Chooseday: Swings or Slide?

On the walk home today, A. and I stopped at the playground. We had enough time for him to go on the swings or the slide, which did he want to do? Advanced kid that he is, he looked at me and said, "ducka ducka duckaaah," which I took to mean swings. Good thing, too, since there were some older kids on the slide and I really didn't want to have to muscle them out of the way.

A. has never really been on the swings before -- we stuck him in once when he was four months old, and in danger of slipping through the leg hole if we let go -- and his reaction was just what I had hoped for: pure joy. He was in between two other boy babies being swung by their nannies, who were both very friendly to A. and sweet with their charges. Then the mother of one of the boys came charging up to the fence. "Esther, how do I get in here?" Esther turned towards her to tell her and gesture to the gate. "Keep your eyes on him!" the mother shrieked. Sigh. The baby was, of course, fine in the swing for the two seconds Esther looked away.

This is one of many reasons I'm glad A. is in daycare. It's incredibly hard giving up control of what happens to your child when he's not in your direct care. Daycare can be chaotic, with its many children and several caregivers, and after the first few days, I realized I just had to go with it. But when you have a nanny she is, technically, your employee. And as a manager, you can be of the micro variety, which sadly for Esther, hers seems to be.

We Need a New Term for This

A was crabby, the bus driver was doing that annoying driving-slow-so-we-don't-catch-up-to-the-bus-in-front-of-us thing, the temperature was above freezing, so I got off the bus a few blocks early.

A promptly fell asleep, as he has been doing a lot lately. (Note to self: Tell husband to confront daycare people about getting baby to nap more.) Despite the fact that I am doing all the carrying either way, there is something about a sleeping baby on your chest that feels heavier than an awake one. At these times, he's a dead weight.

Except you really don't want to use the words dead and baby in the same thought, do you?

Come Here Often?

In my previous post, I may have implied that the baby was preventing me from walking in the cold and dark that is February. In truth, of our little family of three (five if you count Luca and Oz, the heat-seeking cats who crowd us out of bed every night), A is the most equanimous in the face of freezing temperatures.

With the later sunset, a clear sky and a temperature slightly above freezing this evening, I thought we could brave the walk home after work. A few blocks in, it was clear A wasn't having it -- he was tired, cranky, in need of a nap an hour previously. I sang a few rounds of Doe, a Deer, and he was out.

(Tangentially: why can I only keep one or two songs at the ready at any given time? Lately, we've had a lot of Doe, a Deer; She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain, complete with the "kill the old red rooster" line which is a little shocking, but absolutely necessary to the sense of the song; and the Wheels on the Bus, god help me, a song I swore I'd never sing to my children after suffering through it with my younger nieces and nephews, but which turns out to be a crowd pleaser.)

I kept going, despite the sleeping baby, through Madison Square Park, past the Shake Shack that had no line -- I could have had my daily limit of delicious sodium, no waiting -- past several snowmen of the three-lump variety. Then there was this duo, delicately carved, lounging, enjoying the twilight.

Snow Day

I haven't been doing much walking, or Excellent Walkering for that matter, for lots of reasons, most of which have to do with the cold, and the dark, and taking A in the cold and dark is a pain, plus yesterday, there was snow. So much snow, or so much promise of snow, in fact, that there was an official Snow Day -- NYC public schools were closed. Our daycare follows their closings, so despite the fact that only five inches fell and the city did a bang-up job of keeping those plowed away as soon as they fell, the baby and I stayed home.

I love daycare. I can say many positive things about it -- A has always been a sociable little guy and being around so many different people every day has only reinforced that. He's has some separation anxiety from time to time -- not when he's left there, but when I leave a room -- but never any stranger fear. This could be a bad thing later on, but for now, when he's charming the tired after-work bus riders into a smile and a ba ba ba, it's great. Plus, I assume he'll effortlessly learn to wait his turn and share his toys at some point in toddlerhood, saving his father and I from actually having to discipline him.

I need to work for the usual reasons, so don't spend a lot of time second guessing our daycare decision, but if there's anything that brings on my deep-seated guilt reflex (Catholic upbringing, see), it's this: A takes huge developmental leaps every time he spends a day with my or my husband's undivided attention. The multi-consonant chattering, the tentative steps clutching on to our hands, the commando-style clawing his way across the floor -- these all happened at the ends of weekends, not the beginning.

Yesterday was no different. Around 6, I was starting to get weary, playing on the floor of A's bedroom, waiting for it to be bathtime. I put my head to the carpet, in Child's Pose. I looked up to see him doing the same. I bent down again, he bent down again. Over and over, my little yogini followed me.

What could he be doing if he had me home all the time? Reading? Sorting the recycling? Saying more than one word, or applying that one word to only the thing it actually represents and not several things it doesn't? Then I remembered. In addition to other kids and sharing and French lessons for god's sake, daycare has a yoga instructor in once a week. Maybe the snow day was keeping him back.