Sexist?

Last weekend Dani started throwing food on the floor.
And spitting.
And picking his nose.

"Oh shit," I thought. "He's turning into a boy."

Going to the Dentist

I brought Talia to the dentist for the first time last week (yes, children are supposed to see the dentist well before they are 3.5, but this is a judgement-free zone, so don't start, okay?).

The dentist we chose is great -- very kid-friendly with toys in the waiting room and the option to choose a DVD to watch during the appointment (now that's genius!). When our turn came Talia chose a DVD (Teletubbies) and went into the room and sat right on the chair. Then we found out that because she is already three and a half, she needed to get X-rays. Now, I hate dental X-rays. They're uncomfortable and make me want to gag. Talia felt pretty similarly about it, and cried and cried and cried. And since they were X-rays, I couldn't even stay in the room to hold her hand. And because she cried and cried and cried, which meant she didn't really sit still, they had to re-do them. As you can imagine, Talia's reaction was not pretty. The dentist (who has the most awesome name of Dr. Al-Aswad) pulled me aside and told me to wait in the other room.

"It will just make her cry more," I said.
"Just try it" she coaxed.
"They don't know my kid..." I muttered under my breath as I went to the other room.

And then she stopped crying.
I raised my eyebrows quizzically at Dr. Al-Aswad. 
"When they see their mom, they think that if they cry Mom will rescue them. Once Mom is gone, they're usually okay."
Interesting.

Then she proceeded with the exam. Talia sat in the chair while the dentist brushed and flossed and scraped her teeth. I sat next to her and held her hand, and she barely let out a whimper during the exam and cleaning. And the good news? Despite never having been to the dentist and having never flossed (I know, I know. Judgement-free zone, okay?) Talia's teeth looked great.  Phew.

Then Dr. Al-Aswad turned to her and said "You did a great job. And now  you are done." Talia turned to me, paused, and then burst into tears. I started crying as well.

"You did such a good job," I repeated. "And you were very brave. Do you know what being brave means? Being brave is when you're scared of something and you do it anyway. You do it because you have to and you know you can do it. You don't let being scared stop you. I am really proud of you for being so brave during the exam. I know you were scared and you did it anyway. I am really really proud of you."

I gave her a hug, tears streaming down my face.

And I thought about all of the things in my life that I am scared to do. All of the times I let my fears paralyze and prevent me from trying. The moments I allow fear to call the shots. The times when I am not brave at all - times when I am scared and then I just stop.

And I thought, "I want there to be more moments in my life when I am scared but I do it anyway. Where I can hold back the tears until after I have done the scary thing. Where the tears are relief and pride tears, instead of frustration and disappointment tears."

Thanks for inspiring me Talia.
I am really proud of you.

And I promise to take you to the dentist at least once per year from now on...

Bundle of Sweetness

I realize that I haven't posted much about Dani. Partially, I feel like there is so much to write and I just havent made the time to sit for a while and write it out.  Partially, since Talia has language skills, she's easier to write about.

This kid, though, is just a bundle of sweetness.

He loves being kissed on his neck.

He loves being naked on the changing table, and immediately rolls to the side to get his back scratched and his stomach tickled.

His sister and father can  put him into peals of laughter with a game of peek-a-boo.

He has recently figured out how to wave "hello" and "goodbye", and is so clearly pleased that he can make the adults wave back at him.

He can easily sit for 25 minutes with a few toys, independently entertaining himself in ways Talia still doesn't do. 

He is soft and snuggly, cuddly and delightful, and mostly a happy happy kid (for now anyway).

I find myself in love with him in ways I never was (or don't remember being) with Talia. Perhaps its because this is my last baby, and I know I won't have these baby moments again with my own child. Perhaps its because I know  how quickly he will change. Perhaps it is because this time I am not so anxious or caught up in all the things I "should" be doing. Perhaps its because he is a boy and I already feel  the shrug of his teenage shoulder, quietly telling me that it's not cool for me to put my hand on him.

One afternoon while Talia was napping, Dani and I were upstairs - me putting away laundry and him playing on the bed. I laid down next to him, and began to tickle and laugh and cuddle him. Then, I felt the internal nagging beginning, about all of the things that needed to get done.

And then my wise self countered, "He will only be 8 months old once. Just lay with him, here, be present and enjoy this moment." And I did. For almost an hour.

The laundry did not get put into the closets (in fact, it's still probably sitting in the basket on the floor). The email didn't get checked. Dinner didn't get started.

But that boy got tickled and kissed and snuggled by his Mama.
And his mama got tickled and kissed and snuggled too.

And of course, that is what really matters.

You know you're old when...

"Hey Mama, what's that?"

"What's what, T?"

"On your face. What is that?"

"My glasses?"

"No, by your eyes."

"My make-up?"

"No, Mama, the lines. What are those lines by your eyes?"

Pause.

"Um, my wrinkles? The lines by my eyes are called wrinkles."

"Wrinkles? You have a lot of them Mama, you know."

"Thanks Talia. Many of them are your fault."

:-)

Why I should stop asking so many damn questions

"Talia, where should we put Dani? What about in the jumper?"

"no"


"okay, what about in the Bumbo?"

"no"

"Then where should we put him?"

"In the garbage can."

pause.

"The garbage can?"

"Yes. The one outside."

That Girl

I have a group of friends that I met in pre-natal yoga while pregnant with Talia. The older kiddos are all born within a month of each other; and now we all have younger ones, also within a month or so of each other. Pretty cool.

 

Two of these folks came over for a playdate last Friday, and I decided to keep Talia home from school. J said she would bring over an art project, M would bring over snacks, and I had mac n cheese for lunch. Sweet.

Talia was great for a bit, then spent a good chunk of time on the edge of losing it, and then fully devolved into tantrum-land for a solid 30 minutes. It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed (though I was -- but we're all parents of toddlers here...), or even frustrated (though I did find myself saying things like "L and R are out there having a good time, and you are in here crying. Get it together." To which Talia responded "I want to stop! I want to have fun!" and then continued to cry for another 10 minutes).... my overwhelming feeling was one of disappointment. 

In talking to Jon about it later, I laid out some of my fears:

What if she never has friends? 
What if she's that kid who just gets in her own way all the time? 
What if she's so emotionally fragile that she can't have fun with other people?
What if she never learns to manage her feelings? 
Is this because didn't enroll her in school early enough?
Is this because we cater to her too much?
What if... what if... what if...

He, of course, talked some sense into me:

1) She does fine at school -- so she is able to manage her feelings when she needs to. 
2) In addition to Knox, we get reports from teachers that she plays with some other kids too (two other kids to be exact, but still, she plays with other kids)
3) She's three. She's not supposed to be able to manage her  feelings yet.
4) And, what's the big deal if she's a kid who enjoys being by herself more than with other people? Jon was the kid who would much rather spend the day in the woods with the birds than with other kids. He is still sortof  that way.

And then he asked, "And why do you care so much if she has a better time by herself than with other kids? Let her hang out by herself.  Don't make play dates. What's the big deal?"

My response tumbled out immediately: "Because if she's the kid who sucks and nobody wants to have over -- then I won't get invited over either. What if she ruins *my* chances to have friends?"

Then he gave me that look. Yeah, that one -- the one that silently says "check yourself before you wreck yourself."

I sighed.

"Soooo, I guess it's my stuff, not hers."

It's so much easier to talk about my fears for my daughter's social life than my fears for my own social life. It's much easier to worry about her ability to make and keep friends than my ability to make and keep friends. It's much easier to talk about her sucking than me sucking.

Sigh.

While it's of course important for her to develop social skills, I know I should not try to make her someone she is not. Maybe she's not the kid who does well in groups. My she is terminally shy. Maybe she just isn't that social.  Or maybe that's just  who she is right now. After all, she is only three.

I remember reading a post on the Mom's List about shy kids. One parent of a shy 10 year old shared that she once asked her daughter, "why are you hanging out on the edge? why don't you go over there and have fun with the other kids?". To which her daughter replied, "Mom, I *am* having fun here. Being over there with the other kids isn't fun for me."

I need to find the balance between offering her opportunities to develop her skills, and just letting her be who she is. I need to let her unfold at her own pace, choose her own path, and just delight in watching her as she grows.

And clearly, I need to find friends to hang out with that are totally unconnected to my daughter's social proclivities.

Sleeping Updates

After one week we fully weaned Dani - no night feeds.

For two nights he slept from 8pm - 7am with minimal wake-ups (20 minutes of crying and then went back down).

The light at the end of the tunnel got nearer. And brighter. And even more beautiful. I could taste what it might be like to sleep 8 consecutive hours for a few nights in a row. Deliciously sleepy....

And then, Dani started getting a tooth.

And we're back to 2 wake-ups a night.

I'm not feeding him, but he is getting Tylenol, and then crying, and then sortof going back to sleep.  Until the meds wear off, 4 hours later. And then we do it again.

Ugh.

Just when you think you've got it figured out, it all changes again. And again. And again.

Welcome to parenthood.....

Thought for the Day

I sometimes feel like coming over to our house is a commercial for either Parenthood or Population Control.

Today was certainly the latter.

That is all.

What else have we been up to?

Drinking hot cocoa in Vermont.. 

 Hanging with the Grandparents...

 

Levitating.. 

 

Making Matzo Ball Soup... 

Chillaxing in the Bumbo..

The Battles Begin

Around Thanksgiving, when Dani was around 4 months old, he went from waking up every four to six hours at night to waking up every two hours.

The beauty of doing this for the second time is that I expected that this would happen. When Talia was 4 months old, she did the exact same thing. At that time, I was confused, bewildered, and frustrated. This time, I was able (for the most part) to say, "Oh, we're at this point in babyhood."

Now, I know that at around 4 months, babies (because they're dumb) forget how to sleep. Or, more accurately, they transition from infant sleep cycles (staying in deep sleep until they wake up to eat) to more adult-like sleep cycles, where they go from deep sleep to light sleep to deep sleep again. They're not hungry -- they just wake up during the "light sleep" cycle, and don't know how to get themselves sleeping again. And this is where "sleep training" begins.

With Talia, we spent about a week letting her "cry it out" and around 6 months, she was sleeping from 8ish to 6ish, eating, and then sleeping for about another hour or so. The longest she cried was for about an hour (57 minutes to be exact. When you're dealing with a screaming infant and  you've told your self that you will let her go for an hour before you pick her up, you will keep exact track of the minutes. And feel so so vindicated when she finally goes back to sleep at minute 57.)  This method has some controversy ("it's cruel," "if a baby is crying they should be attended to", "what are you teaching her by not responding to her cries?") - but I have never had much trouble with it. Call me cruel or insensitive -- but once I understood that she was waking up and crying because she didn't know how to get herself back to sleep, it felt like this was intentionally not responding with a greater goal. Plus, at every other point in their lives, when they cry, my children are always well-cared for and attended-to.

Additionally, as I know now oh so well, there are so many many many times that I make my child cry for the greater good. "No, you cannot have a cookie." "No, you cannot watch TV." "It's time to get in the bath." "You are going to school today." "Don't suffocate your brother." Just as we deal with the three-year-old tantrums by trying to teach her skills to soothe herself, we do the same with our infants when we teach them how to go to sleep by themselves.

So, it is the beginning of December, Dani is not sleeping, and with experience dealing with this before, I am ready to go. "This wil be easy this time around" I assure myself.

And, of course, it is not. The boy cries, and then goes back to sleep. And then cries again, and then goes back to sleep. And then cries again, and then goes back to sleep.

There was no predictability or pattern to it. Sometimes he would wake and cry at midnight. Sometimes 1, sometimes 3, sometimes 4...  Sometimes he would cry for 10 minutes and go back to sleep. Sometimes 20. Sometimes 40. Sometimes he would go back to sleep for 20 minutes. Sometimes 2 hours. And sometimes he would sleep -- without making a single peep -  from 8 to 5:30. We made a "rule" (totally arbitrarily) that we (I) would not feed him between 8 and 4 (since he had some nights that he would sleep from 8 to 5:30, we knew he was physically capable of doing it). But then what about waking up at 3:30? or 3:45? How do you know if he is waking because he is legitimately hungry or if he is just cycling in or out of sleep cycles?

The hardest part was the unpredictability of it all. I had no idea how much sleep I could expect. And those few night when he slept all the way through... they just lead to false hope after false hope. I found myself getting anxious in the evenings, feeling as though I needed to psyche myself up for the battle ahead.

After a few more weeks of this, he evolved into a fairly predictable pattern -- sleep at 8, wake up to eat around 4, sleep til 7:30. This was okay, though I then found myself having a very difficult time falling back to sleep after the 4am feed. And yes, if I just went to bed with the kids at 8:30 every night, I would get a decent night of sleep. But who wants to go to bed at 8:30? I need some time every day where I can just have some adult time that isn't dealing with kids, packing lunches for school, cleaning up the house etc etc.

The theme song to my life was becoming "Who Needs Sleep?" by the Bare Naked Ladies

"Who needs sleep?
(well you're never gonna get it)
Who needs sleep?
(tell me what's that for)
Who needs sleep?
(be happy with what you're getting--
There's a guy who's been awake
since the Second World War)"

I received an email from a friend (thanks Nida!), with a sleep-training book suggestion.




"The sleep-easy solution: The exhausted parent's guide to getting your child to sleep"

Seemed like a gift from above. Now if I only had time to actually read it.....

After a few weeks of it sitting on the table taunting me with its promises, I read it. The basic idea is this:

By the time your child is 5 months or 15 pounds, they are physically capable of sleeping 11-12 hours without eating. Even once they know how to go back to sleep on their own, if you are consistently feeding them at night, their bodies get used to this pattern (just like adults usually get hungry around lunch-time) and expect food at night. So, our goal (since Dani is actually fairly good at going to sleep) is to wean him from eating at night.

They have a fairly simple method of doing this -- basically you spend a week understanding what your child's pattern is (what time they wake up and how long they eat), and slowly cut it down.

We're in day 3 of the program -- we've been cutting down his feed by 2 minutes every night. Tonight is the night where we are done feeding him between 8pm and 7am. So far, he's been waking up at 6am every morning.

This morning as Jon grumbled, "just get up and feed him so we can get some f*'ing sleep" I had to remind him (and myself) that we are *training* him. We have to consistently stick to the program. At least for a week or two.

Or else we will never sleep again.