Ah, spring. We’re finally enjoying some beautiful weather here in Wisconsin—weather which allows us to head outdoors once again without donning 15 extra layers of clothing. It’s beautiful! The Earth is warming, birds are chirping, leaves and flowers are exploding on branches…and my 8-month-old son has discovered a whole new host of things he can put in his mouth.

In no particular order, I give you a list of things I’ve removed from his mouth in the past week:

• Many, many leaves
• Four separate rocks
• A handful of dried grass
• Sand
• A lot of sand
• Seriously, about four cubic feet of sand
• A bunch of helicopter seed pods
• A ladybug

I think it may be a long season. I’ve pretty much given up on removing the sand and leaves and things like that—I figure he’s learning about the natural world, right? I draw the line, however, at ladybugs.

That’s just a little too “natural” for me.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

That’s what my daughter yelled out the other day as she cracked open a brand-new sticker book I’d bought for her. “Let’s stick, Mama!” Which actually means “You sit next to me while I move these stickers around a whole bunch!”

Lately, my daughter’s really ramped up her interest in stickers. She’s always loved them, of course, but lately she’s discovered the joys of sticker story books where she can create a scene with stickers—and then re-create and re-create and re-create the scene until her stickers aren’t so sticky anymore.

Although I’m sure she wishes she could have a new sticker book every single day, our budget doesn’t exactly include a sticker column…so I have to get creative.

I save any stickers I come across: stickers we get from the bank, decals from organizations, address labels I receive as “free gifts” in the mail—even the occasional fruit sticker. I keep them in a pile for her, and she raids the stack frequently for her various decorative needs (my husband and I receive the BEST birthday cards.)

Both sets of my children’s grandparents live about two hours away from us, so we’re often in the car for long periods…and that stack of stickers regularly saves the day! Before we leave, I stock my daughter’s “car bag” with a handful of sticker sheets and some sort of book—a used pocket calendar, an old address book, or even a used check register. She spends most of the trip happily placing her “stickers” into her “book” to make her own story. And I think in the end the little sticker book kits I cobble together are way more engaging for her…even if they look a little funny to the rest of us!

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

I remember once listening to a radio show discussing behavioral differences between girls and boys, and a mother called in to share a story about her daughter. Apparently, the girl’s parents gave her a truck to play with one day; the little girl thanked her parents and ran off happily to play with her new toy. The parents congratulated themselves on successfully bucking gender norms…and then peeked in on their girl to find her lovingly tucking her truck into bed and kissing it goodnight.

Now, I took that radio program and that story (cute as it was) with a grain of salt because I really believe that whatever innate gender characteristics we possess are ultimately hugely affected by our individual experiences. In my opinion, there are as many kinds of people as…there are people.

That said, I have to tell you that my newest little kid is proving to be about as “Boy” as an 8-month-old boy can be.

His sister was a very low-key baby. She was barely crawling before she turned one—she seemed to embrace the attitude of “Why am I going to crawl when I can just sit here and let people bring me things?” And once she finally learned to crawl, she did it very conscientiously: if I told her “no” a couple times, she somehow seemed to understand. The fact that we never quite got all the drawer locks installed was a non-issue.

Essentially, she gave me absolutely no experience whatsoever in dealing with a mobile infant…and that’s exactly what her brother has turned out to be: Mobile. With a capital M.

He crawls. (Quickly.) He climbs. (Incessantly.) He does not walk. (Yet.) But just the other day he jumped. (JUMPED!) He pulled himself up on the coffee table and jumped straight up in the air like he’d been doing it all his life. He does a pretty accurate imitation of a spider monkey, and we’ve begun having to double-team him for diaper changes.

“He’s all boy,” people keep saying to me…and I’m suddenly, surprisingly inclined to agree. At any rate, we’ll be putting in the rest of those drawer locks very, very soon.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

I am the oldest of two kids, and I’ve spent much of my adult life listening to my brother complain (good-naturedly) any time the subject of childhood milestones comes up. To hear him tell it, my parents have reams of records about my first tooth, my first words, my first band-aid, and boxes crammed with every precious thing I ever touched, looked at, drooled on as a child–while he has…a half-filled-out baby book with a few pieces of paper haphazardly folded inside.

When this subject comes up, my parents kind of do a half-chuckle, uncomfortable-shift-in-their-chairs thing while assuring us that they MUST have kept the same records for both of us, right? Are you sure? Let’s get out the books and look…I could’ve sworn…mumble mumble…

My own reaction has always been to remind him that at least he HAS a baby book. There are tons of kids in the world who don’t even get that. Geez. Perspective, Brother–get some.

Easy for me to say, right? MY childhood has been preserved. Bronzed, even.

But I think for my brother this is about more than boxes of mementos and pages of records. On some level, the difference in our documented “stats” is linked with how much my parents cared about the things we did as children. For him, a half-filled book meant he was somehow slighted.

And now that I’m a parent of two children, I’m taking my brother’s complaints much more to heart. Because suddenly, I’m the one who’s watching her second baby grow up too fast, while making quick, shorthand notes on random scraps of paper and hoping I can find them later (let alone remember what they are supposed to say.)

My son is almost 8 months old, and there are still things that happened in his first week of life that I’ve been meaning to get down on paper someday. Mostly because I think I should. Because in the back of my mind, I hear him when he’s grown (and he sounds a lot like my brother), wondering why I kept every card his sister received in her first year of life, while I couldn’t even be bothered to write down at what age he first rolled over.

The truth is, I think there’s more to “Second Child Syndrome” than simple parental laziness. To be sure, I’m much busier now than I was when we had only one child—and that certainly doesn’t help my record-keeping. But I’m also that much more aware. My husband and I have been through this all once before. We know a little better which things matter and which probably don’t. We have a bit more perspective on exactly how much the first pair of socks our son outgrew will really mean to us (or him) in the future.

So I’m trying to find my peace with the parental guilt of not doing for one what I’ve done for the other. Because when it comes down to it I may not have a beautifully filled out book and detailed account of each bite of food our son took, but I will hopefully have a record of the really important things–the way he looks me right in the eye when he’s nursing, the way he giggles when he hears his sister laugh, the way he is so determined to walk even though he’s only seven months old and oh yeah: he doesn’t. know. how. (Tired. I’m so tired.)

I can only hope he’ll understand that someday—that his every action is just exactly as important to me as his sister’s, even if I didn’t record everything. And while I may not be able to tell him the precise day he first stood up by himself, I can give him a very thorough description of just how proud of himself he was—and I think in the long run, those are the kind of “stats” that matter.

(Although I will say, I expect my brother’s second child will have impeccably accurate records to look back on someday.)

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

There was a certain ease to our days when we were a family of three. We had a rhythm, a routine. A nice comfortable predictability we all enjoyed. It was hard-won, and something I prided myself on as a mama: we may not have always had the cleanest house or the most exciting adventures, but at the end of the day, I knew our family and our home were, for the most part, happy. Content. Peaceful.

When I became pregnant with our second child, I knew things would change. Obviously, there would be physical hurdles, changes to our daily routine—I couldn’t always do the things I could before I had a giant baby belly to cart around. And my daughter (Eva) and I seemed to enjoy many, many more snack times throughout the day. There were emotional changes too—weepy pregnancy hormones to explain to my daughter (and husband!). Feelings of guilt and worry over the effects a new baby would have on Eva—and on my very close, very treasured relationship with her.

But for the most part, I was looking forward to adding a new little one to our family. I could almost feel the empty spaces the new baby would fill up—opportune times for cozy nursing sessions, or another little giggle in chorus with Eva’s. There was room in our routine, our rhythm, for another child, and I couldn’t wait for that day to arrive. We were ready!

Except that it wasn’t that easy.

My son is now seven months old, and I’m just now feeling like I’ve reclaimed a bit of that old peaceful ease in our days. For months, I was ending my days frustrated because I couldn’t seem to get a handle on things. It seemed I could either have happy children or a happy mama—one or the other. Not both. I felt like I was racing around, constantly playing catch up. There was always something to do, someone to feed, something to wash, someone to snuggle.

What had happened to those pockets of empty space the baby was going to fill in so perfectly? Where had our easy, comfortable days gone? I’d had it all figured out, why wasn’t it working??

The answer turned out to be very simple: in the back of my mind, I was holding out for our old, “normal” rhythm. Unconsciously, I was trying to fit our new Family of Four into our old Family of Three mold, and I was getting very, very frustrated that it wasn’t working. We didn’t fit. Shouldn’t fit, in fact—we were a whole new family with new dynamics. We had all changed, for the better I think, and the normal I was holding out for, striving for, just didn’t make sense anymore.

It took me seven months of driving myself crazy, but I’ve finally, finally realized that “normal” was here all along…I simply didn’t recognize it. And as I’ve begun to let go of my old securities a bit and embrace our new rhythm, I’m rediscovering those comfortable pockets of space that we’ll all fit into eventually. And somehow, all this “new” feels…familiar. Content. Peaceful.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

Valentine’s Day Gifts for Kids

Well, Christmas is over and I’m already looking forward to the next holiday.  You moms know what I’m talking about . . . I have no time to do anything, so it helps to plan ahead!  Anyway, I am all for giving sweets for Valentine’s Day, but we just threw out a bag of candy that has been hanging around the house since Halloween.  I’m sure we aren’t the only family that has this happen, so I’m always looking for different options for school holiday gifts.  This year, we went to a craft store to look for ideas.  We came across some fun Valentine’s Day themed pencil topper stamps and thought that this would be a great gift for the kids to share with their freinds.  We have to get cards yet, but at least the tough part is over.  Hopefully, the kids will have lots of fun creating art for a long time after Valentine’s Day is gone:)  So, if you’re looking for something a little different for your kids, stop at your local craft store for ideas.  Even if you don’t find what your looking for, it’s a good excuse to go!

Posted by Kari, Designer of Dots – Graphic Designer

Getting Tucker to sleep by himself.

We recently had the chance to catch-up with Jessi, our Purchasing and Inventory Specialist to see how being a new mother is going.  Jessi had Tucker about 4 months ago and she loves being a new mother.  Check out Jessi’s story about the challenges and blessing of being a mom.

What has been your greatest challenge as a new mother?

Right now we are trying to get him to sleep on his own. Pretty much from day one, we rocked him to sleep. Now he doesn’t like to sleep without being rocked. When we first tried this, he would start to fall asleep in our arms and we would lay him down in the crib. Well, he would wake up and cry and cry. We would go into his room and reassure him that we were still there and he was alright. I think the first day we tried this, he cried half of the day. It sure seemed like a lot more. 

Every one that I talk to about this says that doing this is one of the hardest things about being a parent. They also say the only way to avoid this is to put the baby in the crib from day one and not let them fall asleep in your arms. My take on it: I wouldn’t trade the time I had just holding him for the world! It is definitely difficult to get Tucker to sleep on his own, but it is getting better.

If you could give a new mom a tip what would it be?

After you have a baby you are so tired and you want the baby to sleep so you get some sleep. I say, rock the baby to sleep if that is what it takes. You can teach them to sleep on their own when you are more rested and have more of a routine that you and the baby recognize.

How much sleep do you get each night?

5-6 hours most nights. If I am lucky I get 7 hours. Of course they are not continuous hours. Tucker still wakes up at least once during the night.

Getting Tucker to sleep on his own is one of the major milestones(at least in my eyes). It is something that every baby needs to learn. If they don’t learn it, they will depend on someone else to help them get to sleep when they get older.

Posted by Jessi, Dotter of Dots – Purchasing and Inventory Specialist