Category Archives: Child Wrangling

I am too old for this

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Here’s the short version, because you have places to be and I’m exhausted.

I tell Peanut in advance about dentist visit. He’s been a handful of times, always has easy cleanings. It’s never easy convincing him, though. Have I mentioned, maybe a thousand times before about his strong opinions and his desire to be in control and his spiritedness? Yes. Spirited. Highly. And it takes my every trick to get him to open up. For the four minutes it takes to gently clean a small person’s teeth.

So I tell him. Week before, day before, day of. Explain we have a full day and I need him to move past the “I’m not going” to get his clothes, get in the car, go into the dental office, sit down, open up, and let the nice, gentle people brush, count, and paint his teeth. (No sealants with BPA. Don’t worry, people of the interwebs.)

Drive thirty minutes to appointment. Toddler gets foreshortened nap. But it’s worth it, right, to not have any downtime and to have an overtired seventeen-month old, because Peanut will have clean teeth. But he clams up. I relay his pre-appointment-specified requests to hygienist: no bib, real names for tools not lame kid-friendly names, mix mint and chocolate flavored toothpastes. Fine.

Nope. Won’t do it. I’m gentle for a while, I allay his fears. This is quick, this is easy, this is gentle. You’ve done this before. Then I remind him the dentist present in the car is only for people with professionally cleaned teeth. Ditto the playdate later. These are not new threats/bribes. Though this is my first bribe attempt, I knew enough to set up the bribe earlier and keep the promise consistent throughout.

40 minutes in we say he’s running out of time. 45 minutes in he says okay but refuses to sit down. I take him home, and I’m pissed. I make a return appointment before storming out.

At one point I tel P that we’re going to go back in three days and if he doesn’t submit I’ll have them hold him down. It takes about one minute to realize how terrible that is, so I change it to we’ll go back every single day after school with no playgrounds and no playdates until your teeth get cleaned.

At home, later, I say that we have another appointment for Thursday. Will you do it? If I drive all that way and pay I want to know you’ll do it. I would rather let your teeth get holes and fall out later than waste my time, money, and energy now. I want you healthy, I want you able to eat, I want you to feel proud of all that brushing. I want you to like the dentist, damnit.

“Please. Will you let them do a cleaning?”

“Yes. They can sweep the floor.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he can just buy dentures with the money from his comedy career.

Good point, sir.

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Me: Peanut, get your shoes. We have to go.
5YO: Mom, we don’t have to go.
Me: Good point. We don’t have to. We should and I want to.
5YO: But I don’t. So I won’t.

***

Me: Butter, feet on the floor please.
1YO: [laughing] Nah nah nah.
Me: Feet down, please. Tables are dangerous.
1YO: [laughing, running for other side of table] Nah nah nah.
Me: Yes, yes yes.
5YO: Mom, you just told him yes to climb. That’s confusing him.

***

Me: Peanut, we need to clean this up before bed.
5YO: Well, we don’t need to. You just want to. So you do it.
Me: Well, I don’t want to play with it, so maybe I’ll just give it away.
5YO: No you won’t. We need toys.
Me: You don’t really need it. You want it.
5YO: No. You’re wrong. I need it.

***
You, young man, make excellent points. Now go make them to your new teacher, heaven help her.

This week in Naptime

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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?

You had me at “tubby little cubby”

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I avoid Disney movies like the plague. Nasty sarcastic little characters that teach kids without repercussions how to tease and call people names. Lurking menaces that terrify my kid. Dead mothers that set up a premise of orphan kid on its own. And gender stereotypes that have stepped way over the border of obscene. You know I won’t let my kid watch most of the stuff out there. He’s never seen a movie in the theater (we tried Horton but he was too little for a whole movie; he walked out 15 minutes in because he wanted to run around outside).

So I hesitated about seeing Winnie the Pooh. I read the reviews (all stellar) and thought about how Disney had ruined Pooh over the years. The bear himself (atrocious, orange, perky), the TV show (dastardly, trite, uninspired), and the books (“gee, Dora is popular, so how can we make the Hundred Acre Woods less British and more WonderPets-esque?”)

And then I watched the trailer. No menaces, no sarcasm, generally sweet characters whose biggest flaws are ebullience and gloominess, neither of which is foreign to a 5 year old. More important, no teasing or sarcasm or nastiness. Just sweet friends trying to pursue tasks that are very important to them. Finding honey and whatnot. Ought to be harmless, right?

So we went. And I’ll tell you I was teary one minute in. This film honors the Milne books by shooting the opening sequence in the real, non-cartoon bedroom of Christopher Robin. The slow sweep through his bedroom tells us explicitly that the imagination of a small boy is the source of all the animals’ adventures. That language is in the magical phase of newness and fluidity. That what we will see comes directly from the love and creativity of one boy.

And the first view of the Hundred Acre Woods reveals that the film is quite aware of its textual origins. At various points throughout the movie we see the set piece, outside the frame, of the book from which the narrator is reading. Drawn )not CGI-looking) images of Pooh and Piglet and Tigger bounce into the words of the text, knocking the type-set alphabetic characters into the story. Throughout, we know that the formal language of the narrator/book and the misspelled, painstakingly printed language of the animal friends are the two worlds Christopher Robin straddles as he learns to read and write. (sob)

The movie was fun. It was sweet. It was smart. And it was honest in a way that almost no Disney films are. It was a movie of a book of a turning point in children’s life.

And it was just perfect this weekend, one month before Peanut starts kindergarten. As his tooth wobbles and his letters stand proudly (and occasionally backwards) on his art, labeling and naming and telling stories.

Winnie the Pooh was exactly what I’d hoped. It was childhood captured in a moment of joy and imagination and song; supportive of healthy, adorable, bookish childhood. How can that be wrong?

Unfair standards

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Found a post at Por Completo that discusses the low standards society has for paternal involvement with children. Give it a read. The last two graphs, quote then commentary, are what intrigue, frustrate, and inspire me most toward change.

More of the Louis C.K. interview, incidentally, at Funny or Die.

What do you think? Does society have a different standard for “Good Father” than for “Good Mother”?

Wisdom of the past, wisdom of the present

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A question for the generations of women who have done this and been doing this and who represent a wealth of knowledge I need to tap:

Q: I beseech you, women of previous generations, when your children were playing in the yard, and you gently and politely asked the big one not to point the hose at the little one, looked away for a moment to put something down or pick something up, then looked back to see a guilty looking older child quickly turning the hose away from a soaked and crying younger child while proclaiming, “I didn’t do anything!”…
…how did you not beat the older child?

A: Not beat? Oh, sweetie, we use the switch for the lying and a belt for the disobeying.

Okay, that didn’t go as I’d hoped. Let’s try again.

Q: I beg of you, current parents in my community, when your older child is lifting your younger child toward the stovetop while you are chopping vegetables for dinner and you say, “Please put him down. Put him down. Put him DOWN that’s dangerous!” and he continues, reaching the little one high enough to catch his feet in the oven door and open it, hurting the little guy and endangering both…
…how do you not beat the older one?

A: We breathe, we get down on their level, and we talk. In fact, we often find an appropriate song and a snack helps in these matters.

I see. This is harder than I thought. I envisioned wisdom involving margaritas. Or caramel. Deep breathing and talking I’ve tried. Let’s try again.

Q: Internet, please, I beg you. When the older one thinks it’s funny to take the big exercise ball and bounce it in the living room just hard enough to knock over his brother, and he has been told firmly that such behavior is not acceptable and that bouncing the ball must be gentle and not near his brother or anything breakable (else have the ball removed and placed in the garage); and you step out of the room to check the food almost burning on the stove to hear a screech and a crash and return to a fallen and crying toddler, and a fallen and broken lamp…
…how. do. you. not. beat. your. older. child.?

Hmmm? How? Help me Interwebs. You’re my only hope for wisdom today.

A:

Shirking duties

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To the two dads at the library this weekend: you are a couple of jackasses. I’m guessing your partners asked you to “please take the kids somewhere so I can have one freaking hour to myself.” When you agreed, layered under the gratitude and the giddiness there was an unspoken understanding—unspoken because your partner should absolutely not have to say this—that you would actually be with your kids. Whether you chose the library or not, you should have known that being with your kids means parenting your kids. Not taking them somewhere and ignoring them.

Jackass #1, I don’t want your goddamned daughter following me, hovering over my shoulder, leaning on my kid to see what I’m reading or showing him on the computer, and asking me to read to her. I don’t like her. It’s not her fault; it’s yours. You left her alone with a big wad of gum in her mouth and a need to talk to someone, anyone, who would listen. She’s five, dude. Spend some time with her. And take that goddamned gum out of her mouth. When she asks you to read to her, as she did when you finally showed up an hour later, don’t tell her “not now, maybe at home.” Fracking dillweed. You’re at the library. You have to read to your kid. It’s the law. (By the way, why would you bring home that crappy book she chose all by herself while you had totally abandoned her to do whatever it was you desperately needed to do alone while your kid wandered aimlessly and alone? Why not read that piece of junk now and take home something good? Something that, say, you pick out with her based on her interests? Oh, right. Because you’re a jackass.)

Jackass #2: Thanks for making Jackass #1 look good. He, at least, told his daughter not to leave the library. Your four-year-old is in the freaking parking lot answering questions from strangers about where her daddy is. She doesn’t know your name, by the way, you anal pore, because you don’t spend enough time with her for her to think of you as human. In her defense, we don’t think you’re human, either. And she doesn’t know where you last were because you’re so self absorbed that you don’t know four-year-old time runs in a parallel universe where fifteen minutes of something they like is “one minute” and one minute alone equals fifteen minutes of destruction. Or fear. You’re a useless sack of subhuman compost. And a useless father. When the strangers who are helping your daughter find you I hope they read you the riot act. And that they then call your partner who will now pay for that one hour of trusting your sorry, pathetic lack of common sense with the knowledge that that one hour a week, that one glimmer of hope at a sense of self should become a whole weekend twice a month (if you got joint custody, which no judge would grant). You’re as useless and horrible as a spicy linguine speculum. Jackass.

To all you other fathers out there, I hold out hope that you actually spend time with, think of, and care for your daughters. Leaving them alone at the library is, as you well know, not acceptable until they are old enough to head for the Judy Blume section. Once that happens, it is your job to hang out near the librarian’s desk so you can answer questions, listen in, and escort her out when she’s ready to be with you again. Until she’s reading Forever, though, please actually parent her. And after she reads it—for the sake of all that is awesome about fathers and daughters—keep parenting her.

It’s your mothereffing job.

(So is kicking the crap out of the Jackasses who don’t do their mothereffing jobs. Help the rest of the parents out, would ya? We can’t do this alone.)

If it gets me a week off, I guess I’ll take it

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“Parenting is overrated. A secret for child-rearing success: do less http://theatln.tc/ifc4ae #longreads”

The Atlantic‘s tweet makes it sound as though we don’t have to parent, because nature takes care of most of it. In fact, if we try hard, we’re screwing them up. But the article says different. The article says if we do everything we’ll screw them up. If we are perfect, our kids will suffer.

No risk of that here. I’m not trying that hard. And I’m failing with a nice steady rhythm that would back a hot hiphop routine.

But I was all prepared to let up a little. Twitter promised me a parenting vacation, seeing as how all my attention was killing my children’s future potential. I had a lot of reading to catch up on, so I was willing to try lounging and reading and ignoring.

But all Lori Gottlieb argues, really, is that overprotecting children, carefully directing and managing their every moment makes for unhappy future adults. Duh. If you don’t let them feel disappointment, handle their own sorrow, wallow a bit in a stew of lonliness and marginalization, we rob them of coping skills.

Who are these parents who have so much time they can get them invited to every party and armwrestle teachers into better grades? I can barely get three meals and two snacks into them. I can barely get books back to the library within ten dollars of their due dates. I can’t even remember their jackets half the time. How the hell am I gonna micromanage their emotional lives to spare them disappointment? Please.

I’d be happy to back off more, except that if I back up much further I’ll need binoculars to see them grow up. My goal is not to make life perfect for these amazing, sweet, interesting, wonderful little boys. My goal is to give them every chance to figure out who they are and what’s important to them. To offer them what I can and have them make the rest for themselves.

So I felt betrayed by The Atlantic, whose tweet had promised a parenting vacation of novels and bonbons. But I couldn’t hold a grudge because an hour or so later I got really mad at Rolling Stone.

I saw in a Rolling Stone piece that Michele Bachmann was raised by two lifelong Democrats. Too much parenting? Not enough parenting? All I’m saying is that what keeps me up at night is that if we try really hard and parent in earnest, and then wind up with a borderline psychopath for our efforts, I’ll have to explain myself to Rolling Stone. In an issue with a reinvented, 80-year-old Madonna on the cover.

Alls well that ends well. I think.

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Act I
Interior, Boys’ bedroom. Bedtime.

Peanut notices Butter is happily cuddling a little green bear. The bear he gave his younger brother months ago. The bear he said he was done with and didn’t like. The bear that represents one of only two things he’s ever given Butter to keep.

“Why does he have that? I want it.”

I’m going to spare you the details of the next ten minutes. Suffice it to say it was a ping pong match of screaming versus calm. He wanted it back. I am not going to take a bear from a happy baby. Ill-gotten gains would be a different discussion. But the 5 year old GAVE the bear to the toddler.

Peanut bellowed and writhed for 10 minutes. And he refused to calm down, to lie down, or to stop screaming. I sat next to Butter’s crib, reading a book. (Most nights I nurse the wee one, and put him to bed awake. I leave the room. If he cries I come back, tell him to lie down, fix his blanket, and leave again. After four tries, if he won’t settle, I sit in the rocker and read until he’s asleep. I might actually read a whole book this year.)

I told Peanut I would talk with him when he was prone and quiet. He refused. I had lots of tricks up my sleeve: the other green bear on Peanut’s bed, the idea of taking this green bear back tomorrow, the possibility of a trade for the orange monster Butter has never liked, and the piggy bank just itching for a new bear purchase. I get to use none of my masterful techniques because my child’s stubbornness rivals my own.

He’s actually quite hilarious, and I had to fight not to laugh. First he walked circles around the room for ten minutes while I ignored him. Clearly tired, he finally sat down on his bed. But he refused to lie down.
And he told me so.
And he stared at me, fuming, sitting on his bed, for another ten minutes.

It took half an hour before I told him he could have the bear back in the morning.

Act II
Interior, morning, days later

I wake to the sound of Peanut mimicking Butter’s morning sounds. They banter in toddlerese for a while, then Peanut reads (from memory) and embellishes (from his awesome cache of storybook rhythms) Butter’s favorite book. I go in when Butter gets frustrated because he can’t get out of his bed.

His bed that now contains the forbidden green bear. I casually ask Peanut what they’ve been doing and he tells me, “I brought Butter the bear and told him he can cuddle it for a little while, but that I’d like it back later.”

Fair enough.

Act III
Interior, afternoon, days later

I’ve fallen asleep nursing Butter before his nap. Peanut sneaks into the room and softly talks to me. His whispers are a change from moments before, when he was begging for a movie, cursing my name, and threatening not to eat ever again if he couldn’t have pudding for lunch.

P: Do you want me to pull the curtains?
M: Hmmm? What? Oh, that would be nice. Thank you.
P: [he closes the curtains] Is that enough?
M: Yes. That was such a huge help. Thank you.

He gets the magical bear from his bed.

P: Which way will his head be when he gets in bed?
M: That side.
P: I’ll put this in the middle so he sees it no matter which way he sleeps.
M: That is so friendly, P. What a great idea.

What!? Who is this model citizen? This is the kid I met years ago and haven’t seen since he started preschool. This kid standing before me has been missing for two years. Is it possible he’s shaking his Threes and Fours just in time to leave our sphere of influence and enter the terrifyingly unsheltered, unprotected, unsavory world of public school?

Cool!

Act IV
Interior, bedtime, same day

The boys rush into their bedroom after bath, screeching and laughing. B sees his crib and points. He wants the green bear. P sees me give it to him and seems fine. B holds the bear, kisses the bear, drags the bear around during the bedtime ritual. And as he nurses he bangs me in the face with the mangy little thing. Repeatedly.

Peanut laughs. A lot.

And I’m guessing Butter can keep the bear now. Because he has helped Peanut turn the nauseating little urchin into a partner in crime, used first in a petty war but now as a weapon against the arch-nemesis Mama. Forget rivalries. They’ve moved onto the bigger picture: their lifelong rebellion against the Forces of Rules and Expectations.

You don’t know anything.

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Took Peanut and Butter to a padded room last week, mostly because I wanted to put them in a padded room. But also because they play nicely together there, climbing and sliding and laughing and bouncing. The gym (my recent compromise on having no child care or breaks from the kids) has a climbing wall and bounce house and huge toxic foam climbing structures for our use, free (now that I’m paying for a gym membership), whenever we want.

When it’s time to go I give a five minute warning, and a “last chance to do something that’s important to you” warning. Then we go.

But last week Peanut would not leave. As is his wont, he ignored, ignored, ignored, then yelled, “No!”

I was calm, I was respectful, I was nicer than I should be. I wanted to throw him against a padded wall but went with:

Me: Yes. It’s time to go. We need to get home for dinner.”
P: No. Come on, Butter, let’s go over here.
M: Butterbean, come get your shoes! [He does, thankfully.] Peanut, we’re getting out shoes on and then we’re leaving.
P: I’m not going.
M: Oh. Well it’ll be hard to have dinner in a bounce house, but I wish you the best of luck.
P: I’m not coming.
M: I heard you. And I’m not compromising.
P: WHY?!?!?!!
M: Peanut, please use an inside voice. I’m not compromising because we came here for you to have fun and to bounce and climb. And you did have fun, bounce, and climb. So now it’s time to go home.
P: I did NOT have fun.
M: Mmmmmmkay. That’s a shame. Maybe next time, then. Come on.
P: No.
M: Okay.

He comes over to the child-keeping door and climbs the half wall instead of going through.

Me: Sweetie, that’s not safe. Please get down and come through the door.
Peanut: This is the only way I can find to get to you.
M: Honey, try the door.
P: No.
M: Peanut, get down. This is not a climbing wall. Come through the door.
P: No.
M: Yes.
P: I can’t.
M: Little boy, this is not working for me. Get down. Now. Because what you’re doing could hurt you.
P: But the door has a forcefield and I can’t go there.
M: I see. Here. I turned it off. Now come through.
P: NOOOOOOO! It’s invisible and you can’t see it.
M: And you can’t see my angries, inside me, but they are circling their wagons right now and getting ready to come out all over you if you don’t get down.
P: You don’t know anything.
[just a look. a really long, blinking, calmly enraged look.]
P: I’ll climb when I want and where I want.
M. [deep breath] You will take a deep breath right now and consider how you’re talking to me. And you will consider that coming here is optional and climbing is optional and bouncing is optional, but talking nicely to your mother is. not. optional.
P: FINE.
M: Peanut Full Name Naptime, that is not talking nicely. I will not ask you again. You will talk nicely or we will think of a consequence together.

At this point a deep breath didn’t help. A snake breath I read about in a Mothering Magazine article on Mama Rage did. Especially when Butter mimicked it and I started laughing.

I still snubbed Peanut for a while, even after the situation was defused. Because I’m petty and nasty and immature. And because I could *totally* see that forcefield. What does he think I am…old? Powerless? Unfun?

(I am so old and powerless and decidedly unfun lately. But how dare he notice? He doesn’t know anything.)

Everyone wants out

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Peanut told me this week that he wants a new mom.

He ain’t the only one shopping for my replacement.

I’m done.
I’m just done.

I finally found a sitter, after two years of a Spouse who worked such long hours he only saw our eldest on weekends and two more years of an intense kid who was awake 14 hours a day and most of the night, and another year with two children, the sum of which ate away all my reserves. And put me deep into patience debt. And fun ideas debt. And giving a shite debt. So I found a sitter from a trusted source and scheduled her twice a week for two hours.

Four hours of solo time. Of daylight hours where I could choose my own destiny. Or at least have a cup of tea and close my eyes while walking. (I love doing that.) Or, heaven forbid, writing.

And this answer-to-my-prayers babysitter has canceled six times now. Out of eight appointments. Sick some of those times, needed at work (a preschool) others, planning a trip another, and “tired and unable to be attentive” once. Five cancellations were an hour before she was due here.

So clearly I’m not going to ask her back.

And without outside help I’m back to 86 hours a week of being tasked with guarding and teaching and protecting and not stabbing small children. And another 14 hours a week while they sleep of cleaning and preparing and cooking. And another couple of hours every night, when the toddler wakes 2-6 times for comfort and milk and the older one wakes for bathroom or nightmares or some bullshit invention that tests my theories of nighttime parenting.

I’m too tired to calculate it, but that seems as though at least 114 hours of my week is child-centric. (For those keeping track, that leaves less than 8 hours a day, so I can do all children all the time and sleep, or rob my sleep to have some reading, writing, exercise, thinking, talking, adult time moments.) I love these kids 168 hours a week. But 68% of every minute of my year seems like a lot of unblinking moments. With healthy, loving, awesome kids. And two hours to myself most weekends. Whine whine whine. Except, come on.

With a sitter who calls in too tired to pay attention to my kids for two bleeping hours.

So when the five year old offers to throw me out on my ear, I’m eager for the chance.

P: I get a good allowance, you know. I can buy a new mom.
M: Hmmm. What are you looking for in a new mom? What qualities will make a new mom worth your money?
P: Well, mostly what I’m looking for is no rules.
M: Oh. Yeah, that would be nice.
P: I want one who says yes to hitting.
M: Well, let’s see. That knocks out M’s mom and E’s mom and R’s mom and your aunt and your grandmas. Who else do you have in mind?
P: I don’t really need to buy a new mom. I just need to pay you to have no rules.
M: No deal. You still have to hold hands in the street and wear a seatbelt and use sunscreen if I’m your mom.
P: Okay, but I want to pay you so I can hit.
M: What do you want to hit?
P: I’ll give you $100 if I can knock down this house.
M: There’s a problem with that plan. If you knock down this house I have to pay the landlord a lot more than $100. So it’s not worth it to me. Sorry.
P: Well, I’ll keep looking.
M: You do that.

You keep using that word…

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…I do not think it means what you think it means.

Peanut: I’m wearing my hunting hat.

Me: [thinking: Dear gawd, no! Please tell me you are hunting blueberries or something] What makes it a hunting hat?

P: Oh, you know. It has pockets…for when I find trash in the forest…and pick it up.

M: Oh. [Phew.]
[ Also, what kind of trash fits into a 5 year old’s hat pocket?]

P: Not like collecting because I wouldn’t keep it; but collecting like collecting it all together to put in the trash.

M: I see.

P: Because nobody likes garbage in the forest.

M: No, they don’t.

P: [long pause] A hunting hat.

Party excesses

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Ah, partying. Good times. Nah, not the type we used to talk about. Not the late night, chemical substance enhanced, blistered dance feet stuff. I’m talking about parties thrown for the prepubescent set because a good friend wrote me a delicious rant about obscene birthday parties. (I have permission to post this, in case you’re worried that I’m a willy-nilly email copy-and-paster. Let’s call this large direct quote a guest post so you don’t worry that I’ll similarly rip off your rants. Unless you want me to.)

Here is the rant/inquiry/musing/conversation starter:

>>>When did children’s birthday parties as events become de rigueur? To be clear, I do not have children of any age, size, or variety. I am sitting in my wooden house throwing stones at all the glass I see. Having said that, being a woman tip-toeing her way towards 40, I have a lot of friends with young children. And from what I can tell, it seems commonplace to throw hardcore parties for children under the age of 10.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m all for big family and friends-of-family get-togethers for the 3 and under crowd. Similarly, as kids get older and get what birthdays mean, I’m all for getting their friends together for cake, whether gluten and refined sugar free or from Costco, and games and meltdowns and such. But it seems that among my middle-class friends, Events are becoming commonplace. Like the birthday party at the beginning of Parenthood. (The movie, not the TV show. Although I do like the TV show, the movie is really more Gen X. I mean, I know Martha Plimpton has resurfaced in “Raising Hope”, but she was in Goonies and dated River Phoenix–how much more Gen X can you get??)

Anyway. When did it become reasonable to invite every kid in the class to a birthday party? When did it become normal that a seven year old gets a spa party? Or cheerleader lessons? And when did goodie bag distribution become required? Maybe I’m just having a “when I was little, we didn’t have mountain bikes, we had Schwinn’s with banana seats, and we didn’t have TVs in our room, we had a black and white TV in the living room without a remote control with rabbit ears, and we didn’t have iPods, we had the radio and maybe Walkmans with mix tapes made by recording FROM the radio” moment. Or maybe my friends really aren’t middle class. But it seems like kids these days are being raised with crazy expectations. If you’re having spa party at seven, what happens when you turn ten? Thirteen? Sixteen? Graduate from high school? Is there a parade in your honor? Aren’t these things ridiculously expensive? <<<

Well? What do you think? I haven't been to one of these extravaganzas, nor have I hosted one. We're cupcakes-and-art-project birthday party types. We host burritos-at-the-playground birthday celebrations. We're an invite-one-friend-for-every-candle-on-the-cake family.

What do you do? What is considered standard among your friends, families, and school? What's your line for too much?

[Thanks for the guest post, Dear Friend. For the record, I still have mix tapes I recorded from the radio. I was AWESOME with the record/play/pause button dance that resulted in not-even-close-to-seamless transitions.]

Eeyore by necessity

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Sleep deprivation makes you cranky, fat, and dangerous.

It also makes you gloomy.

Take a look at this finding, reported in a New York Magazine feature that is, as far as I can tell, the same as the third chapter in Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman:

“Perhaps most fascinating, the emotional context of a memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories get processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine.” (p. 3 in the NYM article linked and p. 35 in the book)

Great. Fat, grumpy, and incapable of retaining joy.

I can’t wait to hang out with me, ‘cuz that’s a winning combination.

(On a related note, how do I not have a category titled “Holy Guacamole, I Need Sleep!”? My first didn’t sleep through the night until he was over Three. The second is not exactly on the fast track to quiet nights, with or without ear infections, teething, and gobs of physical exertion. So I filed this under everything except Yoga. I’m too tired for yoga.)

(Also? Go read Nurture Shock. There are chapters on praise, sleep, race, lying, gifted programs, siblings, teenagers, self-control, social skills, and language; all compelling, well written, clear, thoroughly researched and revelatory.) I’ll leave the superlatives to the cover matter, but suffice it to say I will finish it before I finish The Pale King. That’s huge, given how little reading time I have and how much I want to read DFW’s final novel. Go get it. Library, local bookstore, friend…I don’t care. Read. This. Book.)