Haiku Friday #19: Talk Isn't Cheap

We're in the middle
Of a language explosion
At the Geek household.

Baby Geek, who will
Soon be sixteen months of age,
Now talks up a storm.

They're serious when they tell you that once a kid starts talking, he just doesn't stop. And sometimes it comes at a price: "Yes, that is the door. No, you drank all the juice already."

It seems like Adam learns a new word every few days now. Here's the list so far:

Words:

• KIH-tee = kitty
• Mih = Milk (or sometimes juice)
• Buh = Bread
• LA-ee = Light
• Boo = Blue
• Puh-puh = Purple
• Bah-bah = Bye-bye
• Ha = Hi
  

People:

• Mama (duh)
  
• Dada (duh)
• Mimi = his name for my mom
• Guh = Grandpere (French for grandfather), his name for my dad
  
• Teh = Tia (Spanish for aunt), his name for my sister

Sounds:

• Baa (like bad, without the 'd') = Bang
• Me = Meow
• Yow = Meow (can you tell what his favorite animal is?)
• Hoo hoo hoo = The sound a monkey makes

Signs:

• More (pointing finger into palm)
  
• Finished (palms up, hands cupped slightly, waving back and forth)
  
• "No no" (shaking pointed finger at someone -- he got that from the JCC)

Songs/Rhymes/Games:

• Points finger or taps head to request "No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed"
• Shakes pointed finger to request "No, No, No, I Will Not Let Them Go" (a Passover song)
• Does all the motions to Patty-Cake
• Does some of the motions for "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and "Mini Mac" (another JCC song)

Of course, he recognizes more words than he can say -- probably more than we are aware of. So far we only know that he understands family members that he can't pronounce yet, colors, and most of his body parts. He also understands words for his routines: mealtimes, bed, bath, etc.

Anyone out there have children of similar age and developmental stage? What cool stuff is your toddler doing lately?


For more haiku or to play along, visit A Mommy Story.

Still Alive

...even considering this is my first job in a day care setting and I have the plague that just won't end.

At first it wasn't so bad. Yeah, I spent my first weekend with the flu. But I seemed to make it through the rest of my first month at the JCC preschool unscathed.

And then last Monday I woke up with pinkeye. Woohoo. I felt okay other than that, but as the day wore on, I felt pretty tired and my nose was a little stuffy. No biggie; I just figured the abrupt changes in the weather were responsible and I'd be fine after getting some rest.

Ohhhh no. It was a full-blown, knock-me-down, double-whammy cold and sinus infection. Runny nose, stuffy nose, headaches, toothaches, coughing, losing my voice -- all week long. I'm still not 100 percent yet: my voice is still a little raspy, and my nose is still clogged a bit. And of course I bring everything home with me -- my husband, son, and mother all got the cold/sinus infection. Fortunately none of them got the pinkeye.

So I've been trying to get better and still manage to be a mommy. Still haven't quite got it down yet.

Despite Adam sneezing what my husband called "snot rockets" for a few days, he managed to complete some milestones:

• He has two more teeth coming in (he got the bottom front two, oh, around 6 or 7 months, then nothing until a few weeks ago -- the two outside top incisors started coming; now it's the two in the top middle).
• He (maybe?) said his first word, I think: "meow" -- we have cats, both sets of grandparents have a cat, and he loves basically any cat he sees; he gets all excited and squeals usually, but my parents' rather vocal Siamese was meowing last week while Adam was at their house and we heard Adam make a high-pitched kinda "mew".
  
• He's started waving bye-bye, although as yet only to my parents, and he needs a little help to get started, but then you let go of his hand and he does it on his own.
• He's crawling scooting froggy swimming now! He pushes with his hands and feet while still laying on his belly to propel himself forward on the carpet. He's fast, too! I was surprised at how quickly he got from one end of the room to the other, considering he's not actually crawling -- which he can get into the position for, but can't really move from there.

Yay! My baby's growing up. No, I'm not sad. Yes, I'll have to get on that purchasing of the baby gate thing, but I'm proud, and I don't regret anything except that I haven't spent much time cleaning around here yet.

Blog Tag

Stole this from Caitlyn McFarland Hair. So weird to write that, even though she's been married longer than I have. You know how it is. To play along, just answer each question and type the answer into Google image search and post the first picture that comes up.

First Name: Melissa
(This, according to the caption, is R&B singer Melissa Lujan.)

Middle Name: Marie, Nash (yes, I have two)
(Holly Marie Combs of Charmed)


(Basketball pro Steve Nash)


Last Name: Keller
(Kasey Keller, pro soccer player footballer)


Age: 24
(This is a still from the show.)


Place I'd like to visit someday: Ireland


Favorite Vacation Spot: Ft. Myers, FL


Past Celebrity Crush: Michael Vartan
(Does it have to be in the past? This guy is seriously
yummy -- you've seen him in Alias and Big Shots.)


College Major: Linguistics


Place(s) I grew up: Pickerington, OH


First Job: Bob Evans


Favorite Treat: dark chocolate


Favorite Food: Icelandic chicken
(Um, it's called "Icelandic chicken" because of the way it's prepared, not where the animal is from.... But I guess that's the fun of the game.) :)


Favortie Color: indigo


Somewhere I've gone today: my mom's house
(Not really my mom's house, but again, that's the fun.)


What is/was for dinner: barbecue chicken

Lashana Tova! Today was Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year and day of judgement). Since I work at the Jewish Center, I got to leave early yesterday and have today and tomorrow off work. Which is good, because we spent Saturday & Sunday traveling to see my in-laws, so I didn't get much of a weekend.

Can't believe it's already October.

Haiku Friday #5: Newbies, Nursing, and No Power (Still)

Fell asleep again
Putting the baby to bed;
Nursing makes me tired.

Want to start weaning --
I just can't find the right time
To cut sessions out.

This week at the school
One teacher on vacation,
Two out this morning;

I was the only
Person familiar with the
Classroom I was in.

One fellow teacher
Says she's still without power --
Goes home in the dark.

Estimates say that
Electricity will be
Back on by Sunday.

Man oh man. I was surprised there were so many still without power yesterday, only to hear on the news today that more than 100,000 are still going home to empty refrigerators and candles and flashlights scattered around their living rooms. A few of my coworkers are included in that list, and some of the power companies are saying when it does come on Sunday, it may be late, even very early Monday morning. Please keep all those wonderful thoughts coming for them!

This morning was a crazy one at work. On Thursdays I get there an hour early to sub for one of the teachers that works four 10-hour days, Thursday being her day off. This week, another teacher in that room was on vacation as well. So I knew there would be another sub. But then the third teacher had a doctor's appointment and didn't get back until noon. I, having worked mostly in the infant/toddler rooms for two weeks, was therefore the resident expert in the classroom. Lucky they also had one of the teachers from the other infant/toddler room in there for a few hours, so I wasn't at a total loss. I will say this: the next time yogurt is on the menu for morning snack, I'm serving something else. (Just try and picture your 11- to 18-month old eating yogurt by him/herself. Now multiply that by about 10.)

Nursing's still going. :-P I was hoping to have at least started the weaning process by now, but I'm still getting adjusted to being away from the baby for most of his waking hours during the week and sore boobs because of that. I only pump once while I'm at work, and feed him right before I leave and as soon as I come home. I feed him overnight, too, when he wakes up. That has been happening more often since I went back to work. He's trying to make up for the lack of breastmilk during the day by waking up to eat at night. Blargh. Makes trying to cut back on the number of feedings difficult. And I'm not sure which to cut out first: if I don't pump at work, I think I might die, and same goes for my arrival at home. Nursing at night helps him sleep a little longer, and first thing in the morning usually means he'll sleep after I leave, making it easy on Brandon or my mom.

So, a few questions for anyone who has successfully weaned: How did you do it? Was there anything that made the transition easier on you and/or your baby? Which feeding did you cut out first and which was the last to go? Leave me a comment below, or send me an email at momsensical [at] gmail [dot] com. Inquiring minds (or maybe just mine at the moment) want to know.

Lights Out

I've been meaning to post for almost 2 days. Surely, I thought, I would not be writing this tonight. All the problems will have been fixed by now, and I won't get a chance to discuss it.

But here we are, Wednesday night, and much of the city of Columbus, Ohio is still without power. For those not living in Ohio or the general area, Hurricane Ike was still pretty pissed off when he came to call on our calm state. Ike was still a Category I Tropical Storm with 75-mile-an-hour winds Sunday night when he ripped through the state, especially Central Ohio, with a vengeance. The "remnants" caused over half a million in Columbus and surrounding suburbs to lose electricity, with damage still being assessed.

We were lucky. We only lost power from around 7 PM or so Sunday night to 5 PM on Monday. We only lost the contents of our fridge (which needed to be cleaned out in a bad way anyway); most of our meat and veggies stayed frozen in the back of the freezer, and we're able to cook what didn't. We were able to do laundry, take showers, and hang out at my parents' house (where they only lost power for maybe 20 minutes while AEP was hooking things back up) for awhile. The power outages meant the JCC was closed on Monday, and I didn't have to work; Brandon doesn't have class until tomorrow morning (and my mom is still off work tomorrow from teaching at Columbus Public Schools), so we didn't need to find a new babysitter this week -- my dad is recovering from foot surgery.

My friend's family got power back on yesterday afternoon, and my father-in-law still does not have working cable or internet in Cincinnati, even though his electricity has come back on. We're all lucky that the wind didn't cause any major damage to our cars or homes -- my parents lost a few shingles, and the porch swing tried to leave, but other than that, everything held down pretty well.

Some are not so lucky. Because the hurricane hit Texas so hard, many of our electric crews were sent there to help out. Not that Texas doesn't need them, but they never anticipated being needed back home to return power to much of the city. I keep hearing at work how other teachers recently spent $100 to $200 on groceries Saturday or Sunday, just to have it all go bad in their refrigerator or freezer.

Folks, this is not a religious blog, by any means. In fact, I've been aiming to keep just about anything religious out of this blog -- maybe I'll create another one for thoughts on spirituality. There are so many other things that need discussion on this one. But whether you're religious or spiritual or ambivalent, please take thirty seconds to send out a prayer, a thought, positive energy or just some good ju-ju to anyone affected by Ike.

I'll be sending my own good thoughts to all of you who are still patiently waiting for life to return to something approaching normal. Good luck!

Haiku Friday: New Job

I got a new job
Today will be my first day
I'm kind of nervous

I'll leave the baby
At home with his dad; no more
A stay at home mom.

Short one this week, all. Gotta get up early in the AM, or at least earlier than I'm used to. I know I already posted a long entry about the recent change in employment earlier this week, but Haiku just makes it so much more fun!

Visit A Mommy Story to play this week. You can write your haiku about anything you want, just click the link or the button above (email me at momsensical [at] gmail [dot] com if you need help with the poem or button). Sign the Mr. Linky on her site just like it says, and enjoy some of the other "Friku." I promise you'll have fun!

I'm in the money!

...or at least I will be in about two weeks.

Since we moved back to Ohio from Boston back in February, my husband has been substitute teaching and looking for work that will actually support our family of three (subs are paid per day of work, whereas full-time teachers have a yearly salary divided up over the twelve months; subs do not get paid over the summer, and during the year, they only receive a total of about half of a regular teacher's salary anyway). The original plan was that he would find a job as a full-time teacher, and I would be a stay-at-home-mom until the summer, when Adam would be 6 months old, and then I would go back to work while he stayed home with the baby.

We have both been searching for the last seven months and thus far, have been unable to find work. About a month ago or so, my husband decided that since he wasn't getting anywhere (and I do mean anywhere -- he looked for jobs in high schools, colleges, libraries, the Department of Defense, and put his resume up on Monster) in the job search, that he would go back to school. In the meantime, I kept looking for work as a secretary, and then as a daycare worker/preschool teacher (in the hopes that Adam could be cared for in my place of employment, at a discounted price).

Two weeks ago we got a break. My sister Sara works at the Jewish Community Center, and has for the past three years. She was assigned there for her freshman observation (she's in school for early childhood education), and they liked her so much, they hired her Monday through Friday after classes and also for their summer camp. Then we found out that Aaron's aunt is the director of the center. I was a little nervous about putting myself out there for the open position, because I have "some college coursework completed," none of which is in education. The one thing I have going for me is 10+ years of babysitting experience, and informal child care/supervision of youth activities at both my church and in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, more about that later).

I've been trying to get paperwork done for this job, and silently freaking out about getting a physical and a TB test done (we can't find a general family doctor, either -- but at least Adam has a wonderful pediatrician). I wanted so badly to post the good news about the possibility of a job, but I didn't want to jinx it. And then today I got a call from the director. The original position I applied for was one that someone else had left, and this person apparently came back to it in the past few weeks. But I can still work two eight-hour days and be a floating sub for the rest of the week! I hung up with the director, and danced around my kitchen/living room until my quads hurt.

Deep sigh of relief. Damn, did we need this. I won't be getting a huge salary or anything, and they don't have a place for Adam now, but as the child of an employee, he is at the top of the waiting list. And it's something. Especially when we're fighting with the loan company to disburse the money for Brandon's first semester so he can actually, you know, pay for books (he's been in class for nearly two weeks already). Happy little dance!

Edited to add: Sorry, folks. I know I promised this would be shorter, but I just couldn't contain my excitement!

Further edited to add: Upon reflection, I think the reason my posts are so long is because I feel the need to explain EVERYTHING, since you all know practically nothing about me (personal friends excluded). Hopefully this will get better with time.