Today's Resourcefulness

Mama was a little distracted today. The P-Pod is hosting one of Escondido's finest brunches tomorrow, and Mama had a lot of work to get done: sweeping the patio, washing diapers, setting out all the dishes, and actually finding homes for all the items in those ubiquitous piles that insist on settling into every room.

So what did Little P do?

When Mama was outside sweeping, repotting some tired plants, and unsuccessfully trying to hide the fact that the backyard is a huge boring slab of concrete with an eroding hillside of dirt behind it, Benjamin climbed into the blow-up kiddie pool. It was full of water. He was shirtless, but still had on pants and a cloth diaper.

This was tremendous fun for a whole hour.

Later, after Mama brought the Igloo ice chest inside, she came around the corner to find Little P sitting within with his knees up to his chest, as if he were about to set sail on the high seas of the maple wood laminate floor. Mama continued her chores and further discovered that Little P had somhow moved the Igloo chest through two rooms and was placing his toys, very carefully, inside.

But this is not the end of Little P's ability to make fun out of anything. No. He had the recycling bin up his sleeve. Plastic bottles that once held fizzy water, leftover packaging from Trader Joe's frozen bon bons, and, until they were taken away, a couple of beer bottles (and oh, taking those away was a struggle) provided entertainment.

Then there was the endeavor to take all of Mama's cookbooks off the shelves, the journey into the upper drawer and the discovery of the box of birthday candles, the rearranging of the melamine kid plates that were set on the buffet.

He did help Mama wash the dog and water the flowers when he was not exploring on his own.

We won't even mention the dress-up box and the toy swords.

For those whose children are bored all the time, Mama is offering coaching sessions with Little P. For a limited time only. Call now.

Whiskers

A dog is an amazing creature, really. Fur, tail, wet nose, long tongue, undying loyalty and trust...and whiskers.

Little P's most recent fascination is with The Good Reverend Buckley's whiskers (pronounced wee-kers). For a dog with his general appearance, he seems to have a lot of them. But that's all right with Little P.

Little P's Cousins - the Newest Additions

What do the following children have in common?

A. Their fathers are brothers.
B. They were born in 2009.
C. They have an older brother around Benjamin's age.
D. All of the above.


The correct answer is D.

Meet Eli. He is the youngest of the bunch. He looks like his mama, but he has his daddy's dimples.
This is Ryah. She landed the mystery red hair, of which all the cousins are jealous. She's the middle child of this batch of cousins.

And here's Koa. She's a smiley kid. You might notice a resemblance between her hair and that of her older brother Amal - the boy whose awesome nappy head appears here.

If only Benjamin had a younger sibling to welcome to the world this year. We wouldn't have been able to plan the extended family better. But...he doesn't. For now he will just have to co-op these precious cherubs.

Tutu Envy

'Tis true. Every time we walk past the gymnastics area at the gym on the way to drop Little P off at childcare while Mama works out, we spy a lovely piece that looks something like this.

Little P simply cannot help himself. He detaches his hand from Mama's, strides over to the racks displaying sparkly leotards and tutus of all shapes and sizes, points to the lavender and silver tutu and declares, "Pretty."

Mama is OK with this. It is pretty. Many a young man would admire a lithe woman wearing one of these items. And Mama won't be one ounce concerned if Little P puts one on one day to ride around on his truck. He will give it up soon enough, no?

Midnight Toker

Or rather, Afternoon Nebulizer.

Two weeks ago, Little P developed a wheeze and a cough. He was fully into the swing of swim lessons, so I thought it had something to do with his time in the water. Thought it best to take him to the doctor to find out whether or not we should continue.

Oh dear.

First off, the doctor wanted me to believe that Little P most likely had asthma, even though it couldn't be diagnosed as such until he was three years old. For now, the technical term is bronchialitis, which can be a symptom of asthma, but can also be an allergic reaction or caused by a virus. I am positive it is the latter.

I pretty much protested the asthma thing (Not MY kid!) and convinced her, I'm sure, that I am an obnoxious parent in denial. But the thing is, he does not have a pattern yet of this type of thing. He was also showing signs of having caught a bug (runny nose, change in sleeping habits, general crankiness). Besides, there are so many environmental factors that have contributed to the rise in asthma that we just don't have here. But I digress.

What happened next was very much a blur. The blunt, fast-talking doctor left the room, and the frowning nurse reentered, carrying with her a box and some papers and a clear breathing mask with a fish face on it.

"So this will either be $17 or $88 depending on your insurance. You need to call them and find out," she announced, setting it down and launching into how I would use this thing called a "nebulizer". The box opened, she whizzed through a verbal pronouncement of the instructions with nary a pause to breathe, and my head spun wildly.

"Wait," I actually had to interrupt her. "You mean, I have to take home this machine?"

"This is your son's treatment."

Good lord. What if I didn't have $88 this month for a machine? I mean, I did, sort of, but I was in shock about how they had no regard for my absorption of this news.

"But this is something for kids with asthma."

"This is for all people living with asthma," she huffed.

"But he doesn't have asthma. The doctor said this should go away in 14 days or less."

"The nebulizer has kept thousands of people from having to be hospitalized."

"So I have to buy it?" I was confounded by how quickly a visit for a wheezy cough had turned into me buying a medical machine. "I mean, do you have any idea if I can buy one used?"

She looked at me as if I had 27 heads.

But here's the thing. I care about waste. I care about not buying things that are supposed to last and then throwing them out. I looked at this compressor and thought, there must be a way to get this thing used. And I was wondering: how many people ended up in an office like this and were whisked out the door with this piece of machinery, which, after two weeks was to become an addition to, no doubt, profound amounts of medical waste?

"I mean, isn't it kind of a waste?"

The frowning nurse blinked. I could see the look in her eyes. Who is this weirdo? Why won't she just do what she's told? Why can't I just get out of here in 4.2 minutes like I usually do?

"I suppose you could always keep it. You might need it again some day. Or you could give it to someone else who needs one."

Well, duh.

I just let her finish after that. It was clear that she did not understand me at all, and that I was only going too irritate her. And if I became too irritating, I could risk having someone note something in Little P's file which would only hurt our future relationship with any doctors in this office. So I smiled and said thanks and allowed myself to be scurried out the door with papers, and a mask, and an opened nebulizer compressor box sliding out of one arm, while holding onto Little P's hand with the other.

I am not a fan of Kaiser's pediatricians. This is the second one I've seen, and I feel like I am not respected as a parent with a brain of my own.

Let us leave that story now and progress to the curiosities at hand.

We hooked the machine up and Little P had to breathe the vapor out of the plastic pipe - the nebulizer. It took about ten minutes to get through a dose of medicine.

How does one keep a toddler still for 15 minutes?

Baby Einstein videos.

This is the compressor I did not want to buy. Of course I will keep it on hand for future wheezy coughs should they arise...

Oh, my. Here's where the photos get good. He looks like a little, dare I say, pothead.

He's chillin'. Chillin' with his pipe.

Seriously. I knew guys who looked like this a lot in college. And they weren't inhaling no bronchialitis prescription. No, no.

This image is almost disturbing. Almost. I'll just leave you with it.

P.S. Little P only needed about 8 doses before he was on the mend. To date, the nebulizer is waiting to be repacked and put in the closet.

Free Range Parenting...all the way

OK, I am going to have a hard time not doing this every time I read something cool on this site, but I just feel that this is a good entry to share on how being a Free Range Parent is not just about the big moments, but in the details of every day life. Enjoy.

Morning Angst

Oh, dear. Little P is having one of those mornings. One of those toddler mornings. One of those mornings that makes a mama go, "What the heck am I supposed to DO with this?" One of those mornings that makes a mama want to run for the hills, leaving the child screeching by himself in his crib.

New Moms WARNING: If anyone tells you that the "terrible twos" starts around two years old, they are lying. For all intents and purposes, the terrible twos start at about 18 months. I'm so sorry.

Believe me.

I am so very, very sorry.

Puppy dog tails and penises

Forgive me, but I am the mother of a boy and life is only going to get more graphic as time goes on.

So, we finally had to let Little P in on the truth. He does not have a tail. What he thinks is a tail is actually known by another name, and it serves a far different purpose. What forced this sweet innocence into the distant past?

This morning, Little P and The Papa and Buckley and I were lying around on the rug. Buckley stood up and Little P could see his peter. He grabbed it and said, "Tail." Then he grabbed Buckley's true tail and said, "Tail." The Papa saw that, though this was both hilarious and cute, it was time we straightened this misnomer out.

The Papa does not do anything with slight of hand or tact.

"No, Benjamin. That's a penis."
"Penis," said Little P.
"And that's a tail."
"Tail," said Little P.
"And that's a penis," said The Papa, pointing at Little P's diaper region.
"Penis," said Little P.

So this will be fun when Little P starts applying his new knowledge in a variety of situations as he usually does. I can just see it now...some male friend comes over for dinner; Little P points to the place between the man's legs and says...

18-Month Stats

31" tall
26 pounds heavy
wearing size 6 shoes (loosely)
still squeezing into 2T clothes
except pajamas, in which he's a 3T
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

During his check-up, the doctor asked me how many words Little P could say. I answered, "Four or five..." and he immediately started typing that into the notes before the final word came out of my mouth. "...dozen."

He stopped typing and looked at me. Was I for real, he was thinking, I'm sure of it. So I began naming the things he could say: "clock, watch, shoes, chin, eyes, ears, toes, high five, bottom, mask, pretty, sit, stand up, stars, butterfly, blue, sun, moon, water, toilet, airplane, helicopter, motorcycle, blueberries, pizza, monkey, wheel, chair, thirsty, hungry, pretty, sleepy, fan, brown, towel, climbing, rocking, painting and paintbrush, good morning, night, shirt, fingers, thank you, you're welcome, please, frog, swing, swim, slide, run, cup, spoon, cut, eating, trash, dirty, horse, gym, camera, museum, park, art, flowers, tree, fish, ocean, get down, nice, come out, diaper, draw, color, crayons, hair, tail, funny, happy..." and so on. That is truly just the beginning.

In reality, Little P probably says more like 120 words (he knows at least a dozen names alone), but I didn't think the doctor would believe me. He already doesn't like that I refused to get Little P immunized for chicken pox and rotavirus, or that I believe the hives I described to him are a food allergy related to strawberries. (He told me they were something waterbourne. So that day I went home and fed Little P strawberries. The following morning he had those hives again. Excuse me, doc??) So I appear to be a hippy mom, a nutter, and I hid the glory of Little P's verbosity under a tarp. For a pediatrician.

Back to words. Now Little P also says "see car" when he sees a car. Or "climb up" when he wants to climb. He heard a dinging sound at the doctor's office and called it "sic" (he still hasn't got the first syllable of music down). He is starting to count and recognize a few letters. We can count to 10 together. It goes something like this:

Mama: 1
LP: 2
Mama: 3
LP: 6
Mama: 4
LP: 5
Mama: 6
LP: 8
Mama: 7
LP: 10
Mama: 8
LP: 9
Mama: 10!
LP: 10!!!!!

So, we're getting there.

I'm Mama P and I'm a Free Range Parent.

"...basing our parenting decisions on worst-case scenarios does not make us better parents. It makes us the parents of kids who don’t get to do much." Lenore Skenazy, mother who let her nine-year-old son take the subway home in NYC which raised enormous controversy. She's rad. You can read her blog here: Free Range Kids.

On the Tracks

This past week The P-Pod's dear friend Tyler came to visit. As it were, he arrived and left via the train, giving Little P the grand opportunity to experience this fine hunk of steel up close and personally. And, no, we're not talking about Tyler. (Sorry man, you're no match for a train.)

Little people look so cute standing between the legs of big people and their luggage, don't they?

Little P plans his great escape as the men attempt to have one last conversation. He was on a dead run soon after this picture was taken.

Captured! In time to say goodbye to Tyler for an indefinite period of time. Sniff.

There he goes...

The train is picking up speed, clicking and clacking at a righteous pace. For a little boy with an engine obsession, this is a glorious moment.

Goodbye, Tyler! Goodbye, train!

Go See the Captain

The Captain is in charge of the tugboat in Benjamin's bath, that is, until Benjamin takes a bath and completely upends the poor captain's vessel.

So when we are getting Benjamin ready for his bath, we tell him: "OK, it's time to go see The Captain."

"See Cuppin?" he replies.

He sure does love The Cuppin. He loves dismantling the boat, chewing on the life preserver, fishing for the fish, and, God forbid, chewing on The Captain's head.

As you can see, this bath occurred post fingerpainting episode. It made seeing The Captain all that much more necessary.

And when he's not chewing on The Poor Old Captain, Benjamin puts other things in his mouth.

Many Faces of Benjamin

All of the following expressions occurred within a five minute period of time. This is the real Little P.