Parenting

An Unexpected Field Trip

April 15, 2018

The other day, I had to stop at the pet store to buy litter and cat food. Originally I was heading to one of the pet stores in the next town because they have a different selection of food. When we told Rosebud about the pet store, she started talking about all the animals she’d see. There was one problem. The store we were going to didn’t have any animals. I don’t think they even have fish anymore. So, there was a change in plans. We would stop at the pet store closer to home.

As soon as we walked in, Rosebud knew right where to go to see the animals. First, she stopped by the fish and kept commenting on how there were a lot of them. Next, she ran to where the critters are kept. We saw five guinea pigs. She had never seen guinea pigs before, so she didn’t know what they were. I was hoping they’d make their funny noises. If you’ve ever spent a good amount of time around guinea pigs, you know that they make a variety of sounds to liven up the place. That’s one of the joys of guinea pigs. The amount of clean up is not such a joy, but I won’t go there. Anyway, Rosebud enjoyed watching them play together and she found it interesting when they’d stop to grab a bite of hay. She also noticed a ladder in their tank which allowed them to go to the next level.

Normally, the hamsters are hiding, but on this particular day, they were active. One stopped to drink from the water bottle so we talked about how they have to get their water from bottles. One got hungry and decided to sit in the middle of his water bowl to eat. Rosebud thought this was silly. She was fascinated by the wheels in the cages. I explained that the hamsters run on them, but they didn’t want to right now. I wished they had because she would’ve liked to watch them run. She noticed the hamster balls on the shelf so we talked about how they role around in them.

Next, we looked for the turtle we usually see, but saw snakes instead. We also stopped at the birds pointing out the colors of the different birds. We didn’t stay long though as most of the birds are up too high for her to get a good look. She noticed that there was a ball in their cage so we talked about how birds can play with balls too.

She already has a love for animals and is very interested in learning about them. She constantly looks at books showing animals especially the picture books that have more realistic illustrations.

I’m glad because I love animals as well and caring for and protecting animals is something that is important to me.

If we hadn’t taken our unexpected field trip, I wouldn’t have seen the joy on her face as she watched the guinea pigs play. I wouldn’t have heard the laugh when the hamster climbed into his food bowl. We wouldn’t have talked about the different colored birds. Some of those opportunities for teaching and learning would’ve been missed, but mostly we would’ve missed the joy. The simple joy that can be found in something as mundane as shopping for cat food. You can turn almost anything into a teachable moment and you can make a memory out of the simplest thing. After all, it’s more about who you are with than what you are doing.

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Parenting, Toddlers

11 Lessons A Toddler Can Teach You

March 25, 2018

Here are some lessons that I’ve learned since Rosebud has brightened up my life.

11. Talk to the cats as if they will respond. Tell them about your day, get them involved in what you are doing even when you are brushing your teeth.

10. Always eat your veggies first. It’s the best part of the meal!

9. If anyone is unwell in the house including the animals, you must get your doctors kit and get to work.

8. Sparkles in any form must be noticed and commented on.

7. You can always pretend that something is something other than what it is at any time. It shows your creativity and imagination.

6. You must always eat with a fork even if the food is pretend. It’s polite.

5. It’s okay to tell someone that you don’t like something they did unless they’ve cooked you a meal. In that case, you have to tell them the food is delicious even if you avoid eating it at all costs.

4. If you are caught doing something you shouldn’t, yell really loud. It will distract them and maybe they won’t notice what you did.

3. If you find yourself in front of the tv, you should sing, dance or find some way to interact with it. It keeps your brain working.

2. If someone falls, you should always help them up.

1. Hugs and kisses solve most problems and you can never give too many of them.

What have your kids taught you? Tell me in the comments.

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Activities

Simple Water Play

March 23, 2018

Even though filling a tub with water and adding a bunch of random stuff to it is so simple, it has countless benefits for children. This article lists a bunch of them if you are interested in learning more about water play from an educational perspective. Some of the basic math and science concepts such as measuring, sinking and floating or hot vs cold can be taught using water. the best part of water play is that it’s fun and your children can become absorbed in it. Rosebud could sit there forever just playing in the water. She loves bath time, jumping in a puddle or swimming in her pool in the summer.

Since spring doesn’t seem to want to show up this year, it has been cold so I’ve tried to find interesting things for us to do inside. Last weekend, I decided to put some water in a tub, cover the kitchen floor with towels and let Rosebud play and experiment. She had fun scooping, pouring, squeezing the sponge and so on. We talked about whether the water was warm or cold. She commented that it was warm. We counted how many scoops it would take to fill the cups. We talked about sinking and floating. Even though she’s young and doesn’t understand these concepts yet, it’s good for vocabulary building. She got wet of course, but surprisingly my kitchen floor didn’t so the clean up doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. Another plus is that water play can be relaxing and can help a child Wind down.

What’s in the tub?

Water,

Small cups, (I used the little cups you can put salad dressing in by Tupperware)

Scoops, (one of them was shaped like a shovel and the other round)

Different sized funnels,

Small turkey baster,

Sponge, (This one was shaped like a whale)

Ball, (Just for something different)

You can basically use anything that you can put in water. It’s something you can be creative and have fun with.

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Awareness, Parenting

I Fired My Nurse

March 21, 2018

The inspiration for this post came this afternoon after an experience at the grocery store. I hate grocery shopping with a firey passion for a lot of reasons which mostly involve the people I encounter there. This particular store plays some sort of monopoly where you get tickets every time you shop there. The only way you ever benefit from the game is if you shop there often and collect lots of tickets. Since I only shop there once in a blue moon, I don’t bother playing. My mom was at the store with me and she went ahead of me in the checkout line. The cashiers always ask if you are collecting the tickets when they start ringing up your items so they asked my mom when she was purchasing her items. then when it was my turn, I had mentioned an something I forgot to get so my mom went to get it for me. Meanwhile, the cashier asks me if I’m collecting tickets. I told her no, but within a few seconds, my mom returns. The cashier proceeds to ask her if I’m collecting tickets and of course she got the same answer. You’re probably thinking, what’s the big deal? Maybe she didn’t hear you. Maybe she spaced out. While those things may be true, situations like these happen to me all the time. Situations where people talk around me like I’m not there and questioning my abilities and maybe even my intelligence at times.

Normally when I write in my blog, I only focus on the positive and rarely ever write about something so personal, but I suppose that isn’t exactly authentic. People who know me in real life know that I’m visually impaired, but most people who I interact with online don’t. I usually dread telling people and do whatever I can to hide or minimize it. It’s because I know people will think of me differently once they know. I’m having second thoughts about posting this as I type. Anyway, I left the store today in frustration and I didn’t say anything, but there have been times where I’ve stood up to that.

While I was in the hospital after Rosebud was born, there were mostly wonderful nurses who were caring and supportive. However, there was one who was absolutely horrible. She was rough while drawing blood from my baby, she was abrupt and generally had a negative attitude. It was obvious that I made her uncomfortable and that she didn’t think I could handle caring for my newborn. I’ll mention that I had a c-section due to complications and it was impacting my ability to breastfeed. Sometimes women who have had c-sections take longer to produce milk because of hormones and the trauma to the body. Anyway, for whatever reason, Rosebud wasn’t feeding very well and like a lot of mothers, I was having trouble getting her to latch. Most of the nurses were fine with helping me with this. Rosebud and I were starting to figure it out, but it was taking time.

This nurse would make me feel like crap every time I asked for her help. She’d say things like, “we’re working on independence today.” She kept going on and on about how I needed to get up and do things for myself which I had been. I was up and walking around a couple hours after she was born which the other nurses were surprised about. I would call for help with something and she’d take 20 minutes or more to finally show up. She asked what I did for work. I told her that I worked in childcare. Then she asks if I know how to change a diaper so I told her that I’ve changed hundreds, probably thousands of diapers over the years. She started insisting I needed to get up and change Rosebud’s diaper because we were yet again working on independence. I was under doctors orders that I wasn’t supposed to be moving around too much yet, but I would’ve changed her if she had brought her over to my bed, but instead she changed her across the room. Eventually she told me she wasn’t going to help me with any of the latching problems. that I was on my own. I’m sure there was a lot more that was said. It’s been over two years now and since I was hormonal and sleep deprived, I can’t remember every detail, but I finally lost it. When the supervising nurse came in, I told her that I didn’t want that nurse coming into my room again. I didn’t want her near me or my baby. the charge nurse said that she’d make sure she didn’t bother me again. She told me that the nurse was acting inappropriate and rude and encouraged me to fill out the survey that they send out to all patients which I did.

Parenting is challenging enough without dealing with someone questioning your abilities at every turn. I was confident in my ability to care for her, but breastfeeding was totally new to me. No one in my family had done it so I had little support. They didn’t understand why I wanted to continue with it, but I knew it was good for Rosebud. So when I got home, I started researching and talking to other mothers. Eventually everything worked itself out because of my persistence. And, yes, I did it independently. Everything from the research, to working with Rosebud to fix our feeding issues.

I want other mothers to know that yes, you can fire your nurses. I did not know that and only learned that out of desparation. Also, it’s okay to advocate for yourself. It’s hard and sometimes you don’t know if it’s worth it or not, but it usually is. It’s not okay for people to treat me like that and I wish they wouldn’t, but at times proving people wrong has been a strong motivation for me. It has pushed me hard to achieve my goals. Sometimes it’s okay and absolutely necessary to surround yourself with a protective bubble.

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