1m2aSandbox

I’ve had a couple mommies ask about baby-friendly bug repellant, so here ya go.

When summer came and we began hitting the park twice a day, I didn’t think much about insect repellant. After all, I’d never been one to get a lot of bites myself, so how bad could it be? Still, being the over-researched mommy that I am, I asked our pediatrician about it at our 12-month visit as a “just in case” scenario.

She told me we need to stay away from any chemical bug repellant for a few years still. Anything with Deet or pesticides in it is off-limits, since the chemicals are absorbed through the skin. The best solutions she offered were to either buy a “natural” bug spray, or stay indoors from dawn to dusk and avoid things like camping. Because of where we live, the West Nile Virus is a real possibility and she urged us to not look on mosquito bites as a rite of passage for kids.

I dutifully tucked the information away at the back of my brain, not really thinking I’d ever need to use it. Three nights later we returned from our evening park trip, only to discover four huge new welts on the back of Maddie’s legs. The next day, another one appeared after our morning play time!

Obviously, the mosquitos had discovered Madeleine’s delicious sweetness and declared it Open Season. 

. . . is Maddie’s two front teeth.

Heck, I’m not even that picky. Any teeth will do at this point.

Last week’s poll results are in, and I’m trying not to take it personally but it seems every vote you mommies cast on when your child got her first tooth was a smug (ok, to my jealous mind) reminder that my daughter’s smile is still gummy.

Most mommies said their child got a first tooth right around six months, which is textbook teething time. The rest of you were evenly spread out over the next six months right up to one year old, except for one poor mommy whose child was an early bloomer at four months. I say poor mommy since I can’t imagine nursing for so many months with a mouth full of teeth chomping down on you.

And out of everyone who voted, no one said her child got a tooth after one year old! Meanwhile, here I am with the close-to-fourteen-month Toothless Wonder. 

Ok moms, it’s time to ‘fess up.

We all know that life right after the baby comes is crazy, and we’ve all told the horror stories about not getting a shower for 12 days straight, or only getting one leg shaved before a baby meltdown.

Once those first few weeks (ok, first few months) are over, though, most of us still would prefer to do more important stuff – like sleep – than blow dry our hair to picture-perfect straightness any more; our meticulous grooming becomes a thing of the distant past.

So where do you fall? Are you still carving out time from those four hours a night of sleep to get up and get a full face of makeup on? Are you happy to aim for “neat”? Is a once-a-week shower now standard? Or are your sites set even lower?

Be honest – it’s an anonymous poll, after all. As always, the poll will be up all week on the right-hand side of the home page, under all the content tabs. You don’t need to be a registered user to vote; simply click and submit to have your voice heard! 

I’ve always been a big Egyptology buff, and I’m lucky that I can indulge my fetish at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; their collection is amazing and I’ll happily walk through it and lecture (completely incorrectly, I’m sure, but my friends know even less than I do) for hours.

The Met recently had a lovely exhibit come through on Queen Hatshepsut, and when I saw the ads early this spring my pulse quickened and I made a mental note in my daytimer not to miss it.

Until reality came back, and I realized oh, yes, I have a kid now.

Unfortunately for Maddie, I really like Egyptology, so in the last days of the exhibit the Madster and I carefully packed a diaper bag and hopped into the car. I spent the drive excitedly talking about the 18th Dynasty and politics of the day; Maddie spent the drive excitedly talking about her plastic keys.

We recently had a couple of excruciatingly hot days here in New York City. And believe me, I know from hot; I’m a Texas girl. The difference between Texas heat and New York heat? Everything in Texas is air-conditioned, and the power company assumes you’ll actually use it.

In New York, however, you’ve got mass transit with its stiflingly hot subway platforms, a preponderance of small stores and homes without air-conditioning, and a power company that seems so surprised when power usage goes up during a heat wave that you almost feel sorry for them.

We spent several days in a brownout, making being out and about actually attractive in comparison to the sweaty, still air of our home. So we hit the park several times a day, and came up with lots of reasons to run stroller errands.

Even with the park being cooler than our home, Maddie still worked up a sweat running around. She’s always been a bit prone to heat rash, especially on her neck and back of her shoulders from snuggling while nursing. I’ve always thought it’d be something we simply lived with, but I recently found a product that’s helped us out a lot.

Maddie’s whole current separation anxiety thing seems to be a part of a larger issue these days: transitions.

We’ve spent a lot of time working on transitions from a parenting point of view (see previous blog), but Madeleine’s hitting an age of awareness where she needs a little help going from A to B.

Any change in her activity can set her off. And I don’t mean a change in her daily schedule; we’ve got a routine going and it helps her feel confident about what’s coming next, but we mix up our life enough that she’s not stressed if we skip the park one evening or don’t have Music Time one afternoon.

I mean smaller transitions: going from playing an instrument to having a diaper changed. Or leaving the swing set to get on the slide. It’s like she enters this timeless period where she’s content to do the same thing – be it playing with duckie while I brush my hair in the morning, or pushing her push toy up and down the hallway – ad infinitum. She enters a “task zone” and is startled and discomfited when that zone is interrupted. 

Last week we were in the midst of a so-dark-of-a-brown-it-may-as-well-be-black out from Monday night to Thursday afternoon, with a little reprise this Sunday and Monday. That means our fridge was barely hanging in there – the light comes on so dimly you think it must be nighttime in Refrigeratorland – but we had no microwave, no toaster oven, no computer or internet access (note the paucity of postings as I went through blogging withdrawal), no air conditioning, no air conditioning, no air conditioning.

Did I mention no air conditioning?