Biddy Biddy bum bum

Matt asked some of his colleagues which 'Mommy and Me' type class would be the best one for Poppy and I to take.  They said that Music Together, the 'research-based early childhood music and movement program', is the best.  So now Poppy and I are taking a Music Together class.

Poppy and I have been to 3 classes so far.  We all meet on Wednesdays at 12:30 at Tiferet Israel.  Yep, you are correct, it's a synagogue.  Neither Poppy nor I had ever been inside a synagogue.  I think that Music Together was created by Jewish people.  The class hasn't presented any non-secular ideas or songs, so I'm almost certain that Music Together is not a religious activity.  Perhaps Music Together is simply a non-religious educational program created by religious people who do not use it as a forum for recruitment/advertising.  I've never met any Jews who were actively recruiting, and this experience has been no different.

After Poppy and I had signed up but before the class had begun, I said to Matt:

'I hope that they don't make me sing'.  I've always been very bad at the singing.

They do make you sing.  Most of the songs that we sing in class are originals with catchy titles like: Hello Song, Playin' in the Kitchen, Wiggle!, and Biddy Biddy.  Yes sir.  They even give you the CD for you to make music together with your baby at home and in the car.  These songs are so happy and innocent and energetic that they become a bit addictive.  I couldn't sleep the other night because the lyrics to Biddy Biddy proved to be too compelling to avoid repeating them in my head:

you receive sheet music to go along with your cd

Bid-dy bid-dy, bum bum    bum bum bum bum,     Bid-dy bid-dy, bum bum.


The Music Together teacher, Ms. Gila, is a fantastically charismatic South African.  She has no inhibitions when singing and talking to babies.  During class, she sings advice to the parents (and by 'parents', I of course mean 'moms'.  Their husbands are presumably working at 12:30 on Wednesdays).  She always wears floor-length skirts, t-shirts with words like love and peace on them, and a gold star of David necklace.  Ms. Gila explains to us that the best time to introduce our children to music is within the first 6 months of life, otherwise the musical synapses in their brains fizzle and die off from lack of use.  Poppy is only 2.75 months old, so she made the cut to be a musical little girl.  During all the singing and drum banging and maraca shaking Poppy is definitely entertained; she smiles and takes it all in.

I'm still a bit unclear about the goal of this class, but the idea of not doing some class of this sort reminds me of that park scene in that 80s movie with Diane Keaton called Baby Boom:


overzealous park mom A:  'What kind of classes do you have your daughter in now?'

Diane Keaton: 'Oh, uh, none.'

overzealous park mom B:  'Not even a Mommy and Me?!'

Diane Keaton:  'No.'

overzealous park mom A:  'Not Gymboree?'

Diane Keaton:  'No.'

overzealous park mom A:  'Not Reading Readiness?'

Diane Keaton:  'Nothing; the child can't even hold a cup.'

overzealous park mom B whispering loudly to overzealous park mom A:  'Oooh, the other babies are way ahead of her.'

overzealous park mom A:  'I thought I had problems.'


Diane Keaton then feels compelled to enroll her baby in an institution called The Center for Brighter Babies.

i need one of those 'College Begins at Birth' signs for Poppy's room

hehehe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6dH9Mqum08

http://www.musictogetherdallas.com/vlt25920.htm

Poppy is already fighting off the boys.  All she had to do was show
this one her belly button and he backed off straight away.  

I am concerned about Poppy's belly button.  The umbilical cord fell off pretty quickly after her birth, and that was certainly fine and according to plan.  But now her belly button is this strange convex mass that looks like a tiny mesa emerging from her stomach.  When I touch it, it feels like there's something in there.

Dr. Dreiling said that it is an 'Umbilical Hernia'.  Freaky.

Unfortunately, Poppy was crying very loudly when he was talking about it so I didn't quite catch the details....but I think that he said that it would go away eventually.  Luckily I am the proud owner of an 892 page book entitled The Complete and Authoritative Guide: Caring For Your Baby and Young Child.  Brought to you by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  They present the following prognosis for the Umbilical Hernia: '...-a small hole in the muscular part of the abdominal wall that allows tissue to bulge out when there's pressure inside the abdomen.  This is not a serious condition, and it usually heals by itself in the first 12 to 18 months.  In the unlikely event that it doesn't heal, the hole may need to be surgically closed.'

When people see it they immediately proclaim that she will be/is and outie.  I certainly hope not.

the questionable belly button

The 2 Month Checkup

Anthropologie sells a few French versions of  classic Dr.Seuss books

I was inclined to ask Dr. Dreiling when I should really be reading to Poppy, like reading to her for real.  We have of course been reading her some of the short classics, Goodnight Moon and so-forth.  (Well, in reality I think that it has only been read to her two times).  But my question to Dr. Dreiling was:

'When should we really begin to read to her?  When will her cognitive skills be such that a 25 minute reading session won't be solely for my pleasure.'

It's not that I don't want to read to her, I do.  It's just that, you see, I'm an American who needs clear set goals with at least some hope of impending results.  I'm not expecting her to be able to ask me questions about the interpreted message in The Giving Tree,  I just want to know that my effort might be helping to move her toward the goal of speaking, and also toward the goal of her getting into an Ivy league University.

Dr. Dreiling responded as exactly as one might have predicted.  'Any time she hears the English language, she stands to benefit from it.'

'How much did you read to your children when they were 2 months old?'  It was obvious that this probing was slightly annoying to Dr. Dreiling, but it's always telling to hear what the pediatricians put into practice with their kiddos.

'I read to them at night, played Radiohead to them, and I didn't let them watch TV.'

There you go.  Now Matt reads her the notes of financial statements and Bloomberg articles.

The Curse of the $1,000 Stroller

that's Matt's PBR in the cup-holder, I promise

When I was compiling my baby registries at Babies'R'Us and BuyBuyBaby with the help of a well seasoned mother of four, we made many practical selections.  She told me not to register for toys or for clothes, people would be giving me those of their own volition anyway.  Instead, I was to register for the essentials: the breast pump (I ended up buying the Medela Freestyle myself, and its power abilities slid downhill within two weeks), the bottles, the diapers, the diaper genie, etc..  Soon enough during our tour of big box retail came question of the car seat and the stroller.  Now, I must mention again that my friend is (for the most part) a practical shopper in this realm...no frills, no nonsense.  So that is why she had me register for the stroller that you also use as your car seat; Graco was the make of it I believe.  The idea is that you lift your sleeping or otherwise content baby out of your car while she remains in the car seat.  You then place the car seat (the base remains installed in your car) into the stroller.  I remember thinking that I didn't want to do that lifting bit (I didn't want to do it in my current state of buoyant pregnancy, nor did I foresee wanting to do it postpartum).  Yet I agreed to the practical nature of the rest of it.  So I reluctantly scanned this arduous stroller/car seat combo with my registry scanner gun.

the Graco SnugRider that you put your car seat into

this is the kind of car seat that detaches from its base to go into the SnugRider mentioned above

Then I saw the Bugaboo.  I must be honest here, the first time that I saw the Bugaboo was on Bethenny Frankel's tedious reality show entitled Bethenny Ever After, or Bethenny Getting Married, or something like that.  I originally began watching the show because she was pregnant and a girlfriend told me that I might get some useful insight on pregnancy and babies if I watched it.  I then discovered that if you watch these reality shows (or maybe it's just Bethenny Frankel's) that you actually end up seeing each episode like 7 times.  Even if you are watching it on iTunes they show so many recaps and foreshadowing clips that you end up accidentally memorizing the bulk of the dialogue.  Thus I can only hope that I will have the strength to resist the temptation of reality TV in the future.  

The second time I came across this stroller was in Neiman Marcus' baby section.  The thing that I loved most about the Bugaboo stroller was the lovely (and relatively reasonably priced) Missoni accoutrement.  Disclaimer: I realize that spending nearly $1,000 on a chic stroller is never less appropriate than when one is expecting their first child.  The child will doubtlessly bring on a host of other expenses, some foreseen and others unexpected.  That is why I suggest to you future mothers that if you want the cool mom stroller, you should register for it.  You can do so on Babies'R'Us as well as BuyBuyBaby.  Subsequently, I suggest that you drop hints of your need for this eccentric item to either your parents or your in-laws.  It's likely that they may be feeling particularly spendy when it comes to their grandchildren, especially if this is their first grandchild.  If your relatives need further justification, you can simply blame your materialism on the pregnancy hormones.  

this is that Rachel Zoe stylist lady, she's clearly stressed about something...
but I doubt that it's our awesome A-list stroller

this blanket comes with the Missoni Bugaboo extras
i ended up putting it on my couch since it is so appealing 

Nora Ephron's Feminists Feel Bad About Their Necks Too

There aren't any writers like Nora Ephron.  Her age and longevity in the literary world have afforded her a hall pass that permits her to say exactly what she thinks (even the less fragrant anecdotes) without fear of diminishing her hard-earned popularity.  Her essay Parenting in Three Stages flirts with what I myself have thought but not said...until nowish.

So basically, Mrs. Ephron is old.  Really old.  Like 70-something.  As such, she has seen the parenting* scene evolve from being a relative passive endeavor, to sacrament.  In her opinion**, this evolution was caused by the backlash of the women's movement when 'lots of women didn't feel like entering the workforce (or even sharing the raising of children with their husbands), but they felt guilty about this, so they were compelled to elevate full-time parenthood to sacrament.'.  Hence the American cliché of overboard parenting.  See also May's TIme magazine cover if you need to see an example.

I totally get this.  The new equality in the workplace turned out not to be as appealing as the feminists thought it would be.  After all, you still have to physically 'go' to the co-ed workplace, equality notwithstanding.  Personally, as someone who assigns blame for her exit from the labor market to having graduated from University in the inconvenient year of 2008, I can certainly relate to one's need to validate not working.  If some women feel the need to 'elevate full-time parenthood to sacrament', more power to 'em.  I don't want to work either, sisters, and having a child is an excellent excuse not to.  Now I can travel with Poppy, teach her French (or at least re-inforce what her tutor will teach her), and help her with her homework so that someday she'll be admitted to the college of my choice.






*She also discusses how parenting became a verb (apparently it wasn't always so).
**Mrs. Ephron is an observant liberal feminist (or at least she used to be) who no doubt burned her bra at Barnard or Wellesley College at some point in her life.  Therefore, she is at least in some position to speak with authority on the outcomes of the feminist movement.


'http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/books/27masl.html?_r=1

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2114427,00.html

Mommy's Days Out

Luckily for me, I found a Mommy's Day Out program that has availability for Poppy this Fall and isn't many thousands of dollars per month.  I enrolled her for the 3 days per week option.  They will take care of her from 9am to 3pm if I so desire, but my class is only from 1 to 2.  In any event, it's an exciting prospect to be able to do what I want to do sans bébé for 6 hours per day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  

Claire of Claire's Christian Day School was kind enough to show me the baby room where Poppy will be hanging out with 2 women and 7 babies.  I'm not sure if there's any real curriculum to speak of, but they do put them in a multi-child stroller and walk them around outside if weather permits.  

The 'Christian' aspect of  Claire's Christian Day School wasn't exactly what I was in the market for, but it turns out that there aren't many secular childcare institutions here in Texas.  But I suppose it's okay since Poppy wouldn't understand any bible verses that these women may or may not want to drill with her.  I've been going through some alphabet flashcards with her lately and she basically ignores me.  C'est la vie.

Bringing Up Bébé - reviewed

In one of my pregnancy updates this past February, I mentioned Pamela Druckerman's then new book Bringing Up Bébé.   I have since read it (more than once), and have read about it everywhere.  The hype surrounding this book is reminiscent of the hype that surrounded Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother last year.  I think that all of this spirited reception for motherhood guidance literature is a true testament to how hungry American women are for guidance (myself included, obviously) that doesn't flow directly from Dr. Sears' paradigm resembling total and complete self-sacrifice.  We want guidance that seems fresh and welcomingly unfamiliar.

Drukerman's book explores the vast differences between French and American mothers from a first person perspective, as she is raising her three children in France.  Here are some of my take-aways from Bringing Up Bébé:

1. Guilt:  French moms generally accept that there is no perfect mother, and so they simply do their best (which generally does not include breast feeding).  One French mother even wrote a book entitled La Mère Partaite, C'est vous! (the perfect mother is you).  During trips back to America Druckerman noticed many mothers constantly repeating the phrase 'I'm a bad mother' as a way to explain to themselves why they didn't let their child sign up for yet another after-school activity that may or may not have been his ticket to an ivy-league school acceptance.
2. Patience:  Based on Druckerman's account, French children are more patient because their patience training began on Day 1.  For example, French babies generally sleep through the night much earlier than American babies because their mothers 'pause' before tending to them.  When they get a little fussy, day or night, French mothers don't rush over to console the baby - they wait 5 to 10 minutes.  This pause allegedly gives the sleeping baby time to move from one sleep cycle to the next without being jolted out of sleep entirely.  The pause allows the anxiety-ridden baby to self-soothe.  Druckerman says that French parents feel that this teaches children to deal with a little bit of frustration and, in so doing, teaches them patience.  "If parents do The Pause in a baby's first two months, the baby can learn to fall back to sleep on his own," Druckerman says.  This is based on the idea that even young babies are capable of learning things.                                                                                                                                         Also, French kids aren't allowed gobble food all day long.  They have a set snack-time, called a goûter, around 4:00, but that is their only snack.  French mommies don't carry snacks with them.  They expect their children to wait until the prescribed mealtimes just as adults do.     
3. Preservation of The Self:  French mothers preserve the self by going back to work, not breast feeding (I find this one particularly bold), by not becoming 'maman-taxi', by sending their kids to stay at grandma's house while she goes on a romantic vacation with her husband (sans guilt), and by not narrating their children's playtime.  You would never hear a maman française say that she doesn't have time to read a book or to go to lunch with girlfriends.  

Druckerman certainly acknowledges that her points are based on her personal experience and the experiences of those around her.  There are of course outliers on both sides of the Atlantic.  She writes about what she has learned about French mothers' cadre, or frame, for raising children.

American mothers (myself included) see pregnancy and parenting as the supreme project for which there are specific elements that dictate one's 'success' or 'failure' as a parent.  Bringing Up Bébé offers some perspective and a calmer approach to parenting that seems absolutely delightful.  Druckerman's writing is well researched while remaining funny and light-hearted.

Pamela Druckerman with her three children.  The boys are twins.  They call the girl 'Bean' after the chic ecru-colored beanie that the French hospital supplied her when she was born.  

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/02/the-secret-to-french-parenting.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/books/review/pamela-druckermans-bringing-up-bebe.html?_r=1