Doctor's Appointment

I have doctor's appointments every two weeks now. So far everything has been going well except for the contractions that started some time before Christmas and intensify every time I go through some stress. The doctor says I just need to take it easy.

The baby's measurements and heart beat are always fine, plus my weight and blood pressure are perfect, too.

Yesterday, however, the doctor made a point that the baby goose is transverse (lying sideways). I have 2.5 months to change it; otherwise, I know I'll be listening to a lot of C-section encouragements.

Smooching at I.H.O.P

I had the glucose screening test on Monday morning, and since Len is traveling this week, I had to tag K along with me. The test went well, meaning they found my vein right away and the blood came out the way it should have this time, plus no bruising on my arm - pretty impressive. As for the results - I won't have them until probably my next doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks.

On the way home I was extremely hungry, so K and I stopped at I.HOP to get some breakfast. We got a booth, so I let K in first so she would be "trapped" and unable to run away, and then I sat right next to her.

Our booth was separated from another by a glass, and as it turned out on the other side there was a family with a little boy K's age.

K got quickly busy welcoming the boy's family which gave me a minute to skim the menu and choose something to eat. While I was contemplating on whether to get Swiss pancakes or French toasts, the waitress stopped by to take an order. I realized that I was so occupied with my menu that I forgot to check on K. Well, when I looked, it was already too late. My little girl was on her tiptoes kissing the boy form the booth next to us.

When I touched K's back to get her attention, she looked at me with a big smile on her face. The boy, on the other hand, didn't mind me and kept playing with K's hair.

There was only one thing that I knew would keep K on her butt and away from another temptation - I ordered some French toasts for myself and bacon for her. Once the food came in, nothing and nobody else existed except for her little strings of meat. As soon as we were done eating, we were on our way home.

Chatting Away

It's happening! Klaudia has started talking this weekend. Out of nowhere, she is repeating everything we say no matter whether it's in Polish or English. It's still single words, but it's a good start.

2-Year Wellness Appointment

It was time for K's wellness check-up, so we decided to look for a local pediatrician.  I found 10 possible ones within 20 miles from home on our insurance's website, and started calling to see if we could make an appointment ASAP since my work is starting next week, and it would be nice to have this out of the way.  

From experience, we know that not all pediatric doctors treat unvaccinated children, so when making an appointment, I asked the receptionist to talk to the doctor and make sure that it would be OK for us to bring K in.  All the girls said that it shouldn't be a problem, but after they actually talked to the doctor, their stories changed.  From one of the offices, I received two phone calls informing me that the doctor would prefer not to see Klaudia.  

Eventually one doctor agreed to see her (there were more, but this one could see us right away vs. for the other ones, we'd have to wait for weeks to get in) , but under the condition that I sign a form saying that I refuse to vaccinate K.  Sounded simple; we made an appointment for the following day.

The first thing I noticed that I didn't like was that there was only one entrance to the office and that the waiting room was full of sick kids.  Our previous doctor had two seperate entrances - one for wellness appointments and one for sick children.  I never really appreciated it until now when I saw all these poor coughing, sneezing and misearable looking kids.  

The nurse checked K's measurements, and I forgot to ask for the percentile.  One thing I remember her saying was that K's head measurement was normal.  Again, I did not ask for the percentile, but if it's normal, it means that for the first time, K's head fits within the chart.  

And then we met the doctor.  He checked K's eyes, ears, throat, poked her belly, and then he spent the rest of our 10-minute appointment asking why we refuse to vaccinate.  I guess my reasoning wasn't good enough because he brought his book with some statistics and went over some of the diseases to prove that we do need to vaccinate.  He started with 1950s, and showed us (OK, me, K wasn't into it at all) that some 13, 000 children were sick with diphteria  in the US, and there were a bit over 1,000 deaths from it that year.  Then he moved to 2005, and showed that there were 6 cases of that disease but no deaths.  He went over a few of the diseases like that with very similar numbers, and I'm very glad he did because it just assured me that the chances of getting one of them are very tiny, and that even if K contracts them, she will survive and most of all will get immuned for the rest of her life.  I just wish I had my statistics with me that show how many children get injured every year from the DPT vaccine alone.  I doubt he would listen though.  So, I was a bit disappointed with our appointment.  I thought that telling the doc ahead of time of our decision about the vaccines would somehow help us avoid the topic, but I was wrong.  We didn't get to talk about K's development.  I was looking forward to hearing about what to expect within the next year or how to encourage K to start talking, but none of it was mentioned.  And, I was never given the form where I had to sign to refuse to have K immunized.  I wonder if they sensed that we wouldn't be back.

Another School Meeting, Another Babysitting Fiasco

The beginning of the semester is right around the corner, and we had our first meeting at school yesterday.  It was an important meeting since there have been a lot of changes to the budget, so I needed to be there.  There were a couple of teachers who needed a babysitter, so we got one.  At the last minute, all others backed out, and K was the only child coming to the meeting.  

I tried to look at it in a positive way thinking K will be getting full babysitter's attention, but somehow I couldn't sleep the night before.  Since the wee hours, I tried to prepare Klaudia for her adventure telling her how much fun she was going to have at school watching movies and playing with Yadira while mom is next door at a meeting.  She listened and kept saying:  "Yeah, mama.'

Yadira turned out to be a very nice lady who sensed K's shyness right away and did everything she could to switch her attention from me to her.  K on the other hand once she saw me turning around and heading for the door, started crying.  For 20 minutes, we tried everything, but I couldn't just sit next door and listen to K's crying.  So, eventually I told Yadira that it wouldn't work, thanked her, paid her, and we parted our ways.  K couldn't have been louder when saying Bye Bye to her.

I waited for K to calm down and decided to take her to the meeting.  My plan was to leave as soon as she gets loud.  Once she was ready to go, I packed all the toys, and that's when K turned around and walked right into a table that was 2 inches away from her hitting her head and getting a cut right next to her eye.  The cut was tiny but big enough to bleed a bit.  As we both sat there on the floor, I was close to losing it.  I was fighting the tears and was ready to go home.  I still had to go into the meeting to gather my stuff.  

It took us a few minutes to pull ourselves together.  When we walked towards the other classroom, K seemed  happy again.  She was very proud to be in the big people's room.  I decided to stay and listen as long as K would let me.  At this point, K was just hungry.  She sat and ate quietly for the rest of the meeting, and at the end everyone was impressed with her good behavior.  

By the time we got home, I was emotionally exhausted.  Looking back at yesterday's happening, I think we'll wait a bit before we leave K alone with anyone again.  Someone at the meeting yesterday said that it's good to leave kids with strangers from time to time.  I disagree.  Maybe it's good if the kids are OK with it, but I don't see anything good putting them through this trauma when they are not ready.  K has been lucky to have us stay with her all the time, so she is not used to staying with anyone else alone.  She will get better once she is older... right?

Yeah, Mama

Klaudia got a couple of movies for Christmas:   The Sleeping Beauty, and Bambi.  In the second one at one point a little rabbit replies to his mom's question and says with the cute little voice:  "Yes, mama."  I think that's where Klaudia got her thing from because each time I ask her a question she responds:  Yeah, mama.

Mom:  "Are you ready for some breakfast?"

K:  "Yeah, mama."

Mom:  "Should we go for a walk?"

K:  "Yeah, mama."

Living In Our New Home

It's been 3 weeks since we moved into our new house, but to me it feels like we've been here forever.  And although we miss our friends and would love to live a bit closer to them, we definitely enjoy the space and low mortgage payments that we wouldn't get if we stayed where we used to live.  I still can't believe that our previous apartment was the size of our current living room - how did we survive there?

Moving to a place located an hour and 30 minutes away from our work encouraged us to make some changes to our work schedule.  With the beginning of the new year, Len started working only 3 days a week.  He works a bit longer hours but is able to be home with us 4 days a week!  I'm starting teaching in just a few weeks and will be working 2 days a week teaching 8 hours a day.  It seems like a lot of hours, but I keep telling myself that it's only twice a week.  With our new schedule, we don't have to put Klaudia in a day care, and we get to enjoy raising her and spending time with her every single day.  It couldn't work out any better.  

I haven't been posting any pictures since we (OK, I) misplaced our camera when packing and moving.  But as soon as WE find it, I'll take and post some pics of our new place, our 33-pound toddler, and my 5-month old belly.