He's a Genius!

Honestly, I think I have the most brilliant child ever. Does every mom think that about her child?

Yesterday as Josh was driving past our pediatrician's office, Micah began to cry. Josh says he stopped immediately after they had passed it.

I'm constantly asking Micah to do things as if he were capable of doing them. It's just something I've always done - even when I knew there was no possible way he could or would. On Tuesday, I asked him to bring me his shoes and he did. Josh and I were pretty surprised - I mean I know he understands, but he often doesn't complete the task.

Today was my absolute favorite though. I was talking on the phone with my mom and Micah was in his room playing. Because Josh is out of town, I had to get Micah ready this morning and take him to my sister's. Thus, his room was still a little messy. I had left his dirty pajama's on the floor. Without being asked, Micah picked them up and put them in his pajama drawer. I felt so terrible when I had to take them out and put them in the dirty clothes. Which raises a good question: Do you correct your toddler if he does something nice, but not correctly? See I know in this case it wasn't a big deal to leave pajamas that have been worn once in the drawer, but it's another thing to let him try to put away dirty silverware. I don't want to discourage him, but I also don't want him to get in the habit of doing things wrong.

Thanks to my mother-in-law for the photo!

It Bites

One of my favorite parts of being a mom are the little times where my son will give me affection. Which is why my heart should melt when I'm doing dishes and Micah runs up and pushes his body against my legs. It should melt, but it doesn't. No, instead I'm filled with fear. My whole body tenses up as I try to shake the little guy off me because I know what's coming next - little teeth in my flesh.

Yes, I have a biter and I am the one most frequently bitten. When he first started biting, I thought he was just mad at me. Now, I've come to find out that he bites when he wants me to play with him. He thinks it's silly and fun. I think it hurts. A lot. It's not that I'm purposely ignoring him either. I'm usually making him dinner or a bottle or doing dishes, but all of this is lost on him. He just knows he wants to play with mom.

Roomba!

There are so many times where I wish that my eyes were a camera and I could just freeze an image that I see and print it out. Sometimes, my camera isn't with me when it needs to be and then if I do have my camera, my sweet boy is more focused on that than what he was doing that was so cute in the first place. I've been unable to capture so many precious images because he's so enamored with the camera. On Monday morning I had another one of those moments where I look at Micah and know that I never want to forget this moment.

I could feel his little heart pounding as he sat on my lap, my arms wrapped around him. We were on the floor of his room watching the Roomba vacuum. It's such a nerve wracking and stressful event for Micah. He wants to see it, but it scares him, so he alternates between going up to it and touching it, grabbing on to me with all his might and then crawling over to it. We spent about 30 minutes watching. His little head would crane to see it when it vacuumed under his crib. And every now and then he would get brave enough to crawl over to it, then a few seconds later climb up on me and tightly grip on.

My mom was over today and she shot a few pictures of Micah braving the Roomba. It's not quite the moment I've tried to forever imprint on my brain, but it comes close.





And since you are all wondering, yes, I do like my Roomba (I'd even go so far as to say love). I'm very happy with him and I feel he does a great job at keeping my house cleaner than I ever would. He sucks up a lot of dirt for a little guy. No, it doesn't mean I can never get out the real vacuum again - it just means instead of me vacuuming every week, I vacuum with the real vacuum more like once or twice a month and let Roomba do the rest.

*After posting this and my husbands comment, I realize some of you might wonder why I torture my child so. I didn't do it out of meanness, I just wanted him to get more used to it. He cries when he sees it. There are certain things that must be done and vacuuming is one of them. He hates the blender more than Roomba and I'm not making him spend time with the blender!

BPA

About 4 months ago, I learned that the Advent bottles that I thought were so "cute" were made with the hard plastic (labeled 7 on the bottom) that can leach a chemical called BPA into the milk. I looked on their website and they assured me that many studies show it's safe and it's only dangerous if you heat it with boiling water...blah blah blah. They have to take that stance - since they don't want people to stop buying their product.

I continued to use them thinking, I don't overheat the bottle so it's fine. A week or so later, one of the bottles got melted while it was being heated up. That was my wake up call. Including Josh and me, Micah has 5 regular care givers each week (and that doesn't count church nursery time). I couldn't be sure that each time the bottle his milk was in wasn't being heated too hot, so I drove to Babies R Us and bought a $10 Born Free Glass bottle. A lot of people gave me grief about it. I tried to explain about the chemicals and they would just stare at me asking what if the glass bottle breaks. I stuck to my guns though, and my little family all liked our glass bottle. It didn't leak at all, I knew it was safe, and I liked the shape of it.

Imagine my joy this week when the today show did a segment on plastic drinking bottles. Turns out I was ahead of the curve for my son's drinking habits, but not for my husbands or mine. Turns out those Nalgene bottles I've been drinking out of for 6 years are a big no no. For the last 3 days at work I've had to drink out of a plastic disposable water bottle. If you know me, I drink a ton of water, so it's not wise for me to use those disposable water bottles everyday. Today, I ordered two new water bottles from Klean Kanteen. They don't leach any chemicals into my water and they are reusable.

If you want to know more about plastics and food safety, go to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (www.iatp.org) . They have a very easy to read guide about plastics. That way you can decide for yourself what you and your family eat and drink out of. I can tell you that my family will be using a lot more glass.

Babywise

Generally speaking, I've been blessed with an easy baby. Micah slept through the night at 2 and 1/2 months. Thus, I never bothered to schedule him or bother myself with what parenting strategy I should use. Should I Ferberize him or use some other method?

How I wish I could go back in time. I know that I still have a pretty easy baby. He's pretty mellow. But I'm lost and confused! I can't figure out why he's waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning and then again at 6. I'm not sure what times of the day to do the rice cereal and when and how long he should nap. All because for the last six months I just let him do whatever he felt he wanted to because it was working. How I wish I could go back in time.

I'm going to try to get him on PDF (parent directed feeding) ala Babywise. But as I start this task I feel like a failure already. I know that it's going to be so hard to switch him when I don't get to spend all my time with him during the day. I have to rely on my family members to help me with it. How is he going to react to going from cycles of eat, sleep, play, to sleep, eat play? Can I get my husband to join in and really do this with me? I hope so.