For anyone who has never attempted this, I offer you a tutorial on getting three children clean.
1. Inform said children that it is bath time. Listen to the oldest protest that he's not done building the Lego boat that, incidentally, will never be done. Listen to the middle one insist that he has to take bath first--or is it second? No, wait, he wants to go first. Probably. But he feels very strongly about whichever one it is. Chase the little one as she high-tails it to the bathroom, shouting "Bath!" Try to intercept her before she throws everything she can reach into the tub.
2. Fill the bathtub. Try to find the exact point at which the oldest can easily dunk his head, while the youngest will not simply tip over and drown. Insist, despite many arguments, that no, you don't have to leave the water running through the entire bath. Wish you had never started that when the 6-year-old was a baby, because now you pay for it at every bath. Agree that perhaps bubbles would be nice. Curse the fact that you didn't think to bring dish soap into the bathroom, and if you go get it now, the toddler will plunge headfirst into the tub. Try to convince them that a bath without bubbles is also fun. Lose argument, and finally fill the tub with hand soap, which makes reasonable bubbles. Consider getting some (surprisingly expensive) bubble bath just to prevent these arguments.
3. Tell youngest that she can now put the bath toys in the tub. Help her locate the cabinet that houses the toys and lift out the plastic tub in which you store them. Take a moment to feel good about yourself for coming up with such an elegant solution to the storage of all those wet toys. Have that feeling taken away as youngest child throws all the toys into the bath, including the soap, splashing water all over the floor, then hurls in the plastic tub as well.
4. Tell middle and youngest that the bath is ready. Lift them into the tub and try to keep one ear out for the oldest, playing in the next room. Pray that he doesn't choose this moment to jump off his bed, decide he simply must glue things, or act on any of the other bad ideas he seems to be full of lately. Tell youngest not to drink bath water. Admire middle child's ability to stick his nose in the water, but clarify that it doesn't really get all his hair wet. Tell youngest not drink bath water. Try to get middle child's hair wet, fighting with him about when his hair is actually wet enough to wash. Tell youngest not to drink bath water, and take cup away. Sigh, as she replaces cup with a washcloth, which she then sucks on.
5. Conclude that they are both relatively wet and try to wash them. Agree that maybe they can wash themselves, and besides, the water is pretty soapy anyway, right? Hand middle child bottle of shampoo, and try to stop him before he pours the entire bottle into his hand. Remind him, after he dunks hand in the water, that he was supposed to put that soap on his body and hair and get clean. Try again. Put soap on youngest child's hair while she tries to steal it. Pour a small amount in her hand so she will hold still and get washed. Figure that she's probably pretty clean, and you're losing your patience anyway. Rinse them both amid much shrieking.
6. Tell children that it's almost time to get out. Remind youngest that if she stands up in the tub, she will have to get out. Try not to laugh as she smiles and sits down every time you say this. Insist that it's almost time. Remind them that the time has almost come. Inform them that it's time to get out now, and try to ignore the shocked cries that it can't be time to be done yet! Lift middle child out and dry him off as quickly as possible, while he tries to run away, across the wet and slippery bathroom floor. Tell oldest that his turn has come. Inform him that, at six years old, he doesn't need to be quite so concerned about getting undressed all alone in the room. Give in and remove youngest from the tub so that oldest can get in. Try not to slip on the wet floor as you carry youngest off to get diapered and dressed. Tell oldest that you're running late so he's going to have to get clean right away.
7. Get youngest dry and start getting her diapered. Stop to inform middle child that he has his underpants on backwards, and he's putting his legs in the arm holes of his pajamas. Try to find youngest's pajamas. Swear that you left them here, and tear drawer apart while she tries to get the ball point pen you left on the changing table. Give up and put her in leggings and a sweat shirt. She can wear them tomorrow too. Help middle child find the arm holes in his pajamas. Pick towels up off the floor and brush off the dog hair. Call to oldest that he needs to be getting clean. Get a very noncommittal "Okay!" in response.
8. Turn on whatever is on Nickelodeon (please be Spongebob) while you check on oldest. See that he is still mostly dry and has been "swimming" around the tub, sliding on the slanted back of the tub in a way you explicitly told him never to do. Try not to get upset and tell him that he really, really needs to get clean now. Go check on younger two, and take dog bone away from youngest child. Return to oldest child, and see that he's putting soap into dry hair. As calmly as possible, offer to get it wet. While you're there, quickly wash and rinse his hair. Tell him he really needs to get clean now, and go check on the younger ones. Yay, Spongebob! That buys you at least 10 minutes of TV hypnosis; maybe you can check your email tonight before you all fall asleep. Respond to oldest child's calls that he's ready to get out--now!
9. Provide oldest child with a towel to stand on and another to dry with. Agree to dry his hair. Feel a little frustrated that he won't do it. Feel a little grateful that this great big person will still let you dry his hair. Send him off to get dressed and go clean the bathroom. Empty the bathtub and start removing toys. Curse the stupid plastic toy tub, now as wet as the toys it holds. End up drying the tub with a towel and putting it away. Go check on oldest and find him yelling at middle child that he needs "to be alone right now" to get dressed. Giggle a little at the fact that he is naked while yelling at his brother that he needs privacy to dress. Remind oldest that he needs to take care of his dirty clothes and towel after he gets dressed. Go check on youngest and take the dog's bone away from her again. When oldest child emerges from his room, go check and resignedly put away his dirty clothes and wet towel.
10. When all children are dry and dressed, turn on a show for them, collapse onto the couch, and count the hours until you can go to bed.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
I want my baby back, baby back, baby back
Part of me misses my old film camera. It was just so simple. You take pictures, then (eventually, perhaps years later) you take them in and have them developed. Then you have film and pictures. How simple! How tactile!
Now I have this (lovely) digital camera. And it's so strange. In the same way that Mp3s and even CDs are weird and scary to me because really, how to they get sound onto that and how do they get it out, and how many ways are there to break it? I'm a little leery of the camera's memory card. So when we got home from our vacation, I immediately thought, "I must transfer all those photos to the computer." You know, so that I can forget to order prints and spend the next several hours messing with Picasa to get them just so.
And this is the first photo that shows up on the memory card:
That's Matilda, who will be 18 months old on September 3rd. There are 62 photos still in the camera from that day and the next, the day she was born, the first time her daddy held her, the first time she met her brothers, the first time she saw her grandpa. And I can't seem to get rid of them. They're in the computer (probably in several places) and backed up on another memory card, just in case. And somewhere I have prints. But there's something about deleting them from the memory card in the camera that I can't handle. Is it that if I delete the pictures, that time is gone for good? Is it that if anything happened to the pictures, I'm afraid I would lose that precious memory? I had no such problems with the film when the boys were born. I developed the pictures, then stuck the film in a drawer.
This is the picture that I actually wanted to show you:
While we were on vacation, Ezra got really into pooping on the potty. This is a pretty big deal, since, though he's been pretty good--if not reliable--about peeing in the potty, poop has been harder to come by. And at the same time, Matilda has decided she must spend all day, every day putting on clothes. So it logically follows that as soon as we got home from our camping trip, Ezra had to pull out his coveted shark underpants and prove that he is big enough to wear them, by spending all his time on the potty. (Which is way easier now that going potty doesn't involve pulling three kids in the wagon half a mile to the bathrooms.) And Matilda took that opportunity to swipe and put on the shark underpants. They're both so very proud of their accomplishments!
Zachary goes to first grade in a week and a half. Ezra is now officially too big for me to carry up the stairs. Sometimes I wonder if I really do let Matilda get away with more than I let the boys do at her age; my husband insists that it's true. And if so, is it because she's a girl and there's some secret sexist in me who can't stop her? Is it, as I sometimes think, because of the way she came to be with us? She was a surprise, one of those "Oh my god, what are we going to do now?" surprises. And I don't ever, ever want her to feel like she is anything less than the perfect completion of our family. Or is it just that I can feel these years, these baby years, slipping away, and I can't stand to let go just yet? How is it possible that the waxy, cranky little thing I see in that picture has already turned into this person who wants to dress herself all day and prefers one cup over another?
Maybe I'll hold onto the pictures a little longer, since I clearly can't keep the babies.
Friday, July 24, 2009
The Coward's Guide to Courage
How do you teach your child to be brave... especially when you don't want to?
This is something I've been mulling over for a long time. I feel like I've spent Zachary's entire life, starting from when he was three days old and didn't want to sleep alone, trying ride the line between protecting him and teaching him self-reliance. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that though I want him to be brave, I don't want to have any part in the learning. And I suppose that that's because, at heart, I am really a giant coward.
I was floored when, at the age of 2 or so, Zachary was visiting my mom and she stood him on the kitchen counter and encouraged him to jump off it into her arms. She insisted that this was a game she'd played with my brother all the time when he was little; I insisted that we were trying very hard to get him to stay on his bottom when he was on high things like the kitchen counter! And so it's gone.
In a couple of days, Zachary will be six years old. He has mastered kindergarten and will go to first grade in the fall. He made friends, listened to the teacher, and didn't wet his pants (I don't know about him, but that was really my biggest fear). He has made friends, all by himself, with a little boy down the street and goes over there to play, without me, though his friend's mom does come get him, since I'm not yet okay with him walking down and across the street by himself. He's reading well, likes to play soccer and video games, and helps out with the younger kids. Let me be clear: He is a wonderful, well adjusted kid.
But he lacks courage. He won't ride a bike--with training wheels--because he's afraid he's going to fall. I try my hardest to be honest with my kids, so I tell him yes, you probably will fall, just like you fell when you were learning to walk. But it won't be the end of the world. I fell all the time; in fact, my sister used to ride her bike into parked cars all up and down our street. But we kept trying and eventually figured it out. He doesn't like to try anything new, because of the infinite number of things that he things may go wrong. We've spent months and thousands of dollars on turning Ezra's room into his and Ezra's room. And last night, he was ecstatic to move in. Until it was time to go to sleep, when he started crying and crying. Dad came up and lay on the floor in his room, until Zachary said it was okay, he could go. Not five minutes later, he was downstairs, sobbing, saying things about how the room was just too different and he couldn't sleep and red was suddenly a scary color. He ended up in bed with me all night.
And while I find myself so frustrated with this apparent lack of courage, I think that it's not all his personality; some of it is mine. Courage is, after all, simply acting in the face of fear. And I don't like to see my kids scared. I don't like to see them feeling unsafe, frightened, wanting someone to tell them that they will be fine, that they will always be safe. Rather, I like being able to tell them that I will always keep them safe, that nothing bad will ever happen to them--because at heart, I am the hugest coward there is. And apparently the hugest hypocrite as well. Because I ask my son to take a chance, to try something new, to face his fears and act anyway. But I don't face my own fear, the fear that someday, something bad may actually happen to my kid. And I don't quite know how to reconcile my own cowardice with my desire for him to live a life of courage.
This is something I've been mulling over for a long time. I feel like I've spent Zachary's entire life, starting from when he was three days old and didn't want to sleep alone, trying ride the line between protecting him and teaching him self-reliance. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that though I want him to be brave, I don't want to have any part in the learning. And I suppose that that's because, at heart, I am really a giant coward.
I was floored when, at the age of 2 or so, Zachary was visiting my mom and she stood him on the kitchen counter and encouraged him to jump off it into her arms. She insisted that this was a game she'd played with my brother all the time when he was little; I insisted that we were trying very hard to get him to stay on his bottom when he was on high things like the kitchen counter! And so it's gone.
In a couple of days, Zachary will be six years old. He has mastered kindergarten and will go to first grade in the fall. He made friends, listened to the teacher, and didn't wet his pants (I don't know about him, but that was really my biggest fear). He has made friends, all by himself, with a little boy down the street and goes over there to play, without me, though his friend's mom does come get him, since I'm not yet okay with him walking down and across the street by himself. He's reading well, likes to play soccer and video games, and helps out with the younger kids. Let me be clear: He is a wonderful, well adjusted kid.
But he lacks courage. He won't ride a bike--with training wheels--because he's afraid he's going to fall. I try my hardest to be honest with my kids, so I tell him yes, you probably will fall, just like you fell when you were learning to walk. But it won't be the end of the world. I fell all the time; in fact, my sister used to ride her bike into parked cars all up and down our street. But we kept trying and eventually figured it out. He doesn't like to try anything new, because of the infinite number of things that he things may go wrong. We've spent months and thousands of dollars on turning Ezra's room into his and Ezra's room. And last night, he was ecstatic to move in. Until it was time to go to sleep, when he started crying and crying. Dad came up and lay on the floor in his room, until Zachary said it was okay, he could go. Not five minutes later, he was downstairs, sobbing, saying things about how the room was just too different and he couldn't sleep and red was suddenly a scary color. He ended up in bed with me all night.
And while I find myself so frustrated with this apparent lack of courage, I think that it's not all his personality; some of it is mine. Courage is, after all, simply acting in the face of fear. And I don't like to see my kids scared. I don't like to see them feeling unsafe, frightened, wanting someone to tell them that they will be fine, that they will always be safe. Rather, I like being able to tell them that I will always keep them safe, that nothing bad will ever happen to them--because at heart, I am the hugest coward there is. And apparently the hugest hypocrite as well. Because I ask my son to take a chance, to try something new, to face his fears and act anyway. But I don't face my own fear, the fear that someday, something bad may actually happen to my kid. And I don't quite know how to reconcile my own cowardice with my desire for him to live a life of courage.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Where have I been?
Thank you so much to Jasmine for letting me know that I am not alone in the world and that there actually are people who read this blog--when I get around to writing in it!
It's been a pretty busy summer; I'm a little inclined to say lousy, but let's go with busy instead. If you are ever inclined to do any major home renovation, take a deep breath and ask yourself if it's truly worth it. The first week in May, we broke ground on an addition to the house. The second week in June, Zachary finished school and has since been home. Around the middle of June, we lost the use of Ezra's room, since they knocked out the wall to expand the room so the boys can share it; since then, he's slept in our room. Since Matilda is already sleeping in there, this almost immediately meant that he stopped napping. A couple of weeks later, we lost the upstairs bathroom when they ripped it apart to add onto it, and we lost much of the use of the basement bathroom, since they tore apart the ceiling in there to get to the pipes. Somewhere in there, we were also informed that we needed a new roof and that insurance ought to pay for it; but of course we had to fight with claims adjustors for a few weeks.
Last week, I got an email from the mother of the victim of Matilda's biting; she'd been bitten again on Friday, and they decided to take a couple of weeks to decide what to do next. I cannot overstate the anxiety this created in me. I have already been all worked up about the biting, have taken two classes about it, and have consulted my child care licensor and another child care provider, who is the person I go to whenever I have a question. I have done--and am doing--all I can, and now it's just a matter of waiting to see if it gets better. I understand that's a lousy thing to hear when it's your kid getting bitten, but it's also pretty upsetting when you feel like you're the only person in the world who doesn't think your 16-month-old is a little monster. There actually hasn't been a single biting incident in the two weeks that this baby has been gone; and though I don't blame the other baby at all (she is just a baby, I realize that), it's so much less stressful when she's not here and I don't have to wait, poised, to see if Matilda is going to strike.
So yesterday this family gave me their notice that they're going to pull their daughter out of my day care. After a couple of weeks to think it over, I'm not surprised or extremely upset. I've talked with a lot of people about it and believe that she's a little caveman, not a bad person, and though I can't tolerate biting, I can accept that it's common for kids her age.
The house is almost done. Though the backyard is a mud pit, the bedroom and bathroom are just about done; I think the boys are going to move in tonight. We tried to find a baby sitter and only found a guy who kind of creeped us out and now won't stop emailing to ask why we didn't hire him. We decided to use my husband's nephew instead, and he was great the first weekend but just didn't show up last weekend. We have a woman who comes every two weeks and cleans the main floor of the house, making our lives easier and my father-in-law's room a more pleasant place for him to live; she also didn't show up, for the fourth week in a row. I need a haircut. It's dumb, but it really bothers me because I have short hair and have been in in the "I need a haircut" stage for at least a month.
Today I had a screaming match with Ezra during nap time. He wouldn't stop screaming, and eventually it made me scream, and there was a lot of screaming and crying, from both of us. I feel like I haven't had more than three seconds in a row to call my own since April. Sorry if this sounds bitchy, but I can't tell you how good it feels just to complain about it all, to get it out and admit that there is all this stuff that is bothering me. As I've been writing, the kids have been eating supper--eating ketchup with their fingers instead of eating actual chicken dipped in the ketchup, insisting that they give their crackers to the dog and then needing new ones, wanting to "try something" on me that they saw on TV. They're being kids--my delightful, annoying kids. Tonight I'm going to help the boys move into their new room, and sometime soon Matilda will move into her new room, Zachary's current room. And then I will have a bedroom with only adults in it, something that has been true only sporadically since Zachary was born almost six years ago.
I keep thinking of a line from The Simpsons, one of my favorite shows. Homer is upset about something, as usual, and says, "Why do I have three kids and no money? Why can't I have no kids and three money?" I admit, I feel that way sometimes, especially about the total absence of space and time to call my own. I've never had high financial aspirations, but space and time used to be things I could claim for myself. Sometimes I wish I could have "three space" and "three time," but most of the time, most days, I'm still overwhelmingly grateful to have three kids instead. Especially ones as delightful and annoying as mine.
It's been a pretty busy summer; I'm a little inclined to say lousy, but let's go with busy instead. If you are ever inclined to do any major home renovation, take a deep breath and ask yourself if it's truly worth it. The first week in May, we broke ground on an addition to the house. The second week in June, Zachary finished school and has since been home. Around the middle of June, we lost the use of Ezra's room, since they knocked out the wall to expand the room so the boys can share it; since then, he's slept in our room. Since Matilda is already sleeping in there, this almost immediately meant that he stopped napping. A couple of weeks later, we lost the upstairs bathroom when they ripped it apart to add onto it, and we lost much of the use of the basement bathroom, since they tore apart the ceiling in there to get to the pipes. Somewhere in there, we were also informed that we needed a new roof and that insurance ought to pay for it; but of course we had to fight with claims adjustors for a few weeks.
Last week, I got an email from the mother of the victim of Matilda's biting; she'd been bitten again on Friday, and they decided to take a couple of weeks to decide what to do next. I cannot overstate the anxiety this created in me. I have already been all worked up about the biting, have taken two classes about it, and have consulted my child care licensor and another child care provider, who is the person I go to whenever I have a question. I have done--and am doing--all I can, and now it's just a matter of waiting to see if it gets better. I understand that's a lousy thing to hear when it's your kid getting bitten, but it's also pretty upsetting when you feel like you're the only person in the world who doesn't think your 16-month-old is a little monster. There actually hasn't been a single biting incident in the two weeks that this baby has been gone; and though I don't blame the other baby at all (she is just a baby, I realize that), it's so much less stressful when she's not here and I don't have to wait, poised, to see if Matilda is going to strike.
So yesterday this family gave me their notice that they're going to pull their daughter out of my day care. After a couple of weeks to think it over, I'm not surprised or extremely upset. I've talked with a lot of people about it and believe that she's a little caveman, not a bad person, and though I can't tolerate biting, I can accept that it's common for kids her age.
The house is almost done. Though the backyard is a mud pit, the bedroom and bathroom are just about done; I think the boys are going to move in tonight. We tried to find a baby sitter and only found a guy who kind of creeped us out and now won't stop emailing to ask why we didn't hire him. We decided to use my husband's nephew instead, and he was great the first weekend but just didn't show up last weekend. We have a woman who comes every two weeks and cleans the main floor of the house, making our lives easier and my father-in-law's room a more pleasant place for him to live; she also didn't show up, for the fourth week in a row. I need a haircut. It's dumb, but it really bothers me because I have short hair and have been in in the "I need a haircut" stage for at least a month.
Today I had a screaming match with Ezra during nap time. He wouldn't stop screaming, and eventually it made me scream, and there was a lot of screaming and crying, from both of us. I feel like I haven't had more than three seconds in a row to call my own since April. Sorry if this sounds bitchy, but I can't tell you how good it feels just to complain about it all, to get it out and admit that there is all this stuff that is bothering me. As I've been writing, the kids have been eating supper--eating ketchup with their fingers instead of eating actual chicken dipped in the ketchup, insisting that they give their crackers to the dog and then needing new ones, wanting to "try something" on me that they saw on TV. They're being kids--my delightful, annoying kids. Tonight I'm going to help the boys move into their new room, and sometime soon Matilda will move into her new room, Zachary's current room. And then I will have a bedroom with only adults in it, something that has been true only sporadically since Zachary was born almost six years ago.
I keep thinking of a line from The Simpsons, one of my favorite shows. Homer is upset about something, as usual, and says, "Why do I have three kids and no money? Why can't I have no kids and three money?" I admit, I feel that way sometimes, especially about the total absence of space and time to call my own. I've never had high financial aspirations, but space and time used to be things I could claim for myself. Sometimes I wish I could have "three space" and "three time," but most of the time, most days, I'm still overwhelmingly grateful to have three kids instead. Especially ones as delightful and annoying as mine.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A Truly Awesome Book
Some time ago, I had one of those really amazing internet experiences where someone sends you a link to something, which then refers to an article, which is featured in a blog, which mentions something else, and before you know it, you've discovered this whole part of the universe that you otherwise would not have known about. (Though I don't know how it came to be that I had that much free time.)
And in the end, I discovered An Awesome Book, which is really one of the greatest discoveries I've ever made. (Even better because I found it on my own, not because Amazon said I would like it.) Really. You should check it out. It has the overall sound of Dr. Seuss, with that lovely rhyme scheme and incredible imaginative world it creates. But lest you think this is someone trying to be another Dr. Seuss, the look is all his own. The illustrations look like they were done with colored pencils and have that uneven quality in the color that makes it feel so personal, as if they were drawn just for you, so you could have a book all your own. And the story is one that every child should hear, a simple message: Dream Big. If you follow the link, you'll be able to read the entire book online, which Zachary and Ezra have wanted to do just about every day. And though I am always a fan of getting things for free, I actually ordered a copy and it arrived just a few days ago. Now we have to read it all the time.
I will admit that it made me cry the first time I read it, and it still gets me a little choked up every time. But unlike some books, which are supposedly written for children but clearly have adults in mind (like "Love You Forever"), this one is very compelling to kids. When we read it, we talk about what kinds of dreams they have, how you make your dreams come true, what it means when a dream dies.
There is a marvelous sense of humor in the book and in everything he writes. To give you a sense, in the copyright information, he suggests: "PLEASE SHARE. DON'T STEAL. IT MAKES PEOPLE UNHAPPY. I HAVE A DRAGON. HE WILL CRY."
So don't make his dragon cry. Make your kids happy, and check out a really awesome book.
And in the end, I discovered An Awesome Book, which is really one of the greatest discoveries I've ever made. (Even better because I found it on my own, not because Amazon said I would like it.) Really. You should check it out. It has the overall sound of Dr. Seuss, with that lovely rhyme scheme and incredible imaginative world it creates. But lest you think this is someone trying to be another Dr. Seuss, the look is all his own. The illustrations look like they were done with colored pencils and have that uneven quality in the color that makes it feel so personal, as if they were drawn just for you, so you could have a book all your own. And the story is one that every child should hear, a simple message: Dream Big. If you follow the link, you'll be able to read the entire book online, which Zachary and Ezra have wanted to do just about every day. And though I am always a fan of getting things for free, I actually ordered a copy and it arrived just a few days ago. Now we have to read it all the time.
I will admit that it made me cry the first time I read it, and it still gets me a little choked up every time. But unlike some books, which are supposedly written for children but clearly have adults in mind (like "Love You Forever"), this one is very compelling to kids. When we read it, we talk about what kinds of dreams they have, how you make your dreams come true, what it means when a dream dies.
There is a marvelous sense of humor in the book and in everything he writes. To give you a sense, in the copyright information, he suggests: "PLEASE SHARE. DON'T STEAL. IT MAKES PEOPLE UNHAPPY. I HAVE A DRAGON. HE WILL CRY."
So don't make his dragon cry. Make your kids happy, and check out a really awesome book.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Taking a Bite Out of Crime--or other people
Well, yes, I did disappear off the face of the earth, but only for about a week. We had a terrific camping vacation full of all kinds of interesting stories about my cute kids and hiking with a stroller and the evil that is tent caterpillars.
But is that what finally got me to the computer? No, of course not. It was Matilda and her incessant biting of her friends. I've kept thinking it was a phase, every time she would bite another little girl I watch, who is 10 months old and her closest playmate. She was teething, or she had an ear infection, or there was some other excuse. But today I thought she'd been doing a really good job of being gentle, touching her friends with her gentle hands to show me what a good baby she was, and yet when they got home, her mom called to tell me that she had a big bite mark on her arm!
So how did I not notice that? I'm a little upset, first, because I swear I looked her over several times to make sure there was nothing I hadn't seen. But possibly worse, will she ever stop this? I've never had a biter; Zachary is really easygoing and is more likely to cry than to lash out (though he did get in trouble for hitting at school the other day--but that's another story). And Ezra is a fighter, but he's been one to scratch, and the kid he used to scratch would hit back just as hard, so there was no real sense that my kid was being a bully.
She's got her 15-month-checkup tomorrow, and I've also registered for a class on toddler biting. But I think at the heart of it is this feeling that my kid, my baby, is somehow bad, that only bad kids bite, and I've failed her and everyone else. My wonderful, beautiful, last baby is a biter! And my day care mom (who's kind of been becoming a friend) is upset--understandably. And I just feel like everything that's wrong in the world is wrapped up in my baby girl and the things she continues to do with her teeth.
I need a vacation from my family.
But is that what finally got me to the computer? No, of course not. It was Matilda and her incessant biting of her friends. I've kept thinking it was a phase, every time she would bite another little girl I watch, who is 10 months old and her closest playmate. She was teething, or she had an ear infection, or there was some other excuse. But today I thought she'd been doing a really good job of being gentle, touching her friends with her gentle hands to show me what a good baby she was, and yet when they got home, her mom called to tell me that she had a big bite mark on her arm!
So how did I not notice that? I'm a little upset, first, because I swear I looked her over several times to make sure there was nothing I hadn't seen. But possibly worse, will she ever stop this? I've never had a biter; Zachary is really easygoing and is more likely to cry than to lash out (though he did get in trouble for hitting at school the other day--but that's another story). And Ezra is a fighter, but he's been one to scratch, and the kid he used to scratch would hit back just as hard, so there was no real sense that my kid was being a bully.
She's got her 15-month-checkup tomorrow, and I've also registered for a class on toddler biting. But I think at the heart of it is this feeling that my kid, my baby, is somehow bad, that only bad kids bite, and I've failed her and everyone else. My wonderful, beautiful, last baby is a biter! And my day care mom (who's kind of been becoming a friend) is upset--understandably. And I just feel like everything that's wrong in the world is wrapped up in my baby girl and the things she continues to do with her teeth.
I need a vacation from my family.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Bruce Wayne's Car
So first the big news: This morning, for the first time ever, Ezra pooped in the potty! We were sitting on the couch when he announced that during nap time, he was probably going to poop in his underpants (fortunately, I do put him in a pull-up during naps, since that happens often). So I suggested, if he was planning to do it, that we try now. He was pretty iffy about the whole idea until I suggested that, like his friend who has been learning to poop in the potty, if he does it successfully, I would take him to the store and get him a new toy. Well, that was all the pushing he needed! It took a couple of minutes and a couple of tries, but he did it! I was extremely proud of him and think that we may go the "pooping chart" route that worked with his friend. This little boy had to fill his chart (the size varied; I think the first charts had only a few squares, then as he got more proficient, he had to do more to fill it), and when it was full, he would earn a toy. Usually the toy was preselected, and often it was already purchased and sitting in plain sight, like on top of the refrigerator. Ezra has really wanted a toy of Frank from the movie "CARS," but it's a little expensive for just a random toy, so I think maybe I'll try that as an incentive.
So after this big news, we had to call Daddy at work. Ezra got to tell Daddy his big news, and he got to talk on the phone--very exciting. Then after we had hung up, Ezra got pretty worked up because he saw something out the window that he wanted to tell Daddy about--Bruce Wayne's car.
I was understandably confused about why the Batmobile might be parked out in front of our house, but I got it in a minute. Our next-door neighbor's name is Wayne, and he delivers pizzas. This means that his car has a topper on it with the name of the pizza restaurant. Zachary is very obsessed with Batman right now, and Ezra is obsessed with whatever Zachary is obsessed with. So when he saw our neighbor, Wayne, pull up in front of his house in his pizza delivery car, Ezra concluded that it was "Bruce Wayne's car."
Maybe I ought to worry that Ezra seems to know more about a fictional superhero than he does about our next-door neighbor, but I still think it's cute.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Things My Mother Taught Me
Several years ago, I wrote this essay. I submitted it to a parenting magazine and, in one of the more humiliating events in my life, received only a smudged photocopy of their submission guidelines in response. After scouring the document, I confirmed that it did in fact meet their guidelines; I don't know why they chose to send me that. But I was thinking of it this morning and still like it. So in honor of Mother's Day (because there's no way I will remember to post this on the actual day): Things My Mother Taught Me
When I was a little girl, I always looked at the cover of the coloring book to see what color the pictures should be. Then as closely as I could, I matched them. To me, staying inside the lines was an accomplishment to be proud of. And imitation was the closest thing to perfection.
I never mixed the play-dough. Such a thing would never have occurred to me. My creations were always of a single color, dismantled and returned to their canisters before they had a chance to dry.
Then one day, when I was about seven years old, my mother sat down with me at my little table to color with me. I remember clearly, it was a Tom and Jerry coloring book, and calm as can be, she started to color Tom purple. I was in shock that such a thing was even possible. There, right before my eyes, my mother was creating a lavender cat. It was my first inkling that the right way was not the only way to do something.
Last week, I was playing with my 11-month-old son in his room. He has several wooden puzzles with farm animals and food-shaped pieces. He had recently discovered that there were pictures underneath the pieces and was enthralled with the process of removing the pieces, one by one, from their puzzles. He would then hold them up, examine them, sometimes suck on them. I found myself asking him again and again, "Where does the cow go? Can you find the cow?" I even guided the pieces to their correct places and applauded when they fit. And suddenly I remembered my mother coloring Tom purple.
Now that I am a mother, I have the opportunity to shape my son's view of the world. I can teach him that there is only one way to do everything, or I can show him that there are a million ways to look at a problem and there are a million solutions. Putting pieces into puzzles is one way to play with them. Sucking on them, banging them together, and putting them into drawers are others. And are they any less useful? When I color the cat purple, I am showing my baby that he can do anything he wants, that the borders of thought and action aren't closed. I am letting him try out life and see what works. I am letting him mix the play-dough.
He will figure out what cows are and what they say and how they fit into the puzzle. That will come with time, I have no doubt. But more importantly, he will figure out who he is, what he has to say, and where he fits into the world.
When my mother colored that cat purple, I'm sure she was thinking only that it was pretty. But she taught me a lesson that day, one that I will be sure to pass on to my son: No matter what they tell you, there is more than one way to color a cat.
When I was a little girl, I always looked at the cover of the coloring book to see what color the pictures should be. Then as closely as I could, I matched them. To me, staying inside the lines was an accomplishment to be proud of. And imitation was the closest thing to perfection.
I never mixed the play-dough. Such a thing would never have occurred to me. My creations were always of a single color, dismantled and returned to their canisters before they had a chance to dry.
Then one day, when I was about seven years old, my mother sat down with me at my little table to color with me. I remember clearly, it was a Tom and Jerry coloring book, and calm as can be, she started to color Tom purple. I was in shock that such a thing was even possible. There, right before my eyes, my mother was creating a lavender cat. It was my first inkling that the right way was not the only way to do something.
Last week, I was playing with my 11-month-old son in his room. He has several wooden puzzles with farm animals and food-shaped pieces. He had recently discovered that there were pictures underneath the pieces and was enthralled with the process of removing the pieces, one by one, from their puzzles. He would then hold them up, examine them, sometimes suck on them. I found myself asking him again and again, "Where does the cow go? Can you find the cow?" I even guided the pieces to their correct places and applauded when they fit. And suddenly I remembered my mother coloring Tom purple.
Now that I am a mother, I have the opportunity to shape my son's view of the world. I can teach him that there is only one way to do everything, or I can show him that there are a million ways to look at a problem and there are a million solutions. Putting pieces into puzzles is one way to play with them. Sucking on them, banging them together, and putting them into drawers are others. And are they any less useful? When I color the cat purple, I am showing my baby that he can do anything he wants, that the borders of thought and action aren't closed. I am letting him try out life and see what works. I am letting him mix the play-dough.
He will figure out what cows are and what they say and how they fit into the puzzle. That will come with time, I have no doubt. But more importantly, he will figure out who he is, what he has to say, and where he fits into the world.
When my mother colored that cat purple, I'm sure she was thinking only that it was pretty. But she taught me a lesson that day, one that I will be sure to pass on to my son: No matter what they tell you, there is more than one way to color a cat.
Monday, May 4, 2009
I Have Twouble Saying My Awes
I can't seem to decide whether I ought to worry about Zachary's speech.
See, my mom is a speech therapist, and she's always been all about correcting his pronunciation. When he was little, for some reason, all words that started with "sn" became pronounced as though they started with a T. So "snake" was "take," "snow" was "tow," etc. It was endearing and, as long as you understood what the system was, easily understood. He also converted "sm" sounds to P, so if there was a fire, there would be "poke" coming from it. My mom would notice this and make these exaggerated sounds when she talked to him: "You want to play in the s-n-o-w? The s-s-n-n-ow?" And I would roll my eyes and think, "He's 3, for crying out loud." And of course, he outgrew it.
Now he's 5 1/2, and he still has trouble with certain sounds. All the sounds in a certain family, the G, the J, and the SH sounds, seem to get the better of him. They all sound like S or Z sounds. It can make him a little hard to understand but you can usually get what he means. The most noticeable one, which seems to be rooted in an actual misunderstanding, is that most of the "th" sounds come out as Fs. So he "frows" the ball. He actually writes them that way. And since he's in kindergarten, my mom's voice starts whispering in my ear, telling me the time has come to help him talk right. So I had a talk with him and asked if he would like help listening to words so he could write them better, and he said yes. So I told him that "free" is actually "three," and he's been practicing it. For a while, I was all proud of him, listening to his speech improve, thinking my mom and her over-helping can kiss my good-mom butt. Then I started listening: "Free. Three. Three. Thirteen. Firteen. Thirteen." And my heart broke just a little. Is this what I've created? A kid who is worried, at 5 years old, that he doesn't talk the way he should?
When my sister was little (I don't remember exactly how old, but about Zachary's age), she had trouble with certain sounds too. And so, the story goes, she marched into the school speech therapist's office and announced, "I have twouble saying my awes." And, because the story is about how cute and determined she was, she was saying her Rs perfectly in no time. It's been one of those family legends about my sister's determination and ability to overcome things, even as a little kid. But now it makes me wonder: Was that her desire to talk better, or was there a voice whispering in her ear that she ought to do things better? Would she have sorted it out on her own, the same way she learned to walk and use proper grammar on her own schedule?
Tonight during his bath, Zachary must have counted to 500. Or rather, he counted to 100 about five times, since he's not sure what comes after 199, so he tends to start over. And as I listened to him go back and forth between the "frees" and the "threes," I felt so confused. Should I be helping him to reach some developmental milestone that I'm not entirely sure about anyway? Am I doing him a disservice, either by helping or by not helping? Is my desire to meet my mom's expectations, coupled with my desire to prove her wrong, getting in the way?
I asked his teacher at conferences, and she said there are other kids with more pronounced difficulty than his. I'm not sure that comforted me. I guess perspective is a pretty hard thing to come by in this world of terrorist threats and swine flu, and parenting questions are no exception.
See, my mom is a speech therapist, and she's always been all about correcting his pronunciation. When he was little, for some reason, all words that started with "sn" became pronounced as though they started with a T. So "snake" was "take," "snow" was "tow," etc. It was endearing and, as long as you understood what the system was, easily understood. He also converted "sm" sounds to P, so if there was a fire, there would be "poke" coming from it. My mom would notice this and make these exaggerated sounds when she talked to him: "You want to play in the s-n-o-w? The s-s-n-n-ow?" And I would roll my eyes and think, "He's 3, for crying out loud." And of course, he outgrew it.
Now he's 5 1/2, and he still has trouble with certain sounds. All the sounds in a certain family, the G, the J, and the SH sounds, seem to get the better of him. They all sound like S or Z sounds. It can make him a little hard to understand but you can usually get what he means. The most noticeable one, which seems to be rooted in an actual misunderstanding, is that most of the "th" sounds come out as Fs. So he "frows" the ball. He actually writes them that way. And since he's in kindergarten, my mom's voice starts whispering in my ear, telling me the time has come to help him talk right. So I had a talk with him and asked if he would like help listening to words so he could write them better, and he said yes. So I told him that "free" is actually "three," and he's been practicing it. For a while, I was all proud of him, listening to his speech improve, thinking my mom and her over-helping can kiss my good-mom butt. Then I started listening: "Free. Three. Three. Thirteen. Firteen. Thirteen." And my heart broke just a little. Is this what I've created? A kid who is worried, at 5 years old, that he doesn't talk the way he should?
When my sister was little (I don't remember exactly how old, but about Zachary's age), she had trouble with certain sounds too. And so, the story goes, she marched into the school speech therapist's office and announced, "I have twouble saying my awes." And, because the story is about how cute and determined she was, she was saying her Rs perfectly in no time. It's been one of those family legends about my sister's determination and ability to overcome things, even as a little kid. But now it makes me wonder: Was that her desire to talk better, or was there a voice whispering in her ear that she ought to do things better? Would she have sorted it out on her own, the same way she learned to walk and use proper grammar on her own schedule?
Tonight during his bath, Zachary must have counted to 500. Or rather, he counted to 100 about five times, since he's not sure what comes after 199, so he tends to start over. And as I listened to him go back and forth between the "frees" and the "threes," I felt so confused. Should I be helping him to reach some developmental milestone that I'm not entirely sure about anyway? Am I doing him a disservice, either by helping or by not helping? Is my desire to meet my mom's expectations, coupled with my desire to prove her wrong, getting in the way?
I asked his teacher at conferences, and she said there are other kids with more pronounced difficulty than his. I'm not sure that comforted me. I guess perspective is a pretty hard thing to come by in this world of terrorist threats and swine flu, and parenting questions are no exception.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Pants Optional
It's been brought to my attention that Ezra almost never wears pants. I mean, seriously, he never wears pants. Somehow, since he is: 3, at home with me, and extremely strong willed, I haven't made a big deal about it. But maybe the time has come.
We're working on potty training, which means that some time after he gets up in the morning, I get him out of the (with any luck) poopy diaper and into underpants and a clean shirt. He's currently convinced that he can't poop on the potty, so I'm not making a big deal of that at the moment. So every morning, I say, "Pick out a shirt and underpants." And every morning, he answers, "I don't want pants, though." And since I convince myself that he's more likely to have potty success with fewer barriers to making it to the toilet on time, I agree. But this morning, I realized I'd really set up a system, when he added, "But after nap, when Zachary gets home from school, I'll put on pants and we'll go outside."
So I've apparently established a system where you don't have to wear pants, as long as you're in the house. How is this going to play out in the next few years? Will I convince him to wear pants to school, only to have him take them off as soon as he gets inside because, hey, we're not outside? Will he disrobe in front of his girlfriend's parents, explaining, "I don't like to wear pants"? Will he have to find employment in a pants-optional office?
Considering that we are talking about Ezra here, that's actually a possibility. The kid's got more force of personality than anyone I've ever met, including his father, which is saying something. But I figure I've got a few years before the kid with no pants on becomes an actual problem. Until then, he can go pants free--except when we leave the house. Then we all wear pants.
We're working on potty training, which means that some time after he gets up in the morning, I get him out of the (with any luck) poopy diaper and into underpants and a clean shirt. He's currently convinced that he can't poop on the potty, so I'm not making a big deal of that at the moment. So every morning, I say, "Pick out a shirt and underpants." And every morning, he answers, "I don't want pants, though." And since I convince myself that he's more likely to have potty success with fewer barriers to making it to the toilet on time, I agree. But this morning, I realized I'd really set up a system, when he added, "But after nap, when Zachary gets home from school, I'll put on pants and we'll go outside."
So I've apparently established a system where you don't have to wear pants, as long as you're in the house. How is this going to play out in the next few years? Will I convince him to wear pants to school, only to have him take them off as soon as he gets inside because, hey, we're not outside? Will he disrobe in front of his girlfriend's parents, explaining, "I don't like to wear pants"? Will he have to find employment in a pants-optional office?
Considering that we are talking about Ezra here, that's actually a possibility. The kid's got more force of personality than anyone I've ever met, including his father, which is saying something. But I figure I've got a few years before the kid with no pants on becomes an actual problem. Until then, he can go pants free--except when we leave the house. Then we all wear pants.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Swine Flu Means
"Swine flu means you shouldn't go around licking pigs."
That was Ezra's thought upon seeing this picture my mom emailed me.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Day I Almost Ran Away
Yesterday we had to have the garage door replaced. (And as an aside, I can't believe how much of a difference it makes to have something in your life function, when you've grown completely used to it broken. The garage door was plastic, somewhat transparent, and made a sound like a jalopy being strangled every time you used it. Now it actually works, and strangers walking by can't tell whether there's someone inside. It's the little things.) So since the garage door was being replaced, I had to move the car out of the garage.
I told the kids I was going to move the car and would be right back. Now, moving the car in our case is a little cumbersome. I grew up in a second-tier suburb in a housing divison that had been built in the '70s. We had an attached garage that opened right into the living room. Now we have a house in a first-tier suburb, just a few blocks outside the Minneapolis city limits. The house was built in 1958 (and a lot of it is original, like the harvest gold sink in the kitchen--but I digress.) It has a detached garage and an alley. So I had to go out to the backyard, into the garage, and take the car out of the garage and down the alley. As I got to the end of the alley, all I had to do was turn, drive half a block to our street, turn onto our street, and pull up in front of our house. But just for a moment, I thought: What if?
Now, I stay at home. And I don't just mean I'm a stay-at-home mom, because technicially I'm not really that either. I'm a day care provider, which means that I have an income; but it also means that I can't (ever) leave the house during the day. A little stir crazy? Too bad, you're watching 8 kids. Slept badly and thinking you'd do anything for a fancy cup of coffee? Well, unless you're willing to take all three of your kids with you and get back by 7:30, when the first kids show up, it's going to be Folgers with milk and sugar for you. Thinking that the kids are driving you absolutely over the edge and you'd really like to just have a bath and a glass of wine? Well, it's not the day care preventing you from doing that (at least I hope other stay-at-home parents aren't getting baths and wine at 9 AM), but you still don't get to do it.
And I don't get to leave home after 5 PM either. My husband, God bless him, is a creature of habit to the extreme. His evening routine is predictible almost to the minute. And it takes him all the way up to 6:30 in the evening, at which time kids have been fed, probably bathed, and are ready for a video, juice, and some quiet time before bed. If I want to go somewhere (to the bank to make a deposit, to Target just to wander around and listen to the music for 5 minutes, to the liquor store for the aforementioned wine), I'm probably taking at least one kid with me. Or else I'm going after 8:30, when they're all in bed. My 3-year-old, by the way, can identify the liquor store when we drive by and announces that "That's the liquor store where we get suckers." (In my defense, it's on a corner we drive by all the time, so it's not like we're driving across town to the liquor store every day.) All week, I look forward to grocery shopping, because it's an hour or so that I only have one kid with me (I take the littlest one, since she's really too young to bug me and ask for stuff yet) and I get to do more or less what I want, like talk to strangers about their preferred brand of canned corn.
So when I say "I stay home," I mean it. I'm always home. Standard parental disclaimer: I love my kids, and I obviously chose to stay at home with them. I know I'm lucky not to have to commute and to be here with them all day every day. But all that being said...
When I got to the end of the alley yesterday morning (you thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? There's always a mental map of what I'm talking about), just for a moment, I thought: What if? What if, instead of turning right and then pulling up onto our street, in front of our house, going back inside and making breakfast and changing diapers and refereeing, what if I turned left? I could go to the coffee shop. I could go to Walgreens and get a new lipstick. Hell, I could just keep driving. They wouldn't even realize for a while; two of them are still sleeping. And at that point, of course, I thought, Holy shit. What kind of person thinks that? And I turned right and pulled up in front of the house and went inside and made breakfast and changed diapers and did everything else I do all day. And I did it partly because, really, I do love my kids--more than I could ever find words to express. And partly because I was scared to think that I was a person who, even for a second, had that thought.
But that's the thing about staying at home. I used to have friends, and I used to bounce ideas off them and get a sense of what about me was more or less normal. But now many of them have dropped away, because I'm married with kids and they're trying to decide whether to just go off the grid for a while; we don't have a lot in common. And the ones with kids, well, they're trying to balance kids and jobs and houses and families, and they just don't have a lot of free time for answering questions like: Am I a total crazy person for the thought that just popped into my head? I was at book club the other night (yes, I do get to leave once in a while) and we were talking about The Shack. Somehow this led to a lot of talk about families and kids and our own histories and things that have encouraged or challenged our faith. And before I knew it, I was telling this group of women (only one of whom I knew before that night) about my miscarriage--about how it happened, how I felt, what it was like to experience a D&C, and how I now feel about that little person who was, so briefly, a part of me. I don't know why I did it, other than the fact that extreme social anxiety and a single beer seem to combine to make me unusually chatty. But when I was done, several of them thanked me for being so candid; they said that though we all know at least one person who's been touched by miscarriage, no one wants to talk about it. It's like we're afraid to admit that we once failed at the one thing we're supposed to be able to do perfectly--bring a pregnancy to term. But when we start talking about it, we realize that we're not the only ones who've been through it, and other people have been holding back just as much as we have, trying not to admit their failures.
So I hope that I'm not the first (non-certifiable) mom ever to think, just for a moment, how great it would be to run away. And I didn't, of course. And I never would. But I'll fantasize about it again, I'm sure. And I hope that someday, when I've managed to make some friends again, that they'll admit that, once or twice, they had the same thought.
I told the kids I was going to move the car and would be right back. Now, moving the car in our case is a little cumbersome. I grew up in a second-tier suburb in a housing divison that had been built in the '70s. We had an attached garage that opened right into the living room. Now we have a house in a first-tier suburb, just a few blocks outside the Minneapolis city limits. The house was built in 1958 (and a lot of it is original, like the harvest gold sink in the kitchen--but I digress.) It has a detached garage and an alley. So I had to go out to the backyard, into the garage, and take the car out of the garage and down the alley. As I got to the end of the alley, all I had to do was turn, drive half a block to our street, turn onto our street, and pull up in front of our house. But just for a moment, I thought: What if?
Now, I stay at home. And I don't just mean I'm a stay-at-home mom, because technicially I'm not really that either. I'm a day care provider, which means that I have an income; but it also means that I can't (ever) leave the house during the day. A little stir crazy? Too bad, you're watching 8 kids. Slept badly and thinking you'd do anything for a fancy cup of coffee? Well, unless you're willing to take all three of your kids with you and get back by 7:30, when the first kids show up, it's going to be Folgers with milk and sugar for you. Thinking that the kids are driving you absolutely over the edge and you'd really like to just have a bath and a glass of wine? Well, it's not the day care preventing you from doing that (at least I hope other stay-at-home parents aren't getting baths and wine at 9 AM), but you still don't get to do it.
And I don't get to leave home after 5 PM either. My husband, God bless him, is a creature of habit to the extreme. His evening routine is predictible almost to the minute. And it takes him all the way up to 6:30 in the evening, at which time kids have been fed, probably bathed, and are ready for a video, juice, and some quiet time before bed. If I want to go somewhere (to the bank to make a deposit, to Target just to wander around and listen to the music for 5 minutes, to the liquor store for the aforementioned wine), I'm probably taking at least one kid with me. Or else I'm going after 8:30, when they're all in bed. My 3-year-old, by the way, can identify the liquor store when we drive by and announces that "That's the liquor store where we get suckers." (In my defense, it's on a corner we drive by all the time, so it's not like we're driving across town to the liquor store every day.) All week, I look forward to grocery shopping, because it's an hour or so that I only have one kid with me (I take the littlest one, since she's really too young to bug me and ask for stuff yet) and I get to do more or less what I want, like talk to strangers about their preferred brand of canned corn.
So when I say "I stay home," I mean it. I'm always home. Standard parental disclaimer: I love my kids, and I obviously chose to stay at home with them. I know I'm lucky not to have to commute and to be here with them all day every day. But all that being said...
When I got to the end of the alley yesterday morning (you thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? There's always a mental map of what I'm talking about), just for a moment, I thought: What if? What if, instead of turning right and then pulling up onto our street, in front of our house, going back inside and making breakfast and changing diapers and refereeing, what if I turned left? I could go to the coffee shop. I could go to Walgreens and get a new lipstick. Hell, I could just keep driving. They wouldn't even realize for a while; two of them are still sleeping. And at that point, of course, I thought, Holy shit. What kind of person thinks that? And I turned right and pulled up in front of the house and went inside and made breakfast and changed diapers and did everything else I do all day. And I did it partly because, really, I do love my kids--more than I could ever find words to express. And partly because I was scared to think that I was a person who, even for a second, had that thought.
But that's the thing about staying at home. I used to have friends, and I used to bounce ideas off them and get a sense of what about me was more or less normal. But now many of them have dropped away, because I'm married with kids and they're trying to decide whether to just go off the grid for a while; we don't have a lot in common. And the ones with kids, well, they're trying to balance kids and jobs and houses and families, and they just don't have a lot of free time for answering questions like: Am I a total crazy person for the thought that just popped into my head? I was at book club the other night (yes, I do get to leave once in a while) and we were talking about The Shack. Somehow this led to a lot of talk about families and kids and our own histories and things that have encouraged or challenged our faith. And before I knew it, I was telling this group of women (only one of whom I knew before that night) about my miscarriage--about how it happened, how I felt, what it was like to experience a D&C, and how I now feel about that little person who was, so briefly, a part of me. I don't know why I did it, other than the fact that extreme social anxiety and a single beer seem to combine to make me unusually chatty. But when I was done, several of them thanked me for being so candid; they said that though we all know at least one person who's been touched by miscarriage, no one wants to talk about it. It's like we're afraid to admit that we once failed at the one thing we're supposed to be able to do perfectly--bring a pregnancy to term. But when we start talking about it, we realize that we're not the only ones who've been through it, and other people have been holding back just as much as we have, trying not to admit their failures.
So I hope that I'm not the first (non-certifiable) mom ever to think, just for a moment, how great it would be to run away. And I didn't, of course. And I never would. But I'll fantasize about it again, I'm sure. And I hope that someday, when I've managed to make some friends again, that they'll admit that, once or twice, they had the same thought.
Monday, January 5, 2009
I'm losing a battle of wills with my 3-year-old
First of all, in the name of full disclosure, I feel like crap. I've caught some sort of cold that immediately went to my chest, leaving me with a perpetual smoker's cough, without any of the fun nicotine buzz. And M, now 10 months, is teething or something and is up approximately all night long, wanting to nurse, but not really, and ideally on the other side, and plus on her stomach. So I was a little crabby. But this was the worst parenting day I can ever remember, at least for a few hours.
E is apparently outgrowing the need for a nap, which is leaving me breathless with terror. I can't tell you how much I count on that hour or two in a 24-hour period that I can kind of call my own. He wasn't napping at all well the last 2 weeks, but Z was off school, so I blamed it on having a non-napper in the house, making just enough noise to keep him up. I was seriously looking forward to today, since the husband was back at work and I would have some naptime me-time for just a little while. I got the little day care kids down and settled E and his friend in his room. We tried a new approach today: "You don't have to sleep today. There are only two rules. Stay in your bed and be quiet." Holy crap. I seriously thought that was a practical request. I got M to sleep, nursing, and just as I put her down, I realized two things: Z would be home from school in 20 minutes, and E and friend were running and yelling just above M's head. Thus followed several of the worst hours of my life.
I tried the nice approach: "You don't want your sister to cry, do you? You're going to wake her and make her cry. Do you have your book? You can read, you just have to be quiet." I tried the stern approach: "That's it. You are going to plant your butt on your bed and shut your mouth right now. And if you want a book, there's one right there. You don't get a different one." And I tried the mean approach: "You don't get a show for the rest of the day. No Baby Einstein, no SpongeBob, nothing. And if you don't shut your mouth right now, you don't get anything tomorrow either!" And while all this was going on, M woke up and started screaming--twice. (My new approach to getting her to sleep more at night--let her work it out during the day. I'm way more willing to let her scream for 10 minutes at 2 PM than at 2 AM.) And E, whom my husband has referred to as "Cool Hand Luke" and as "a force of nature," sat through it all. I swear to god, I have never actually met a more strong-willed child. I've seen the titles referring to "the strong-willed child" and always thought "I could get that, but nah." I mean, in order for you to get a book because a description of your kid is on the cover, your kid has to be diagnosed with something, right? I mean, mine must not be what they're talking about because he doesn't have Strong-Willed Child Syndrome--or something. But I think the time has come. He's a really smart kid, no question. He obviously listens closely to what people say, and then later I'm always shocked at the way he uses them in context. And when he's really engaged in listening, I can see what a great learner he is. But the strength of his will just gets in the way of his comprehension. As I explained the consequences of his behavior, he would just scream at me that he wanted to listen. And I would tell him that he wasn't listening, or that he had already lost one thing and was on the way to losing more. And he would just scream that "I WANT TO LISTEN!" I know that the idea--that a person makes a choice and there are consequences that follow that choice--makes sense to him. He sees it with his siblings and the day care kids, and even with his parents. But when he gets all up in arms, he just can't grasp that things aren't going to happen the way he wants them to. And he gets into a mode of just consistently making them worse.
By the time Z got home from school, E was in major trouble with the bedroom door closed (which he hates), M was crying her eyes out, and I was barely holding it together. An hour later, I think everyone but Z was in tears. Fortunately he was pretty into his Dora game and didn't really notice my tears--I think. But I was amazed. I am admittedly a pretty emotional person. But this was over the top. I thought I was going to have to run away for a few minutes so I didn't lose it completely. My husband has said that E is about 4,000 times better at conflict than I am, and about 4 times better than he is. So I know I'm outmatched. But if I want him to grow up into someone the rest of the world loves as much as I do, I have to find a way to deal with this insanely strong will of his. (We came up with a reward system for quiet naps, by the way; we'll see in the next week or so how it pans out.)
UPDATE 1/6: After tearfully describing my day to my sweet husband, he suggested a chart approach instead. Every day that E is quiet at nap time (being "a god listener," which is what we're always telling him he needs to be), he will get an X on his chart. If he fills his chart (6 Xs), then he will get a special big treat like going out for fast food or getting to pick a movie. Today was like night and day. The chart incentive worked absolute wonders. I realized first that I would always rather give them something than take something away; it just feels better as a parent to make them happy rather than sad. And second, he's much more motivated by working toward something than he is by avoiding something bad. Fingers crossed that it will continue to work well!
E is apparently outgrowing the need for a nap, which is leaving me breathless with terror. I can't tell you how much I count on that hour or two in a 24-hour period that I can kind of call my own. He wasn't napping at all well the last 2 weeks, but Z was off school, so I blamed it on having a non-napper in the house, making just enough noise to keep him up. I was seriously looking forward to today, since the husband was back at work and I would have some naptime me-time for just a little while. I got the little day care kids down and settled E and his friend in his room. We tried a new approach today: "You don't have to sleep today. There are only two rules. Stay in your bed and be quiet." Holy crap. I seriously thought that was a practical request. I got M to sleep, nursing, and just as I put her down, I realized two things: Z would be home from school in 20 minutes, and E and friend were running and yelling just above M's head. Thus followed several of the worst hours of my life.
I tried the nice approach: "You don't want your sister to cry, do you? You're going to wake her and make her cry. Do you have your book? You can read, you just have to be quiet." I tried the stern approach: "That's it. You are going to plant your butt on your bed and shut your mouth right now. And if you want a book, there's one right there. You don't get a different one." And I tried the mean approach: "You don't get a show for the rest of the day. No Baby Einstein, no SpongeBob, nothing. And if you don't shut your mouth right now, you don't get anything tomorrow either!" And while all this was going on, M woke up and started screaming--twice. (My new approach to getting her to sleep more at night--let her work it out during the day. I'm way more willing to let her scream for 10 minutes at 2 PM than at 2 AM.) And E, whom my husband has referred to as "Cool Hand Luke" and as "a force of nature," sat through it all. I swear to god, I have never actually met a more strong-willed child. I've seen the titles referring to "the strong-willed child" and always thought "I could get that, but nah." I mean, in order for you to get a book because a description of your kid is on the cover, your kid has to be diagnosed with something, right? I mean, mine must not be what they're talking about because he doesn't have Strong-Willed Child Syndrome--or something. But I think the time has come. He's a really smart kid, no question. He obviously listens closely to what people say, and then later I'm always shocked at the way he uses them in context. And when he's really engaged in listening, I can see what a great learner he is. But the strength of his will just gets in the way of his comprehension. As I explained the consequences of his behavior, he would just scream at me that he wanted to listen. And I would tell him that he wasn't listening, or that he had already lost one thing and was on the way to losing more. And he would just scream that "I WANT TO LISTEN!" I know that the idea--that a person makes a choice and there are consequences that follow that choice--makes sense to him. He sees it with his siblings and the day care kids, and even with his parents. But when he gets all up in arms, he just can't grasp that things aren't going to happen the way he wants them to. And he gets into a mode of just consistently making them worse.
By the time Z got home from school, E was in major trouble with the bedroom door closed (which he hates), M was crying her eyes out, and I was barely holding it together. An hour later, I think everyone but Z was in tears. Fortunately he was pretty into his Dora game and didn't really notice my tears--I think. But I was amazed. I am admittedly a pretty emotional person. But this was over the top. I thought I was going to have to run away for a few minutes so I didn't lose it completely. My husband has said that E is about 4,000 times better at conflict than I am, and about 4 times better than he is. So I know I'm outmatched. But if I want him to grow up into someone the rest of the world loves as much as I do, I have to find a way to deal with this insanely strong will of his. (We came up with a reward system for quiet naps, by the way; we'll see in the next week or so how it pans out.)
UPDATE 1/6: After tearfully describing my day to my sweet husband, he suggested a chart approach instead. Every day that E is quiet at nap time (being "a god listener," which is what we're always telling him he needs to be), he will get an X on his chart. If he fills his chart (6 Xs), then he will get a special big treat like going out for fast food or getting to pick a movie. Today was like night and day. The chart incentive worked absolute wonders. I realized first that I would always rather give them something than take something away; it just feels better as a parent to make them happy rather than sad. And second, he's much more motivated by working toward something than he is by avoiding something bad. Fingers crossed that it will continue to work well!
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