Thursday, January 12, 2006

Silence is golden. NOT!

Silence is golden.

At least that is what every parent, grandparent, daycare provider or babysitter will tell you. They will give you long lists of toys to avoid so that your sanity is kept in tack: personally stay away from those stupid squeaky shoes. Blogging Baby did two months worth of lists in the run up to Christmas warning all parents to STAY AWAY FROM THESE TOYS! Parents check toys before putting in the batteries or secretly break their children’s favourite noisemaker.

Well they are all lying.

Silence is NOT golden.

The truth is that when you are a parent silence makes you suddenly pause and your heart start to race. You brain begins to churn out a million different scenarios:

Did she get the dangerous liquids door open?
Did she fall?
Is she suffocating herself somehow and cant scream?
Is she eating something that she knows she is not allowed to?
Did she lock herself into a closet?
Is she dead?
WHY IS SHE BEING QUIET!!!!

Parents will sprint across the living room floor and peer their heads around the corner. We are trying to be silent just in case our fears are unfounded and they are actually sitting there quietly playing away. Sometimes parents yell out hoping for an answer. This works if your children can talk, but if you have an 11-month old well

Silence = Pain

Yes, PAIN!

These days I am living the life of a single mom: dad works nights and we almost never see each other. Arriving home from work usually means an explosion of craziness and running around in an attempt to get the kid fed, bath drawn, kid bathed, put in bed, and possibly get some food into my own stomach. Throw a bit of laundry in there once and a while.

Well last night I was attempting to do all of the above. Ji had eaten and the bath water had been turned on. I have learned that if I close the kitchen door I cannot hear the bath running: this results in disaster, so the door must stay open. Problem is that Ji can get the shower door open: she has been able to do this now for months.

Now basically this is not a problem. In the past she would toddle up to the shower door and open it, then close it, then open it, then close it, well you get the picture. Recently her furniture climbing skills have gotten very good and she has been able to heave herself up the giant step into the shower area.

Now in Japan the shower and bath is one contained unit. This is a beautiful thing if you like baths: you can fill the water up to the very very very top and if the water spills over it doesn’t matter because it is falling into the shower area. No wet floors to mop up. The baths are also much shorter than typical American baths, about half the length, and the sides are double in height. My father LOVED it when he can and soaked away one night.

Well Ji can get into the shower area now, which means she is probably getting wet from leftover water on the floor. She is also tearing apart the shampoo shelve and throwing around her bath toys. I am not worried about her falling into the bathtub, YET. It is possible but she is not that capable, ....yet.

So last night the water is being drawn in the bath, Ji has toddled into the shower and is checking out my toothbrush, I am attempting to clean up after the usual food fight dinner that Ji left behind. I am also having panic attacks every time I hear silence and am sprinting at top speed between the kitchen and the shower. All the while I am chanting in my head:

At no time should you leave your baby unattended. At no time should you leave your baby unattended.

(I chant this in my brain over and over again when I have turned my back on Ji.)

Last night Ji had me in sprint mode about 4 or 5 times due to silent pauses in the babbling and banging sounds that were coming from my shower area. But as we can see from this picture the kid is perfectly fine. Her ass got a bit wet but she was totally content with life.



But in one of those last sprint the situation went something like this:

JiJi what are you doing? (sprint mode starts) Have you found something bad you silly girl? (have cleared the living room and am now in the kitchen area) what are yooouuuu doooiii AUGHhhhhh ouch ouch ouch ouch, JiJi are you ouch ok ouch ouch crap pain JiJi you silly girl (now hobbling into the shower area) ouch did you find ouch mommy’s floss picks? Ouch oh my god this bloody hurts (now hobbling into the adjoining bedroom area to inspect my bloody knee!!!) OUCH!!!!




I bit it people: skidded across my kitchen floor (all of about 4 feet in length) and left a damn skid mark of the floor. I swear it is my skin that wore through the sweat pants I was wearing.
Crap but it stings.
ouch!


Update:
Today’s blessing is a lovely wonderful co-worker/friend, Fumiko.
Why?
- She was bored and did ALL of my photocopying, sorting and stapling. She offered! I HATE photocopying.
- She was given a box of 20 Flavour Jelly Beans and didn’t like them: she gave them to me!!!!
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::1/12/2006 :: 26 Comments:

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