First Day Back - Take 2

Yes, that’s right, that’s a stethoscope around my neck; at long last, yet all of a sudden, the day has come for me to go back to work. I celebrated my return to work by taking the day off. After the token “back to work photo” (I have a simlar one of me and Toby) I hung my stethoscope back up and took Toby to his first dentist appointment and then met our office staff for lunch.

I remember my first day back from my mat leave with Toby was riddled with anxiety; Would I remember enough to still offer my patients good care? Would Toby take the bottle? Would he nap for Rob? Would Rob be waiting for me at the end of the day ready to hand our son over and return to his teaching job? By 5pm I was exhausted and desperate to see my little boy.

By 5pm today I was exhausted from drinking beer on a patio in the stifling heat, but I can’t say I was at all anxious. It seems I have learned a thing or two this time around J

So what WAS I feeling?

Sigh. As always, life with kids is filled with mixed emotions. Primarily, I'm elated that Mia and Rob are doing so well together that the transition has been seamless. I sheepishly admit that I am also a bit relieved to have survived yet another maternity leave. I'm excited to return to my job and patients that I love, yet I'm already nostalgic for the 6 months I've just spent soothing, feeding and falling in love with my little girl. But above and beyond I'm feeling grateful; for having both a job and a family that I love so much that every day is filled with excitement and yearning.

And what about Rob and Mia? My little girl, who, up until 2 weeks ago was completely dependent on me alone, converted to a total daddy's girl within 24 hours of Rob being on summer vacation. I'll close this post with some photographic evidence of my current obsoleteness in the Daddy-Daughter bond that has fast emerged.

Thank you, my sweet girl, for making life so deliciously complicated and riddled with emotion. I leave you in the best of hands...

Raspberry Picking with Mia

We are at the farm, visiting Rob’s side of the family for a long weekend. The Henry family has a 100-acre farm complete with a pool, barn (with kittens), huge vegetable garden, farm dog, a never-ending supply of toys from across the generations and an ever-increasing number of cousins. It is any kids’ dream come true; Toby LOVES it here.

Today, in a very rare occurrence (similar to a blue moon I might say) I found myself alone on the farm with only Mia to care for. Sitting idle on the farm is not really an option, so I was asked to pick black raspberries during Mia’s nap so we might make raspberry tarts later on.

Caught up in the tranquility of some time to myself and the sounds of the farm, my naïve self of 4 hours ago decided to save the berry picking for AFTER Mia’s nap so we might enjoy the experience together. And what an experience it was…

I’m not going to sugar coat it for you; my romantic notion of leisure berry picking with my 6 month old never came to fruition.

It was a mere 115 degrees out (in the shade) and we lathered on the sunscreen, I put Mia in the baby bjorn and off we went.

To start with, ANY activity that occurs at noon on a typical Ontario July day is destined to be thwarted by spiking temperatures and sweatiness. On top of this, my monstrous 17 pound (and agile) 6 month old made baby bjorn carrying much more difficult. Add to this her insistence to either kick or grab for the attractive berry leaves and vines that were COVERED IN THORNS and you have a most unpleasant situation.

Teaching Mia NOT to grab the thorns, I soon discovered, was not an option. And holding out my bucket of lovingly cultivated berries to distract her only resulted in it being knocked out of my hand and my having to start over again. I quickly realized that the only way for me to pick the berries safely was for me to walk backwards into the berry patch while holding the bucket up in the air, out of Mia’s reach and then pick berries from behind my back. Fun times...I won’t even MENTION the added bonus of poison ivy and wasps that also enhanced the experience.

Suffice it to say, the berry picking activity took WAY longer than I anticipated. In fact, it took way longer than MIA anticipated. It was right when I discovered a very accessibly patch of particularly lovely berries that were surrounded by tiger lilies (which Mia could safely grab) when Mia announced that she was DONE with berry picking. And there wasn’t much I could do to convince her otherwise.

I have a very meager basked of berries and a very scraped up back to show for my intense effort. But, somewhat more useful than either of the above, I also have some well-learned words of advice: when given an opportunity to accomplish something while your child is asleep, DO IT. NO matter HOW FUN it may seem to involve the baby in the task, believe me - -it won’t be.

Bad guys, princesses and eyeballs

Sad as it is to say, I have been having some trouble relating to my kid these days. I made it through his “trucks and cars” stage and even his various sports obsessions, but lately I haven’t been able to see the appeal in his various fascinations. Toby’s latest fixation is with eyeballs, shooting bad guys and…princesses.

These days EVERY conversation ends in SOMETHING to do with someone’s eyeball. What did you do at daycare today? We played duck duck goose and poked each other in the EYEBALL. Can you go and see why Mia is crying? Yes, it’s because her EYEBALLS hurt. Can you stand still while I put your sunscreen on? Yes. Just make sure not to get it in my EYEBALLS he says EVERY TIME before falling to the floor in a fit of eyeball-induced laughter.

When he is not ruminating over eyeballs, he spends his time running around the house making boyish shooting and “pooming” noises as he “gets bad guys” with his swords and “poomers”. (I draw the line at letting him use the word “gun”.) He then runs over to me in elated victory to announce that he has once again successfully eliminated all of the bad guys by shooting them (you guessed it) in their EYEBALLS. Which he says with a flourish before falling on the floor in peals of testosterone-driven triumph.

And yet his FAVOURITE after dinner activity is to put Dido on and dance around as a princess wearing one of Mia’s pink blankets. He also likes to pretend he’s driving a horse (the arm rest of the couch) and heading to the castle to marry a prince. Yesterday we went to get him new crocs for daycare and he picked out pink ones. He also chose the pink potty seat over the one with the racecars on it.

Sigh. I can’t keep up.

I am FUNDAMENTALLY opposed to guns. I hate them. I hate seeing kids play with them. I hate everything to do with them. It tears me up that my sweet innocent little boy has somehow found a fascination with them. WHERE did he get that? We have certainly never exposed Toby to guns, shooting OR pooming; he has never played video games and the only movie he watches (on repeat) is Toy Story 3. (Not to say it isn’t without its own creepiness, but at least there are no guns in it…) My only conclusion is that he has picked it up at daycare and I am trying hard to teach him that pooming bad guys just isn’t a game I am interested in.

I can’t say I’m all that keen on princesses, either, but it DOES serve as a welcome break from all the guns and bad-guy-getting.

So I guess that leaves me with the eyeball situation. Which, I have to admit, I just don’t GET. It’s hard to find the hysterical appeal of them. Maybe it’s my field of work; I have never really been all that good (or INTERESTED) in ophthalmology, and real eyeball emergencies in the office or ER have only ever served to increase my stress level, never left me guffawing in uncontrollable laughter as it seems to do for Toby.

And so I will do what most good mommies do in the situation I am currently facing; I will participate as I can; smile and encourage the good; redirect and dishearten the bad; marvel at our differences and wait for this stage to pass…

Toby wins AGAIN

There are several benefits to imaginary friends; they continue to slide down waterslides with you long after your parents have tired of the activity, and they ALWAYS let you win. Toby and Gochar amused themselves for hours with the new waterslide we got him. Usually Toby allows Gochar a few token "wins" but not when it came to his new waterslide. As you can see in the video, Toby won the race every time.

Terrifying Tball

There are things you are allowed to brag about on your kids’ blog, and there are things you aren’t. Fingers crossed I have this one straight, but seeing as my son has very CLEARLY inherited ALL of his athletic capabilities from his father, I think it’s safe for me to write this post about his Tball prowess. And his deceptive lack thereof…

Toby is a FANTASTIC Tball player. In fact, he’s a fantastic BASEBALL player; we abandoned the “T” part a few games in, as he very clearly was able to hit a ball that Rob pitches to him. (Note: Rob has to pitch. He’s not quite so adept with my erratic pitches…but they have served to teach him what “balls” and “walks” are.) We have been playing “baseball” as a family for a while now with little pieces of cardboard as bases and the plastic bat and ball that he was given for Christmas.

You can imagine the excitement that we ALL felt when we discovered that there is a Tball league in Nottwa that is open to THREE year olds AND that his two best buddies were also going to join. We could think of nothing more exciting for the little guy.

You could tell Rob was excited because on his very next trip to Canadian tire he purchased a REAL bat, a REAL ball, a REAL helmet and a REAL mitt for Toby.

And they weren’t even on sale.

I won’t comment on how cute he looks in his baseball get up because I like to think some of my genes play a part in there. So that part I’ll leave up to your imagination. Lets just say he’s the shortest guy on the team and his #9 jersey comes down to about his knees. And sometimes I kind of want to eat him up.

The first Tball game was a bit of a production; Rob had soccer that night and Mia still needs my undivided attention at bedtime so my mom and dad came up to take him to the game. Rob went, too, for the first half, and I took a billion pictures and met them on their way out the door and on their way back in.

The game’s build up was akin to the Royal Wedding. Hats and all.

I won’t say we’re DISAPPOINTED that he spent the entire game picking dandelions in the outfield. It was a letdown that wasn’t at all unexpected; along with Rob’s athletic ability, Toby also inherited his shyness. And coach Ryan, apparently, is not only intimidating, but making eye contact with him will likely result in the world combusting into an eruption of flames and volcanic ash. Or so Toby seems to believe.

We are now at week 4 of Tball. Toby continues to revel in the novelty and dresses in his Tball outfit with passion only to arrive and hide behind my legs and then resort to playing with gravel in the infield or chasing his friends in the outfield. We have managed to hold him to one rule: he has to be on the field or we go home.

Last week we had a MAJOR breakthrough when Toby faced his fear of the terrifying coach and went up to bat. I have to hand it to Coach Ryan – as scary as he may seem to Toby, he is EXCELLENT with kids. His patience has outlasted mine by leaps and bounds and he knew EXACTLY how to handle the fact that Mr. Shy finally stepped up to bat. He did not make a big deal of things but treated Toby just like all the other kids and showed him how to hold the bat and find the ball.

I could hear the other kids, parents and fans all hold their breath as Toby stepped up to the plate.

This was the moment my shy kid would show the world that he has a hidden talent for baseball. As he took a swing at the T I pictured the reaction of the crowd as the youngest kid on the team hit the first home run of the season.

With the piddliest little swing I’ve ever seen him take, Toby finally made contact with the ball on the 3^rd swing and sent it about a quarter of the way to the pitcher before standing there looking dumbfounded as people cheered enthusiastically and encouraged him to run to first base. That was enough for him; off came the helmet and back to the dugout he ran with his eyes on the ground.

SERIOUSLY, KID? Is that ALL you got!?!?

Alas, I am an optimist. We have many more weeks of Tball ahead. ONE OF THESE DAYS, his shyness will part and he will shock the world with his surprisingly accurate swing. We can only hope…