The joys of kids' building up immunity--or "sick again"

So Otter was diagnosed last weekend with hand foot and mouth virus (no, not the livestock disease) or some near equivalent. One day of fever, two days of periodic inability to nurse, what seemed like twelve (but was probably three or four) nights of early morning screaming and wailing. At 1 and 4am, Otter was soothed mainly by my mom's applesauce and the judicious use of new Sesame Street DVDs.

I am, in theory, not so excited about on the overmarketing of branded products to kids. But at 4:15 in the morning when Bert and Ernie and assorted musical Muppets are singing a jazzy bluesy version of "Put Down the Duckie" (if you want to play the saxophone), and Otter stops wailing, sits up in bed, and settles back against us to snuggle, I'm ready to sign Otter up for anything Sesame Street. If we are the world's only simulateously co-sleeping and Sesame-Street-DVD-watching family, if I am dooming myself to argument over Otter's pleas for 2006's Rapping Snapping Tapping Dress-Himself Elmo, so be it.

Is this how it begins? Am I insane to feel I can try to get Otter to be skeptical of and resistant to marketing aimed at kids when I now know every word and intonation of Cookie Monster and Frazzle and Grover and Elmo and Herry on Otter's Monster Hits DVD? But it's soooo good... it really is entertaining and fun and all three of us like it.

And what does it say that, of the two of us, only my partner knows Miller's Crossing and Star Wars essentially by heart, but we both know Monster Hits? I do also know Goodnight Gorilla and How DO Dinosaurs Say Goodnight (more on that one next time) from the Scholastic DVDs. And Happy Birthday Moon, from the same DVD, which my partner swears features the dumbest most irritating bear ever invented. Does that help redeem me?

Maybe I'm just too much of a mediaphilic person to raise children today according to the progressive code of honor.

Of course, I continue to be annoyed by the unskippable intro to the newest Sesame Street DVDs, the one with Whoopi Goldberg says: "Children are counting.... on you" with children and Muppets around the world ("You did more than buy a video...").

Welcome

Rather than struggle any longer with updating our website, I've decided to keep this blog and let you all know how Otter is doing this way, as well as musing and reflecting here on parenting.

Otter is over sixteen months old now, and almost every day he has a new sign and/or a new word. He is obsessed with his Fisher-Price ride-on bike and the plastic pink-topped baby bottle that they have at his daycare.

Yes, that's daycare, singular. Due to commuting difficulties on both Otter's and my part, we're swtiching him to just one daycare instead of two. This one is relatively close to our house and we love it, as does Otter. It means giving up the great parents and indoor slide at the other palce, but I am working to accept that we can't give Otter every lovely experience in the world simultaneously.

Otter's latest signs are 'cold' (which we use for frozen fruit pops) and 'apple', plus he's learned to imitate his dad by catching and hugging to his chest the kisses blown to him. He says "gahh" for car, and "gohh(k)" for sock, and from context they're pretty clear. (After all, how often do you put cars on your feet or sit on a sock?)

When he's hungry at daycare, he heads right over to the table and sits down to wait to be fed, whether or not it's snacktime. We're lucky that they're very flexible and feed him whenever he's hungry, which, lately, is all the time.

He threw a massive tantrum of upset and frustration and exhaustion last night when I had to take the pink plastic baby bottle away from him as we left daycare for home. He wailed all the way home. Then, after half an hour of nursing at home, he bounced up cheery as ever.

I'm just happy that he likes a baby bottle as much as a ride-on-bike, thus defying neat and easy gender stereotypes.