The Suburban Dad

Just a normal Saturday, trip to the emergency room

It's been awhile.  Thank you for your patience.

The last month has been filled with Olympic mania here in Vancouver.  Things are starting to settle down.

It's been a challenging couple weeks.  Our son got bronchiolitis.  He's been coughing and congested for the last two weeks.  Never heard of bronchiolitis before so we can cross this one off our list of infections our child can possibly get.

His wheezing got better midweek last week but got worse again on the weekend. So on Saturday, we took him to the doctor for another checkup and gave him another nebulizer treatment. His breathing didn't improve and we got sent to the emergency room at our local hospital.   So we survived our first trip to the emergency room and our son's first chest x-ray.  The doctor and nurses at the pediatric ward of the emergency room were all fantastic.  Chest x-rays for little people looks painful.  They strapped my little boy into this shell that can be classified as a torture device if used maliciously.  Our son was a good patient though. 

We kept him home again today since he didn't sleep well last night. Hopefully this bug will soon go away.

Terrible Twos starting already?!

I'm not sure what's going on. But the crying fits are becoming more and more frequent with our son.  When he doesn't get what he wants is usually what triggers the crying fits.  I know he doesn't quite understand everything that's going on.  It's certainly not his fault that he doesn't.  But it sure is challenging to deal with these crying fits at times.

How do you balance saying yes to a little toddler's requests and drawing the boundaries?  Obviously, as the parent, you have to be the one to stay in control. Losing it certainly doesn't help.  For me, staying calm and collected in stressful situation is probably the hardest thing for me to do.

Our morning routine usually consists of me bringing our son down for breakfast.  Today, he didn't want to come with me.  He wanted to stay with him mom.  I brought him down anyways and as soon as we got downstairs, he started a crying fit.  God bless him, if he wants something, he knows how to get it.  So he climbed up the stairs and ran towards our bedroom.  At this point, all I can do is surrender as I needed to get breakfast ready.  My wife managed to calm him down.  In the end, he wanted her to go down with him and he wanted his milk. He usually knows how to sign please when he wants something.  In the last week or so, the pleases have turned into a pointing motion to whatever is he wants with a 'there, there' (in a toddler voice). 

I found an article that finds the bright side with toddler behaviour from Today's Parent Magazine.  But in the end they concede, that toddlers can be a handful.  Luckily for us parents, their charm and enthusiasm redeems all those temper tantrums.

Bedtime Stories - toddler bed and bedtime woes

Last week our son learned how to climb out of his crib.  As a knee jerk reaction, we opted to convert his crib into a toddler bed by taking out one of the sidewalls.  We were concerned he would try to climb out of his crib in the middle of the night and hurt himself.

Luckily, it was a blessing in disguise.  He is thoroughly enjoying his little bed and even preferred to be read his bedtime story in it on the first night. 

***

Our son is really sociable.  He loves being around people especially when we have family and friends over.  Last night, we had a small gathering of friends and he obviously wanted to be part of the action.  It was already past 9 p.m. (he's usually asleep by 8:30), I thought it would be appropriate to cut his party time short and start putting him to bed. 

I asked him, "Ethan - bedtime?"

He confidently replied, "No, no no" with his little toddler voice.

Trying to be the responsible parent, I decided to not heed to his request and bring him upstairs.  Realizing that he was being taken away from the party, he voiced is displeasure and went on a crying fit.  My wife managed to get him into his pyjamas but he was still insisting to go downstairs.

After 30-40 minutes of trying to appease him, I gave up the fight and just brought him downstairs.  I just asked him to sign 'please' if he wants to go downstairs, and he promptly calmed down and stopped crying.  Everyone left around at 1030 and he politely said goodbye to all our guests.

We all went upstairs and lied down on our bed and he fell asleep within 5 minutes.  So what to do next time?  Let him just enjoy the party or force him to go to bed?

Does Your Little Toddler Bite?

My son likes to bite sometimes.  It doesn't look like he does it because he's mad.  I think he does it because he gets a reaction from us.  Maybe it's a sign for us to pay attention to him a little bit more.  At daycare, he's been bitten by another kid a couple of times already.  It's nice to know it's not just our kid (if that's any comfort).

Browsing through Todaysparent.com, I saw an article about biting.  According to the article, the main causes of biting:

• Teething (seems like babies are teething all the time!)
• Distressed or frustrated
• Age - supposedly peaks around 18 months.

Some ways to prevent or stop the biting habit:

• Pre-empt the action.
• If child is feeling frustrated or distressed, remove the bitee and console. Tell them that 'it's not ok to do that'
• Give them a stressball (i'm serious, this was a tip) or teach them to express their frustration to say "I'm mad" (if they can talk already)
• Do not bite back. It just reinforces the behaviour.

Let me know if your little toddler is a biter too.  Any tips?

Sick Kid - Stay home or send to daycare?

Last week was tough.  In a blog post last week about work-life balance, I talked about being able to work from home while my son was sick.  We brought him to daycare on Wednesday but when we picked him up, we were told he had diarrhea.  Yikes.  The daycare wouldn't take him the next day so my wife had to take the day off on Thursday.  She brought him tot he doctor and said that he's got a respiratory infection and could be mild bronchitis.  Great!  So I decided to just stay home and just take a vacation day on Friday.

Our daycare, as most daycares, has a sick policy.  I guess I missed the point that if your kid has diarrhea - they have to stay home.  Luckily, our son didn't have diarrhea for long. After digging around a little, I saw this Globe and Mail article, Sick Kids: Send them to Daycare or Stay home?. In the article it said that the Candian Pediatric Society recommends the following regarding sick kids and daycare:

-All child-care centres should have a written policy (in accordance with provincial or territorial health policies) on the management of a sick child, which is reviewed by all staff.

-The policy should contain information on recognizing an emergent illness or injury, and on when to call for an ambulance, the proper use of antibiotics and the characteristics of common pediatric infections.

-Child-care centres should document the reason why a child is excluded from care.

-Children with strep throat or pink eye should have 24 hours of antibiotic therapy before returning to child care.

-Children with diarrhea should be excluded if their stool cannot be contained in a diaper, cannot be controlled by a toilet-trained child, or there are signs of fever or blood or mucus in the stool.

This is every working parent's dilemna - what to do when your child is sick and can't go to his/her daycare.  It helps to be clear on when and why not to bring your sick kid to daycare.  Obviously, we wouldn't want other parents to send their sick child to daycare either.  We got through this one.  We just hope everything's back to normal now.

 

Will they have enough money in their RESPs?

According to a recent story from the Globe and Mail, in 2027, the average cost of a 4 year university
degree is as follows:

-Living at dorm: just over $137,000 CAD
-Living with parents: just over $100,000 CAD

These estimates approximately will be around the time when our son is about to head off to University (so we'd hope). 

I was lucky enough that family paid for my university education.  A few months after our son was born, we opened a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for our son.  Thankfully, both of our parents, were willing to make a contribution along side our own contribution.

But based on our current savings amount, our son would only have about half of the money required for a 4 year program.  Along side other financial goals we have as a couple (i.e. retirement, paying off mortgage, etc.), is it a realistic goal for us to make it a priority to pay for our kids' education in full?  I guess it would all depend how many kids we have and what can we realistically afford. Is it ok for us to tell them, this is all we can help you with...?

I Should Be Sleeping

Seriously - I should be sleeping.  It's 11 p.m.  I wake up in approximately 6 and a half hours.  There seems to be nights when I have trouble shutting myself down from the hectic day. 

Take a look at our normal daily routine (M-F).

5:30 a.m. alarm clock goes off

6:00 a.m. rise and shine - get ready for work and get ready for daycare

6:30 a.m. Get lunches packed and eat breakfast (includes feeding my son)

7:00 a.m. Get ready to leave

7:15 a.m. Drop off our son at daycare

7:30 a.m. Arrive at transit station

8:30 a.m. Arrive at Work

4:00 p.m. Leave Work

5:30 p.m. Pick-up son at daycare

5:45 p.m. Get home prepare dinner, prepare lunches, clean-up

6:30 p.m. Dinner

7:00 p.m. Bath Time for baby

7:15 p.m. Some playtime

7:45 p.m. Bedtime for baby

Last night, I was asleep at 9:00 p.m. since I was so tired.  Tonight's a different story, my wife is asleep beside me and I'm blogging.  An hour ago, I had the inkling to prepare dinner for tomorrow with our slowcooker. By morning, dinner will be ready.

I think sometimes as a parent, I have a 'need' to get things done.  It didn't help today that I spent about 40 minutes going to two grocery stores and a drug store to find my son's vitamins to no avail.  I think I'm a little bit bent up from that 'failed' attempt to complete that task. So when I got home, I was looking for stuff to do. Hence, getting out out of bed to get dinner going for tomorrow with the slow cooker.

I joke around that I wish my son had an on-and-off button.  I wish I had one too so I could just 'sleep'.

We survived the first week of daycare

We survived the first week of daycare. 

Challenges:

• As each day passed, our son figured out what we were doing.  His dismay about being left at daycare increased each day - from a whimper, to a cry, to a full-out refusal to go inside the door.
• He sustained three scratches from a fall, a toy tussle, and a bite.  I know another kid bit him before the daycare teachers could stop the other kid.  Guess getting a little scratched up comes with daycare territory.
• He's not napping as well.  So he's pretty tired when he gets some and kind of cranky. 

Positives:

• The daycare he's goes has really great daycare teachers.
• He's getting socialized each day.
• Getting him into a more regular routine.

Talking to the daycare teacher yesterday, she said that each day is getting to be a better day for him.  Hopefully, this improvement continues.  As much as I would like him to be at a home setting still, my wife and I both have to work.  It's tough leaving your child at daycare.  We're all trying to make the best of out of it.

Diaper Change Dilemna: No Changing Tables Here

Last spring, we were on a flight from Portland to San Francisco on United Airlines.  My son was 8 months old and needed a diaper change.  Much to my surprise, this particular plane had no changing table.  I asked the flight attendant, is there one in the front of the place.  She just said, "This plane has no changing tables."  Didn't even offer any possible help.  What do I do?? 

I just went at the very back in galley and changed my son on the floor as the other flight attendants just sat there and watched.  On top of the one of the lousiest leg rooms ever for an economy cabin, they also decided changing tables aren't necessary on a fairly large plane. The least they could've done was tell us from the beginning. 

Many restaurants also don't have changing tables for babies, which is almost understandable.  I've just resorted to the floor in public places to change my son's diaper - as unhygienic as that may sound. But where else are you going to do it?  The trusty changing pad always saves the day.

Toddler Feeding Woes...

Ever since our son turned one, he's grown to be pickier and pickier about the food he eats.  He used to just gobble whatever we put in front of him.  I'm sure part of this is his normal development but meal times are getting to be a little bit frustrating.

Some of the things that are happening:

1. Takes food in his mouth then grabs it out of his mouth and throws it out.

2. With finger foods, takes interest for a little while, then just plays with his food.

Anyone got any tips out there?