Note to self:

Don't include your neighborhood in your blog's title if you move every year. I don't blog very often, but it is a little silly that it has been so long since my last entry that I've changed neighborhoods- twice. Yup, this blog missed all the adventures that happened for two whole years while living in Albany Park. Just to bring everything up to speed, highlights included: Living down the street from an amazing baklava shop called Nazareth Sweets, Eating lots of Persian food at Semiramis which incidentally sells Nazareth's baklava as part of their dessert trio, having our grocery store be called Andy's Fruit Ranch, and the non-food related highlight...living on the same street as good ol' Blah Blah Blagojevich, which was only exciting when he was arrested because of all the news crews. That quickly turned to annoyance because of the circling helicopters every morning. So, that was Albany Park.

This is Graceland West. We just moved here at the end of July. We're still getting to know the neighborhood. Tomorrow is the annual neighborhood festival though. I hear that last year they had llama rides. That's right, llamas. We'll see if this year is as exciting. Who knew you could have a llama ride in the middle of Chicago?

Tomorrow is also the kick off for the Renegade Craft Fair over in Bucktown. My sister and I are gonna stop by and check it out.

That's the update for now. If my track record with this blog holds up, I'll check back in approximately two and half years and let you know about the llamas.

An everyday epiphany

I remember babysitting as a teenager and dreading dirty diapers. Bleh. It was the worst part of it for me. The smell of a poopy diaper was enough to make me leave the child on the floor and run gagging to a toilet on more than one occasion. Bleh. I remember tying bandannas around my face as a mask to help keep out the smell. I also remember moms, including mine, telling me that "it's just different when it's your own kid" Any compliant about something I found repugnant or overwhelmingly difficult about childcare was met with the reply, "It'll be different when it's your own child." How is it supposed to be different? What, does the poop smell better then? I was definitely skeptical but because everyone said it, I figured it must have some legitimacy.

I started nannying for a family in September. They have one little girl. It didn't take long for the two of us to become really good friends. I don't know how what we have can really constitute a friendship since she was only 17 months at the time and her vocabulary consisted of about 10 words, but it's a friendship nonetheless. I look forward to seeing her every morning. I miss her over the weekends. She runs to give me hugs when I see her. We play with blocks and learn about colors and really learn about life in general. It's totally amazing to watch a child learn something for the first time. Her enthusiasm and joy over her little discoveries is incredible to be around. For instance, a couple weeks ago she was crawling on the kitchen floor and came up to a bar stool that was in her way. She started to go around it and then stopped. She looked at it and discovered she would fit under it. So she crawled between the legs of the bar stool and out the other side and collapsed into giggles over this new accomplishment. Then, of course, being the little scientist that every toddler is, she had to test it from the other side. Would it work if she crawled through the opposite way? Yes! More giggles. Since then every possible item of furniture with enough clearance has been crawled through.

It's been interesting to see what intense feelings have sprung up in me for this little girl in just the past 4 months. I love her deeply and would fight until I couldn't fight anymore to keep her safe. I'm beginning to understand the whole "don't mess with a Mama Bear's cubs" thing. What I've been told about things being "different" when the child is your own is starting to make sense. And I'm not even her mother. I can't imagine how much more intense these feelings are when it's actually your child. Thinking about this over the past week I started to realize that perhaps it really is a different story when the kids are your own. Maybe the poop does smell different. Little did I know I'd have the chance to really test the poop theory this week.

"My" little girl started potty training this week. We've been kind of doing it a little haphazardly up to this point, but now it's for real and it's time to be consistent. I'm glad I forgot to consider potty training when I was weighing the pros & cons of taking this job. Now there's no turning back. My emotions are all wrapped up to the point that it'd break my heart to leave and as much as I might want to, potty training can't be put off. It is inevitable and must go forward. In the long run, it'll be better right? This is the end of diapers, after all. Too bad the diapers can't leave without great drama and much messiness. Cue the bandanna.

Yesterday during lunch she got that look, the one where you know something is going on down there. We went into the bathroom and she sat on her little potty for about half a second. Her new awareness of what was going on inside her made her so nervous that she couldn't sit still. She started pacing in a circle. She kept repeating my name with this panicked expression in her voice. Sawah, sawah, sawah. SAWAH! The poor thing. I knew there was no way she would be able to be comfortable enough to sit on the potty at this point and yet, putting the diaper back on would, in effect, be taking a step backwards. But rather than be grossed out by the alternative, all I could think about was how to help her not feel scared. So I held her on my lap, diaperless bottom and all, until she was calmer. She eventually went while clinging to my shoulders. Thankfully, they have a tile floor in the bathroom. I was able to maneuver myself so that I was still holding her but was no longer in the line of fire. The funny thing is, it wouldn't have mattered if I was. What mattered was making sure she was ok. As I sat there on the bathroom floor looking at the mess I was going to have to clean up I understood. It is different when it's your child. It's not that your senses become altered or a magic wand has been waved to make things less repugnant. It's that you have a genuine love that runs so deep that it makes someone else's needs completely overshadow your own.

Don't get me wrong, the poop still smells. There's no way around that, but I don't mind anymore. It's because my whole reason for being there has changed. It's not the $8/hour paycheck that motivates me like it was in high school. It's because there's a little girl that I love that needs someone to hold her hand when learning about life gets a little scary. So, because I love her, we'll bravely trudge through potty training together.

C.A.N.D.Y.

Anyone who is around small children of a certain age learns to become rather adept at spelling words out instead of saying them. It saves so much heartache and so many needless emotional roller coaster rides in the life of a toddler. When I first started working as a nanny, I was a little overwhelmed because I'm a bit of a slow speller. When someone spells out a word I have to repeat the letters to myself and visualize what the word looks like before I know what word they've spelled. This was surprising though because spelling has always been a strong point with me. Writing words out, I'm great at spelling. My slowness comes with listening and speaking. The letters get all jumbled up in my head whether they're coming in or going out. I guess I'm just a very strong visual learner and not much of anything else. I'm getting better at it though. There's nothing like caring for a toddler and needing to communicate with her parents that is better practice for listening to words being spelled out.

Popular words this week?
C.A.N.D.Y. (it's our new and improved method of bribery, er, reward system, for using the potty)
B.Y.E.
S.N.A.C.K.
P.U.F.F.I.N.S. (the name of her favorite cereal)
D.A.T.E. (as in the Mediterranean fruit, she LOVES them)
P.O.T.T.Y. (she does not like this)
O.U.T.
Z.O.O. (they live across the street from one)
H.O.R.S.E.
S.H.O.E.S. (yesterday, there was just too much frustration mounting from wanting to put them on and off and not having the motor skills to do it as proficiently as she wanted to. I had to remove them and quickly hide them in the nearest place I could find. They took up residence amongst the potholders and dishcloths in a kitchen drawer)

That's kind of a short list. Maybe that's why I'm getting better at it. My vocabulary only expands by a couple words a week which get repeatedly practiced. Ha. Oh well, at least I'm exercising my brain a little, right? I should probably get as much practice in as I can. Pretty soon she'll be spelling the words right along with us.

Oh, the dramatic change of it all

Here it is. Blogger updated out of its beta version (i'm not sure how long ago that happened. i haven't exactly been paying attention.) but to sign in to the new version, you need a Google account. I already had one using my new last name...one thing led to another and here I am with my new identity, new blog, new life all updated on the world wide web. Blogger and I are both now fully up to date.

A picture from our new apartment. We had a Christmas Garland this year, complete with my childhood Christmas ornaments. It's still up, because Christmas for us is TOMORROW! I'm so excited. I love giving gifts, especially to Steven. I feel like they've been "burning a hole in my pocket." Finally, tomorrow...they'll be no more secrets. Although, I think he accidently found the presents last week so I don't know how much of a secret everything actually is.