The big guy has had his last day of preschool. Two years of a loving, supportive, superb play-based outdoor/indoor extravaganza of exploration and choices. He has, in the past month: lost a tooth, learned to tie his shoes, and ridden a bike without training wheels. It’s killing me, but I guess he is ready for kindergarten. [sob] I’m worried about the unfortunate things kindergarten has become and the heart-wrenching ways it affects boys, but here we go.
The little guy is a flirty goofball of performance and projects. He’s only saying a few words, but he signs dozens of words and has fabulous grasp of social relations. He has a great sense of right and wrong and has no problem telling an older child to “knock it off,” to “give it back,” and to “step off or I will bite you.”
It’s killing me, but I think he’s ready for night weaning. [sob] We believe in nursing on demand, we believe in nighttime parenting, we believe in compassion. And I miss sleeping. I need to edit, I want to write, and I have to think. I haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch since he was born. Between teething and ear infections he’s been up every two hours for a long damned time. Of course, night weaning doesn’t equal sleep. His older brother night weaned at 18 months (forcibly, as a last resort for my sanity by Spouse, who spent three months awake trying to lovingly convince Captain Stubborn that the milk goes away during sleep time). That willful, opinionated Peanut didn’t slept through the night until after he turned 3. Butterbean seems more willing to nightwean. The few times I’ve said no, he cries an angry cry for 30 seconds then lies down and falls asleep. [sob] I don’t like facing this milestone.
But, as with shoelaces and two-wheelers and kindergarten, we have to try. Because sleep and writing and editing and half days with only one kid might make things a lot easier around here.
Wish us luck, would you?
NaptimeWriting 
Good luck, megadoses of chee, zillions of glitter sticks, and every horseshoe I wore out.
I’m glad I get to say “Peanut on a Bike!” and soon? “Butter on a HotWheels!” They roll off the tongue.
Bring on the kindergarten rants. I can take it lady. I’m sure Butter will be fingerpointing with you.
Sending you all the luck in the world, as I’m sending Miss M. off to kindergarten in two weeks. [sob]
Hang in there, Nap. The weepy milestones give way to windows of what your adult child will be like. And as much as your heart aches with each one of the steps, your heart swells with love with the new discoveries and growth.
I promise it will be okay. And sleep will eventually come. Thought processing, not so much.
Luck!!
Tha all sounds so familiar. And yet so far in my past. Which is weird, because I, too, have an entering kindergartner (with a very loose tooth). The milestones come around once and then again with each subsequent child [sob], and we just have to stay strong. And optimistic. (Half days with one kid sounds like heaven to me.) Good luck with it all!
*hugs* Right there, sobbing with you, sister. So many mile stones. So many moments we want to hold on for eternity. But think of all the other great things waiting for you and them to discover.
super blasts of hopeful energy being shot your way. we’ve got a kindergartner in weeks…and trying to wean 3 year old…. she was just so much nicer about the nursing then the big guy and then just when i thought she was going to give it up on her own she went to waking 2-3x at night and asking all day…. now i need a superhero belt and some good tricks cause after 6 years of one or the other waking me up, i need to be able to use good vocabulary again and not have my eyes burn when i blink. oh and i need full energy field to deal with whatever kindergarten is going to throw at me…can’t forget that… not with my “spirited” boy. reading “raising your spirited child” -kurcinka, interesting and makes me feel not so alone, also squashes all hope that any of this will get any easier but confirms fact that he will be awesome adult…. so good luck, may the force be with you and i’ll be sobbing behind sunglasses with you at the bus stop… just miles away.
@tara “reading “raising your spirited child” -kurcinka, interesting and makes me feel not so alone, also squashes all hope that any of this will get any easier but confirms fact that he will be awesome adult” is exactly what I feel about her book. I cried when I read some of the chapters because it’s so hard and mostly because he and I are both way high on the spirited scale. And it’ll be great for all the adults who know him after I’m a shriveled raisin of a human.
Good luck with your weaning and your kindergarten. I decided to potty train this week, too. Because why not make the next two months the most intense clusterf*cking months of my life?
he’s a 45 or a 43 or something insane (i just read that part) his dad and i are up there too. lucky that thing 2 is merely spunky… i’m only on chapter 4 and i’m mostly reading it cause it makes me feel better about feeling like those mother fuckers (literally, cause they were seriously fucking up this mother) who told me it was all my fault he wouldn’t sleep at the same time every day or eat or let other people or his dad hold him… well it makes me feel like they deserved the karate chopping i was doing to them in my mind. i cried when my 2nd was 2 weeks old and i saw how little she took out of me and how he was still sucking the life out….. but alas i’m not alone, but i feel a little guilty feeling happy about that since i wouldn’t wish feeling/living this way on anyone, we can’t even go places, it’s just not fun.
thanks! i’m terrible at this weaning thing, i guess she didn’t feel good, they both got sick and now she’s stopped asking again except for bed, which makes me feel bad about taking it away when it’s the magic potion. it’s so hard to go from on demand to no way dude.
you seriously are so awesome that you even consider potty training and kindergarten in the same 60 day period. after the first fought me till after 4 years old i was not going to go through that hell again, i figured screw it, it’ll just happen before college i’m not doing anything. lemme just say spunky trains way better then spirited, 2 months before she was 3 she said i’m done and that was it. i’m totally letting her borrow the car more when they’re older.
Good Gawd I could have written most of that, Tara. 42 or 43 or something insane…both him and me. Wouldn’t let other people hold him, screamed and sobbed if I moved more than 5 feet away from him; guilty that I knew quickly 2 took a lot less while he still decimated me.
We bedtime weaned by making a smoothie together then sitting down to offer breast or smoothie. At first he did some of both, then more and more smoothie, then gave up breast at that feeding. Good luck.
Potty training is to distract me from kindergarten and four client projects back to back. No exercise, no tv, no reading. Work work work. If I didn’t potty train I’d be worrying about kindergarten and counting the days or trying to get them to leave me alone so I can work. Now I just play and watch for the signs. It’s working well as a distraction and only marginally as a way of following his lead to be diaper free.
Sorry to say, spirited trained in, like, a day. Stubborn, controlling. Wanted diapers gone. Agreed that ditching diapers meant *everything* in the potty every time. Dry for 5 days then decided it was easier to wet his pants. Several months of earning rewards for dry days. (Five dry days was a book, ten dry days was a trip to the farm, 20 dry days was a guitar. Done.)
Anyway, sorry ’bout your lot. Me, too, except not. I know they’ll be awesome adults. And I’ll come out of the fog. Probably.
insane. me too, he had to be touching me to sleep, play, eat…. the kid nursed for 1hr 45 min one side, slept for 15min but not if i put him down then nursed 1hr 45 min other side for the first 4 months of his life. 24-7 i could put him down 2x a day for approx 6min, i always had to choose btw shower or bathroom time alone not holding someone or cooking on the stove or using the oven. i usually choose food….i was super model skinny by the time he was 10 mo old…(which did not happen with #2). he napped for 45 min a day till 9 mo. then he stopped napping and slept about 10h a night but woke every 2h till about 2. it wasn’t till 4 he slept through, he still doesn’t sleep through the night all the time. i can’t believe i’ve survived 6 years, cause it’s 6 if you count that he started waking me up every 2 hr or keeping me up at 6mo preg…. geeze. but it will be so worth it when they are amazing and we forget all this stuff, or most of it, or it’s kind of blurry? right? or you write a book about it and i meet you at BN when i get you to sign my book… i think so. #2 is less but still so much. it’s funny cause comparatively to #1 she’s great but comparatively to the general population of kids who nap and don’t do addition and write at 2.5 she’s exhausting… i’m just really happy for you that you had toilet training and apparently, by title of blog, your dudes actually sleep for you and give you at least 15 min to think. at least there’s that. and as someone who seriously understands, i am happy you have that and i hope you have easy pottly #2 coming your way.
you are a genius! smoothies! i tried juice, since that’s a huge treat here and it wasn’t working, but smoothie! hell yea! thanks!
nice work with the toilet, that’s a great idea for distraction, i didn’t think of it that way. geeze there’s so many ways you can think of cleaning up pee as :) just goes to show you can be a glass half full or half empty kind of gal. my spirited did it in 4 days of rage but it took till he was 2 mo over 4 to do it even though he could have done it years before he just hated having to. i finally told him the diapers didn’t come any bigger. which i hate to say was a lie. i believe in the truth and that was one of very few i’ve told him, might be only big one. but i had to, he was 4 and waking up with dry diapers for over a year! someone obviously had to do something…
ah geeze nap, glad the universe collided us.
Tara, good thing you told him diapers didn’t come bigger before he could read the packages. ;-)
yeah kinda, he caught me when sister started in size 5, he’s tiny, they were both in size 4…. he was like hey, that says 5….i was cool… i said “so you’re saying you want to wear diapers again? catch this!!” (throw bag of whole wheat diapers at kid, laughing, throwing, running…) i succeeded with distraction but i still told a lie… i tell myself that after 18 months of reasoning and explaining and being calm i did the best i could…. i feel guilty sometimes, cause of course it still bugs me…then there are the days when it’s 45 min to get him in shoes and out the door + another 30 from grass to car and i don’t feel guilty, i feel i used survival skills !