Half Birthday

Well, we've kept this kiddo alive for six months today. To boost our odds of continuing the streak, Edith received yet three more vaccinations plus a flu shot yesterday, and this morning I took a pediatric CPR course at the hospital where she was born. Now that she's starting solid foods, I want to be a little more prepared should she start to choke on something.

The 1/4 of the time spent on actual training in CPR was good--it recalled things I learned in college CPR courses, with variations for small people. But the 3/4 of the time spent on paranoid warnings about the myriad ways a child can die I could have done without. I'm not sure what makes Americans so hyper-anxious about child safety, but both Tom and I have been amazed by the collective worry out there. Maybe it has something to do with Western cognitive patterns: I'm currently reading a book called The Geography of Thought that suggests that Westerners focus on discrete objects, their characteristics, and the rules that govern them in an attempt to control outcomes. Apparently that makes us very different from most East Asian thinkers.

Even so, Australians are culturally Westerners, and I can't imagine that they impress on parents such a sense of constant fear. No doubt they offer lessons in child safety, but I imagine they're more like "Be sure to teach your toddler how to splint his own femur with an umbrella and a sweater in case he winds up at the bottom of the baby rugby pile."

Six months into this parenting thing I already had heard many of the warnings offered at the class this morning, but there were still some new ones on me. I wrote down the gems:

-For as long as you have an infant or toddler, don't answer the phone. Taking your attention away from the child to talk and tying up one of your hands holding the phone set is dangerous. Instead, install a speaker phone in each of the rooms in your house that a child will enter. That way you will be able to speak to anyone while maintaining full focus on your child.

-Cheerios are a favorite finger food, but they're dangerous. Cut each of your child's Cheerios in half before serving.

-I had heard the toilet paper tube standard: any toy that can fit through a toilet paper tube presents a choking hazard for an infant or toddler. But today's video specified that not only toys but also all food should be larger than a toilet paper tube. Except those half-Cheerios, I guess. I'm still puzzling over how this one works.

Paranoia aside, we celebrated the rest of the half-birthday very nicely. The weather was an incredible 75 degrees, so we took Edith out to the playground behind our building and, after a good round of swinging, had a picnic lunch out in the grass. Then this evening we took her to a gospel and spirituals choir concert at PTS. They were already halfway into the first hand-clapping, foot-stomping number when we entered, and I think Edith's mouth stayed open in astonishment for a good five minutes.

And now that Edith appears to be catching up on the sleep she missed in her stimulating first few days of school, I had better catch up on the work I missed in completing her homework assignments for her in the stimulating first few days of school. Yes, that's right: I'm already doing my child's homework for her. The information packet for Edith's daycare came with a "Magnificent Me" poster to be completed with pictures cut out and pasted in from magazines. I figured it was an assignment for the older classes, but it turns out they want posters for the infants, too. So since we're trying to keep Edith from finding out how yummy glue is for awhile longer yet, I had way more fun than I should have had looking for pictures of Edith's favorite foods and activities to cut out.

A little less fun is the labeling mania. I now own a laundry pen, and a roll of 300 iron-on labels is on its way. We found out that when they say "Label everything," they mean not only each sock and jar of baby food, but even each individual diaper! It sounded crazy at first, but it does make some sense: they keep a small handful of supplies for each baby in the classroom and a larger stash in cubbies near the front door. If a teacher goes to get diapers for four babies to restock the classroom bins, she wants to know which are which by the time she gets back to the room.

Given what they're calling Edith, I hope they recognize diapers with "EL" on them as hers. There was only one baby in the infant class for many weeks, and so the young toddlers in the next room up got to know Michael pretty well because he'd be brought along on their activities. When Edith showed up this week, apparently a handful of the young toddlers were thrilled to have "another Michael!" They continued to call her Michael all day. It just goes to show: You go to lengths to give your child a name that not everyone in the class will have, and she still winds up as "Michael L."