So apparently she is that smart
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Parenting | Tags: family, lessons learned, parenting Leave a comment »Yesterday, I reflected on when you can clearly say a child has reached a certain milestone, and whether Miss E. is really as smart as we think she is.
Well, the answer is in, from a few sources, and it turns out that yes, she is as smart as we think.
When I was picking her up from day-care, the day-care provider was telling me about how smart Miss E is, and how advanced she is. She eats things most one-year olds won’t, feeding herself, and she’s starting to mimic people when they say phrases. She was also impressing mothers at the Early Years Centre who comment on how bright she is. (That’s assuming of course, the day care provider doesn’t say that to all parents, which she might…I don’t know.)
If that’s not enough, Jenn had a dream in which someone said to Miss E. “Oh, aren’t you so smart” and Miss E. replied, “I’m so smart.”
So, I can’t argue with those two things. I mean, Jenn had a dream. You can’t argue with dreams…she’s a genius baby….except not a genius baby like those kids from those weird Baby Geniuses movies. Oh Kathleen Turner, how did you sink so low?
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Our kid is so smart…I think
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: Parenting | Tags: family, lessons learned, parenting 1 Comment »Every parent thinks they’re kid is the smartest in the world, but they’re all wrong, because of course we have the smartest kid.
I kid of course, but she has to be in the top 10 or so? It’s funny when you’re watching your child develop because you don’t really know when they reach certain milestones.
Take talking for instance. For most kids, they’re first word is either Mama or Dada, or some variation thereof. Well, those are also sounds babies make quite often anyway. And the question becomes, are they saying ‘mama’ or just making sounds like ‘mamamamam’. And what’s the difference? We think Miss is now saying Mama and Dada, and actually meaning to refer to us.
Miss E. has said Mama while waiting for Jenn to come home, and has also recently said it while pointing at Jenn. Likewise, she has said Dada while looking at me, or when I left the room for a second.
The latest development, or confusion thereof, comes around sign language. We’ve been trying to teach Miss E. how to use sign language, sort of, making a few simple signs when we say things like water, toilet and milk. The sign for milk is mimicking milking a cow, opening and closing your hand.
As we were warming up her bottle, Miss E. reached for the bottle and signed for milk, we think…or she was just trying to grab it. She was saying “ba”, which could be bottle, and opening and closing her hand.
So there you go, our kid is so smart, she may be signing for milk…or just opening and closing her hands. Beat that.
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You’ve come a long way, baby
Posted: March 28, 2012 Filed under: General | Tags: family, lessons learned, parenting Leave a comment »Monday was Miss E.’s birthday, and yesterday I took her for her 12-month vaccine.
When we were in the doctor’s office, and she was walking around, smiling at everyone, and later when we were waiting for the doctor to come, it suddenly struck me that my daughter was a year old. She’s not a little baby anymore. She’s almost a toddler.
Obviously she has her own personality and she is developing and changing everyday, and, as I’ve talked about before there is a sadness to seeing that, but it was just a reminder that changes happen whether you want them to or not.
One of my high school friends also had a baby the day before Miss E’s first birthday (congrats to Katherine and Moth) and that made me think about how fast time went. It’s best to enjoy every minute of it, because there’s no way to stop time. These aren’t, I know, groundbreaking revelations, but they are important things to be reminded of every so often.
And they’ve been brought to the fore again as Miss E’s been in daycare, and Jenn’s been back to work. The transition to daycare has been more difficult than expected. The first week was ok, but this second week, Miss E has been more reluctant to go, crying in the morning and when we drop her off. But she’s super happy when we pick her up.
We’re still trying to figure out the best thing to do in our lives, and have come to the realization that we can follow the path we have now, with it’s comfortable patterns and routines, or we can take a risk on something bigger, in hopes of achieving something better. But, such is the difficulty of life.
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Goodbye Go Train, Hello home office.
Posted: March 23, 2012 Filed under: General | Tags: commuting, family, parenting, Rob Rombouts Leave a comment »So, this has been an interesting and tough week full of big changes, and one that requires getting accustomed to an entirely new routine.
It was Jenn’s first week back at work, and it was Miss E.’s first week of daycare, both of which would be big changes on their own. It was also the first week of a new work arrangement I’ve been able to set-up, allowing me to work from home three days a week, and leave early on the two other days. This is a great help with Miss in daycare, because it means I can pick her up earlier and she’s not with someone else for far so long. It is good because it allows me to have a couple hours with Miss.
Miss E has had to switch to our schedule, getting up early in the morning so we can get her to daycare. And while she seemed ok for the first few days, it’s clear by the end of the week she’s getting pretty tired and she has been getting quite grumpy.
I always knew the long commute was an issue, and I always felt I was missing out on a lot, and I can see it’s still an issue now, but not for me. Jenn’s work hours have shifted back an hour from where they were before she want on maternity leave, which means she doesn’t get home until 7. By the time Jenn gets home, Miss E. is pretty tired and just wants to cuddle with her mama.
Dropping Miss E off at daycare has been ok. It was tough, and strange to drop her off with what is essentially a stranger, and then go home to an empty house, but it was something that had to be done. Miss was generally ok, with big smiles for the daycare provider. But today she was reaching for me as I was leaving, and I could tell it would be a harder day for her.
So…the first week is almost done, and it’s hard to say whether it was a success or not. Getting accustomed to a new schedule is always tough, but when all three members of a family are doing it in the same week, it makes it even more difficult. While it’s early, we are already figuring out if there are other things we can do to create a better balance all around.
Dance Baby, Dance
Posted: March 18, 2012 Filed under: Parenting, Personal Life | Tags: dancing baby, family, parenting 1 Comment »Hey everyone, check out how cute our baby is.
For having a daddy blog, I have very little information about Miss E., and few pictures of her. That is intentional.
Jenn and I decided that we wouldn’t create an online presence for her…but we also have this funny video of her dancing, so that will get thrown out the window…
Miss E. likes to dance. She will dance to music you would expect, like children’s songs, but she will also dance to the music in commercials, the intro music to the CBC news, or anything that sounds musical. Not all the time mind you, but often.
In this instance, she was listening to a cassette I used to listen to when I was a kid, called “Sing and Play”, and she really liked the music. It has a bunch of children’s songs done by I think mostly Canadian performers. It was, and still is, pretty awesome and we apparently listened to it repeatedly. A few months ago when I was at my parents, I found it and have been playing it for Miss when we are at my parents. I’ve done a few quick internet searches for it on c.d., but no such luck yet. Anyone else remember this cassette, or know what I’m talking about? It had songs like “Imagination”, “The Cat Came Back” (which is really graphic and macabre when you listen to it now), “Can you whistle” and my personal favourite “Hippopotamus Rock”
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Daycare transition turmoil…or not so much
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: General, Parenting, Personal Life | Tags: commuting, day-care, family, parenting 2 Comments »The end is nigh! The end of Jenn’s maternity leave that is. She goes back to work next Monday, which means everything changes once again.
We have daycare lined up for Miss E. and yesterday she went for our first transition day. Jenn dropped her off, and as I’ve heard if often the case, baby took it better than mother. Miss E. was quite happy to go, especially since there were other children around, but Jenn told me she had to fight to hold back tears.
She also said she was pretty lost through the day, and she didn’t want to go home because it would be weird without Miss there. Jenn is really worried about when she has to go back to work. She wants to go back, and she enjoys her job, but she doesn’t want to leave Miss. While I can understand the feelings, it’s, in part, a feeling I’ve had to deal with for a while. Being separated from your child is tough, more so after you’ve had a year to spend together.
While Miss E. was good to go in the morning and was good throughout the day, according to the daycare provider, she definitely did miss us..or at least missed Jenn. When we opened the door in the afternoon when we were picking her up, she stared at us for a second, and then immediately started whimpering and reaching for Jenn. For the rest of the evening she pretty much refused to be put down, and wanted to be with Jenn for most of the night.
It was tough to see, since she is generally such a happy go-lucky baby, and it was when I saw her reaching for Jenn with real tears of sadness and maybe despair in her eyes that I really felt sad about both of us having to go back to work for the first time. We have talked about finding someway to have one of us stay home to take care of her, but unfortunately that’s not something that many people can afford, so we will face the same situation so many others do, and commute while someone else takes care of our child, and we enjoy the time we have with her and with each other when we’re not at work or commuting.
As for Miss E. and the transition, we will have to see how she is Wednesday when we bring her back. And then next week when it starts, all day, every day.
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Getting ready to garden
Posted: March 11, 2012 Filed under: Something Random | Tags: garden, parenting, weather Leave a comment »We’ve had what seems to be unseasonably warm weather…temperatures in the mid to high teens in early March…so we’ve taken advantage of it.
Today, we went for a nice hike, but we also started to get our backyard garden ready.
We like the idea of growing our own food, or some of our own food. It’s partially my farm upbringing, partially the idea of not having to buy food, and partially knowing where the food comes from, so we really like the idea of a garden.
We have a few challenges for a garden however, not least of all being the amount of work it actually takes to grow a successful garden. We also have a small backyard, meaning we have to make use of all the space we can. To mak that more difficult we also have to deal with the shade from neighbour’s trees and houses, and the fact that, since we live near train tracks, the soil in our backyard is probably fairly contaminated and therefore not great for growing food.
Last year, we tried to use a variation of the square-foot garden, with raised beds, which worked somewhat and in theory but we fell victim to the lack of light. We also tried to grow some container potatoes, and while the potato plants grew well, and we kept covering them when it came time to harvest, we got a bunch of nothing. It was, to say the least, slightly discouraging.
The first summer Jenn and I were dating, when we were still in Thunder Bay, we had a garden in the backyard of the apartment I was living in. And it went really well…lots of tomatoes, carrots and peppers, and some nice potatoes, of various sizes. But we haven’t had any luck here.
This year, we’re trying a few different things. Aside from relying on the kindness of family members who have larger and sunnier backyards, we have a cold frame which we hope to use to get some things started early. We also re-used the wood from our square-foot garden frames to make plant boxes. We hope to hang these on the fences where there is more light. We also hope to try tomatoes and peppers on the upper deck of our house, allowing us to capture more light and actually letting things ripen. While it may seem like it’s a lot of work to grow a few tomatoes and some lettuce we could easily buy from the store, there is definitely a certain amount of pride in being able to walk out your back door and grab some food you grew.
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5 awesome tools/toys for parents…using awesome very roughly of course.
Posted: February 24, 2012 Filed under: General, Parenting | Tags: family, parenting Leave a comment »In my last post, I talked about the horrible tool that is an infant-inhaler mask. Soon after starting that and figuring out the best way to use it, we stopped. We didn’t really like the side-effects of the medication and Miss E’s cough cleared up anyway. But it did get me thinking about what other fun tools or toys there are, which if you were not a parent, you would never understand or really have any reason to know they exist.
Now, when I say fun, I don’t actually mean they are fun….I mean they are funny, or interesting, or I at least derive some pleasure from them for whatever reason.
Nasal Aspirator – Let’s get this started with a gross entry. Babies produce a lot of fluids, and when those fluids are in the nose, a baby doesn’t quite understand the concept of blowing, so this little snot sucking bulb is great. It helps your child breathe easy, and (for me at least) there is something strangely satisfying about getting a good suck with one of these things. You can see progress being made, and there’s instant gratification as your child is no longer snuffling away or crying because they can’t breathe. Sure snot may be gross, but at least with this tool you aren’t worried about wiping it up….but you do have to figure out how to get it clean.
Bib with Sleeves – I can hear you already…A bib? Really? He thinks a bib is fun? But people, it’s not just a bib…it’s a bib with sleeves. These are awesome. If they made these in adult sizes, I would seriously consider wearing one. A bib is embarrassing, but with sleeves, it’s like a shirt to save your other shirts. With neat designs and a little pocket for catching crumbs, these would be awesome for some snacking while playing video games or something. You drop a chip, your bib catches it for later. I just love the look of these things. We have a couple and they are far more effective than normal bibs. Standard bibs have a very small protection zone. As Miss E. likes to explore her foo, picking it up and smearing it around her tray, we’ve occasionally taken to stripping her down to a bib and diaper for eating. The Bibs with Sleeves definitely help expand the protection zone.
Baby Carrier – There are a lot of baby carriers. We use an ErgoCarrier, but there are a lot of different options: front facing, parent facing, worn on back, on side, made with organic fibers, made to whisk away sweat, made by a friend. The basic point of all of them is that they allow you to carry your child on you, in a comfortable way, while keeping your arms free. I really enjoyed using this when Miss E. was younger, as she would often just snuggle in and fall asleep. But it’s still a great tool. Aside from keeping your arms free and your baby close, it allows for great mobility. We were at IKEA on the weekend and the place was jammed. Some people had strollers and were trying to maneuver around shoppers as they decided which colour would be best for their PAX wardrobe, but since I was wearing Miss, I could just dip around them and continue the super fun IKEA shopping experience.
Running/Cycling Stroller – As there are a lot of baby carriers, there are also a lot of strollers. We have a standard stroller, but we also have a running/cycling stroller, which is much lower to the ground and wider with giant wheels. Now, I wouldn’t use this everyday, but I also wouldn’t run with the standard stroller. This allows me to keep active, or bring Miss E. with me if I’m out running or cycling…or at least it removes a barrier and excuse for me to avoid those activities…of course there’s still the weather, the television, the fact I’m too tired, or have to work in the morning, or don’t have clean running clothes…
Toilet Sprayer – I started with bodily functions/fluids and I’ll end that way. This handy toilet sprayer easily connects to most standard toilets and is indispensable if you’re using cloth diapers. (I say most because of a story involving me potentially breaking my brother’s toilet when I tried to install one of these…I’m not sure he knows about it, but I’m sure he’ll find out when he tried to remove the hose.) The sprayer is great and much cleaner than trying to hold a diaper as you flush a toilet, hoping you can get all the poo off without letting the diaper slip out of your grip and down the drain. Sure, there’s risk of splash-back, but it’s all in the technique.
So that’s my list. Any other thoughts on indispensable or “cool” tools you wouldn’t understand unless you’re a parent?
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“Pretend it’s a game”: on using an infant inhaler…hint…that doesn’t work
Posted: February 3, 2012 Filed under: General, Parenting | Tags: family, health, parenting 1 Comment »Oops…been away for a while.
So, Miss E. has been a bit sick as of late. So far as we can tell it’s nothing serious. She has a runny nose which has come and gone, and has been rather congested, which has also come and gone, but she has also had a cough that has been pretty persistent for more than a month.
The cough occasionally sounds wet, and occasionally it sounds like she’s been a smoker for years and years. So, Jenn took her to the Doctor this week, the first of the unscheduled doctor’s appointments that make up childhood. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know how it went, but I do know the doctor came back in the room to tell Jenn that while she sees a lot of babies, Miss E. is definitely one of the cutest she’s seen….so obviously that part of the visit was good.
From what I gather, the doctor wasn’t overly concerned, but as the cough had been fairly persistent, she suggested they go for chest x-rays. And that’s where it got less fun. Going for x-rays isn’t generally fun, especially if you have to swallow that chalky stuff, but as is often the case, it is a bit more complicated when it comes to babies. Again, I wasn’t there, but from what I understand chest x-rays on infants involves putting them in some sort of tube, seating them on a tiny seat and holding their arms above their head. While Miss E. is generally an easy going baby, she didn’t want anything to do with this.
But, they got it done and the results came in somewhat inconclusive, so until it clears up we’ve been prescribed an inhaler, and have to use an infant add-on. As with the chest x-rays, this isn’t as simple as it might be for an adult.
"Pretend you are playing a game" the instructions helpfully suggest. Really? How is holding a plastic mask up to your baby's face, while making them breathe in medication, anything like a game?
Jenn picked up a normal inhaler, familiar to anyone who has asthma or anyone who knows anyone who has asthma. She also had to pick up a long tube thing with a plastic mask on it for infant use. This thing is less than fun to use. To give Miss E. the medication, we have to hold a mask and a long cylinder to her face, covering her mouth and nose, get her to breathe normally into it, and then release the medication into the other end with a normal puffer. The instructions that come with it actually suggest you should pretend with stuffed animals before hand, so your child thinks it’s a game. But what kind of game involves holding plastic masks up to children’s faces while making them breathe in some foreign substance? I don’t think I would want to go to a dinner party hosted by the people who wrote those instructions.
So, we had some difficulty getting her to use the thing at first. She, like most children, would turn and scream when we held it up to her face. Again, the instructions were less than helpful with this. It suggests holding the mask to the baby’s face to ensure there is a seal, administering the medication and holding the mask on the face for a few breathes. We tried this, and it didn’t work. If you try to force a baby to breathe into something like that, something which is specifically designed to create a seal thus cutting off outside sources of air, they won’t like it.
So now, we’ve taken to letting her breathe into it for as long as she wants to get comfortable with it, and if necessary, letting her hold it. She likes to check things out on her own, and doesn’t like being forced to do something. (This stands for her eating habits too, which have taken on a different pace as she insists on feeding herself, picking up each piece of food, and sometimes picking out only those things she wants, but I digress.) Since we’ve let her hold the mask, and get accustomed to it, we don’t even need to hold it to ensure there’s a seal. We still do to ensure she is breathing in, and it’s still a somewhat frustrating process, but hopefully it won’t be for much longer.
The Klout ret-con: Does Klout even believe its own numbers?
Posted: January 24, 2012 Filed under: Something Random | Tags: Doctor Who, Klout, quirks, social media, technology Leave a comment »So, going off track again.
For avid social media users, especially those maintaining social media profiles for organizations, it can be difficult to prove how useful all the Facebook posts and tweets actually are. One method is the Klout score.
Klout, which bills itself as ‘the standard for influence’ assigns you a score out of 100, based on how ‘influential’ you are. This is supposedly based on how many followers you have, how often you interact with them, and the likelihood of your interactions influencing others beyond your immediate circle, among other things. And it’s really kind of silly, for a number of reasons.
- My current Klout score is 33. The organization I work for has a score of 36. I don’t really interact with many people, but my organization does, with a fair number of re-tweets, some Facebook interactions and you-tube views.
- When you have a Klout score you are encouraged to share it with everyone. If you do, it can make your Klout score go up.
- The score doesn’t really signify anything on its own, as there are other metrics like your “True Reach” “Amplification” and “Network” that you can track as well, but the big thing they want you to promote is your “Klout Score”
- In October, there was some controversy when Klout decided to change its measurement style, everyone’s score to drop significantly, and causing fits across the social media world.
The fact that Klout just changed its measurement system overnight was a big deal, and people questioned what the score actually meant if they just woke up one morning and it was completely different for reasons unknown. And while the dust from that storm has settled, many people still question how useful Klout is as a measurement tool. And I think Klout is among that group, since they seem ready and willing to ret-con their own numbers. (For non-geek types, ret-conning is the changing of previously establish facts…generally in fiction…)
As I said, the organization I work for has a score of 36. This has gone up 4 points or so in the last month, and while tracking those changes, I noticed the True Reach for past days actually changed from what was previously reported.
On January 18, the True Reach of the organization was 160.
On January 19th, the True Reach was 156, but my True Reach from January 18th dropped down to 157...strange...suddenly the people from the past cared less about what we did. Or maybe they did some re-calculations.
On January 23rd, our True Reach was 177...but thanks to another re-calculation, and those sneaky people from the past, January 18th's True Reach is back up to 179. Higher than the original score even.
And the next day, on January 24th, the True Reach is 180, but looking back to the good ol' days of January 18th, we had a True Reach of 184. More people were time-travelling to be influenced by us, and we even had a higher score than the present, even those our overall score was lower on January 18th.
Klout was ret-conning its own numbers, or, to give them benefit of the doubt, maybe they just re-calculated the numbers. Or maybe social media tools are more powerful than we know, and can reach through time and space, causing our present selves to influence our past selves…but I doubt it.
Either way, it kind of makes you question how useful the ‘standard for influence’ actually is if they can’t keep their own numbers standard from day-to-day.
