Emmy and the Dog

We had a scary moment this weekend.  It was one of those moments when I can totally understand stories about mothers picking up school buses to rescue their children.

This story isn’t nearly that dramatic, which I tell you, only so you won’t be disappointed when you read through to the end (if you’re still sticking with me) and find that I didn’t heave any vehicles, or perform any other amazing feats of strength.

The story begins with an invitation to brunch at a friend’s house.

I’ll be honest with you.  I didn’t want to go.  I don’t really enjoy parties, and I knew that the group of people who would be attending were, well… they’re at a different place in their lives.  They were gathering for brunch (past noon, so more like late lunch) and they all brought booze. 

Now, I have no problem with adults drinking adult beverages.  But, when a group of adults come together to eat and drink adult beverages, they do not have in mind spending their time with a toddler.  I knew that.  Tom knew that.  But the person throwing the brunch/late lunch is one of my best (read: only) friends, and I had already blown off one of her recent parties, so I was feeling guilty, and I thought that a party on Sunday afternoon would be pretty tame.  And it was.  We had a nice time, and some great food, which the hostess graciously made gluten-free for me.

But in among the nice time was a scary moment, which is what this post is about.

Emmy loves animals.  She has thoroughly enjoyed trips to the zoo and the aquarium (I still want to spell that with a “c” somewhere in there), but even more than that, she loves petting animals.  When we visit people with pets, she loves to make friends, especially with the dogs.

So, when we found out that our party hostess, A, had a new dog, we knew Emmy would love to meet him.  The dog, who had just arrived on Friday, was acclimating in the basement, so we went down to see him.  Tom and Emmy were hanging with the dog, and A and I had wandered back towards the stairs, chatting.  Suddenly, I heard a sharp bark and a baby squeal.  The dog had, up to that moment, been silent and quite docile, while I had petted his head and let him smell me and Emmy.

When I heard that bark, I dashed back to where Emmy was.  When I came through the doorway, I saw my little girl darting back, while the dog was trying to get to her and my husband was between them.  All I wanted was to snatch Emmy up, but I had a dog and Tom between me and her.  Tom wasn’t grabbing Emmy because he would have to turn his back on the dog to pick her up, and the dog could easily dart past him before he could scoop her up.

So, in that instant, less than a second, my brain realized that I couldn’t pick her up because I was too far away, and Tom couldn’t pick her up because he was keeping the dog from her.  And then CLICK, my brain realized that I could eliminate the thing keeping Tom from picking her up.  So I grabbed the dog around the neck (gently) and held him in place.  This allowed Tom to pick up our terrified child.

When we got back upstairs, Tom and I had a quick conversation.  I told him that all I had wanted was to scoop Emmy up, but I realized that the better action was to grab the dog, and then he could scoop Emmy up.  We did this in under 3 seconds, with nary a word of communication.  I was super proud of our parenting teamwork.  We high-fived.

I don’t know exactly what happened, because I didn’t see it, and Emmy doesn’t talk, but I think the dog just did something that startled her and when she started to back away, the dog saw it as an initiation of play-time, so he moved to follow.  Following her scared her even more, so she kept moving, which made the dog keep following, escalating Emmy’s fear.  When Tom moved to block the dog, the dog thought it was just part of the game.

I don’t believe Emmy was ever in any danger from the dog.  His tail was wagging the whole time, and it was just a misunderstanding between them.  But, here’s the part where I understand the bus-lifting.  When I grabbed the dog, I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING.  I didn’t know if the dog was angry, or snarling, or about to bite.  I didn’t know anything but that the moving dog was the reason my baby couldn’t be picked up and comforted.  So I grabbed the dog.  If the dog had been angry, grabbing it might have made him more so.  Grabbing him around the neck might have resulted in me getting bitten.  But my brain didn’t register that danger, at least not enough to stop me.  And so, to a small degree, I understand trying to lift a bus despite the obvious reasons not to try it.  That’s your kid.  Reason doesn’t enter into the equation.

My only worry now is that Emmy will be afraid of dogs.  We tried to get her near A’s dog again before we left, and she was fine, as long as Tom was holding her, but when he tried to set her down so she could pet the dog, she started to cry.  Hopefully, she’ll forget about it before the next time we have an opportunity to play with a puppy.

Emmy's Vocabulary

I wanted to do a quick post with Emmy's current vocabulary.  I'll probably miss a few things, but that's what updates are for, I suppose.

Mama
Daddy
Elmo (Eh-mo)

She can also name most of the other Sesame Street characters too, but doesn't ask for them by name.
Ernie (I can't phonetically spell it, but she has trouble with the "r" sound)
Bert (It's hard to tell if she means bert or big bird, here)
Big Bird (she calls him "bird")
Oscar (o-kar)
Cookie
Zoe

And she says hi to Dorothy (Elmo's pet goldfish) at the beginning of Elmo's World. (Hi, Doorty) And this morning, I'm pretty sure she sang part of the Elmo's World theme song (the part where it says, "That's Elmo's World."-- she missed the "world" but got the rest).

She says "hello" when the phone rings, bringing her palm up to her ear
She says "night-night" at bed time.

She brings us her shoes and says "outside" when she wants to go outside.  She says "shoe."

When she wants to taste what we're eating she says, "Bite?"  (Which is neat, because I would always offer her a bit of my food and ask, "Do you want a bite?")

She likes to eat:
Crackers (cackers)
Cheese
and Bananas (nana)

After eating, when she wants out of her high chair, she says, "Want Down."

She knows our black cat is named Maddie, and if I call "Maddie," Emmy will echo me.

She's getting close to repeating "car-ride,"and she's almost got "blueberries."

She knows what these animals "say": (Emmy, what does a cow say? Emmy: "Moo")
Cow says "moo"
Horse says "nay"
Lamb says "bah"
Goat says "bah"
Kitty says "meow"
Doggy says "oof-oof"
Bird says "twee"

When she is impressed by something, she says, "Whoa."

When she slides, swings, or gets twirled, she says, "Whee!"

She knows these body parts (and can point to them) and can say the starred ones:
Eyes*
Ears
Nose*
Hair
Mouth
Tongue
Hands
Arms
Feet*
Belly

And she says "brush teeth" after her bath, so she can play with her Elmo tooth brush.

Also, it's not a word, but when you say, "I love you," she makes a kiss sound.

I think that's most of them.  I'm sure I'll remember more later.

The Nightmare that Was Elmo.

I watched Sesame Street as a child, probably longer than I would have preferred, since I spent my afternoons after school with a babysitter who cared for younger children too, so I remember a lot of Sesame Street.  I remember Elmo, though Zoe, Abby, Rosita, and Baby Bear came after my time watching was done.  That being said, before I had a child of my own, I had no idea why suddenly Elmo was the favorite.  I could probably write a whole treatise on Sesame Street, and the recent changes, some of which I like, and some of which I don't.

But none of that matters.  Because MY daughter loves Elmo.  In her limited vocabulary, (maybe 20-30 words at the moment), Elmo is spoken almost as often as Mama and Daddy.  When she gets up in the morning, the first thing she asks for is "Elmo?"  When she's eating, she wants to watch Elmo.  When she's playing, she wants to watch Elmo.  And though Elmo might seem like code for TV, as she will watch other shows, and tolerate other Sesame Street characters, she absolutely lights up when Elmo comes on screen.  She bounces and points and squeals when she sees Elmo.

So, when we found out that Sesame Street Live! was coming to Nashville, we decided to get tickets. 

I looked forward to it all week, and if Emmy could understand things like "future," or "looking forward to," I'm sure she would have too.  Alas, 18-month-old children have little sense of time, which is good, because they also have absolutely zero patience.

Tom, on the other hand, as he later admitted to me, was dreading the whole affair from the get-go.  He's the one who is constantly afraid of public temper tantrums, so the whole idea of Emmy sitting quietly in an arena full of children all watching dancing Sesame Street characters was enough to make him sweat. 

This all sounds rather ominous, doesn't it?  I don't mean it too.  For the first thirty minutes, Emmy did great.  She squirmed a bit before the show began, and after going for a quick walk with Daddy, she returned to squirm some more, so we resorted to YouTube Elmo to get through-- but FINALLY, the lights dimmed.

I pulled Emmy onto my lap, as Big Bird's voice filled the arena, and the Sesame Street theme started to play.  Emmy didn't really get it right away, but once Big Bird actually came out on stage, she realized what she was seeing. 

Thus commenced the squealing and bouncing on my lap. 

And then Elmo came out. 

Oh, boy.  At that moment, I was extremely glad that we had taken the risk and brought her to the show.  She was ecstatic.  She bounced, squealed, giggled, and climbed off my lap to dance along.  She was so excited, and it really seemed like she understood that these were her friends from the TV show, only they were really here, in person.

That lasted until the intermission at 30 minutes.  At that point, Emmy got bored.  We tried to bridge the gap with YouTube again, but she wasn't interested.  She wanted to walk, she wanted to explore, and she just couldn't understand that I couldn't let her out of my sight inside the packed dark arena.  She tried to push past me, to no avail, and got increasingly frustrated.

We should have left at that point, but I didn't want her to miss half of the show.  (I am also slightly peeved that the hour-long show had to take a break at the halfway point, which seemed to cause problems all over the arena).

We probably lasted another fifteen minutes after that.  We got up to leave, but as we neared the exit door, she started wailing, so I made Tom turn back.  We found a row of empty seats towards the back where I could stand with her on my hip, which helped some, but when she started to squirm again, arching her back (which puts me in danger of dropping her, which, of course, is her goal) I agreed to leave.  They were wrapping up the show anyway.

Tom was still sick (he had caught strep earlier in the week) and Emmy was still recovering from an ear infection, plus I'm fairly certain she's teething (a new molar erupted), so by that point, we were all exhausted.  We carried a wailing child back to the car (along with many other families similarly situated) and headed home.  Emmy was asleep inside of ten minutes.

So, it's not as if I regret taking her to the show.  I don't.  I think that if we have the opportunity to go next year, it will probably work out better, but Emmy loved it (at least half the time) and the rest of the day was worth it to watch her seeing real-live Elmo.  Maybe next year we can work it out so she gets a hug from Elmo.

Aquarium Trip (Where Tom makes fun of my inability to spell aquarium)

I can't spell aquarium (without double-checking it).  In fact, right now, I'm not even sure I've spelled it right.  I always think it should be spelled with a c. (Acquarium-- which the spell check is telling me is wrong, even as we speak.  Thank you, technology).

That being said, this weekend, we took Emmy to the Tennessee Aquarium (which I will always call the Chattanooga Aquarium, since it is in Chattanooga).  It was an ambitious trip, because it required 2 and 1/2 hours of travel to get there.  We also weren't really sure how 18-month-old Emmy would respond to the aquarium.  Would she know what she was looking at?  Would she care?

Despite a few missteps by mom and dad (meaning us, not my parents) we had an excellent time.  Well, Emmy had an excellent time.  Tom and I had an exhausting time.  As we were walking back to the car with an evidently grumpy and tuckered child, we discussed how much the trip differed from our last trip to the aquarium when we were both in college (and single, childless folk).  How much this trip seemed like work and less like leisure.  Which is pretty much the epitome of being parents for us.  Life is suddenly full of so much more work.

As to the missteps, mentioned above?  Well, we forgot to pack an extra sippy cup, so we had to wash the milk out of the one we had.  We forgot a second outfit, so when we stopped for lunch, and got ketchup all over the first outfit, we had to stop at walmart to pick up a new outfit for the inevitable aquarium pictures.  We had snacks ready to go, sitting on the kitchen table, and forgot them too.

The stop for lunch wasn't planned, either.  But Emmy got fussy about 30 minutes before we reached Chattanooga.  Plus, I knew that the lunch options at the aquarium would be overpriced, so we found an exit with a few restaurants and chose dairy queen for lunch).  Unfortunately for us, dairy queen (DAIRY queen) didn't have any milk.  (Tom harped on that for the rest of the day) They also didn't have any juice.  So, poor Emmy had to have water for lunch.  (Although, they did offer us pink hawaiian punch or something... which we politely declined).

But here's the best part of the day: We bought our tickets (ignoring the ticket seller who referred to Emmy as "him") and then we walked into the first exhibit, which was penguins.

My child, who I was afraid wouldn't be interested in the aquarium, squealed in delight and watched the penguins for 15 minutes.  I tried to pick her up and move on 3 times before she finally agreed to leave the penguin tank.  She stood there and squealed, and laughed and pointed, and bounced up and down in glee.  When we got to the gift shop, I walked her over to the stuffed animals, and she grabbed a stuffed penguin and gave it a kiss.  Needless to say, Emmy has a new stuffed animal in her bed.  We named him Tacky (after a story my mom used to read me called "Tacky the Penguin" http://amzn.to/ivBbD1).

We had a good time going through the rest of the aquarium.  Another highlight was Emmy blowing a kiss to a gecko that was out for petting by kids.  The lady holding the gecko asked Emmy if she wanted to touch the gecko, but Emmy preferred a long-distance greeting.  She blew a kiss and we moved on. (Which made me happy since I didn't want to have to use the hand sanitizer)

We didn't make it all the way through.  Even leaving the house by nine, we were pushing Emmy's naptime, and around 2 pm, we hit the wall and Emmy got squirmy, whiny and belligerent.  So we bundled her into the stroller and made our way to the exit.

Since Fayetteville is roughly an hour and 1/2 from Chattanooga (though not necessarily on the way back home) we decided to go see Grandma Watson to break up the drive home.  We visited with grandma, had dinner with her and made it home around 9 pm.  It was a long day for all of us.

But we had such a good time.

Work-ation

A work-ation is a type of vacation.  Sort of like an alternative spring break, it's a break from work (the career kind) to do work of another sort.

This memorial day weekend, I went to the Watson homestead to help Tom do some work for his mother.  We cleaned out storage sheds, filled most of a dumpster*, and burned several piles of wood and cardboard.

And contrary to what you may be thinking, I had a good time.  It really was a nice break from work.  It wasn't fun, exactly, not like a beach trip, or going to the aquarium, but it was pleasant.  It was interesting going through all the stored things (years and years of Watson family acquisitions to sort through).  And you can play mexican train dominoes anywhere.

After sorting through all the stuff in the garage and storage sheds, we also have lots of stuff for garage sales/ebay/etc.  We found a really cool poster of all the Masters of the Universe toys (which Tom and I both want to keep).  Tom's friend Chuck came yesterday and loaded his truck with stuff to take to a pawn shop: two sets of golf clubs, lots of tools... honestly I wasn't paying a lot of attention to what all he ended up taking. 

I know that I loaded my car up with some cool stuff, including an old wooden milk crate, one of Tom's Dad's "old" (still in plastic) police helmets (robin's egg blue), a crate full of Tom's old toys (to sell on ebay), another crate of coins and stamps to sell, a glass pitcher, coca cola glasses, and a dunkin donuts thermos.  Susan also gave me her set of ladies golf clubs, so now I can learn to golf.

The other nice part of our work-ation was that Emmy gets to spend the week with her grandma.  She went to the park, and gets to play in her wading pool every day, and there's the constant grandma-spoilage.  She's eaten more ice cream this week than ever before.  And grandma doesn't think I saw it, but I know there are some freezer-pops in store for her.

I had to go back to work today, but the fun of the work-ation continues for Tom, Emmy and grandma Susan.  And on Friday, I'm sure more Watson treasures will be coming home.  (I saved a whole box of those big colored Christmas lights for next Christmas).

*We got a dumpster for several reasons.  1) There is no trash pick-up in Susan's town. 2)Neither we nor Susan own a truck to haul things to the dump. Also, 3) Some of the things we threw in the dumpster would be pushing the limits of a pick-up truck. And 4) You can't burn everything.

I'm a Worrier, Like My Mother Before Me.

I just emailed my mom two documents.  One is a one-page guide to Emily's schedule, medication dosages, and food requirements, along with a note about tantrums.  The other is a list of foods that she likes to eat.  I also sent a second email with details about her doctor.

Does my sending this to my mother indicate a lack of confidence in her ability to care for my daughter?  No. 

Does it reflect my reluctance to leave my daughter and my guilt about doing so?  Probably.

Mostly, though, I know my mom.  She's a worrier.  She's a planner.  A list maker.  A scheduler. 

I provided this document as a cheat sheet to the things I have learned about my daughter and the tools and tricks I use to keep her happy.

It is my firm belief that if a parent anticipates their child's needs, behaviors, and wants, they can mitigate most bad behavior.  Not all, certainly, as Emmy's daily tantrums can attest, but I think that a parent planning ahead is the difference between a normal happy child (who occasionally gets frustrated by normal child things) and a maladjusted, cranky, tired, unhappy child.

If your child gets enough sleep, they are less likely to spiral when they get frustrated (and with limited communication skills, frustration is inevitable).

So, for my mom, I wrote down what Emmy's schedule is, and what she expects throughout the day so that her schedule will change as little as possible.  I can't tell my mom everything that I know, and from a logical standpoint, I understand that, but my hope is that writing some of it down will help.

I think, mostly, though, this is just evidence of how much like my mother I am.  If you plan and think about it enough, things won't go wrong.  But like I told mom, babies are just a big ball of chaos, and though planning certainly helps, helicopter (grand)parenting will just lead to anxious children (and lots of gray hair).

Pending Milestone

This weekend will be the first time that Emmy will be away from both of her parents at the same time.

We're flying to New Jersey for a wedding, and we decided it would be easier (on everyone) if Emmy stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  (We won't mention how much Tom and I are looking forward to two and a half days with no responsibility for anyone but ourselves, because... well... it makes me feel guilty to admit it)

I'm not worried about it (not excessively so, anyway) but I know Weez is.  I think she has imagined a worst-case scenario where Emmy wakes up on Friday morning (she's spending the night Thursday through Saturday), realizes neither Tom nor I are there, and proceeds to cry until we return on Sunday.  I, on the other hand, imagine that Emmy will barely notice, with all the people to pay attention to her (Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Patty?!)

I can imagine lots of worse worst-case scenarios, and some of them freeze my blood, but it's counter-productive and it strays too far into the neuroses that I try to avoid.  This weekend will be fine.  Emmy will be fine.  She will not believe that her mom and dad have abandoned her.  She will not cry the entire time.  She will not drink a bottle of cleaning fluid or be scratched by a cat who has not been trained to play nice with the baby.

She will be doted on, played with, and loved.  And that's what matters.

I keep imagining all the free time I will have on this brief trip.  Maybe I can finish my book (the kindle tells me I have read 61% of Stephen King's Under the Dome).  Maybe there will be a treadmill in the hotel and I can get a run in.  Maybe I can just nap in between all the wedding festivities.  Whatever I end up doing, I'm really looking forward to the trip.