A Snowshoeing Expedition–Toddler Included

Cedar’s had a rough week. Although she’s recently potty trained herself, she’s started waking up at night, has succumbed to a few tornado style tantrums, and has seemed generally out of sorts. The other day she told me gently, “I want Coral to go back into your belly.” I told her Coral wouldn’t fit.

It has been smooth in the sibling rivalry department so far. Cedar hasn’t been aggressive. She kisses, hugs, and loves her sister so completely, sometimes it seems like she thinks Coral has always been here. My parental guilt—am I giving each of them what they need—is quick to remind me not to make assumptions. We figured she needed something special. TJ suggested some extra mommytime this weekend.

I decided to take her snowshoeing. We’ve been reading “Winnie the Pooh” and her favorite story is “Expotition to the North Pole.” We’d have a mama-girl expotition for ourselves.

Since it was almost 31 degrees at our house the only preparations I needed to make were putting on a light jacket, a hat, mukluks, and snowshoes. I didn’t even bring gloves

Cedar’s preparations were another thing entirely. Riding in the backpack she wouldn’t generate much heat. Even with the balmy temperature she needed a polarfleece shirt, snowpants, boots, hat mittens and coat. Before even starting to get dressed she needed to spend about a half hour on the potty reading books.

By the time Cedar was ready to go I had almost fallen asleep nursing Coral with my hat and boots on.

We got outside, adjusted the backpack straps, and I heaved her up onto my back. I tried to put my snowshoes on and realized it wasn’t going to work that way. I heaved her off my back, put my snowshoes on, and heaved her up again. I got Woody’s leash, gave him a biscuit, and turned to face the trail at the back of the yard.

There was a moose looking right at me, eating a willow. Woody stood a few feet in front of it silent and wagging.

Cedar started narrating. “The moose says, ‘Woody, what shall we do? and Woody says, ‘I don’t know. What shall we do?” I thought, “What shall we do?” The moose was in our way, but after the preparations I had made for our expedition, I wasn’t turning back. Navigating a moose in your path requires patience and luck. Most of the time they move out of your way, but the few times they don’t you had better be able to run out of their way quickly.

We waited, well out of range, talking loudly about moose and dogs and how when Woody was younger he would have chased the moose. She said, “When Woody and Cashew were younger I used to tell them to chase moose.” I said, “You weren’t born yet.” She replied, “When I was in your belly I told them to chase moose.” Who knows–maybe she thinks Coral has always been here because she has always been here herself.

Eventually, the moose headed in a different direction and we clomped down the trail.

Cedar called me Kanga the whole way, and in return I had to call her Roo. No one fell in a river or lost a tail. We didn’t find the North Pole, but I would say the expedition was a success. Sometimes balancing the needs of two kids requires heaving one around on your back in the woods for a while.

tags technorati : fairbanks alaska moose snowshoeing

Review: The Thai House, Fairbanks, Alaska

412 5th Ave., Fairbanks, Alaska 452-6123

There are two things you can count on after living in Fairbanks: you will forever think of anything above zero degrees as “not too cold” and you will be forever spoiled for Thai food. We have such fabulous Thai restaurants that for former Fairbanksans eating Thai food anywhere but Thailand will ultimately lead to disappointment. Among our many excellent Thai restaurants∗, Thai House sets the standard.

The last time I was there was at their old location and Cedar was only eight weeks old. A diaper-buster sent us to the bathroom. I borrowed the key at the counter and headed down the dank hallway with the sunken floor to the bathroom that served the restaurant, a dentist’s office, and innumerable hole in the wall offices, some numbered and labeled, others mysteriously blank. The only available surface for diaper changing to be found was the plastic lid of a thirty-gallon garbage can. I hadn’t been back since then (thanks to the also excellent Lemongrass Thai restaurant).

But last May Thai House moved to a new location just down the street from the old one. The sign is still there for diners to behold in January, “Opening May 1st!” New location—new bathroom. With two girls in tow, we decided to give it a try.

The bathroom is a huge improvement. There’s no changing table, but the sink has a counter just wide enough for a five month old. I parked Coral there and changed away. Anyone over 10 months will be too big for this option, but it was clean and a change on the floor wouldn’t be unthinkable. The many gold-framed mirrors, pedestals, and the silk flowers especially impressed cedar. This bathroom has pretensions to something greater—maybe a set from TV’s Miami Vice.

Cedar, who on her fourth day of full-on underpants wearing was telling anyone who would listen, “I’m wearing underpants under my pants,” headed to the potty with me. She initiated me into a new parenting dilemma—toddler running out of the bathroom while mama is still indisposed. Fortunately, I was just fastening my belt. The door opens directly into the dining room and the bathroom is filled with mirrors, so be warned. Embarrassment from all angles awaits some unfortunate parent. Dads beware—the diners have an even better view of the men’s room.

We do love our Thai on the Last Frontier, but mind your schedule. Every Thai restaurant in town is closed between 4 and 5 pm. We’ve made the parenting mistake of promising chicken with red curry, unbuckling a hungry toddler from the car, carrying her through a parking lot in twenty below weather only to be turned away at the door. Strapping her back in was a challenge. Enjoy some Thai food and a clean bathroom—go to Thai House at 5:01 tonight.

∗ There are so many good Thai restaurants and so many other lousy restaurants that I would like to institute an international restaurant exchange. Some one from a town lacking good Thai send us your Chinese or Indian restaurant and we’ll ship a Thai restaurant there.

tags technorati : dining thai fairbanks alaska

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Gratitude on Monday

A big thank you to scribbit for hosting the Write Away Contest. It gave me the inspiration to write about my goals. Another big thank you to Daring Young Mom for judging the contest.

I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner for Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.

Please visit scribbit and check out all the great entries . I loved reading them all.

Rory at Hamelife provides some great inspiration for all of us with 5 Surefire Steps to Beating Defeating Thinking .

Noel Wien Library: Storytime Follow-Up

Friday at Parents and Twos as Miss Kitty prepared to take a bunny puppet out of her bag, she asked, “What animal is in here?” Cedar replied loudly, “Miss Kitty, my mama lost the keys!” Everyone looked at me. I said, “I found them. That’s how we got here.”

Storytime progressed. We sang the hello song and “Wheels on the Bus.” We listened to “Goodnight Moon” and a felt board story about a bunny with red wings. Then we headed to the craft table to make a bunny that hops out of a cup. No movie, of course.

In my last post about Parents and Twos, I discussed the broken projector. After storytime, Miss Kitty explained that the projector has been dying a slow death and the library had looked into several options to replace it—including an LED projector and new DVD’s.

Unfortunately, securing the rights to public performance was the glitch. The permission the library has to show the films they have doesn’t translate into permission to show DVD’s of the same films. They’re in the process of finding a new 16mm projector. A hardware upgrade is apparently more complicated than just buying new stuff.

I mentioned to Miss Kitty that we haven’t made it to Mother Moose, the library’s program for the under-two set. Cedar and I went to those from 8 weeks on. Coral is five months old and hasn’t gotten to go yet. I fear that bringing my whirlwind of a 27 month old into a room of folks under one might be overwhelming.

“Ahh, those second children,” she said, and encouraging me to give it a try. She suggested I should prepare Cedar by talking about how we’re going to a special storytime for Coral.

I think it’s time Coral had a little library programming of her own. I’ll ask Cedar if she will help Coral learn the songs. We’ll practice a little at home this week with some classic rounds of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Hopefully big sister won’t be a toddler Godzilla menacing baby Tokyo.

tags technorati : library fairbanks alaska

Fred Meyer Responds

I sent Fred Meyer corporate a link to my review of their bathroom at Fred Meyer East in Fairbanks, Alaska. They responded pretty quickly. They mentioned that the store manager might contact me. I haven’t heard anything yet.

I don’t think a major remodel is a possibility. One friend suggested that they move the changing table into the handicapped stall.

Here’s the e-mail I received:

Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 4:35 AM
Subject: RE: Fred Meyer Customer Comment Form From In

Dear Mrs. ——————-:

Thank you for contacting Fred Meyer. We appreciate you taking the time to let us know of restroom concerns at our store located at 930 Old Steese Hwy.

We are committed to providing you with the most enjoyable shopping experience possible and your comments provide us the opportunity to evaluate, address, and correct any inconvenience we may have caused. Your comments have been forwarded to the store manager for review and follow-up.

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Candice K——————
Consumer Affairs

tags technorati : motherhood fairbanks alaska

Handy Rules for Playdates

In order to help my two-year-old learn good manners I find myself reviewing the “guest & host” rules before any playdate. They evolve based on her behavior at the previous playdate. Here are a few recent examples.

Rules for being a guest or a host:

1. Keep your clothes on. Under no circumstances should you come marching down the host’s stairs at a dinner party wearing only one of the host’s bras, a necklace, a purse and a diaper.

2. Always share. Allow your guest to choose the baby doll she wants to use. You must abide by her choice. You cannot tell her, “You choose this one.”

3. Mind your table manners. When eating a cracker, do not bite it and then set it back into the bowl. Do not repeat this until all the crackers have been bitten.

4. Use polite words. Always say “please,” “thank you,” and “no thank you” even if you are screaming them at the top of your lungs.

5. Be a good friend. Do not ask a to watch a show while you have a guest over. When your mother tells you, “No, we don’t watch shows when we have guests,” do not turn to the guest and say, “Are you going?”

6. Keep your hands to yourself. If the guest is screaming, “I do not want to be hugged,” do not hug her. That’s her way of saying, “No thank you.”

7. Be gracious. Upon leaving, do not cry and scream. Even though you might be shouting, “I want to stay and play,” your screaming will guarantee that you are not invited to stay and play again. Say instead, “Thank you, I had a lovely time.”

tags technorati : motherhood two-year-old playdate

Race Carts: Once You Start You Can’t Go Back

For months, I hurried past them shielding Cedar’s eyes like a celebrity avoiding the paparazzi. I thought it was better that she didn’t even realize they existed.

Then I had to choose fixtures for a bathroom remodel. I got her as excited as I could about going to look for “sinks and potties” and I loaded the diaper bag with snacks and toys. At Home Depot I went straight for the race cart. She was hooked on the steering wheel, the forward facing seats, and the fabulous orangeness of the monstrosity. Through the magic of race carts, she sat through the three hours it took me to make a decision on fixtures and a comparison shop at Lowe’s.

Now that I’m stuck with them, I wonder are the race carts worth it?

The steering is bad, almost impossible. They menace the narrow aisles. They’re seesaws waiting for the weight of groceries to exceed the total weight of kid in the seats. When it does, the cart tips forward startling the passengers. Fred Meyer East has six race carts for the whole store, so the chances of getting one on a busy afternoon are slim. People leave them out in the parking lot at thirty below, and I have to line the seat with my parka in order to use it.

But I can’t go back to the regular cart. Once, entering the foyer and finding no race carts, Cedar started to cry. My husband convinced her that a cart with a built in cup holder was just as cool. She shouted, “I’m riding in a coffee cart.” That won’t work again.

So I fill the seat next to Cedar with all our winter gear. I prop snacks on the diaper bag and let her go. I straddle Coral’s car seat across the front of the cart. There’s enough space for a diaper bag, a baby sling, my winter gear and two kids, their coats, mittens, hats, and snow pants.

She’s starting to notice that other kids are walking around Fred Meyer instead of riding. I’ll keep using the race cart to put that off as long as possible.

tags technorati : fairbanks, alaska, motherhood, shopping, cart

Review: Noel Wien Library, Parents & Twos Storytime

Miss Kitty, the mistress of Parents and Twos story time, is a rock star in my daughter’s mind. At home Cedar pretends I’m Kitty. She picks a book of the shelf, hands it to me, and says, “What shall we read today, Miss Kitty?”

After one story time, as Miss Kitty raised the blinds, Cedar said, “I have curtains at my house too, Miss Kitty!” I guess we all want to be like celebrities in any way we can.

We even have a little song we sing on our way to story time (there are other songs too, among them: “Going to the Pool” and “Going to Ellie’s House”). Think of Beck’s falsetto on “Midnight Vultures” and you’ll have the right sound. It goes:

Miss Kitty, your sweater’s real pretty.
Miss Kitty, let’s sing a little ditty.
Miss Kitty, Miss Kitty, Miss Kitty
(you’re so witty)

Cedar shouts from the back seat, “Sing it again” and “Louder.”

P’s and Twos is a free weekly program at the Noel Wein Library Berry Room. Kids and parents sign up for one month at a time. Some months it’s on Thursdays and others it’s on Fridays. For the four weeks, you have customized nametags and a guaranteed spot on the carpet in the storytelling area. You can sign up for multiple sessions, but space is limited, so call as early as you can.

The show begins with an animal puppet joining Miss Kitty for a name song, includes a felt-board storytelling session, and after that alternates between books and songs. Usually P’s & Twos ends with a short movie, but occasionally there’s a craft the toddler artist can add to her gallery at home.

My review–I highly recommended it. I am not going to pan our public library. What kind of person would I be? The Noel Wein Library’s children’s librarians are pillars of patience and good humor. They’re fantastic. Our library provides excellent free programming for tiny Fairbanksans. I’ve been going to Mother Moose story times since Cedar was eight weeks old. We’re old school patrons.

There is a glitch though. Think of this as a plea to some kindly Alaskan philanthropist rather than a criticism. Someone needs to buy the Berry room and LCD projector, a DVD player, and a slew of literary children’s DVDs.

The current movie system is a sixteen mm film projector. The kind that was new technology before I was born, complete with the tick, tick, tick sound, grainy focus, and bubbling underwater-sounding audio. I remember the last time I saw a film on one of these. Miss Lashmet, our gym teacher, showed it. The topic was “Our Changing Bodies.” I also remember it ended with a close up of a smiling girl saying, “It’s better than being a boy.”

At the most recent story time, a tragedy happened. Miss Kitty told us to say, “meow” to make the screen come down from the ceiling and headed back to start the movie. Harold, of purple crayon fame, came shakily onto the screen accompanied by a gurgling sound and wavy hair-like lines. He pulled out his crayon, but the gurgling continued. Miss Kitty tried to restart it several times to no avail. The projector was broken.

Poor Miss Kitty was left telling a room full of two-year-olds that there would be no movie. To distract the little folks from their dashed hopes, she was ready with cat stamps for everyone’s hands. Tantrums averted. Thank you Miss Kitty!

I looked online and found a DVD of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” for $12.99. I’ll commit to buying that one if someone else can cough up a DVD player and a projector. Let’s set up Miss Kitty and the other librarians in style. They deserve it.

tags technorati : fairbanks, alaska, motherhood, library, storytime

Snowshoeing: Fairbanks, Alaska in January

Spending the day cooped up with a two-year-old and a baby can make a mama a little crazy. Especially if it’s 43 below zero in town. Between stuffing the woodstove and nursing while reading “Who’s Making that Smell,” I didn’t get much “me” time today.

So when my husband got home and suggested, perhaps jokingly, that I take the dog out for a snowshoe, I started getting ready. Layer upon layer—silk long underwear, capeline long underwear, polar fleece pants, puffy parka liner, arctic parka, bandana, wool hat, headlamp, socks, and mukluks. I clipped the dog leash across my chest like an arctic Miss America sash and said, “Woody, let’s go out.”

He leapt over Cedar and Coral, who were spending the late afternoon rolling around on the floor in front of the woodstove pretending they were at the beach. Woody never turns down a chance to go. Strangers could pull up in our driveway, open their car door, say, “Come” and he’d hop in and never look back. Today, he didn’t care about the cold. I had said “out.”

He led me down the snowshoe trail into the woods. My glasses fogged up rendering me blind. It was too cold to leave my nose exposed, so I staggered along until I dipped into powdery unbroken trail. I was determined, so I stuffed the glasses in my pocket, found the trail again, and kept going.

I thought of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” The cold, the knife, the dog. Grim headlines flashed in my mind. Then, I remembered I was only fifty feet from my house and that our thermometer, because we live in the hills outside of town, had read only –25. When it’s dark and cold, it’s as easy to succumb to drama as it is to hypothermia.

To keep my head, I need to follow Woody more often. Out is out and one should always go. No matter how many pounds of clothing one has to put on. No matter how heavy the inertia one has to shake off.