atomic mama

This was my first week back at work. I’m only working part-time right now, but Monday was basically an 8-5 day because of my teaching schedule. Monday was, then, the first full day that Lina has spent at preschool. I was worried about her all day. I was able to spend about an hour and a half with her mid-day (her school is on my campus, remember) and noticed that she seemed, well, just dandy. Happy as a clam. Happy to see me, but not clingy. Flirting with her teachers. Eating more than she eats at home. Happy.

But I wasn’t convinced. I continued to worry. When I saw her at the end of the day, I was sure I’d be picking up this tired, disheveled, cranky baby. Nope. Happy. She had napped in the afternoon, falling asleep in the arms of her teacher. She was in great shape. I was the tired, disheveled, cranky one. I fell asleep in nobody’s arms that afternoon. I talked about electrons while secretly wondering what Lina was doing. Maybe she talked about me while secretly wondering what electrons are doing.

The rest of the week went swimmingly. Thanks to my wise therapist, I am trying not to become attached to this outcome. Thanks to me, I am failing. It has been so delightful to watch her flourish at school. She is eating well, sleeping well, and incredibly happy. Tuesday through Friday I’m able to pick her up around noon, and while she’s always thrilled to be in my arms, she’s in no hurry to leave the classroom. When I picked her up today, I read her daily report and noticed that once again, they had given her some water during the day. I constantly try to do this at home, but she still really only likes the Nordstrom bottle, which bit the dust last week. “How do you get her to drink water?” I asked her teacher, who I already know has magical powers. She answered, “a sippy cup.” A SIPPY CUP?? Holy hell. If you look around our house, you’ll find no less than four sippy cups, each especially made for the discriminating baby. I buy the designer, supercool sippy cups. Lina has cups from Nalgene (no joke), Jamba Juice (her favorite which means she’ll sometimes actually let it touch her lips), Avent (supposed to be the perfect transition from the Avent bottles), and Nubi (cool German one from the yuppie baby store for the baby who won’t use sippy cups). All generally rejected. The cup I do not have is the pedestrian Gerber model you can purchase at the grocery store. That cup, it turns out, is the one she likes. Oh. We’re borrowing it for the weekend because before I spend ONE MORE CENT on sippy cups, I want to see her drink from it with my own eyes.

So school is going well. I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter setup. I get to go from being with my amazing students to taking off my shoes and sitting on the floor with babies, in just a matter of minutes. It is just as good as it sounds.

And Lina demonstrated this week that she has learned a new word, which is great. Unfortunately, it is “beer,” which is not so great. We don’t even drink that much beer around here. We’re cocktail people. We’re wine people. But when, once in a while, we act like beer people, she gets pretty excited about the brown bottle. Yesterday I grabbed a couple of beers from the garage to put them in the fridge, and she totally freaked. “BEER! BEER!” It took me a second to catch on, and then I was horrified as I pictured the scrapbook page I would make to celebrate her first words: Papa, Mama, ball, bye-bye, hi, and… beer. All the important things in life, I guess. When I put the beers in the fridge, she actually started to cry. “They have to be cold, sweetie!” I tried to explain.

Then I heard it: Oh, Mama. Can’t you just relax your fancy sippy-cup buying self and have a warm beer with me? So I did. And she was deliriously happy to be allowed to sit next to me and touch the bottle. Another quarter into the therapy jar? Maybe. But worth it.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 15:33 and is filed under stephanie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.