The Business of Baby

Today Beanie went for her first haircut so I wanted to do a quick post about it.

Her hair had become really long and combing it each morning, even with a wide tooth comb, was a struggle with her crying and me feeling awful, even though I was trying my best to be gentle.

A few months back she finally agreed to pony tails but then lost interest, so here we have the long hair and no pony tails and even though I put clips to keep it off her fact they invariable fall off, so it was a not a good combination.

I have been talking about haircuts for a few months. Her first reaction was "will it hurt?" - so cute - but then she became interested.

Last weekend I took her to my hair salon since I wanted my stylist to do her first cut (my stylist did too!). Unfortunately the day we went it was busy with someone blow drying their hair so the noise put off Beanie.

I had been told of a kids only hair salon in a nearby city so today I looked it up and it seemed fun. It had a indoor play area near by as well so we decided to make a day of it.

I would have liked to do the haircut first but Beanie was not having any of it, so we did the fun place where she had a blast coming done inflatable slides with big kids (boy, she is brave!) and jumping etc. After we ate lunch I expected a big melt down as we left, but we got lucky and then I suggested we go see the "car place".

The salon had cars and trains for kids to sit on. She was intrigued when we saw it online so we walked over.

 It was really nice. A couple of kids were getting hair cuts and it was quiet with a nice play area in the center with trains etc. She started playing and actually agreed to a hair cut.

They had a package of a  first haircut with a certificate and a lock of hair, so we went for it.

Beanie say on  pink car  - not Thomas - which surprised me, and she did great!!

I told the stylist that I really did not want to cut her lovely long hair but we were struggling with knots etc. The stylist was very sweet and cut the length very cautiously.

I got brave and told her three time to go a bit higher...I am happy with the result. Its a bit shorter than I had originally though I would do, but it looks great

Here are the before and after. The after pic did not come out well so I will take another and post soon.

Before

During...

After

Tonight just as Beanie was going to sleep she mentioned that a little boy in school has a baby (as in a baby sister) and she wanted us to have a "real baby" also.

:-(

That sweet innocent request broke my heart.

I expected her to ask about it someday, but not this early, she in not yet three!

The post below has been sitting in my DRAFTS for a long time.....I think given what occurred today its time it saw the light of the day!

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I will come right out and say it...


I am 99.9% sure that I will not be having another baby. And I say 99.9% because one can never say never and there is a huge part of me that is just not willing to close that door even though common sense tells me it should be closed.


There are several reasons why I feel that door needs to be permanently shut and sealed tight!


On a personal level, I feel my maternal need is very happily fulfilled with Beanie. I am thrilled being her Mom and I just cannot imagine loving anybody else the way I love her. I have had the immense pleasure of being pregnant and enjoying the sensation of growing and carrying a child. I have also experienced the miracle of childbirth and am now enjoying raising my baby girl (I secretly hoped I would have a daughter). So, there is nothing I feel I am missing, or would add to my happiness quotient by having another.


If I do toss around the idea of T42, and I have ever since Beanie was born, is mainly to give her a sibling. The question of a sibling becomes more important since Beanie is DE/DS baby, so she may want that genetic connection to another person.


But even when I consider the need for a sibling, I feel that there are too many risks involved now and my logical brain tells me that I need to close that door.

Lets face it, my real biggest reason is age - my age!   I have not mentioned my age since I am older than most of you ladies and it makes me feel rather self-conscious. But the fact is that I got pregnant with Beanie in 2012 right before I turned 44 yrs. Methinks maybe there is an age when its too late to have another child and I feel that I may have reached it :-(


There are real risks to getting pregnant at an older age. I was extremely lucky that everything went very well for me physically during my pregnancy. I also know that both my OB and MFM are confident that I will be able to handle another pregnancy just fine (and deep down I feel it too), but I am still scared. Scared of what could go wrong and how that could affect Beanie. It does not have to be anything crazy, even something like extended bed rest becomes complicated when there is a child involved. Am I to expect my parents to be taking care of her ... and me?

Another concern is the health of the baby.  After that whole Trisomy 18 scare with Beanie I consider myself fortunate that we did not have anything serious occur. Do I want to take another chance? What if there are health complications or pre-term birth? How would that impact my life? And more importantly, Beanie's life?


Then there is the logical concern of finances. Its expensive having a baby. Right now I can provide a very comfortable life for Beanie, but by adding another one to the mix, it would mean diminished retirement and college savings. I just don't feel comfortable living on the financial edge, having to potentially worry about money and have it affect my children's sense of security to see Mommy struggle with bills.


And frankly, being an SMC also plays into it a lot.

If I had a partner maybe some of the reasons above may be less relevant, e.g. finances or even age would matter less if there is another parent to share the responsibility.  When I was married I routinely thought about twins, the moment I became a SMC I tossed that idea out real fast.  It seems really difficult to juggle two babies, a job and take care of a home, single-handed. I have seen with Beanie how much time and energy it takes to raise a child and I don't want to go through the next few years all in a blur of exhaustion.


So, anyway, those are my personal reasons.


I think I always knew, from a logical point of view, that I would only be doing this once which may be why I really savored each day of my pregnancy and why I am enjoying every second of every day watching Beanie grow. I feel I should just consider myself very lucky and blessed to have a happy, healthy baby girl.


Regarding the sibling, sure it would be good for Beanie to have one, but there are many people in the world who are "the only" child. I know several people who proactively chose to only have one child and neither the parent nor the child seems unduly affected. So its not all doom and gloom to not have a sibling (I hope).


Of course, when I see a pregnant woman, or small infants, I suddenly feel that tug. Why can I not close the door??

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After hearing Beanie today, how I wish I was 10 years younger!  

I can see why parents tend to put their kids in front of the the TV - it allows you to do things!!

 I have always been very careful of Beanie's screen time.

For the first 12-14 mos of her life, the TV in our house was never turned  - at all!!   I almost switched off my cable subscription since I never watched it.

Then at about 16 -17 mos I  started turning on PBS in the morning. I would usually watch with her and point out things like, ducks, puppy, car, ball.  She would watch for 5-6 min and then be off playing with her toys - only stopping if there was a catchy tune or song. She loved dancing to the title music of the shows.


Now at 2+ she can actually sit through a cartoon and follow the story and be entertained. We watch some PBS-Kids in the mornings together while she is having her milk and snack before school. She never watches any TV at night. She has also not watched any DVD/movies, eg Frozen.


Also while I would love to get myself a tablet, I don't want to because it will be difficult to keep her away. I just don't think she needs to be attached to electronics at such a young age.  I am not worried about her technological skills since she knows how to turn on her CD player, the radio, keyboard, TV using the remote and view photos on my phone.

Anyway, last week with the time change and her being sick I allowed her to watch Cu.rious G.eorge on the laptop. I was worried since I did not want to open a can of worms, with her then constantly asking me to watch shows.  We have used the laptop to watch live feeds of the pandas in the zoo, or Animal Planet, live feeds, but never cartoons. It went okay but there was the inevitable meltdown when it was time to stop. 

Today, in the evening after she had an early bath and we had a long evening ahead, I let her watch about 30 min on the laptop and WOW, now I know why parents let their kids do it. You get TIME - time to put away laundry, make a phone call, empty the dishwasher, etc.

It is SO tempting. She would have sat there quietly for an hour if I had let her! 

I just hope I can stick to my strict "limited screen time" plan and I don't get addicted to this new found freedom ! :-(

I had a day off from work today for Veteran's Day.

It was a complete surprise which we only found out about last week. My old company did not offer us this paid holiday but the new one does. Last week we get an unexpected email from one of my colleagues saying - BTW next Wed is off!

So I had a day all to myself with Beanie in school.

I did not even dare plan anything other than a massage because I was worried I would jinx it but it went great.

Beanie woke early so I was back home by 8am after dropping her off , which is pretty much unheard of in our house. Usually we leave home around 8:40am to avoid carpool (which she hates) and I end up doing a quick grocery run afterwards so its close to 9:30 by the time I get home.

I had a relaxed breakfast and then decided to tackle my mountain of junk mail which has been driving me crazy. Each time I go through this exercise, I swear that I will NEVER let it get that much, but who has the time to sort and shred junk mail. Anyways I got a bunch done.  Not all - sadly - but most of it.

At 9:30am, I got dressed and called the consignment store where I have been wanting to drop off some stuff. Last time I was there I was #18 in line and I just could not wait 3 hrs!

Today I called and they said they were not too busy, so I hightailed it over, and after about an hour's wait I got it done - whew!

Came home by 11am and did some yard work, organized some boxes in the garage so I could put them outside this week for trash pick up and cleaned the bathrooms (ugh!). By then it was about 12:45pm, so I had lunch and rested a bit and went for a massage at 2pm.

Ahh - I have not had a massage in about 2 mos. I used to go every 2 weeks before I had Beanie - lol!

It was glorious, I almost fell asleep.

After I got done, I texted Beanie's teacher to let her know I would pick up Beanie later, around 5pm, not 4pm. I came home and napped, in my bed, by myself, with no fear of being kicked in my head!!!!

I woke up, had a cup of tea and drove to pick her up. It was a beautiful sunny day so I knew she would enjoy the extra time playing outside with her classmates.

We came home and she got a snack/treat of half a blueberry muffin with her raspberries and we went over to my parent's house for dinner.

All in all it was a nice day.

I really needed this time to get stuff done. I have taken a couple of days off in Dec when Beanie is in school so I can get some things done in the house, e.g. organizing the closets, etc. It is impossible to do these type of things with her although she is getting better. A couple of days ago I actually cleaned the fridge in the evening after dinner while she played by herself which was awesome!

Today has been one of those not so great parenting days.

The type of days where you are literally counting the hours for the day to end. It been raining and we are stuck indoors and are petty much getting on each other's nerves. Well, I can speak for myself at least.

I am tired and worn out!

Beanie has not been sleeping well due to a cold earlier this week and teething her final set of molars. She wakes up crying at night either because her "nosey is not good" or just generally which I think is the teething. I think the exhaustion is catching up to me and I have much less patience than I would like. I have also not had any of my normal downtime at night since I end up sleeping with her early so I can get at least a few hours of sleep. I think that tradeoff of sleep vs downtime that is affecting me too. Plus PMS!

I was reading last night on a blog that the hardest thing about parenting is the lack of recovery time. We don't get any!  It is not like one can catch up on one's sleep or chores or just sanity the next day or the next....it just snowballs.

I am sure its with all Mom's (SMC or not) but life is so scheduled that even one small change (eg keeping Beanie home last Monday since she seemed a bit under the weather), catches up and sends everything off the rails.  Grocery runs, works, chores all get unscheduled and one had to work harder to get it all back on track.

Beanie is napping now. I had a quick nap and managed to drink my coffee, and I hope when she wakes up, we have better evening than the morning we have had.

My PMS sure isn't helping my mood, nor is the endless rain we are having here. Today was supposed to be her school picnic but it got cancelled due to the rain and cold.

This stuff is hard sometimes!

Update:
I think the vent post above and the coffee improved my mood and when Beanie woke up from a nap, I was able to be more present and loving and turn the day around with some warm snuggles and tickle sessions in bed. That got us both in a better frame of mind and the evening went well. My Mom came over a for an hour to play with Beanie giving me time to cook dinner and step out to Tar.get to get a few things which also helped.