DAYCARE!!!!

So, we just put Asha in daycare – for the first time really!!! I mean, we tried it once before but it was one of those commercial places with 4-5 kids in one room. Asha kept getting sick and we were not happy with the ratio of kids to teachers and we pulled her out. But this semester is promising to be AWFUL in terms of work and having no babysitter or daycare is certainly taking its toll on us. Gregg and I have watched her with no help for 15 months but now that she is walking, we CANNOT get anything done when we are with her. She has learnt to open doors and lock herself in, to open cabinets with the completely useless cabinet locks on them and to bang on everything – primarily on computers. Since she goes to sleep at 9:30pm, we do not have much time at night to work and she gets up at 6:30am on a good day. Naptime is used to wash dishes and do laundry – for the whole hour she is asleep. So, I have no time to prep or grade and Gregg can neither read nor write with her around.

But finding the right care for your baby is so very difficult. We interviewed, inquired and advertised. It sucked. But the great news is that we finally found someone. She only watches one other kid and is so sweet. Her own kids go to school and she has lots of toys for Asha to play with. Asha has only been going for 3-4 days and she seems to like it. Right now, we are doing 25-30 hours/week – when I am at work. That is time Gregg gets to get work done and then I get a couple of hours in the evening when Gregg watches her.

I have to say though that daycare has been worse for me than her. This week she only did 20 hours at daycare but this is my last week before school starts next week and I feel SO guilty being home without her. True, I have completed all FOUR syllabi (including a brand new one), cooked every day, went grocery shopping, started a report which I am supposed to turn in next Friday and even had lunch out with Gregg (without Asha for the first time in about a month or more). But I still feel awfully guilty. I feel like I should stay with her when I have a chance and that I am palming her off. I love getting things checked off the list but I hope this guilt gets easier!!     

Asha at ONE YEAR!!!!!

I really have no idea where the time goes. I just managed to write her 9-month update and it seems that the next day I have to write her one year update. I cannot believe that she is a toddler. I would like to say that I deliberately skipped her 10 and 11 month updates but it would be untrue. However, I do not regret it much because now I think I will start spacing her updates apart a little more.

Motor Skills

Though she is not walking yet, Asha spends more time on her feet, holding on to furniture or even balancing without help for a minute or two at a time. She usually takes one step and then sits down. She is a master at crawling up to tables, pulling herself up and then proceeding to take everything off it and throwing it on the floor. She can also crawl all the way up the stairs now which scares me. She has also been picking lint off the floor or our clothes and putting it into her mouth. That should tell you all you need to know about the condition of our house. Asha continues to be fiercely independent and refuses all help in walking. If you try to take her hands and make her walk, she will shove your hand away and sit down.

Her fine motor skills are amazing. She picks up the tiniest objects (and usually puts them in her mouth). She is great at manipulating toys and has been playing more complex games lately. She has been clapping and waving lately (for about a month). She will clap if you say "Clap" and wave if you say "Hi" and "Bye-bye".

Verbal Skills and Comprehension

Asha clearly has “mama” down in terms of saying it. She has said “dada” a few times, “baba” a lot more and recently “gigi” or “gaga”. The weirdest thing is that she mostly says “gigi” when she is trying to play with Giggs. Though she has uttered it in his absence, I am convinced she is trying to say his name because she mostly says it around him. She will be super vocal for a while and then stop. Now she is testing different pitches and inflections which include everything from a questioning voice to ear-splitting screams.

She understands a lot more than she did before. Now she knows her cereal and will get it for you if you ask. She also understands (and usually obeys) “Give it to me” and “Put it back”. She will touch your nose if you ask her “Where’s my nose?” though she refuses to touch her own nose.

Sleep

What can I say? We finally phased out her middle-of-the-night bottle – doing it gently over 7 nights. We did this just after she turned 10 months. We had hoped things would get better but she was still getting up once (on a good night) and twice every other night. She would stay up for about an hour each time. She sat in her crib, chewed on it (we have crib teether guards on all sides), played with a toy for a few minutes, then cried till we went in and soothed her. This would go on for an hour. Then she went to sleep.

In desperation, at about 10.5 months, I started cutting down on the rocking before bedtime. Usually she needs about 15 minutes of rocking and a bottle to get drowsy. She is always put into bed awake but I thought maybe she should be less drowsy than she is. So I started rocking her for no more than 10 minutes and putting her down. It took about 15 minutes of screaming but then she passed out. Well, I don’t know if that did it or whether it was no more bottle at night, but she has slept through the night since then. I am praying that I am not jinxing myself here. She goes to bed around 9:30pm and gets up around 5:30am for the day. That is the weirdest thing about her. I have heard that babies get up around the same time, no matter what time they go to sleep. That is absolutely not true for her. She has an 8 hour body clock. Put her down at 9:30pm and she is up at 5:30am. Put her down at 8pm and she is up at 4:00am. You could set the clock by her.

In exchange for sleeping through the night, she has started taking two naps of an hour each. Not enough time to get anything done but oh well!!! I will take it – sleeping through the night is so much more important to me. Now that we have mastered that, I am working on making her stay in bed till 6am. Even if she wakes at 5:30am, I would like to get out of bed and have a cup of coffee before we start the day. So, I want her to stay in bed till 6am. That is not going very well but I am working on it.

Play

Certainly, her play has become more complicated. She has started nesting her stacking bowls and cups. She is also imitating a lot more. Gregg’s mom bought her a teapot and teacups and she imitates drinking tea from the cups – and then starting chewing on the teacups. But it is so cute. She also takes my coffee mug after I finish drinking coffee from it every morning and tries to drink from it. Since it is one of those latte mugs, her manipulation of it is not great but it is funny to watch. Unfortunately, her favorite toys are everything she should not have – our books, Giggs’ leash, shoes etc. Slapping the TV is also high on her list as is banging on tables, chairs etc.

Reading remains something she enjoys. We read to her every night and at least once a day if not more. When we let her crawl around in her room, she usually goes to the table or bookshelf, pulls down the books and flips through each for a few seconds at a time.

Taking her to restaurants is something we have been doing since she was 5 months old. But it requires a lot of prep. She is never still or quiet and will bang on the table the entire time we are there. So, we need toys, bottles and extra straws to keep her busy. I refuse to only go to “family” restaurants since the quality of food is always worse there. My favorite experience was taking her to a tea room. She wanted to play with the teapot and teacups since they look like her toys. But imagine a baby with china!!!! It was a whirlwind experience keeping things out of her reach.

Dancing is also a favorite activity. We do not let her watch TV but Gregg usually keeps a game on after 7pm. Well, one day, Gregg and I were too tired to resist and we put on an episode of the Big Bang Theory (we just started watching this show). To our amusement, Asha started dancing to the theme song. Since then we play it often (just the song, not the show) and she dances to it every time. It is adorable!!!

Food

She got her first tooth FINALLY. That was a terrible experience – crankiness upped about 10 times for a few days. This tooth finally popped when she was 10 months old. I was so relieved. I thought she was going to be one of those babies who are toothless on her first birthday. Since then, it seems as if she has not stopped teething. FIVE more teeth have popped out in the last two months. After her first tooth came out, I would always say to her, “Time to go brush your tooth!!” Cannot say that anymore. I will miss her toothless smile though.

Eating has been a disaster. She has been pickier and pickier. Yogurt and bananas are her staples. The only other things she eats are oatmeal and mac and cheese. But of course she will not eat just any mac and cheese. She ONLY likes Kraft Homestyle – the one with bread crumbs etc. She hates even juice – we tried grape juice once and she dribbled it out of her mouth. She likes the banana cookies made by Gerber and animal crackers and Gerber cereal. One of the things she does which I love is that she tries to feed you her food. While she is playing with her food and frequently throwing it on the ground for Giggs, you can go up to her and say, “May I have some?” She takes a piece and extends it towards you and will try to put it in your mouth. Giggs has taken to sitting beneath her high chair as she feeds him anything on her plate. I still have to feed her since she never eats anything when  left on her own.    

Personality

As I said, she is fiercely independent and active. She does not stop for a minute and is very easily bored. I am sure most toddlers are this way. However, what bothers me is that the tantrums have already started. Just take away something she is not supposed to have and it leads to screaming, crying and even hitting. The hitting and scratching started a month ago and she tries to do it whenever she is upset. The first time she did it, I was nonplussed. I must admit, I was also very angry. But after reading up on this behavior, this is what I do. I hold her hands to prevent her hitting and say, “No Asha, do not hit. It is very naughty to hit.” Then I redirect her attention to something else. Isn’t she a little young for the “Terrible Twos”?

She is super social and loves going out and being around people. She gets seperation anxiety when we are not with her but if we are holding her, she will smile and random people even in a grocery store. We try to get her out of the house at least once a day.

Month 11 has also been a health nightmare for Asha. It was like a storm of illness after 11 months of being well. First she got a stomach bug which lasted a week. Just as she was getting over that, she got a HUGE cold with a low-grade fever. Since Gregg and I had the same thing, no one slept for about 4 nights. It took another week for all of us to feel better but Asha was well for only about 2 days before she got a higher fever (102F). This turned out to be a double ear infection (her first ear infection) and the poor thing was on antibiotics for 10 days for it. We just stopped those a few days ago but since last night, she has been holding her ears and shaking her head. I am hoping this is not another ear infection but she is not feverish yet and we have a doctor’s visit on Monday anyway.

Birthday

I plan on writing a separate post about her birthday.

Having Asha has been such a ride!!! I cannot believe that she is a toddler. My favorite moment of the day is when I go and get her out of her crib in the morning and she gives me a dazzling smile and puts out her arms to be lifted up. In spite of my exhaustion, in spite of the fact that it is the crack of dawn, it makes me smile. When the fussing or tantrums make me want to tear my hair out, I always try to remember that moment when she is delighted to see me. I do not want her to get to an age when she will not need me to lift her out of her crib. That is the best moment I can imagine with her. Yet, watching her grow and develop is also fascinating. Yes, I have been this ambivalent about her turning one for a long time. And finally, part of me is delighted to say, “We made it!!”

Adventures in the Kitchen - BAKING!!!!

I have never been a baker. I do not like baking. I am awful with dough and I hate measuring things out. All my cooking consists of estimating amounts. Gregg, on the other hand, loves working with dough. He makes the dough to make his own pizzas. The dough was usually made in our bread-maker which we got as a wedding present in 2007. In fact, though we made some bread in our bread-maker, it primarily served as a dough-maker. Well, this piece of equipment which has been with us for over 4 years, broke about a month ago. It moved with us from Charlottesville to Farmville to Lancaster to Lititz. After mourning it for about a week, Gregg and I started talking about replacements. I wanted another bread-maker but Gregg suggested a KitchenAid Stand Mixer which we have always wanted but never bought. However, there are a few reasons why we hesitated:

1)      It is expensive.

2)      How much do you need to use it to justify the purchase?

3)      Since we only make doughs for pizza, it does not seem worth the money.

However, we saw one on a huge sale at Kohl’s and bought it anyway. We bought the black 4.5 quart artisan one and saved over a $100 on its actual price. Then, against Gregg’s inclination, I bought a very cheap loaf pan. Now all I can say is: how did we ever live without this gadget?

In the last month, Gregg has made 3-4 pizza doughs, I have made 4 loaves of white bread and 2 of banana bread. The bread from the bread maker was definitely inferior to store-bought while the bread made from the KitchenAid recipe book is definitely superior. This loaf comes out evenly shaped and baked and is great for making sandwiches. I also made banana bread for the first time – this recipe is from epicurious and I really like it. It is not too banana-y. We also made a gingerbread cake from scratch – I say “we” because it was Gregg’s idea and he did most of the work. It is absolutely amazing. It uses both fresh and ground ginger which gives it a bite which ground ginger alone does not. However, the beer and the brown sugar balance the ginger wonderfully well. This recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated. Gingerbread cookies are next on the fall baking list.

My next venture will be pie crusts and pastry – since I need them to make home-made samosas and apple pies. I usually buy them from the store but I want to stop that. We have a cheap $20 pasta maker and Gregg has been making the pasta dough in the mixer too. I must say, in spite of the costly nature of this purchase, I think we may end up saving money in the long run. Bread, pasta and pizzas as well as pie crusts are expensive at the store.     

One of these days, I want to list my favorite kitchen gadgets. But this one will definitely be one of them. I am so excited. I have always loved the smell of a house with fresh baked bread, cake etc and I want it to be one of Asha’s memories too. Love love love this purchase.

Artsy Craftsy Projects for Artsy Craftsy Dummies

I am TERRIBLE at anything arty. Seriously, I could not draw a stick figure. Asha can draw better now than I can – and she cannot hold a pencil properly. This has never really bothered me. I do not like artsy-craftsy projects. I do not even like decorating my house. However, since Asha has been born, this has bothered me. I have not even made a baby book for Asha yet.

Then I decided to use Shutterfly. I love that site. It allows me to use our pictures of Asha to create all sorts of things which look beautiful. So far I have made one birthday card with it, invitations to Asha’s first birthday and am working on making three different calendars for 2012. The calendars are the biggest project I have undertaken – all three use different photos and layouts.  It is taking me hours to collect all the photos I need, upload them and organize and arrange them. However, they look awesome on my computer. I am also planning to make her a photo book for her with people she should be able to identify. She loves pictures, so the picture book would be a present for her.

I also discovered that there are websites that allow you to custom make family cookbooks. This is something I plan to work on in the future – I think it would be a very cook project.

These websites are made for people like me – people who are not artistic and yet, want to commemorate occasions and events. People who do not scrapbook but would like to do so with the least amount of fuss. These projects require time and trouble but they do not require expertise. I love these websites and the end products I have received thus far are great.

Separation Anxiety

When I went back to work 6 weeks after Asha was born, I was relieved!!! This was the first time in 6 weeks that I had taken a shower before 7pm, the first time in 6 weeks that I got into a quiet car and turned on my own music, the first time in 6 weeks that I was getting adult interaction during the day. You get the picture!!!! Of course it helped that this was also the last week of classes, the next week was exam week and then I would get another 4 weeks at home with her.

When I went back to work 4 weeks later, I felt much worse. This would be a whole semester and I would leave her home every day. By this point she was about 2.5 months old and over the worst of her colic. She was starting to smile and focus on us more and it was much more difficult leaving her. I thought about her all the time I was at school and called about 5-6 times during the day to check on her. Gregg was just starting to get irritated when my parents arrived and they were only too happy to fill me in on all her gestures, sounds, bowel movements etc. every time I called. Shortly after they left, school was done for the semester and I did not have to irritate Gregg for long.

The last few nights have been very difficult for us. We phased out Asha’s middle of the night bottle because it was clear she did not need it. She was drinking a maximum of 4oz at night and then spent another 45 minutes pulling our hair, smiling, examining our teeth etc. She just wanted to play. She has not had a night bottle in the last 4 nights and while she still wakes at least twice, she has stayed up only 15-30 minutes each time. However, I find myself waking up at 4am and unable to go back to sleep. This is very bad because we go to bed around 11pm, we get up with her twice and so waking and staying awake at 4am means I get almost no sleep. I wondered why this kept happening even when I was exhausted. Then it occurred to me – this is separation anxiety. I do not want to leave Asha home on Monday. She is now 10 months. She is crawling, standing, saying mama. She loves me to sit on the floor so she can crawl over me and around me to grab toys I hide. She loves playing hide-and-seek. She loves grabbing my leg, pulling herself up and hanging on while I take mini-steps. She is making new sounds all the time – testing different inflections with the same word. I will miss all this while I am at work.

I have never even considered being a stay-at-home mom (and not just for financial reasons). I love my job and love adult company and interaction. But now I know why they make this decision. I do not want to miss her milestones. I miss her company. It is getting more difficult to leave her as she grows because I love her company and her personality. Oh well!!! I am trying to console myself with the thought that when she reaches an age when she will not want my company, I will feel glad I kept my job!!!!     

New Year is Here!!!!

While most people see January 1st as New Year’s Day, any teacher’s New Year is the first day of the fall semester. New Year has always been bittersweet for me. It lacks the unreflective delight with which I treat Thanksgiving. The New Year always makes me look back as much as forward – assessing the past year, its successes and failures and all that I did not accomplish or did accomplish. I have the same attitude to the new school year. I usually become aware of it through an increasingly tight knot in my stomach. This knot first manifests itself around the beginning of August and makes its way from my stomach to my throat by the back of my throat. It is the stress of the new school year – easing back into a life flooded with emails, grading, teaching, committees, etc. It is the thought of the time you squandered during the summer. I taught summer school this year and started a syllabus for a new course. However, the syllabus is incomplete and I have to finish it and submit it during the first couple of weeks of the semester. Even the small things seem insurmountable – for instance, I need to sew buttons and hems on a number of my skirts and shirts and I need it done before the end of next week. I had all summer to do it but….here we are.

In today’s world, teaching is not a 9am-5pm job. Students email you at all hours of the day and expect a response accordingly. Activities have to be held after school. Most importantly, any and all research has to be done after school. Increasing class sizes do not help. This semester, I have some 175 students in my classes total. That is a lot of grading (no TAs or RAs). Teaching political theory makes it worse because you cannot have multiple choice exams in that subject. Grading 175 papers and 175 essays 3 times in the semester takes up an enormous amount of time. Everything is increasing – students, advisees, grading, committee work etc. Yet, without the research, all these things become boring, mundane and outdated. To be frank, the time to do research is so limited during the semester. Whoever thinks that teachers work part-time for 9 months out of the year never taught a day in their life.
The academic New Year is here and I am going to make a few resolutions here (publicly) in the hopes it will help me to keep them. Some of these I am really good at, others not so much. So here goes:

1. Answer all emails within a 24-hour period
2. Complete all grading within 2 weeks of receiving the exams
3. Get the syllabus for a new class completed and turned in by the end of September
4. Read 5 dystopias for my dystopia project
5. Use fall break for making quizzes for each class and uploading them online

If anyone has any other new year suggestions/resolutions they make for the academic year, please feel free to share. How do you feel about the start of the academic year?

Balance

Being a teacher, I wonder if anyone has ever heard those comments: “Oh, you only work 9 months out of the year.” Or, “you only teach 3-4 hours per day? What do you do the rest of the time?” “You are so lucky to get 3 months off during the summer.” I mean, haven’t the Republicans been saying that the crazy debt we are in is because of teachers unions who extract a lot more money and benefits than is necessary for a job where we stop working at 2-3pm and get 3 months of “vacation”? This is the perception of my profession. This always drives me crazy.

There are two types of exhaustion – physical and mental. I always find myself mentally exhausted at the end of 3 continuous hours of teaching. (Physically exhausted too but that is only because I pace through all 3 hours of class). Anyone who has taught a class knows that a teacher cannot space out mentally for even one minute. That is the minute when someone says or does something stupid. Three hours of total focus is mentally exhausting. At the end of a day like that, I can spend time with Asha and she actually proves to be relaxing. She is physically exhausting to be around but not mentally exhausting (unless she is having a cranky spell which are, thankfully, infrequent).

Problem is that this summer I have spent each second around Asha. She is physically exhausting but not mentally so. However, I get no “mind work” when I am around her. She has learnt to stand and so if my laptop is on, she spends all her time slapping it, pressing random keys and deleting it. If I try to read, she grabs the book and crumples the pages. I do not watch TV around her. So, it can mean hours of grabbing objects and naming them (“ball”, “dog”, “table”) and reading baby board books. At the end of a whole day of this, I am happy to read some fiction and fall into bed. But then I spend all night making lists of things I have to do – syllabi, school prep etc.

I prefer mental exhaustion (without physical exhaustion) to the other way round. At least I feel productive. After watching Asha, I should feel productive and like a good mom, but I do not. I feel like I should not spend time thinking of the other things on my to-do list. I feel I should get more done. I am neither concentrating on her nor on my work. UGGGGHHHHH!!!! Balance is so difficult.

This brings me back to my irritation at those who think of teaching as a 9-month profession. It is not!!! I get paid to work over the summer. Research, proposing a new course to submit to the department, summer teaching, prepping a new course and committee work. This has to be done over the summer. And I have done none of it. During the school year, it is not merely teaching and office hours. We also have committee work, grading, answering interminable (and often inexplicable) emails, research, advising etc etc. The budget crisis is making things worse. Class sizes are larger (I have over 175 students next semester and equivalent grading), the number of advisees keep increasing, the number of committees keep increasing and research time and conference time and money keep decreasing. I guess we are just lucky to have jobs at all. But in two weeks, school starts again. I will have all the mental exhaustion I need then. And I will miss Asha like crazy. It will be more difficult leaving her at home now since she has started crawling, standing and saying mama and baba in the last few months. If I lack balance now, how will I achieve balance then?

This is the problem – everyone has to balance all aspects of their lives. Some are better at it than others. I am not good at it. I either do one thing or another. I am a multi-tasker but find myself unable to do that with Asha. I want to be a good teacher, a good academic, a good mom, a good wife and have some free time to be a well-rounded person. I am coming to the conclusion that this is impossible with a 9-month-old. Maybe it makes sense to wait till she is a little older to impose these expectations on myself. I like balance. I like routine. I like checking things off my to-do list. Asha, unfortunately, does not like any of these things. Oh well. How do other moms balance?