The Walking Conundrum

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Apparently shoving chairs around the kitchen is MUCH MORE FUN that using his actual walking toy.

I think we have a problem.
It seems as if my kid might be as stubborn as I am.

Jack is 16 months old and STILL doesn’t walk. He creeps like a champ holding onto furniture, walls, people, and walking toys. But darn if he won’t just LET GO and walk on his own.

I’m pretty sure he’s doing it to spite me.

I think he CAN walk, but just chooses not to. That’s right, he probably breaks into funky dances the moment that I’m looking away, but as long as anyone is staring right at him he pretends that crawling is where it’s at.

Maybe he overheard me smugly saying what a “laid back mommy” I’ve been so far and decided to mess with my head.* You know, just to make sure everyone knows that he’s the boss.

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Hey kid, these boots are made for WALKING. (Actually, I took this picture so I could send it to my brother and husband with the caption, “Pulling. It. Off.”)

So it seems that not only has my son trained me to hand over a bit of whatever food I’m eating when he yells “MORE,” but he’s also making me carry around his 25 pounds of butterball-ness because he thinks it’s funny.

Awesome.

He’s not only as stubborn as me, but he has my sense of humor too.

I’m screwed.

*Yes, I know he was a preemie and I’m supposed to count back two months when comparing him to other kids. And yes, I know that you’re not supposed to even compare kids anyways because they’re all different. But COME ON… you’d be worrying too, right?!

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Oogaa Love

Do you remember a month or so ago when I couldn’t figure out how to use a placemat?

Yes, I’m quite the smarty pants.

I just wasn’t quite sure what to do with the crumbs after we were done using the mat that we received in our April Citrus Lane box. Luckily, Sam, the founder of Oogaa set me straight. That’s right, she somehow came across my little ol’ blog and reached out. Such a sweetheart!

Even sweeter, is that she sent Jack an Oogaa silicone mealtime set! Just for funsies.

I wasn’t required to write a blog post about it or anything, but we finally had a chance to test it out yesterday and OF COURSE I had to take some pictures.

Check out my saucy little minx…

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Really mom, you’re going to try to feed me when I’ve been doing it myself for months?!
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See, I’ve got this!
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Oh, you want me to try the plane spoon? Okay…
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SUCCESS!

My favorite part of the set is that the bowl is a softer silicone. So when Jack decides he’s had enough and throws it on the floor it doesn’t scare the bejesus out of me. Because, frankly nobody wants to be missing their bejesus!

 

Disclosure: In case you skipped over the first part of this post, I received this set for free but wasn’t required to write about it. All thoughts are my own.

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Childcare Wars, Take 3: The Wrath of the Working Mom

Jack in corner
The hero of the movie. Or maybe he’s the villain? I’m not quite sure yet…

Does the title of this post sound like some sort of kickass action movie?

It should, because that was totally my intention.

Well, it helps if you say the title in a super deep and corny voice. Try it… “The WRATH of the WORKING MOOOOOMMM!”

See, much better.

Frankly, finding childcare is pretty much an action movie, a drama and a comedy all rolled into one spectacular blockbuster. A blockbuster with poop jokes.

I wrote about our first try with an in-home childcare, which turned out to be run by a hoarder. I also wrote about our second try with a professional childcare center that I was initially super excited about… until Jack ended up being sick all month long.

We quit the childcare center in the fall and my mom took Jack for 4 days each week until the end of the year. At that point, we started with try #3…. the nanny.

I haven’t written about our experience with our nanny because I was kind of afraid to jinx things. I mean, what if she seemed super nice and turned out to be horrible within a couple of weeks? Thankfully though, it seems that the third time really is the charm when it comes to our adventures in childcare.

Based on a friend’s suggestion, I posted an advertisement on Care.com. I wasn’t really sure what to write though, so I looked around at a bunch of other posts to figure out how to properly word mine.

Here is what I ended up with:

Reliable and Friendly Nanny Needed for Fridays
We are looking for a nanny to come to our home and care for our son on Fridays from 7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. We need someone who is trustworthy, reliable and friendly! Our 10-month-old son loves to play, so we want someone who would like to get down on the floor and play with him. We are looking for someone who has previous infant/toddler childcare experience and will require references. Both my husband and I work full time, so we need a nanny who arrives promptly at 7:30 a.m. so that we can start our long commutes. Also very important, must be a non-smoker and have CPR training.

Once I posted the advertisement online and direct messaged it to some of the people on my “favorites” list, I received about a dozen inquiries. Some were great and some were a bit more ridiculous. My favorite was the very sweet sounding older lady who said that she didn’t have CPR training, but didn’t need it because she is “a worrier who pays very close attention and totally avoids harmful situations in the first place.” Um… no.

My intention was to narrow the list down to maybe 4 or 5 applicants to do phone interviews… but there was only one person who I immediately loved. She passed the phone interview with flying colors and within a couple minutes at our house for the in-person interview, Jack crawled over and happily sat in her lap.

So it looks like our childcare saga has FINALLY come to an end! Megan has been with us for 4 months so far and has been doing an excellent job. She’s super friendly, professional and takes great care of Jack. The best part is that she makes my life easier and in addition to caring FOR our son, she cares ABOUT him.

I do worry though that someone will steal her away from me and I’ll have to start this process all over again. There is also the drawback of Jack not having regular playtime with other children. I’m hoping to be able to join some kind of playgroup in my area or maybe just start regularly attending the children’s group that meets at the local library on Saturdays.

Do you guys have any suggestions for children’s groups or activities that work for a 14 month old?

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