Coping with childcare (part 1)

We just dropped Stickybeak off at childcare for the first time. Here are some words to describe this moment:

Aaaargh!

Sob!

OMGOMGOMG

Here's another word: Anti-climax. We kissed him goodbye, wished him a good day and then left him in the arms of SOMEONE ELSE and walked out of the room. We took two steps away from the door and then stopped and looked at one another. That was surprisingly easy. No tears, no panicked looks, he was distracted with a toy and all of the other kids wandering around that I don't think he really noticed. So it was strangely anxious and calm at the same time.

Right about now we could've used Hannah's fantastic suggestion for coping with childcare where the centre gives you coffee and a pastry before sending you on your way. Instead we walked through the long corrider, pushed open the heavy front door and stepped out into the bright sunshine. I blinked back tears and walked to the car. "You are doing really well," Noisy Daddy said to me. I told him I was using the special patented Natalie Coping Method* which I will share with you now.

Here is what I will not be doing today:

*Imagining Stickybeak feeling abandoned and upset

*Picturing him crying in a strange cot

*Wondering if the other kids are being nice to him (I can easily summon up images of older kids pushing him over if I want).

*Fretting over whether he ate morning tea, drank his milk, slept, etc.

All of that stuff would be very easy to do but it isn't helpful. Here is what I will do instead:

*Make sure my phone is on and within earshot

*Not engage in any activity that would make it hard for me to get back to the child care centre in a hurry (so for eg I am not going for a massage or facial or getting my nails done or other such pampering things because it would be hard to make a quick getaway and I'm not in a place to enjoy them yet anyway).

*I will call at 11am to check that everything is ok, find out whether he slept and decide if I need to come get him earlier or later - but I won't stress about it in the meantime.

*I will make sure I have had a good lunch before I pick him up because I don't know what state he will be in.

*I will try and relax so I can enjoy the three hours of alone time.

So there you have it. In short, I won't dwell and I will carry on.

I did falter for a moment there. When I dropped Noisy Daddy off at work I said to him "Oh my god, I don't have my boy with me". There were almost tears but I took a deep breath and pushed it out of my mind. (See, it works!)

Fingers crossed Stickybeak has a good morning but if he doesn't I will be there in a couple of hours ready to shower him with love and attention and we will try again next week.

Stickybeak at childcare probably thinking "gee the toys are way better here!".

Did you employ any particular coping methods to get through your first childcare drop off?

*I actually haven't patented that but it sounds good!

The other 'Toy' Story

Source: dosfamily.com via What Mummy Did on Pinterest

Last week, I think it was last week? Actually come to think of it, it might have been the week before. Or was it the week before that?

Hmm I have to confess the last three weeks have been a bit of a blur. Ideally in a perfect blogging world I would have written this entry when it happened but having returned to work I'm afraid my updates have been on the light side. Read a big fat 0! But after making a few changes to my schedule I'm back on track and ready to blog once more.

A few weeks ago within a 24 hour period GeekDad suffered a great loss, not one but two of his much loved 'toys' (also known as a Notebook and iPod) suffered serious injury.

The iPod decided it was feeling rather dirty and the only way it knew to get that sparkly new feeling again was to take a quick spin in our washing machine. It's quite possible (and I'm not admitting anything) I put a load of washing on totally oblivious to the damage I was about to inflict. Oops.

On spying the soggy and definitely clean iPod in the washing machine I rushed the injured player quickly into the kitchen for some tender loving care. Remembering friends had brought their iPhones back to life using rice to draw out the moisture I quickly sealed the iPod in bowl of rice tossing in 3 Silica gel packets for good measure. I then sent a little prayer to the music gods and crossed my fingers.

Later that evening I updated GeekDad about his iPod and fearing the worst we agreed there was little hope for life after a spin cycle.

But that was soon forgotten when he discovered his Notebook's LCD screen was no longer intact. Technically you could still read the screen if a flashing strobe every second isn't a deterrent. As we will never know the culprit we can only assume it was our eldest child, although I'm not ruling out either of our cats whose list of household destruction is rather long and just as impressive.

GeekDad was rather annoyed at himself for leaving his Notebook on the ground (yes I agree not the safest place) especially when little persons are about. But after turning to Google and a wealth of techie forums I found its quite common to replace the LCD screen and if you are super keen you can do it yourself. Somehow I think I will be shipping it off to the vendor for some loving care.

It seems my prayer to the music gods worked after all, who knew after a few days chilling in rice the iPod would once again play GeekDad's favourite tunes.

Do you have any stories to share, when kids and technology do not mix?
-- Hannah

Welcome!

Hi there, this is just a quick note to say welcome to our blog. It's very lovely to have you. We have been slowly plugging away at this for a few months now, we have missed some self-imposed deadlines along the way (and learnt that deadlines and babies don't mix!) but we are finally ready to start telling the world about our little site.

It's new and exciting for us because neither of us has ever had a blog before and never have we published something so personal (Hannah has already written about getting nude and Natalie has talked about nipples and stitches -- now there's two words you don't want to see in the same sentence!). So this is an adventure for us and like any good adventure it is always better when it is shared.

If the name didn't already give it away here we will talk about the parenting experience. Between us we have three little boys -- two babies and a toddler (you can meet the whole family on our About page). But really the purpose of this blog is for it to act as a bit of a memory bank for us. Hopefully it will force us to take time out from the daily blur of nappy changes and feeds and get us to take note of the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly too. Along the way we hope to entertain and amuse you because if you can't see the lighter side of baby-wrangling then you are in a world of trouble! There will also be craft projects galore so don't think that you get out of doing any work.

We are still ironing out the kinks and we get the impression that this will be a constant work in progress -- so it's not disimilar to parenting then!

Thanks again for joining us, we hope you enjoy getting to know us and we look forward to getting to know you too. If we were meeting in person we would offer tea and biscuits but this is the best we could do:



Enjoy!

Natalie and Hannah.

Do you have a parenting blog too? Share a link in the comments section below and let's get to know one another.

baby photo credit: WTL photos via photopin cc
biscuits photo credit: Luna*-- via photopin cc

1st birthday gift ... a snowboard?

A friend just sent me this YouTube video of a one year old snowboarding. Colour me impressed!

Noisy Daddy and I are avid skiers and we can't wait for the day when we can suit up little Stickybeak for his first skiing attempt, we just didn't think that it could be so soon!

We were imagining enrolling him in ski school when he was about three or four years old but this video of little Ava Marie has got us thinking. Actually, scratch that, it made us excited. I even believe the words "let's move to a ski town" escaped my lips. Maybe it was just my snow-deprived state talking.

Due to pregnancy and bub's subsequent arrival we have missed a few ski seasons now, northern and southern hemisphere, so we are champing at the bit to get back on the slopes. We are planning a snow holiday this winter (can't wait!) and have been looking up outfits for the little guy (check out this cutie, love the dinosaur spikes) but I think the shopping list just got upgraded.

As it turns out, the winter also happens to be Stickybeak's first birthday. We were probably going to buy him a kick arse toy, maybe something like a Wishbone Balance Bike, but I think we just got upsold to a snowboard.

We definitely weren't planning on buying him ski equipment for some time but I don't think we can resist now!

-- Natalie

What do you think ... is it too soon? When did your little one start lessons?

By the way, little Ava Marie continues to impress. Check out this video where she is swimming, surfing, skateboarding and horseback riding - all at the age of 2! I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here but I think we have found Stickybeak's future girlfriend.

The one rule of driving

Do Not Disturb.One of my favourite blogs at the moment is Crappy Pictures - it's cute, funny and right on the money. The only annoying thing about it are the commenters. Every post people will write 'OMG that's so true, you are writing about my life!!' -- EVERY POST! 

Her latest post is on eating out with her husband, before and after kids. Before kids they splurged on fancy restaurants and degustation menus, after kids they splurged on drive thru*. After I read this I thought 'OMG that's so true, she is writing about my life!'**

We went away for the weekend recently, just a quick trip down to the South Coast. Normally we would stop in at Berry and have a nice lunch at the deli, with perhaps coffee and cake. If we were with friends we would stop in at the pub for a nice lunch with beers. Travelling with Stickybeak changed things somewhat. There is one rule when driving a long distance with a baby: if they are asleep, DON'T STOP.  Any break of more than five minutes could result in an awake baby who then either: needs a feed, needs a change, or just needs to not be in the car.

So we had our fingers crossed that a stop in Berry would work out but it wasn't meant to be. Stickybeak was fast asleep and, in keeping with the rule, our options for lunch were reduced to either burger and fries or deep fried chicken and fries, all ordered through a crackling speaker box.

Before we had Stickybeak I could count the number of times we used a drive thru on one hand, after Stickybeak (and just in the space of a few months) I have lost count. Once you have a baby you start to wish everything was drive thru - supermarket, chemist, ATM, etc. But at the moment it's just food, and bad food at that, and where I live there is only one chain on offer (something I never thought I would be upset about!)

So what do I want? I wish I was so organised that I would never need to order food on the run (or in the car) ever again, but life with a baby just isn't like that. So instead here's hoping a new chain of drive-thru cafe/restaurants opens up, offering good coffee, quality pastries and fresh, healthy sandwiches that are easy to eat with one hand. More realistically, I wish petrol stations had a drive-thru option so I could get a sandwich, bottle of water and a chocolate bar without waking up the baby. Is that too much to ask?

*it almost hurts me to write 'thru' instead of 'through'.

** yes I have left a comment on her blog saying as much :)