A or B

The wife is at her wit’s end dealing with the baby. She’s proposed that we send our child to a daycare or nursery for half the day to help get her accustomed to not having Mommy or Daddy around. I tend to agree with this. If we don’t nip this in the butt now, it’ll only become that much harder to separate Caitlyn from us as she gets older. And by that time, the wife will probably have lost all her hair.

In an ideal world, the daycare/nursery of our choosing would meet all of our requirements. But we live in a far from ideal world. There has to be a bit of give and take. You have to decide what you can and can’t tolerate in a place, and then make a decision based off of it.

There are two places that we are considering. Here are the pros and cons of both.

Option A:

Pros

• It’s literally right around the corner from our house. It’s convenient, and for a worrier like me wife, very ideal for her to pop by at any time to check up on the baby.

• They recently relocated to a new building, so the facility is brand new and everything inside is clean.

• Currently, there are only 3 other babies enrolled there, so class size would be small. The teacher would have an easier time managing the babies and keeping an eye on them.

Cons

• The wife isn’t exactly keen on the area that we currently live in right now and fears the quality of teachers here are not up to par. She worries they won’t take good care of our baby.

• There hasn’t been much feedback or reviews online about this place, so who knows if they are good or not.

Option B:

Pros

• It’s well-established with a lot of positive reviews online. The wife feels a bit more safe about sending our baby to a place like this.

• It’s in a better part of the city.

Cons

• It’s about a 30 minute ride away. Wouldn’t be convenient for the wife who would have to take a taxi there and back since she doesn’t have a car. She’d run herself ragged shuttling back and forth. And what if there’s an emergency and she needs to get there quickly?

• When we went there for open house, I found a lot of the equipment to be run down, dirty, or broken.

• More expensive.

• Larger class size. Will our baby really get the attention that she needs? Plus, with more kids, that means there's a greater chance of getting sick.

• There’s a waiting list. Who knows how long it would be before we got in.

If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m all for Option A while the wife is all for Option B. My main deciding factor is that it’s convenient. I’m not really concerned whether or not the teachers are world-class educators because our baby is not primarily going there to learn. She’s going there so she can get used to being away from Mommy. As long as the teachers keep can an eye on her and keep her safe, that’s all I could ask for.

Somehow, the wife feels that if we do try out Option A, we’re going to be stuck there and has really balked at testing it out. Obviously, if the place isn’t a good match, we can always try the place of her choosing. I highly doubt a nursery would hold our daughter hostage and say that we can't leave. The sooner we start sending her to a nursery, the quicker and easier it will be for her to get used to not always having to cling to Mommy.

What would you pick? A or B?

Bubbles at the beach!

Pass the pail, please

 

Whee!

Enjoying the view

 

Can I play, too?

Crawling on the sand

 

Someone is a mess

Playing in the water

Big wave coming!

Conk!

At Green Light Forest

I can't hear you, Mommy!

 

Mommy and Caitlyn

Hi, Daddy!

 

Mommy's taking our picture!

Stick out your tongue too, Daddy!

 

Still hot in the mountains

Baaaa!

 

Where's the sheep?

Testing out the grass

 

My stomach is not a play mat!

Are you listening to what I'm saying, Daddy?

 

Aww...do we really have to go?

Hey, Auntie Karen!

Relaxing in the mountains

Hey hey, daddy-o!

Speaking, Sleeping, and Walking

Something that I’ve been keeping an eye on for awhile now is Caitlyn’s speech development. For a long time, there was none. I kept reading about how babies would start babbling or making different sounds around 4 to 6 months. The only sound Caitlyn had been making for the past year was a whiny ‘unghhh!’ She wasn’t producing any vowel or consonant sounds.

At her last check-up, I asked our family pediatrician whether we should be concerned or not. After all, there might be some developmental delays that we should be aware of. But she said we should only be worried if Caitlyn wasn’t making any different sounds by the time she was 15 months.

Thankfully, when she hit 13.5 months, she was finally able to produce a very, very faint “da” sound. And now that she’s 14 months, she’s able to say “da-da” loud and clear. Obviously, I'm very excited about this. Caitlyn may want Mommy more, but at least I can lay claim to the fact that she called my name first! Hopefully, this is only the beginning of a long string of sounds that will be coming from her mouth.

Another major development that recently happened in our household is the departure of Caitlyn’s crib from our room to her own. She’s always slept in the same room as us, but I figured she was old enough to sleep by herself now. Plus, I thought it might also help her sleep better too because she wouldn’t be disturbed by our movements or the wife’s snoring.

We’ve had her in her own room for about a week now, and it seems to be working. She has one last feeding at about 11 or 12 at night and then she’ll sleep through the night until about 7. If she does wake up during the night, we’ll just let her cry it out until she settles herself back down to sleep.

Frankly, we probably should have started this a long time ago, but better late than never. We now have a newfound sense of privacy that we haven't had in awhile, but unfortunately, we haven't been taking advantage of it because we're both too tired to do anything once we hit the bed.

This new nighttime schedule has also helped out with Caitlyn's daytime schedule. She naps at more consistent times now, usually at 10 am. and 3 p.m., for about 1 to 1.5 hours each time. Her appetite has also become a lot better, probably because we’ve cut out her nighttime feedings. She’s able to eat a whole bowl of rice, veggies, and meat without much prodding for lunch and dinner.

And her walking is improving daily. She can walk quickly around with her walker now, and is more willing to be led along by holding onto our hands. While she’s still trying to find her balance, she is able to stand on her own for a few seconds now.

Looks like my little baby won’t be a baby for much longer anymore!

Mommy finally goes swimming!

Did you just pee?

Making new friends

Don't be scared of the water, Mommy!

The water sure is cold!

One step at a time

Almost there!

One more step

I did it!

This is the beach, Mommy

Ready to go swimming?

Isn't this a nudist beach?

Surfer on the beach

Houston, we have a problem!

Auntie Janice joins in on the fun

Fun day at the beach!

I'm a Believer

Recently, the baby’s been waking up about 4 or 5 times in the middle of the night, screaming and crying. She’s not hungry and being comforted by the wife doesn’t help either. A couple of theories from the wife include teething, being over-stimulated during the day, gas in the stomach, food allergies that result in itchy skin, and nightmares.

I’m not ready to weigh in on what I think is the cause, but I do know one thing that might make it stop – having the wife not there. About 3 weeks ago, the wife was gone for 3 days and 2 nights to attend a wedding. During this time, I was in charge, and Caitlyn behaved wonderfully and slept peacefully those 2 nights for me.

So when the wife had to go take care of some out-of-town, family business early this past Sunday morning with her parents, I told her to spend the night before at her parent’s house. This would give me the opportunity to see if I could duplicate Caitlyn’s sleeping pattern again. I also planned to keep the camcorder running throughout the night as proof to the wife that she could make it through the night without throwing a fit.

Therefore, it was decided that we would eat dinner at her parents’ place, and I would take Caitlyn home by myself while the wife stayed behind for the night. When it was time for us to leave, Caitlyn put up such a crying fit that my mother-in-law told the wife to go back home with us.

I repeatedly told her that everything would be ok once I got Caitlyn out the door, but it was obvious my mother-in-law wasn’t buying it. I don’t blame her.  Everybody only sees how Caitlyn reacts when I take her away from the wife. Only I get to see how she completely changes character once we’re alone.

This is exactly what happened once Caitlyn and I left the in-laws. She immediately stopped crying; I put her in the car seat, drove home, and put her to bed. No fussing, no crying, no whining. She woke up at 12:30 a.m. for a feeding, went back to sleep, and then got up for good at 6:40 a.m. No fussing, no crying, no whining. And then day proceeded as it normally would if Mommy weren’t there – wonderfully!

This is obviously not the Caitlyn most people know, but that’s the one I know. And the best part of it is, it’s all caught on tape! All 10 hours, 33 gigabytes of it. The wife had no choice but to become a believer.

As a teacher, I would always be highly skeptical when a parent would tell me their child was a perfect angel at home whenever I would tell them they were constantly misbehaving in class. But maybe it is possible that they are speaking the truth. I mean, look at Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. Misbehaving pooches become angels with him. Am I saying I’m Cesar Milan? I don’t know. Am I? All I know is the proof is in the videos.

Messy bed hair

Arghh!!

 

Best pals

Aww...

 

Check out my new dress!

Classic Mommy pose

Pumpkin soup mustache

Can I get into the photo?

 

Bread sticks rock!

How can you resist this smile?

 

First time wearing hair clip!

Sitting on my throne