bloogs blowing by

i wish...

lately, a lot of things have been coming out of tae's mouth that begin with... "i wish..."

"i wish i could have ballet classes."
"i wish i could have tip tap shoes."
"i wish i could have purple crocs. " (i succumbed to this one.)

and lately, a lot of her requests have been very, well, traditionally feminine.  my daughter is now in that stage where she loves pink and purple.  she won't wear her brown leggings that she wore all winter because, in her words, she doesn't "look beautiful" in them. 

she has a pair of play dress up shoes that i only let her wear in the backyard.  and she wears them EVER SECOND that she is in the backyard.  they are plastic open toe high heels that are silver with lacey purple flower on the front.  i'm surprised that she doesn't trip in them - i would if i wore something like that.  there are about 2 inches of shoe left on the back of the shoe.

when we were in california, her grandma bought her a pair of keds-ish shoes that are kind of ballet-style.  the problem is that these shoes rub her ankle, and give her blisters.  we were at gap kids, and she had her eyes on these jelly sandals... and i convinced her that the sneakers were better, that she could run and jump better in them.  d'oh.  i told her that the jelly sandals were not good every day shoes, that they were good for the beach only.

today, we were talking about money, and about allowances.  tae had collected 13 cents from spare change she found around the house... and she told me that she was saving up for these jelly sandals from gap kids.

i don't want to get in the habit of making her every wish come true... and i'm not sure that ballet lessons are coming her way any time soon...

but i'm not sure what to do on the shoes issue.  she pointed out to me a girl at her school who was wearing ballet flats.  so i'm hard pressed to make it sound like she is way to young for them.  (maybe when she turns 4?)  i could help her save up for the shoes, but i think she's too young to help out with chores, and i think a little young to start an allowance.

BUT, i also feel bad that we have these shoes that she won't even wear.  i could try to exchange them... but really, i want her to wear closed toe shoes.  and if i buy her shoes that she has been coveting, she probably won't wear her brand new crocs any more.  BUT, the flip side is that if i can get her to wear something other than these dress up shoes in the backyard... well, that would be a plus.

what would you do?

i wish she was lusting after converse all stars... but i supposed i can't complain too much.  my favorite shoes for the spring are... a pair of black ballet flats.

sick day

i knew that something was off when tae woke up clutching her forehead at 2:30am and then fell asleep sitting up in my lap.  when she woke up at 6am, she was burning up. 

we've been really lucky in that tae hasn't really been sick.  at all.  sure she's been stuffed up and sniffly all weekend, but the last time she was sick was when she had a uti in october.  and i can't remember when she was sick before that.  so, i guess we were really just due for a sick day.

i was nervous because today also happened to be her "special" day at school - the day she does show and tell and is the classroom helper.  i was glad that she forgot all about this.  what with the fever and headache and all.

for the first half of the day, she was lethargic and sleepy and feverish.  she ate three popsicles, and that's it.  i only had liquid tylenol at home and she screamed every time i brought up medicine or the thermometer.  around noon, i gave up and managed to hold her down while i took her temperature - 101.5.

luckily, my dad was around to bring re-enforcements - tylenol meltaways and more popsicles.  the popsicles failed to be a hit in the afternoon because somehow tae got her upper lip frozen to a popsicle.  i don't know why that happened, but she must have cut her upper lip or something because after that, she wouldn't eat popsicles *or* drink anything.  eh.  tae suspicious of the meltaways at first, but once she had some she kept telling me that she needed more medicine because she didn't feel better yet.  (maybe they shouldn't make them *so* good.)

but, clearly the drugs helped because between 4pm and 10pm she was so cheery and energetic.  she got her appetite back.  she read a million books.  she danced.

unfortunately, by about 8pm, i was fading. 

a long week

today was the first day of that i had off with tae since sunday, march 2.  sniff.  i'm a work-aholic mommy.

recently, tae's been in to asking me why i have to go to work, and she just wants me to stay at home with her.  and i tell her that i *want* to go to work, that i have fun at work.  i don't want her to think that i work just for the money. 

it's very cute, because when i pick her up from school, she'll proudly show me her hands, and say, "look, i still have my kissing hands!"  i'm not sure if she actually thinks about them when i'm not around.  but, i've found that she does listen to some of the things i say...

since she talks so much about missing me, i tell her how i miss her too, and how i look at her artwork and pictures of her, and it makes me feel happy.  i told her that if she misses me, she could write me a note or draw me a picture.

this evening, i was sorting through the piles and piles of artwork that she brings home from school.  i noticed that a lot of them having scribblings that say, "MMOMY" or "MMOMMY" or sometimes "MOMMY" all over them.  the other day, i asked her if she wanted to give any of her projects to some other grown-ups she knows.  she responded, "no!  they're all for you!!"

i worry that she and i are too close sometimes.  i don't know how i could possibly expect anything drastically different given our current situation, but still.  i worry about not spending enough time with her.  i do miss her when i don't get to see her.  i worry that i give too much at work.  with my work-aholic tendencies, with my desire to take on every challenge in front of me, i think i'm reaching my upper boundaries in terms of what i can possibly manage as a single working mother to a three year old.  and i'm tired.  i don't think i've ever been this tired in my life.

where to begin

sigh.  i don't know where to begin.  i haven't even been on the computer in 48 hours, which is really really long for me.  (and totally unintentional - though i thought about this a bit after reading this article from today's nyt.)  the weekend has been a mix of fun, adventure, and more fun adventures. 

we are borrowing fancy nancy from tae's school's lending library.  i'm not a huge fan, though the book is cute enough.  fancy nancy likes to say things in french because everything in french sounds fancy (why doesn't korean sound fancy?).  fancy nancy likes tiaras (a fancy word for a crown), fuschia (a fancy word for purple), and parfaits (a fancy word for ice cream sundaes).  i'm not a fan of tiaras.  i love purple.  we're currently not eating ice cream at home because that's the bribe for tae to poop in the potty.  (zero progress being made on this front; it looks like we'll never eat ice cream parfaits again.)  tae told me today that she wished she had shoes like fancy nancy's (ballet slippers with ribbons up her calves).  ugh.

last night was an experiment - a friend of mine invited us over for a fancy dinner party.  this time, tae's early bedtime worked in my favor - she fell asleep on the drive over to the dinner party, and slept for the duration of the entire.  she did, wake up twice, confused and disoriented, but it was nice to be able to enjoy fancy grown up stuff.  ok, so maybe i do like fancy things.

this morning, tae had her first swim lesson down at the ymca.  we got there 30 minutes early to play in the pool.  tae loved being in the water, but i think 45 minutes is about the longest she can last in the water.  about halfway through the class, i think she just got cold and tired.  by noon, she was really cranky and tired, but she was too wired to actually fall asleep.

i've been super tired lately - i've been going to bed when tae goes to sleep (around 9ish), and then i wake up in the middle of the night to finish cleaning up, pack lunch ,and get ready for the next day.  it totally throws me off to essentially sleep in two shifts - but lately, i can't even keep my eyelids open when i read to tae at bedtime.  she calls me out EVERY TIME i misread a word.  it's kind of embarassing that i'm so beat by 9pm that i start imaging words on the pages, and that my 3 year old daughter catches me every single time.

in summary, we are tired, fancy, and pruny.

something borrowed

"Please, God, try to forgive those peple.
Because even if they say those bad things,
They don't know what they're doing.
So You could forgive them,
Just like You did those folks a long time ago
When they said terrible things about You."

i borrowed this from "The Story of Ruby Bridges" by Robert Coles.  when Tae picked this book at the bookstore, i was excited.  now, i find myself trying to teach my three year old about segregation while i read books to her before bed.  it's not really a bad thing, just a new challenge.

the prayer above is the prayer in the book that ruby bridges recites every day she goes to school.  she is the lone black girl sent to first grade at an all white elementary school in new orleans in 1960.

i find myself challenged because it's hard to teach a child about race and racism.  i don't know how to tell Tae what it means to be black.  right now, she thinks it means having brown skin.  she told me that white was like her skin.  i want to talk about these things with her.

we've talked about what it means to protest, but in the context of ruby bridges, the protestors are fighting for the status quo (as opposed to most of our other examples of protesting - most notably, lakas and the makibaka hotel).  it's challenging to try to explain why people wouldn't want ruby in their school.

the good thing is that Tae understands that people are different - i've talked to her a lot about difference - and when i asked her, she said she liked people that were different, and talked about how there are different kids at her school.  i'm happy though.  i'm glad that she's curious enough to want to read about teh story of ruby bridges.

growing pains

or maybe rather, I should say, ungrowing pains.

in the fall, when tae had her three year check up, her doctor was concerned about her height and weight.  yesterday, we had our follow up visit.  i actually saw the words written out on some of the lab work tae had done, "FAILURE TO THRIVE."

um, ok.  i think she's thriving.  she's energetic, she's learning, she's active, she's engaged with the world.  she's just not big.  yesterday, she came in in the 7th percentile for height (35.5 in) and 1st percentile for weight (24.1 lbs).  apparently, she's not keeping up with the "charts" she's even lower or all the charts than 3 months ago, especially on the body mass index scale. 

mostly, i'm not worried.  she's a picky eater.  she's the same size i was at that age.  i'm not a huge person.  her dad is not a huge person. 

but, to be safe, she had tons and tons of blood taken, and ever since then she's been on edge.  she still has the band-aid with the gauze on it stuck to her arm - she won't let me take it off.  she walks about like her arm has been mortally injured.  not to mention that she still has a band-aid on her thigh - there is no boo-boo there except for the rash from keeping the band-aid on too long.

last night as she slept, i tried to pull off the stupid band-aids, after dousing them in baby oil.  in the middle of the operation, eyes closed, tae says, "don't touch my boo-boo.  just look at it."  i failed at removing the band-aids.  why do they stick so well and for so long?

then at 2am when she woke up hungry last night, she told me that she couldn't hold her sippy cup because she had a boo-boo.  she asked me to feed her and i nearly lost it.  at least she has some common sense because when she woke up at 4am, she asked for her smoothie in a bottle, which is thinner so she could hold it with one hand.

and now, this morning, after she told me she was ready to go school, we arrived at school, and she completely balked.  i had to carry her in to the classroom, and then just walk out as she screamed that she didn't want to stay.  eh.

little

tae is little.

she's always been little.  she was under 6 pounds when she was born, so little that she was wisked away right at the beginning just to make sure she was ok.

today, she had her three year check up.

she is a grand total of 35 inches and 24.5 pounds.  she has grown just under two inches in the past year, and hasn't even gained a pound.

so, the doctor is worried.  she's in the 5th percentile for height and the 2nd percentile for weight.  her body mass index is low, 5th percentile.

we have to go back to the doctor in three months.  in those three months, i'm supposed to fatten her up - bulk up on butter, olive oil and cheese.  but really?  tae is sooooo picky about what she eats.  i'm not sure if this will really work.

honestly, i'm not that worried, because i think tae is pretty much developing along the same off-the-charts way that i was when i was her age.  [UPDATE: tae is actually an itty bit taller and heavier than me at the same age!]  i get a little more worried about what the doctor might think, what tests she might ask us to do, if tae doesn't gain weight.

i will say that i think that those elastic bands inside kids' pants and skirts are like the best invention ever.

batty

this sleep thing is driving me batty.  i feel like tae has regressed a bit, back into that little baby who woke up all night long asking for milk.  except now she's almost three and drinking strawberry smoothies all night.  because no matter how much food i pump into her before we head home, she is always hungry during the night.  i think she woke up 5 times between 7pm and 5am asking for smoothies (the stonyfield kind in a bottle).  and not surprisingly, at 7am, when i asked her if she was hungry, she told me no, she had energy.

i can't deal with this.  i mean, i can, but it's driving me batty.  she doesn't nap at school, so as soon as we get in the car, she falls asleep.  she'll sleep at 5pm if i drive somewhere.  and if she naps at 5pm, she's up and cranky until midnight.  come september sleeping at 7pm is going to be, ummm, interesting because there are lots of days in september when i'll be at work past 7pm.  what's a working mom supposed to do?

we'll see how things go today... maybe waking up at 5am will help her sleep during nap time.  though, at this rate, i'll be asleep during nap time too.  i'm a night owl/insomniac, so i have trouble going to bed early.  sigh.

shoot me now, please

two nights ago, tae went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 8am.  except that she was up from 2am to 4am playing, reading, drinking smoothies, trying to get me to play with her.  all. night. long.

last night, when she fell asleep in the car at 5:30pm, i knew i was in trouble.  she slept wonderfully, until 2:30am.  and that's it.  luckily, i get to spend my entire day today with her.  so i'm not expected to be in any human form.

i miss the days of regular napping.

what's normal anyway?

so if there's one thing that i've learned as a parent, it's that normal is very loosely defined. drinking a gallon of milk every 4 days?  normal by me.  not sleeping through the night at age 2.5?  normal by me.  24 pounds by age three?  normal by me.

but one thing that i don't know how to place on the scale of normalcy is tae's recent obsession with me coming back.

every day, 20, 30, 40 times a day: "why mommy come back for tae at school?"

i get variations too:  "why mommy cat come back for tae cat at school?"  "why mommy dog come back for tae dog at school?" "why mommy turtle come back for tae turtle at school?"  "why mommy rabbit come back for tae rabbit at school?"

is this normal?

and now, not only does she ask me, but we are re-enacting the whole process.  we do pretend morning good-byes, and pretend re-enactment reunions.  and now, we also do the same thing, with our roles reversed!  tae will tell me, "you're the tae, and i'm the mommy."  and will proceed to do everything i do in the morning, and then tell me that she is going to work, and walk away from me (being tae, acting sad, missing my mommy) with a straight face.  and then she comes back.  and asks me why she came back.

i know that going to school is a huge deal in her life - she's never gone to day care or spent time with non-family members like that before.  but part of me wonders if this is normal i-just-started-school behavior or if this is reflective of other things going on in our lives.

what's your take?  normal or not?  should i be worried?  or taking on different strategies?