed us where it looked like there was no penis, but you couldn't be sure it wasn't hiding somewhere. I realize it is harder to confirm the baby is a girl, but I know sometimes they can tell with some certainty that it is a girl and I hoped she was going to get a better view for us. But she never did. Since she knew up front that we had a boy and were kind of hoping for a girl this time, she could have been biased to show us what we wanted to see. Who knows. She wasn't nearly as friendly as the tech was last time. In fact, she was so quiet during the procedure, I called my OB's office 2 days later to check that the results of the scan were normal. (They were.)

You can clearly see the spine in the photo above. In the photo below, it's a little less clear what you are seeing, but basically the baby is in a fetal position, with it's butt up, legs pointing to the right. And you can see an arm coming down from the left side with a hand by the one thigh.

We had been hoping our first baby would be a girl because we knew we'd have more than one and thought it might be preferable to have an older sister to help out with the new baby. And maybe we thought a girl would be sweeter than a boy. Plus we had a girl's name picked out. But I couldn't imagine being happier than I am with Aaron. He is sweet and fun and I think he will be a good big brother. So we'd be happy with another little boy. But we would like to have the experience of at least one daughter so it would be nice if this one is a girl. But we don't want to assume it is on the chance that we would feel some disappointment to find out in October that our Audrey is really a boy. So we are thinking about boy's names just in case and refraining from referring to Baby 2.0 as "Audrey" or "little sister".

I've been feeling Baby 2.0 moving around more, but still not enough for Thom to feel it from the outside. I've been feeling better than the first trimester, but although I'm not nauseous or queasy (most of the time), I still don't have much appetite. I remember with Aaron my appetite returned after the first trimester, although I retained an aversion to meat, including poultry, for most of the pregnancy. My allergies have been driving me up the wall (something I attribute to pregnancy rhinitis) and I pretty much can't sleep without taking Benedryl. Although last night, even with Benedryl, I spent part of the night on the couch where I could sleep semi-reclined which seemed to help. I guess it is all preparing me for the sleepless nights to come.

A few more things

I remembered a few more things I wanted to remember when Aaron is grown up.

Today I asked him if he remembered when he was a baby (not the first time I've asked). He said "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Fun!"

He pronounces the number seven something like "fff-fff". But recently he will sometimes say "fanah" instead. Today we were reading 10 Little Ladybugs. When we got to the 7 page, I asked what the number was and he said "fanah". I said, "It's seven." "Fanah", he agreed. Each time I said "seven", he said "fanah". When Thom joined us later and I went back to the 7 page and asked Aaron what it was, he said "fff-fff".

He says "sino" for dinosaur.

When he gives me something, he says "thank you". I didn't realize it at first because it sounds a little like "there you go", but eventually I realized he was saying "thank you". I think it is because I say "thank you" when he gives me something. He must have thought I was telling him to say "thank you".

A few of my favorite things

Aaron is at such a fun age right now. I wish I could freeze this moment in time and come back to visit later in life. I wanted to record some of my favorite things he does right now.

A new game we play involves hiding puppy in his room. He started off always putting him in the same spot, but now he has about 5 spots he varies between. He'll hide puppy while I run across the hall to work on something on the computer. Then he'll go back to a certain place along the wall next to the dollhouse and say "Puppy go" (meaning "Where'd Puppy go?") Then I go in, find Puppy and put him in the dollhouse (I did this one time and after that if I tried to put Puppy anywhere else, he'd insist on the dollhouse). Then Aaron goes to get Puppy out of the dollhouse and we do it again. Over and over and over.

Lately he's been setting various animals on the lower of the 2 steps into the living room. He'll say "Sit down, Oo-ah" as he places the gorilla stuffed animal on the step. Then he'll place his wooden Animalz rhino and say "Sit down, Rhino", etc, etc. Only it sounds like "seeeetdown", all one word, and I love it. After all the animals are sitting down on the step, he sits down with them. Then he puts them on the floor and says they are sleepy and then he hugs them all before starting over.

Rather than just whining to express displeasure, more and more he is verbalizing. The most common is "No sing, mama". Singing is anything from singing to just moving my head in response to music. He will also say "no talk" if I'm talking to someone or "no read" if he wants my full attention. He also gets very upset if one of us tells him not to do something (like climbing the bookcase) and he'll say "No, no ga, no no no gaga". (Although he will say "dada" if you show him the word dada, he still calls Thom "ga ga".) He says it like he can't get enough "no's" out in time and they almost run over each other. He will sometimes say "No, no, ma, no no mama, no..", but often he will blame Dada even if I'm the one who says no, but Dada is in the room.

He likes to cuddle on the bed in the office. He kind of crawls and rolls around, but likes to lie against one of us or hug. This can kill 10-15 minutes.

Although he will initially say he doesn't want to take a nap, if I warn him it is almost time and talk about how he's going to get fafa's (pacifiers), after a few minutes, he will wrap up his playing and go willingly. Bedtime has begun to involve more stalling, but naptime is usually pretty easy.

One time Thom was kissing him on the back of the neck while he was playing. With his beard, I know for a fact that this tickles. Aaron's first response was to protest and push Thom away, but then he thought about it and sort of leaned his neck towards Thom for more. This happens frequently now where Thom will kiss his neck and he'll protest only to ask for "more".

A favorite game is Throw Again, pronounced "fro-gen". It is pretty much a cross between frisbee and fetch. You throw the frisbee in the back yard and Aaron retrieves it. Actually, there is one frisbee and one frisbee-like ring that is way better and we have to throw both.

There are more things I think I wanted to write about, but that is all that comes to mind right now.

Happy Mother's Day

After our hectic Mother's Day brunch last year, I wanted to avoid going out on Mother's Day this year, so I suggested we take my mom out Saturday night. My sister Theresa and her family joined us. We went to Buca di Beppo. They have gluten free options, which my niece and nephews need.

My sister Lia warned me that it would be crowded on a Saturday night, but I thought we'd be ok going at 5:30. Plus it's hard to find a nice sit down restaurant that has gluten free entrees and is located halfway between us and my parents. Maybe if it wasn't located next to a theater on opening weekend for Star Trek, it wouldn't have been so bad. Thom and my brother-in-law ended up having to park in a shopping center across the street. My parents had the good fortune to find a parking spot just outside the restaurant.

Dinner itself was not bad, but Aaron was "done" before the food even arrived. And then there was the incident where he knocked Thom's Italian soda over, leaving Thom to endure the rest of the evening in damp pants. But Aaron had fun sitting on Grandpa's lap, then Auntie Tree's and playing with his cousins.

Before we went out, we took a few photos by the tree in the backyard. Hard to believe I am only 4 months pregnant in these photos. Aaron wasn't very cooperative, but these photos capture what life is like with a 2 year old.

This last photo was taken while Thom and Ernie were retrieving the cars after dinner. I enjoyed seeing my family, but hope next year we can manage something less hectic. Maybe we just need to celebrate a week early.

Today, we celebrated Mother's Day with a nice breakfast at home. We had some cherry custardy things (from the Trader Joe's freezer section) with our coffee. Then Thom cooked up some bacon and I made some scrambled eggs with green onion, mushrooms and cheese and we ended with some fresh blackberries. It was a relaxing morning. Around 11am, we all went to the park to feed the ducks (they were already full apparently) and to throw the frisbees around.

Thom had asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day and I didn't know until late in the week, which wasn't enough time to get what I want. I want to get a better camera for capturing video. The Canon that I use primarily for snapshots has been OK so far, but I'm ready for something that captures better quality video and that allows me to zoom in and out while filming. Thom's been researching for 3 days and we've narrowed it down to 3 simple models (I don't want something bulky and with features I'll never use). None seems ideal, so I'm trying to decide which features I want the most.

Playing with Dolls

I had pulled out my old My Friend Mandy doll last year, along with some of my Cabbage Patch dolls, that my mom had saved for me in her attic, after Aaron showed an interest in dolls at his friend Alara's house. He used to play with the dolls more, but has only been playing with Mandy about the same as he plays with his stuffed animals.

But yesterday, when Kim was here in the morning, they were putting Aaron's clothes on Puppy (an animal he sleeps with) while Aaron was getting dressed. That reminded me that I had a box of clothes for Mandy, many that my mom had sewn for her and her friends Jenny and Becky, who I also owned. They seemed more suited for Puppy's size, so I pulled out the box of clothes and My Friend Jenny who had still been in a box in the closet. Aaron was so pleased to have two girls to play with. Two of anything is better than one. Kim changed their clothes at his request and when she stood them up in his room, he went to stand in line with them.

He also enjoyed knocking them over and having Kim stand them back up. In the photo above, he has knocked down Jenny and seems to be contemplating Mandy's fate.

He carried them around with him all morning, even having them sit on the table with him during lunch. At least until he knocked them on the floor. He also had a habit of occasionally throwing them across the room. He tends to carry them around by their hair, a trait I expect he inherited from me. As you can see in the picture below, my doll had lost all her hair by the time I was three.

I would never have thought to go out and buy my son a doll, but given his interest in dolls and the fact I had some already, it seems quite normal for him to play with them. We use the dolls to help teach him social skills ("No, Aaron, we don't step on the baby.") and I know pretend play is good for kids in general. The funny thing is, he acts around the dolls the way he acts around little girls. He smiles a lot and sometimes acts flirtatious. We saw these Groovy Girls dolls on a rack in our Henry's grocery store and he giggled and wanted to play with one of them. He even kissed her. He doesn't kiss Mandy and Jenny, but I suspect he likes them just because he likes girls.

At one point before I had kids I remember thinking that if I had a girl, I wanted to get the dollhouse from my parents that I had as a kid. But once I had a boy and saw his interest in dollhouses at toy stores, it made sense to get my childhood dollhouse for him. I know some people who be horrified that I let my son play with dolls and dollhouses, but I don't believe any nonsense that it will somehow negatively impact his masculinity. If anything, I hope it will help prepare him to be the kind of husband that I and many of my friends seem to want - one who is an equal partner in household chores and parenting.

Fever and Teething

So Sunday at lunch time, I noticed Aaron wasn't eating much. I checked his temperature and it was a little over 100. I put him down for a nap, anxious that he was getting sick, hoping it wasn't the new flu going around. When he woke up, he didn't quite seem himself and his temperature was over 101. By bedtime it had climbed to around 103. We gave him Tylenol before bed and checked on him a few times before we went to bed. We turned on the monitor in our room because he had seemed to be breathing rapidly and we were worried about breathing problems if he did have the flu.

I couldn't sleep. Every time he made a sound, my adrenaline shot up. It was an over reation, but I couldn't help it. I always worry more at night, too, so that didn't help. At 2:30, he woke up crying. I went in to him and he said "fall", which usually means a pacifier fell. But he had his pacifiers (he gets 3 at night, one to suck on and one for each hand). When I asked what had fallen, he said "shoes". So I was worried he was delerious (although he may just have been dreaming or recalling a time his shoes fell from the shoe rack). His temp was up over 103, so we gave him more Tylenol and put him down. But about 10 minutes later, he was crying again. Even though he didn't ask for food, I thought he might be hungry since he hadn't eaten much for dinner.

We got him up and let him have some milk and dry cereal. He chatted a little but didn't seem delerious, so I felt better. He went back down around 3am and slept until nearly 7am. I managed to get some sleep at that point.

On Monday morning, I had a prenatal checkup and since our nanny Kim wanted to avoid getting sick (I didn't blame her), Thom stayed home with Aaron while I went. He had a mild fever Monday morning, but not enough to give him more Tylenol. He took a morning nap and an afternoon nap and by afternoon, his temperature was under 100.

Tuesday morning, his fever was still gone, so Kim came to watch him. He never developed any other symptoms, other than lack of appetite and being excessively tired those 2 days.

Starting maybe a day or two before the fever, he seemed to be teething more. One of his 2 year molars had made an appearance several weeks ago on the top left, but he has 3 more to go. He was putting his fingers in his mouth a lot and drooling more than usual. (I figured putting his fingers in his mouth is what helped him to get sick.) Yesterday, after his nap, he was acting like his mouth hurt. I looked inside and sure enough, another molar had erupted on the bottom left side, and later, I realized there was a new molar on the bottom right side as well.

There is anecdotal evidence that kids get fevers when they are teething. But there are very authoritarian statements online and in parenting books that teething NEVER causes fever and that fever means there is a viral infection. After this last experience, though, where Aaron had fever followed by no other viral symptoms, but followed by the eruption of 2 new molars, I can see where the anecdotal evidence comes from.