What we've been doing for the past five (!) weeks

Meet our youngest daughter, Bea. Here she is just after birth on April 2nd, weighing in at 9 pounds, 5 ounces.

Will holds her baby sister for the first time.

Almost five weeks old and taking in her surroundings.

So that is the new normal around here, and it really is the best of what I'd hoped for. Although we can't stop channeling Miss Hannigan: Little girls, little girls, everywhere I look I can see them . . .

Translation fail

But it's still pretty funny to say it out loud.

Reproduction for Preschoolers, Part 2

I was becoming a little concerned that Will didn't seem at all curious about how the baby would get out of my belly. I imagine it would be that, if nothing else, that I would wonder about if my mother was getting bigger by the day and somehow that belly was to transform into a living, breathing baby.

So I was relieved more than anything when she finally asked.

"How is that baby going to get out of there?"

"It's actually very interesting," I began.

"Will it hatch out of your belly like a giant egg?!"

That was logical. I knew Will must have come up with her own explanation.

"Um, no. Actually it will come out of my vagina. The baby's head is right here, and when it is ready, it will come down a tunnel and out. Of my vagina."

Will looked at me, her eyes wide.

"But what about your pants and underwear?"

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As the weeks and now days count down to the birth, Will's concerns have remained focused.

"When it's time for that baby to come out, you need to get your pants and underwear off really fast!"

"But Mama, when the baby comes out, won't it fall on the floor?" (I explained that the midwives' job was to catch the baby so it didn't, in fact, fall.)

"When the baby wants to come out, get to the hospital, and then get your pants and underwear off right away!"

Reproduction for Preschoolers, Part 1

As my belly got bigger, I started waiting. I knew the question would come sooner or later: how will that baby get out of there?

But it was as if she had it all figured out in her 3 year old brain. Will showed no interest in how the baby would leave its current environment and join us in ours. She seemed to already have a theory she was comfortable with as the weeks went by.

She did need clarification on one little thing.

"How did that baby get in there?"

Her question took me by surprise as we were waking up one morning. Before I could answer, she got distracted by something and I took refuge in the Internet. ("explaining pregnancy to a preschooler" "preschooler asking how baby got in there" "reproduction for precocious 3 year olds" "HELP!!")

Will is quite nosey by nature, so I was convinced that a discussion of the "egg and seed" (which I had to practice saying with a straight face) was not going to be enough. But by god, I was ready, and of course, she waited for weeks before asking me again.

"Mama, how did that baby get in there?"

"It's actually very interesting," I began. "You see, the mommy has an egg, and the Daddy has a seed. And when the Daddy gives the seed to the mommy . . ."

Will's eyes lit up. "Then the baby grows and grows!"

"That's right!" I waited for her to ask where the egg and seed were kept, or how exactly the Daddy made the transfer.

She had other things to think about. "I wonder if the baby liked being a seed!"

"I have no idea."

Now with more crazy

I was going to blame the entire contents of this post on my daughter. I was going to describe the adolescent moodiness that is 3 1/2 (almost 4): my daughter, sweet and creative and thoughtful in one moment, stubborn and willful and cah-razy the next.

But you know, it's not all about the crazy of being three. It's that crazy coming up against the last trimester of pregnancy insanity. When those two collide? Watch out.

True events that have happened in the last few weeks:

The Bookstore Bathroom Battle
Will and I are about to leave Chapters after a lovely morning when she tells me she has to use the bathroom. We go to the bathroom. She refuses to go. We start to leave the store. She says she has to pee. We go back to the bathroom. She refuses to go. We start to leave. She sits on the floor. This scenario repeats several times until I am ready to lost my shit. I drag her back to the bathroom (not my proudest moment) and tell her we are not leaving until she pees. We are both hysterical. As Will stands in the stall singing I start weeping and text my husband that I may need to be rescued from the book store bathroom.

A few minutes later? Will pees and we go home, with my daughter narrating the whole incident as we go, a funny moment that has passed. It takes me hours to recuperate.

The battle over quiet time
Lunch is over and Will is watching an episode of "Kai-Lan" before quiet time, a time that sometimes still becomes nap time, but either way must take place alone in one's room. (Um, yeah. That part is not going so well.)

The "Kai-Lan" episode ends and the DVR shuts off, but the television has been left on a children's channel. I hear the opening of "Angelina Ballerina," which is a favourite and only 15 minutes long, and I ask Will if she wants to watch the episode before going upstairs. She agrees and we review the expectations: "What will happen as soon as Angelina is over?" Will makes little snoring sounds. "Yes. You need to go right upstairs to snooze or have some quiet time."

The show ends. I ask Will whether she wants to turn off the TV or have me do it. She screams at me. I turn the TV off. She turns it back on. I turn it off and tell her she will not be watching any more TV today. She screetches, "Yes! I! Will!" and turns it back on. I turn off the cable and tell her I cannot carry her upstairs because of my belly, but I will be waiting for her in her room.

I am a little bit surprised that she does drag herself slowly up the stairs. I suggest that she pees before quiet time, but don't insist since she probably won't sleep anyway. She gathers a few books and we sit on her bed to talk about what has happened. I ask her why she won't get to watch any more TV. She knows and tells me. We talk about being rude. I ask her whether she thinks she will get to watch a second TV show anytime soon. She doesn't think so. I leave her with her books and go downstairs.

It's quiet for so long that I wonder if Will has actually fallen asleep. Then I hear her voice.

"Mama! I need to tell you something. I peed."

There is a terrible silence before I ask, "Where?"

Sitting on her bed, reading, my angry almost 4 year old just peed. Just sat there and peed.

That child is lucky I can hold it together, even when losing my shit. She tries to tell me that "sometimes things happen" but I look right in her eyes and say, "This wasn't an accident, was it?" She shakes her head. "You peed because you were angry?" She nods. I put up the gate and make it downstairs before I burst into tears.

It took hours before I could discuss this incident with my daughter. Hours. But we were finally able to brainstorm some more appropriate things to do when we are angry. Scream into a pillow. Do an angry dance. Draw an angry picture.

A few days later Will stormed up to her room and returned with this:

Will told us these people were angry, so they were shouting into pillows. Then they left the angry in the pillows and were happy again.

An afternoon of crazy wasn't wasted after all.

A little story about consent

I may have mentioned before that I am unimpressed with Will's preschool teacher. She is preoccupied with the business of teaching - the planning and the rules - and doesn't seem to "like" the kids, or even take the time to get to know them. Most of the kids attend for two mornings a week, and yet there is a new unit every Monday, so there is no time for them to explore a topic in any depth. Dinosaur week there were toys, crafts and a couple of stories . . . nothing about meat eaters and plant eaters, or dinosaurs hatching from eggs. During transportation week the kids were practically fighting over the play centre with the big road map, but by the next week it was gone. She is obsessed with the kids sitting quietly and waiting at least three times in the 2 1/2 hours they are there, and she even bribes them with gummy bears in the circle room.

It was September when she first mentioned that she would be conducting a developmental screening test on the children, something she was unable to explain in detail even when asked to elaborate. The idea of this test made me very uncomfortable. I'm not a big fan of standardized tests under most circumstances, and definitely not in this preschool setting. I have no concerns about Will's development, and didn't want to risk a false positive score that would put her into the system. I didn't trust the teacher to administer any sort of test, especially to my child. When the consent form came home I clearly checked "I do not give consent" for my child to participate, signed the form and returned it to school.

Can you guess where this is going?

When my husband and I picked up Will from preschool a couple of weeks ago, Will started telling me about "going into the kitchen with the teacher and playing games." It didn't really occur to me what she was talking about until the teacher told me, "She did great. Twelve out of twelve." My eyes almost jumped out of my head, and fortunately my husband was there to ask what she was talking about. "The DISC preschool screen," she answered.

He chased after Will as I looked at the teacher. I hate confrontation, but there was no way that I was going to let this go. "But we did not give consent for Will to participate."

The teacher was stunned. "I was sure you had checked off consent!"

"No. We were not comfortable with the test and clearly signed that she did not have our consent to participate."

"Well, I never would have tested Will if I didn't have your consent. I mean, you can see the test and the information any time."

"I may have to look at it, now that she's already been tested."

I went home and wrote a letter to the board, outlining our reasons for refusing consent and our concern that our refusal to give consent was completely disregarded. Sure, it was a careless oversight, but a significant one.

And then I waited to hear from the teacher, assuming she would check her consent forms and realize she had violated our trust. No email. No phone call. Nothing.

I did receive an immediate reply from the president of the board. Apparently this test is standard practice in preschools across the region (that would have been something important to pass on to the parents) and apparently the teacher is specially trained to administer it (again, that would have been good to know). The president suggested that the teacher would be uncomfortable speaking with a parent about her concerns regarding a child without the test, which is bullshit. That's the teacher's job, and it is my expectation as a parent that she would approach me about any concerns she had with my daughter.

And the issue is still that of consent. No harm was done this time, but what if it was something more serious? What if I denied consent for a flu shot or a field trip and my consent was disregarded? How can I trust that my directions for my child will be respected?

Today I was duty parent for the first time since the incident. The teacher asked to speak with me privately at the end of the day. I went over my reasons for being upset, assuming she wanted to explain her position and listen to me explain mine. Instead she just offered to shred Will's test, "as if it had never happened." Of course I told her that was what I wanted. She said she "felt bad" and had learned "not to work from a master list next time" but there was no real apology.

I'm trying to look at the experience as a chance for me to practice being an advocate for my child. But looking to the years of formal education ahead of us, it really terrifies me. I know there will be more mediocre (at best) teachers and disappointed expectations. I'm trying to remember that even these experiences are important, and that there are excellent and creative teachers out there too. But oh, I can hear the siren song of the private school across town . . .

Random Monday

So today I was the snack parent at Will's preschool. Have I mentioned how much I dislike being the duty parent? Yes? Let me just add that I think I prefer "snack" to "juice" as it involves washing dishes and serving the snack instead of cleaning the bathrooms and running the bathroom routine. It did take me 20 minutes to wash all of the paint toys today, and even then they are not perfect, but I'm thinking the craft doesn't usually involve using different trucks in paint to show patterns, right?

* * * * * * * * * *

Nablopamo? Clearly, no.

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I have discovered the secret to all my parenting challenges: I (often) can't remain calm or neutral. She gets agitated; I get agitated. She gets testy; I respond in kind. I am perfectly capable of keeping some emotional distance much of the time during the day, but throw in a nap or bedtime or the need to get to a destination at a particular time? Not so much.

Now I just need to come up with a way to deal with my triggers before this baby comes and things get a million times more chaotic and testy. (Yes, sleep deprivation is one of my triggers.) 20 weeks, give or take, should be enough time to figure out a solution, right?

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My mind is preoccupied with tomorrow's agenda:

1) First dental appointment in 3 years. Yikes.

2) Anatomy ultrasound!