Let's Talk Babies » My Parenting Experiences

Miss Dress Up

Lisa Mitchell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:34:10 +0000

For most of her short little 2 year life Maya has had a love affair with clothes. She wasn’t one of those babies who loved to be naked, and as a toddler still prefers being full dressed to being naked. If given the option to run around naked or put on some clothes she will always choose the latter. The other day I had decided to let her run around for a bit with her diaper and pants off because she had a bit of a diaper rash. She got quite perturbed at this idea and kept asking to me to put her pants back on. I ended up giving in and putting her diaper and pants back on because after she used the potty she cheered and said “yeah, pants back on.” After that display I couldn’t resist giving in to her. She also doesn’t like it when other people don’t have clothes on either. As soon as Lorne gets out of bed in the morning she tells him to put a shirt on. There is no walking around naked at our house with the clothes police living here

Over time this love affair with clothing has grown into a love affair with playing with clothes and playing dress up. Whenever there is a pile of clothes laying around, either to be donated, washed, put away, whatever, Maya will find it and play in it. There have been many gigantic huge clothing everywhere messes made in our house.

Nowadays she usually prefers playing dress up with the clothing she finds versus throwing them all over the place (which is good for me!). Any clothes she finds become dress up clothes.

I am seriously going to have to think about starting a dress up bin for her. Just imagine the fun she would have with a bin full of princess outfits and mommy’s old clothes and shoes

11 Years: A Sad Anniversary

Lisa Mitchell — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:08:53 +0000

11 years. It has been 11 years.

On this day, 11 years ago, I lost my father to his lifelong battle with depression. March 4th, 1999

my father took his own life leaving behind a trail of broken hearts, guilt, and an endless amount

of “what ifs”.

The day my father passed away had been a day like any other. Lorne and I were living in Daytona

Beach at the time as he was working on his bachelor’s degree. I was working as a receptionist at

an insurance company. The day was sunny and warm. My father-in-law was in town visiting. I

arrived home from work and went into my bedroom to get cleaned up and ready to go out for dinner

with my husband and father-in-law once Lorne got home from school. As I was piddling around in my

room the phone rang. It was my mom. What expected to be a regular mother daughter phone call

turned into a phone call I had never expected, a phone call I will never forget. Inside of talking

about my day, about what my family was up to, my mom told me that my father was dead. I don’t

remember much about the actual conversation. I can’t remember exactly what she said. I remember

feeling my heart break. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breath. I remember not being able to

cry. I was worried about my brother and how he was taking the news. I remember asking about him.

I remember not really know how I should feel or what I should say.

My parents got divorced when I was 3 and my brother was 6 months old. I don’t remember living with

my dad. My first memories occurred some time after my mom, brother and I moved into an apartment

after the divorce. My brother and I spent time with my dad when we were younger. He would pick

us up for weekend visits. I have good memories from those weekend visits. But in all the time

I spent with my dad as a child I don’t really know my dad. When I was a teenager I pretty much

cut ties with my dad and stopped going to see him. I didn’t call him dad, I called him by his

first name, John.

My father was a troubled soul. He was an alcoholic his whole life and during his last years he

suffered from serious health complications that resulted from his alcoholism. My mom left my

dad because he was abusive, not to us, but to her. My father was also, apparently, suffered from

depression. I say apparently because I didn’t know him well enough to say for certain. I witnessed

my father drinking around us, driving drunk and even a couple of times drinking while he was

driving us. As a result of what I knew about my dad and what I saw I made the choice to cut off

ties with my dad for my own sake. I figured one day, when I was older I’d have a chance to

reconnect with him. As a teenager I didn’t have it in me to forgive my dad or to deal with

the drama that he created in my life.

What I never expected was that at 21 years old I would loose my father and any chance we may have

had of reconnecting. What I never expected is that I would forever be haunted by a man I sadly

never really knew.

For the last 11 years I have been dealing with the grief and pain I feel as a result of my father’s

death in silence. Since everyone in my world knew that I had cut ties with my father and didn’t

really have anything to do with him they all assumed that his death didn’t affect me. they couldn’t

have been more wrong.. And since I knew they all felt this way I didn’t feel like I could talk to

anyone about how I was really feeling. Instead I just suffered in silence.

I think about my dad daily. I feel incredible guilt knowing that my actions and the lack of

my presence in his life had to in some way contribute to state of mind and ultimately his

decision to take his life. I feel guilty that I selfishly thought I would have all this time to get to know

him. I feel sadness that I will never get to sit down and talk to my dad and tell him that I do

love him and always have. I feel regret that he’ll never get to meet my daughter, his granddaughter.

I feel anger that I will have to explain to my daughter one day why her grandpa isn’t around. I feel

anger that my dad choose to leave this life instead of facing it. I feel sad that we are all

here to deal with it and pick up the pieces of our hearts.

I look at pictures of my dad from my childhood, and I can see how proud he was to have me as a

daughter and I can see how much he loved me. I hate that he died thinking that I didn’t love him.

That breaks my heart all over again.

11 years. It’s been 11 years.

On this day, 11 years ago, I lost my father to his lifelong battle with depression. March 4th, 1999 my father took his own life leaving his children behind to deal with their own broken hearts, their own feelings of guilt, and a life time of “what ifs”.

The day my father passed away had been a day like any other. Lorne and I were living in Daytona Beach at the time as he was working on his bachelor’s degree. I was working as a receptionist at an insurance company. The day was sunny and warm. My father-in-law was in town visiting. I arrived home from work and went into my bedroom to get cleaned up and ready to go out for dinner once Lorne got home from school. As I was piddling around in my room when the phone rang. It was my mom. What I expected to be a regular mother daughter phone call turned into a phone call I had never ,imagined, a phone call I will never forget. Instead of talking about my day, about what my family was up to like we normally would have, my mom told me that my father was dead. I don’t remember much about the actual conversation. I can’t remember exactly what she said, I can’t remember what I said. I remember feeling a very heavy pit form in my chest as my heart broke. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breath. I remember not being able to cry. I remember being worried about my brother and how he was taking the news. I remember asking about him. I remember not really knowing how I should feel or what I should say. I remember hearing my mom cry on the other end of the line and wanting nothing more than to be sitting next to her so she could hug me. I just wanted a hug from my mom.

My parents got divorced when I was 3 and my brother was 6 months old. I don’t remember living with my dad. My very first childhood memories occurred some time after when my mom, brother and I moved into an apartment together after the divorce. My brother and I spent time with my dad when we were younger. He would pick us up for weekend visits. I have good memories from those weekend visits. I remember playing outside in the yard of our farmhouse. I remember him taking me to my Grandma’s house and playing with farm animals. I remember him giving me a kitten for my 6th birthday, he brought it into the house tucked into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. As a child I enjoyed hanging out with my dad on those weekend visits. But my memories of my dad aren’t all good.

My father was a troubled soul. He was an alcoholic his whole life and during his last years he suffered from serious health complications that resulted from his alcoholism. My mom left my dad because he was abusive, not to us, but to her. My father also suffered from depression. I witnessed my father drinking around us, driving drunk and even a couple of times drinking while he was driving us. As a result of what I knew about my dad’s past and what I saw I made the choice as a teenager to cut off ties with my dad for my own sake. I figured one day, when I was older I’d have a chance to reconnect with him. As a teenager I didn’t have it in me to forgive my dad or to deal with the drama that he created in my life. It was easier for me to just ignore it all and pretend none of it happened.

What I never expected was that at 21 years old I would loose my father and any chance we may have had of reconnecting. What I never expected is that I would forever be haunted by a man I sadly never really knew, haunted by a million questions, a million “what ifs”.

For the last 11 years I have been dealing with the grief and pain I feel as a result of my father’s death in silence. Since everyone in my world knew that I had cut ties with my father and didn’t really have anything to do with him they all assumed that his death didn’t really affect me. they couldn’t have been more wrong.. And since I knew they all felt this way I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about how I was really feeling. Instead I’ve just grieved in silence.

I think about my dad everyday. I feel incredible guilt knowing that my actions and the lack of my presence in his life, in some way, contributed to his state of mind and ultimately his decision to take his own life. I feel guilty that I selfishly thought I would have all this time to get to know him so I wasted the time I did have. I feel sadness that I will never get to sit down and talk to my dad and tell him that I do love him and always have. I feel regret that he’ll never get to meet my daughter, his granddaughter. I feel angry that I will have to explain to my daughter one day why her grandpa isn’t around. I feel angry that my dad choose to leave this life instead of facing it. I feel sad that we are all here to deal with it and pick up the pieces of our hearts without our dad.

I look at pictures of my dad from my childhood, and I can see how proud he was to have me as a daughter and I can see how much he loved me. I hate that he may have died thinking that I didn’t love him. That breaks my heart all over again.

I do love you Dad. I love you and I miss you.

Keeping Busy on Long, Cold Winter Days

Lisa Mitchell — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:15:00 +0000

It has been a long, cold winter here in St. Louis this year and I doubt it is going to be over any time soon. I’m not a big fan of the cold as it is (I know weird given that I grew up in Canada!!) but when you add a restless toddler into the mix it can make it feel like these cold winter days drag on forever. There are only so many inside activities I have up my sleeve.

Luckily Maya is pretty easily entertained. She plays well by herself so I can get a few things done around the house. And since her favorite activities include coloring, reading and playing with her her dollhouse it has made it fairly simple to keep her entertained. Although, I think we are both ready for the warm weather to get here so we can head outside again.

Yesterday was a stay home all day kind of day. We partook in our usual activities of coloring rainbows, jumping on the bed and playing with Maya’s my little ponies. After nap time Maya decided it would be fun to get out all of the scarves and winter hats and have a little dress up session. She had so much fun. Sometimes the most simple things become the most fun.

And this is my new favorite photo

Hair Affair

Lisa Mitchell — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:45:50 +0000

When I first found out I was pregnant I immediately started dreaming about a girl baby. I somehow just knew that the little person inside of me was a little girl. It turned out I was right Those vivid pregnancy dreams of my little girl always involved lots of bows and pigtails and ponytails and beautiful wavy hair. When Maya finally made her appearance into this world she came out bald. Which was fine with me because I love me a bald little baby head. However, she stayed bald, very bald, for a very long time. She spent the first year and a half of her life with hair too short for even a little tiny bow.

It seemed like her hair would never start growing. It just stayed really, really short. I’m not a big fan of those headband thingys so there wasn’t much we could do hair accessory wise. She wore a lot of hats.

Even when all decked out in a very girl outfit (think pink frilly dress) people would refer to her as a boy. They took one look at her complete lack of hair and assumed she was a boy.

Then one day, when she was about a year and a half I looked at her hair and realized there may just be enough there for a little bow. Sure enough, there was. I was finally able to get one of those little, velcro bows in her hair. It didn’t stay in long, but it felt like we were finally making some head way with this whole hair thing.

Slowly but surely her hair has been growing.

And this fall the most amazing thing happened. Her hair was long enough for a ponytail, albeit a very tiny ponytail

And even tiny little pigtails!

My little girl still doesn’t really have that much hair considering she is almost 2 and a half. I pretend not to notice those little girls in our swim class with hair half way down their backs. Her ponytails are slowly getting a little longer and fuller. She wears little bows and clippys almost every day now to keep the hair out of her eyes.

One of these days she’ll have crazy amounts of hair just like her mom and I’ll look back at these pictures and hardly remember what it was like when she had no hair. For now we’ll just keep correcting people when they call her a boy or think she is only a year old because she’s tiny and doesn’t have much hair.

Every day Should be a Birthday Day

Lisa Mitchell — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:57:21 +0000

Yesterday was Lorne’s birthday. Happy Birthday Babe!! Unfortunately it was pretty anti-climatic since he was in bed most of the day sick. Being sick on your birthday is the worst. Maya and I did try to make the day at least a little bit special. We spent the morning baking birthday cupcakes. Maya’s favorite part was helping put the sprinkles on the cupcakes, especially when she was able to sneak a finger full of icing while I wasn’t look

We had breakfast for dinner, per the birthday boy’s request. Followed by delicious chocolate cupcakes. I think all in all he had a pretty good day, for a sick birthday anyway.

Maya thinks that every day should be someone’s birthday (or at least cupcake day)!!

"Happy Birdday Dada"

Adventures in Potty Training: An Update

Lisa Mitchell — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:12:19 +0000

As I mentioned in my first post about our adventures in potty training, we are taking things nice and slow at this point. Right now we are in the “getting to know the potty” phase. No real pressure on Maya to use the potty instead of the diaper to do her “business”. Every time I have the diaper off I ask her if she needs to use the potty, or if she has that “I’m about to poop” look on her face I ask her as well. If she wants to give it a try we give it a try, if not that’s okay too.

It has been working out pretty well. She had a cold and a bout of toddler diarrhea a couple of weeks ago which pretty much halted out potty training adventures for a while. We started getting back into the swing of things last week. It has been a challenge to get her to return to trying to pee on the potty since our little break. She has gone a couple of times, but now when I ask I usually get the “No, already pee, no potty.” response. We have made a little headway in the poop department though, yeah! Before our break she had only peed on the potty. She was still getting used to the whole process and I think the idea of going poop on the potty scared her. Well, last week she happened to mention that she needed to poop as I was changing her diaper before nap time. I asked her if she wanted to try going on the potty and she said “oh ya, good.”, so off we headed to the bathroom to give it a try. Success!! I made a big deal about it, cheering and clapping for her. You could just see how proud she was of herself. Her favorite part was flushing and saying “bye-bye poopoo”. It was darling.

Since then we have had two more poops on the potty. One the same day as the first when she had to show daddy how she could go poop on the potty now. And, another yesterday. Lorne noticed that she had that “look” and asked her if she needed to poop. She came running to me and said she needed to “poopoo on the potty” and she did. I think this is a big step in the right direction, being able to recognize that she needs to go and taking the initiative to ask to use the potty. I’ve read that kids recognize the signs that they have to poo before they recognize the signs that they have to pee. I think we are probably a couple of months away from the “let’s try it with out a diaper” phase, but we are making progress and I’m very proud of her.

One day she’ll hate me for posting this picture of her, but it’s so cute I couldn’t resist. She’s apparently taking tips from daddy on how to use the potty!!

Up Close and Personal With a Hippo

Lisa Mitchell — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:44:48 +0000

Maya’s absolute favorite place in the world to go is the zoo. She adores animals and would all day, every day there if she could. Luckily we have a fabulous zoo just down the street from us. We take her as often as we can because it’s fun and I love how happy it makes her.

The other day we were in the midst of a somewhat mild weather bout. The temperatures were in the 40s instead of in the 10s and 20s as it had been for weeks. So, when we got up that Thursday and the weather was reasonable (not raining) and the temperature was predicted to be about 45 that day I asked Maya if she wanted to go to the zoo. I got a resounding “oh ya” from her and off we went.

Since it was a school/work day for most people and the weather wasn’t exactly balmy the zoo was practically empty. I think we saw maybe a handful of other people the whole morning. Unfortunately, since the weather was still a bit cool for many of the animals we didn’t get to see a whole lot. But, that didn’t matter because hippos were out and I think Maya would have been happy to hang out with the hippos all day. I’m pretty sure they were happy to have her there as well

Growing Up Before Our Very Eyes

Lisa Mitchell — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:10:33 +0000

The last few days we’ve been watching a bunch of home movies we made of Maya. Maya has a bit of an obsession with watching videos of herself. It could quite possibly one of her favorite things to do Watching the older movies, when she was so little, so different made me just marvel at how much she has changed. I love looking back on old pictures and videos of her and seeing how much she has grown, how different she is in what feels like a very short amount of time.

It is truly amazing how different she is today than she was 2 year ago, or even a year ago. She has gone from this tiny little baby who was completely dependent on us for everything to little Miss Independent who wants to do everything for herself. Her favorite phrase as of late is “No, by self.”

2 years ago Maya was a mere 2 and a half months old. She was still getting up at night to breastfeed, she was still napping several times a day. She was starting to smile at us regularly and let out her first little giggles.

2 years ago today

A year ago Maya was just over a year old and walking all over the place. She was starting to talk and using her sign language a lot to communicate with us. She was beginning that little helper stage. For Christmas her Aunt Cassie and Uncle Stu bought her one of those little popper toys. It was her favorite thing and she always busted it out when I was vacuuming (she still does!!).

1 year ago today

Today, Maya is, as I said, our little Miss Independent. She wants to try to do everything for herself. So many things bring her joy like coloring a picture, watching Elmo, reading books, playing pretend with her doctor set or her little doll house. It is amazing how in just 2 short years she has changed so much.

Today

I wonder what she’ll be like this time next year?

Adventures in Potty Training

Lisa Mitchell — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:45:01 +0000

We have begun our grand adventure into the world of potty training. The potty and step stool have been purchased, along with the pull-ups and we are ready to rid our lives of diapers.

Maya has probably been ready to give this whole potty training thing a try for a while now, but we wanted to hold off until after all the craziness and traveling of the holidays were over and we into a regular routine again.

So, a couple of weeks ago Maya and I hit up the “potty” department of our local Target and she helped pick out her new potty. We opted for adapter seat type that sits on the regular toilet (just makes the regular toilet their size!) and a step stool to help her get up onto the toilet. I showed her the options hanging on the wall and she picked out the Sesame Street one. With the potty all picked out I grab a step stool and a pack of training pants and home we went to try it out.

As I was unloading the rest of our bags Maya was in the bathroom practicing putting the potty seat on the toilet. I asked her if she wanted to pee in the potty, she said “ya” very enthusiastically. Inside I was jumping for joy thinking this potty training thing was going to be a piece of cake. Ya, not so. She freaked out when I took her diaper off and sat her on the potty. She was terrified of it.

After a little rethinking I decided that I would just let her try it out at first with her pants on. For the next couple of days I would ask her if she wanted to try out her potty. She would tell me that she did, but with her pants on It seemed to be working out well. She was warming up to the potty and getting the hang of the lingo and the flushing the toilet part. I figured the best time to try with the diaper off was going to be at bathtime because she almost always pees the second she gets in the tub and she would need to get naked anyway. The next bathtime I stripped her down like normal and asked her if she wanted to try using the potty. She hesitantly agreed (score). I helped her up on to the potty and told her to try going pee in the potty. She did, she peed in the potty (double score). Lorne and I made a big deal about it shouting “yeah” and clapping for her. The girl loves when you clap for her and wanted to go again so we would clap again, it was too funny.

Over the next week or so I managed to get her to sit on the potty everyday at least a couple of times and she was actually peeing in the potty at least once a day, most days twice. We were making some head way, getting the hang of things, when Maya got sick. It has been a week now since she last used the potty. It sits, lonely, beside the toilet waiting to be used again. She hasn’t had any interest in trying again since she got sick and now she is diarrhea so we’ll hold off again until she feels better and her “going” schedule is back to normal.

I don’t think it’ll take to long to train her once we can get back into it. I figure we’ll spend a little more time just testing the waters and putting her on the potty every so often before we start using the training pants. We’ll then try the training pants for a little while until she gets the hang of not going in her diaper anymore and telling us when she has to go. At that point we’ll try it out with real big girl underwear. I’ll keep you posted of our progress.

If you have any tips for us we’d love to hear them? Any tried and true methods to this potty training madness, anything we should avoid?

Best Fur Friends

Lisa Mitchell — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:33:58 +0000

Before Maya arrived Lorne and I wonder what the kitties would think of the new arrival. We worried that they would feel neglected once we brought Maya home and the attention that used to be showered on them was now being showered on a noisy, little baby. As we began accumulating all the gear necessary for a baby we would put things together and just let the kitties check it out. We figured that if they were familiar with the gear before the baby got here than it would make the transition a little easier on them. They were very curious about all the stuff. I think they thought we were buying all this stuff for them! Little did they know their world was about to change in a very big way.

Once we brought Maya home from the hospital the curiosity turned from the gear that was now filling up every corner of our condo to this tiny little person that had suddenly appeared. They spent a lot of time checking her out. Sniffing her and watching her closely, just trying to decide what she was and if they liked her

After a while they both decided that she was “A-okay” in their books and she could stay. The distant watching and quick drive by sniffings turned into cuddles. I’ll never forget the first time Laura (our cuddliest cat) decided to get up close and personal with Maya. Laura loves to cuddle and her favorite thing to do is stretch out beside you with her head propped up on you, it doesn’t matter what part of you, she’ll take an arm, a leg, a head, it really doesn’t matter. Maya was thrilled and smiled and giggled as Laura cuddled.

The worry we had was all for not. Any attention that they kitties may have been lacking from us now that we were taking care of this new little person in our lives was quickly made up for (and then some) by that same little person. Maya loves her kitties. She loves to cuddle them (whether they want to cuddle or not), she loves to play with them, she loves to talk about them, brush them, feed them.

She even misses the kitties when we are on vacation and she hasn’t seen them for a few days. While we were up visiting with our families over the holidays Maya got a little homesick towards the end of our trip and was walking around my in-laws place saying “miss Laura” and “go home, Louis, see Laura. Miss Laura” because she missed Laura and wanted to go home to St. Louis to see her kitties. It was the sweetest thing.

She just, plain and simple, loves those kitties with all her heart, and they love her. They are her best fur friends.