Otter Mommy's blog

Yesterday Gabe said he didn't like me only liked daddy. Said it a couple of times. I was sort of sad. Nothing happened to trigger this. I think it was just a weird toddler thing. I was tired too so when Frank came home I went to sleep. Frank sent Gabe up to apologize and then Gabe wanted to make a firefighter mask and I told him to ask Daddy. I went to sleep. Kind of felt sorry for my mom.

Gabe's Preschool Class has a telescope project, this is an excerpt from their weekly report on their activities:

Quali sono le parti piu importanti del
telescopio?
Gabriel: The wheels. So they can go around that
street when there’s a fire.
Il tubo e’ importante per te?
Gabriel: Si
Perche’?
Because I like the stars….
E le vouoi vedere?
Gabriel: si!

Google Translation:
What are the most important parts of
telescope?
Gabriel: The wheels. So That They can go around
When there's a street fire.
The tube and 'important to you?
Gabriel: Yes
Why '?
Because I like the stars ....
And vouoi see?
Gabriel: Yes!

Sharing Strawberries

Gabe told me "I am mad at you mommy."
Even though he was mad at me, I was quite happy because he was expressing himself with words rather than crying or biting or hitting or something.
"Why?
"Because of the strawberries."
"What? You got to eat all of the strawberries. Daddy cut strawberries for you and mommy and then you stole mommy's strawberries. Why are you mad?"
"Daddy should cut more strawberries."

After I left Frank talked to Gabe about stealing strawberries from Mommy. I guess he felt guilty or upset with me because he got scolded. In any case I think it was too complicated to express.

D keeps on sending me pics of the new otter baby in Seattle. So adorable and relevant to this blog. I love pic where the baby otter is sleeping. Apparently otter babies naturally float. Can you imagine if you had to keep your kid floating and fed at the same time? At least this otter mommy has no diaper changing.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2012/01/27/photos-baby-sea-otter-at-seattle-aquarium/#2732-9

The way G thinks about things

I've been sick for the past week.  While I have been lying in bed, G has climbed up and played with me. Yesterday he decided he wanted to throw a birthday party for his newest friend, Baby Monkey.  The first thing was to buy a cake.

Mommy - Let's make a cake.

G - Yeah!

So I show him a video on how to make a cake. In this video they show a woman measuring out ingredients, using a hand mixer to mix them,  baking the cake in an oven, and finally frosting the cake.

Mommy - So what do we need? (expecting a list of ingredients)

G- A Machine!

I guess it makes sense. It explains Alton Brown and his gadget habit.

Nanny Left

My nanny told us about three months ago that she was going to find another family. I was initially sort of stressed, but knew we had enough time to figure something out.

We visited a lot of preschools. Eventually our preschool let us add G full time, even though no child had dropped out. She asked us to post on GGMG where we had found her, she has been really good to G so I took the time to write a really nice post:

F has been with us since our son was only a few months old-- almost four years now. She loves our son, has generously shared her years of experience with us as first time parents without family nearby, and has helped us enormously to raise our boy to be confident, polite, outgoing, friendly, and multi-lingual. We'd love to keep her on, but our child has started pre-school, and F needs to find another family to work with full time. She's generally available for interviews Tuesdays and Thursdays while our son is in school or after work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Above everything else - F really engages with our son. She sings to him, plays with him, teaches him, takes him on adventures around the city, and generally gives him lots of attention. They're regularly out and about via Muni, Bart, and Caltrain at playgrounds, libraries, museums, and zoos. She's also really engaged with the local community. We regularly meet parents or children who are already familiar with our son through F and her extensive network of nanny friends. She's also regularly helped us with the logistics of child rearing. She's always done the laundry for our son and even cooked for or cleaned up after us during his naps, if she has the time. Whenever we came home, his areas were always clean and well organized. She's also done a great job of keeping us abreast of things we need to buy for our child: groceries, clothing, etc. -- even going to the trouble of making those purchases for us when we were short on time. She's made our boy wonderful home-cooked meals the entire time she's worked for us, including grinding up baby food and really wonderful soups and stews, full of vegetables, which he still enjoys. Before our doctor diagnosed dietary allergies as the root cause of our son's eczema, F looked after his skin intensely. At its worst, six times a day moisturizing sessions and complicated bath or dietary routines were executed by F both precisely and accurately.
As an employee she has great initiative, is very resourceful, and always tries hard to work with our requests. For our son's first year, she kept up our baby journal of feedings and diaper changes and other things he had done through the day, which was really nice to read when we came home from work. She keeps up with her infant CPR
certifications, regularly notices things she could do to help make our lives easier, and makes sure that we both understand and are completely okay with her plans. She enjoys being in the city and is well-acquainted with the many resources for children in town. She is very easy to get along with. Our son has a lot of energy and is pretty high spirited, but as mentioned before is also well behaved, polite, and friendly - and much of this has to come from F. We asked her to speak Spanish to our son exclusively, but she does speak English. There have been a few occasions where things were too complicated for us to communicate clearly, but during those occasions, we've always clarified details
through F's adult daughters.
We really can't say enough about how much and how deeply F has helped us. We're very sorry to see her go -- her next family will be unbelievably lucky to have her involved in their lives, just as we were.

I got a lot of calls. I was quite pleased with the responses. I think I hit all the notes that a guilty mommy might want for their child as they go to work. Though the first arrangement fell through I think she will end up at a good family.

I am quite pleased with how much money I'll be getting back and G has adjusted pretty well to being full time.

Nanny Leaving in January
So our nanny spoke to us today told us that she cant make it with 4 days a week and asked for our help to find another family. That she wanted to leave in January. I think it will be fine eventually, but right now I am anxious.

Potty training

G proudly shows off his potty grainy poster. He was very anti potty and bribes didn't seem to work. He just doesn't seem to care enough about m&m s or trips to the zoo or even toys. On a suggestion by another parent of a reluctant boy, we are doing the poster sticker thing.Also more importantly he can only watch videos on the potty. He is starting to connect things now. We have a two week soft deadline. Preschool doesn't require potty training but they don't have a diaper changing area either.

More than malbec

Wed dinner 72 g carbs