Category Archives: Child Wrangling

This week in Peanut

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Things you did this week that made me want to cry (how’s that for a executive summary of four-and-a-half?):

You interrupted your play at school when a toddler’s ball rolled away from her. You stopped the ball and handed it back to her before resuming your own wild shenanigans.

You stood atop one play structure at school and intoned obscenities, grinning ghoulishly, at a group of girls playing below.

When asked if your baby brother could play with the wooden utensils from your play kitchen, you looked me right in the eye and said, “Always.”

The glitter paint all over the dining room and living room weren’t really your fault, since the cat walked through your painting, then sat down on another to lick his glittery, sticky paws, then rubbed himself all over the furniture trying to get the paint off his fur. Thank goodness, I guess, you like pink glitter paint the best, because it blends a bit better into the rug than the blue he could have sat in.

When you woke from your nap with a fever, and went wandering into the kitchen to find me, you carefully barricaded the open side of the bed with pillows so your baby brother wouldn’t fall out.

You pointed your bubble blower at me, repeatedly, even after I asked you to shoot at something else. When I took that away, you pointed a well tuned recorder. When I took that away, you pointed a cardboard tube. When I took that away, you used your finger. Don’t fool yourself, boy, I can take that, too.

A plea for sleep

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Dear goddess of babies who wake every two hours:
Thank you for passing my child off to the next goddess. I appreciate your care in those first weeks. I don’t miss you. I’m sure you understand.

Dear goddess of babies who wake every three hours:
We’ve spent a lot of time and effort with my children, oh goddess. My first child was in your care for three-plus years before you handed him over to the goddess of children who sleep all night. So I’m thinking you need a break. You’ve had responsibility for my second child for nigh on five months, and I’d like to ask that you relinquish him to the goddess next door. I know he visited with the goddess of babies who wake every five hours a few times last month, and you can see he did fine there. Your extra care and nurturing should be for newer babies who need the extra milk. Bring him next door, please.

Dear goddess of babies who wake every four hours:
Please don’t be home when your neighbor, Three Hours, comes knocking.

Dear goddess of babies who wake every five hours:
I’m calling on you, oh goddess because your wonderful, growth-inspiring nurturing is just what my son needs. Keep your eye out for Three Hours and greet her if Four Hours isn’t home. Please accept the care of my dear baby. Please watch over him and let him sleep, uninterrupted, for five hours twice a night. Help him grow and develop in whatever ways are right for him.

Unless you’re caring for too many wonderful babies. Then pass him on to the goddess of children who sleep all night. I won’t tell Three Hours, who seems to have taken a shine to my whole family. He’ll be fine with All Night and I’ll be over the moon. False idols, nothing, I’ll create a whole shrine to you.

Turn your head and laugh

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For the first time in a long while, my Monday jaunt to the local produce mecca was a solo venture. I usually walk or run there, with at least one child, so I’m limited in time and volume—I can only buy what I can bring home in the stroller and only what I can grab before one or both lose their patience with obscure veggies.

So I brought home a lot more than I normally would have, including selections from the bulk bins. Grains, beans, nuts. And I let Peanut try several before dinner. Raw peanuts, spicy pumpkin seeds, tamari sunflower seeds, cinnamon almonds.

And while I washed and peeled and cored and sliced, P was making a mess.

“Peanut, please, please, please. I know you’re a wiggly guy, but can you please eat and then go play? It’s important to me that you don’t play with your food because of the mess it makes.”

“Mom, it’s just really important to me that I play with my nuts. Because it’s important to me.”

I did a double take before I realized he meant the almonds.

I know that some day soon (next year, according to a mom with three boys) he will mean what I thought he meant. Until then, I still laughed really hard. Because I am a fourth grade boy at heart.

Ode to Six Months

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Oh, how I love this age.

The excitement of being able to follow a pointing finger. The thrill of having clean sheets flapped over your delicious little head. The shock of new flavors as you finally get to taste those things other people eat.

The sitting, the rocking on all fours trying to crawl, the babbling, the laughter, the unadulterated joy of bathtime, the more deliberate efforts at making needs known…and the cuteness. Oh, my the cuteness.

Ah, six months.

Even the hard bits are easy because this age is so wonderful. Six months was a welcome eye in the storm with Peanut that allowed me to appreciate him rather than constantly struggle to keep from drowning.

And Butter is just as delightful at six months, which reinforces how much I adore this age. He won’t play alone much, but he will sit on the kitchen floor and play with his dearest love—the metal colander—long enough for me to chop one vegetable. That’s more than I could chop for the first five months of his life. He doesn’t sleep well because he’s teething, but he’s awake a lot less than Peanut was through his teething year. Butter has such a temper, and its perfectly adorable because what he gets mad about, usually, is gravity. And what fixes is it cuddling me.

Sign me up, six months, for I’m willing to accept those terms.

Dear, sweet six months. No separation anxiety yet. No social frustrations yet. No struggle to individuate. Yet. No talking, no walking, no chasing the cat, no refusing to do what Mama asks, no hitting, no coloring the carpet, no whining, no demanding, no slamming doors. No nuances. Six months is just adorable, cooing, babbling, drooling, nuzzling infant perfection.

Gotta go. Teething means he’s up every hour all night the past two nights. Isn’t that adorable?

Parenting FAIL

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Every stinking night my kid walks out of his room well after bedtime and tells me his foot hurts. And every stinking night I feign concern and get him an ice pack. He puts it on his foot in bed and comes out twenty minutes later to hand over the now-warm bag of rice he made at school and colored and sewed himself.

Tonight he came out two minutes after the ice pack and said it’s not cold enough.

I said, calmly and firmly: “Go tell Daddy. I don’t care.”

So maybe I get an F for parenting tonight. Or maybe he gets an F for being an intense kid. Because his nightly fake sore foot is not responding to the nightly effective treatment, so maybe he’s not pretending hard enough. Or he’s pretending too hard. It’s my job to prepare him for the real world, right? Let’s call this a referral to a specialist.

So grades have been submitted but changed with permission of the Dean. Peanut gets the F. I get a well deserved drink.
Or a block of parmesan cheese.
Or pretzels and ice cream.
Or all four. Nothing like a healthy eating FAIL to go with the rest of the week.

This week in Peanut

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A roundup of the goings on in a certain four-year-old’s world…

Me: Would you like melon in your lunch?
Peanut: Heck yeah!
Me: Heck yeah? Where’d you hear that?
P: From you.
Me: Great.
P: Spectacular.
Me: Spectacular?
P: Yeah. What’s that mean?
Me: Like really great, something that makes you say “wow.”
P: Oh.
Me: It’s a good word. Where’d you hear it?
P: You. Can I have some spectacular melon?

Stalking through the house, and unearthing tape and construction paper projects at every turn, Peanut narrates his misadventures as though reading them from a book:
“He searched and searched for the shooter but could not find it. So he made one himself and put it on so he could shoot pirates who came to the castle without paying toll….”

Running naked out of the bathroom after his bath, Peanut dove under the huge box he’s been playing in to hide from the jammies-application process. Spouse, tired of playing the “where is he? I can’t seem to find him” game, said to the cat, “Cat One, do you know where Peanut is? If you know, go there.” Then picked up his feline mole and tossed him onto the box.
Peanut was horrified that the cat gave him away.

Ah, to be so adorable and clueless.

Small difference

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The difference between him and me:

He thinks it’s really funny to hide behind the door and call me into his room long after bedtime; and that it’s really sad when my entry hurts his foot.

I think it’s a little sad when he calls me into his room long after bedtime; and that it’s a little funny when my entry hurts his foot.

Naptime Writing Ticker

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…acrobat classes predictable failure. Asked why he didn’t want to do any of the activities or return the next week, Peanut replied, “I don’t want to go to a class where they tell you what to do.”…

…Butter’s third ear infection in ten weeks, all of them ragingly infected, was diagnosed by his mom and a borrowed otoscope. Subsequent visit to pediatrician included the marveling MD’s “I can’t believe this thing hasn’t ruptured, and I can’t believe he’s smiling!” Hours later, it ruptured. And Butter continued smiling….

…progress through the house made increasingly difficult by four year old blocking routes of egress with arms akimbo and the petulant demand, “say the magic word.” Process has become tougher after the first magic word, “Damnit” lost its effectiveness. Passersby now asked to name the magic fruit, which I’m convinced he has not chosen in advance. He just listens to us list fruits until he hears one he likes. Arms drop, and passage is granted….

…pudding day this week featured homemade butterscotch pudding. Huge hit. Repeat performance requested…

…a week of sleeping at least part of the night next to a sick, wakeful baby has left my contorted neck (heaven forbid I have a pillow anywhere near a baby or rest in any way other than sniffing his sweet breath) so stiff I can barely move. Wondering now if his ear infection has somehow given me meningitis. Trying to find the funds to get us both some chiropractic adjustments because, hey, why the hell not at this point.

Seems so wrong

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Butter has been sick. Third ear infection in ten weeks, third cold in nine weeks. Not miserable, but a bit drippy and sad at night. More than reasonable, I think, for being the unwitting victim of preschool scourges without the benefit of preschool play. Peanut was ten months old when he got his first cold. This little dude was four months. Robbed.

So last night was particularly heartbreaking, given how long he’s felt out of sorts. Most night he either sleeps horribly or really well considering his age. On healthy, easy nights he sleeps almost six hours, nurses, then wakes every two hours to nurse. On sick nights he wakes as often as every hour for one of several comfort measures, only one of which he can handle himself.

Last night, with the ear infection brewing and the cold ramping up, he woke about every two hours, but before I could even get to him he was slurping on his thumb and falling back asleep. So I didn’t actually see him or pick him up for more than ei ghthours. And I woke at 4am, Spidey Senses tingling, wondering why he hadn’t cried or nursed yet. Peanut had awakened me in the wee hours but when I went in to answer his cries for Mommy, he wouldn’t say anything. So I went back to bed.

Went into the boys’ room at 4am and peered into the crib. Wide awake baby smiled at me. I reached down to pat him and felt him soaking wet and freezing cold.

He had puked all over himself some time in the night. Most likely gagged on the stuff clogging up his tiny ears and tiny nose. Probably hours before, when Peanut called for me and couldn’t articulate what the problem was.

Nice parenting. Didn’t even check on the sick baby except to listen to his breathing from the door all night while he lay cold and wet in a pool of his own vomit.

Makes me wonder how miserable he is the times he does cry. And reminds me why I’ll never let him cry. And makes me rethink the decision to stop co-sleeping.

Still, waking on my own to find a cold and wet baby who smells like puke is its own reward.

Where does he get this?

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If any of you are responsible for the following, please let me know. You’re not in trouble. I just have no idea from whence sprang these delightful additions to his four-year-old repertoire:

“Mama, want to see my new axe?”
“You have an axe?”
“Yeah! Come on!” He takes me to the living room where he upends his scooter, spins the front wheel and holds a one-inch plastic firefighter hatchet to it.
“I just need to sharpen it so I can you.”

In the middle of a conversation, he checked his naked wrist and said, “If you’ll excuse me I have to catch a bus.”

He has proclaimed that we need to play “Safety!” From what I have gathered from days of changing rules, safety means we need to rescue something. From imminent danger. Often by squirting pretend poison on it. Maybe it should be called “Safety: as seen from the quarterback’s perspective”?

I’m pretty sure the preschool isn’t modeling axe sharpening. Squirting poison to save something is not in any of our books. And I genuinely can’t remember the last time I excused myself from a conversation to catch a bus.

Where is this kid getting this stuff? I don’t even have tv as an excuse. His British accent is from Kipper. His Southern accent is from a trip to his great aunt’s. But wtf is up with the grinding stone, poison-based rescue, and interrupting bus schedule?

Good news, bad news

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The good news: Spouse and Peanut went to an awesome Open House here, and rather than being attracted to swordmaking or glass-blowing, Peanut has discovered his calling in acrobatics. So we’re looking into trampoline and trapeze classes. Who knew there were three circus schools nearby? (Important note to animal activists everywhere: we’re talking human circus. Acrobatics and aerial dance. We’re not into animal abuse in the Naptime Family.)

The bad news: Butter can now make his way across the room…backwards. He doesn’t know he’s doing it. He gets up on his knees, can’t figure out what to do, stands on his toes, falls on his face, and while he’s furious about that, scoots backwards. And backwards. And backwards.

So I have an acrobat and an inchworm. Together. In the same living room.

Game on.

Look who’s not so teeny anymore

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[Fair readers, feel free to skip this Butter-centric post. It’s way too long by blogosphere standards. But most of you have known him since he was mistaken for stomach cancer, so I hereby present this half-year, drenched in melted Butter.]

Ah, Butter. You don’t get many posts, do you? Remind Mama to tell you about squeaky wheels, grease, and why most of your baby album is hurriedly printed from a blog written at midnight after I’m done detoxing from our family.

You’re quite a creature, ButterBug. Don’t let the lack of documentation fool you—you’ve quite captivated us. Part of that is the result of your hard work. You’ve always been quite smiley and try really hard to get attention by just beaming at anyone who’ll look. And you are amazingly successful at using smiles to get what you need, ButterNut.

And it’s a good thing, because oooooh, boy, you have a temper. I love it. You SCREAM at those who don’t do everything to your standards. You SCREAM at toys when they fall or hurt you or turn out not to have a nipple.

Sucking on things is your raison d’etre, ButterBean. You wake up with hickeys on your arms and wrists. I have hickeys on my shoulders and biceps. You have a callus on your left thumb and another on your left toe. Nothing passes by your mouth that you don’t try to suck.

And this week you started sucking mushy food of a spoon. You’ve been dying to do this for more than a month, but your Mama has pretty strong feelings about exclusively breastfeeding until six months. I tried to hold off on solid food by freezing milk and scraping it into Snoopy Breastmilk SnoCones. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!” you barked; “and now may I have ravioli?” No, sweetpea. How about an empty spoon? “Oooooooooh. Now may I have a burrito?” No, sweetbutt. Soft, boring stuff first.

But holding you off even when you clearly wanted food meant that your first food was amoxicillin. Heartbreaking. You had two ear infections in three weeks, and two rounds of antibiotics even with a Mama and Papa and doctor who all believe antibiotics are a last resort for ear infections.

We felt so terrible that you might think nasty pink bugglegum flavored crap is your future in food, we decided to give you avocado mashed with breastmilk a few weeks before you were six months.

“What the eff?” you cried. “This is what you guys eat?” Well, no. Mommy and Peanut don’t. But it’s very healthy and Daddy likes it. “Never feed me this again,” you sobbed. So we didn’t until the next day. And the following day. It was looking like we had another child who wouldn’t eat until he could feed himself and take bites with all 20 teeth.

Then you got sweet potato mashed with breastmilk. “This is more like it.” You would not let me feed you, but you wiped sweet potato near, in, and around your mouth, eyebrows, and ear. You were quite happy with yourself and the three calories you actually ingested.

And now you have banana mashed with breastmilk. THIS is what you were talking about. You let me feed you banana because you figured out that if you clamp down on the spoon and let me slide it slowly out, then quickly cork your little banana hole with your thumb, you get lots of goo in your belly. At least a teaspoon of solid foods each morning.

And thanks to you, Mama now knows what banana seeds look like. You taught me that, ButterBubba. I thought you somehow got under the rosemary bush and ate a bunch of ants. I knew banana is an herb. I didn’t know it has long spirochete seeds.

Look at how much more world there is now that I have you.

In which I whimper “Uncle”

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Despite an almost four year track record of ink only on paper or skin, in compliance with my simple request—oft repeated and carefully monitored—there’s blue marker on my favorite couch pillow. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on my favorite silk headband. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There’s blue marker on the carpet. Just a bit. It’ll come out.

There are long artistic streaks of blue marker on the backside of the curtains. A lot. It’ll come out. If it doesn’t, they’re cheap and replaceable. And it’s hidden.

The bigger problem is thathis was all before 7am. And then there was a relatively quick oil change at a creepy oil change chain with a tiny, depressing waiting room…jiffy, even—for an adult. But for a four-year-old it was enough time to go through all the toys, books, and snacks I brought then use coffee stirrer after coffee stirrer to spit at Mama and torment strangers and climb on the checkwriting counter and invent new songs and sing them loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when asked, then loudly, then quietly when hissed at, then loudly until they called our name.

And then there was the supermarket where there was pushing the cart too hard and pulling the cart too fast and running off and responding to gentle and to polite and to clenched teeth and to threats all the same. Begrudgingly, nastily, saucily. And temporarily.

When told he would fall if he climbed on the side of the cart, he got off. When told again, and given a brief reminder about balance and gravity, he got off. When told again, he got off. And when I turned my back to load items onto the conveyor belt of “almost-done-thank-you-lord”-ishness, he tipped the cart, and I caught it with one arm just before it crushed him, righting the cart and wrenching my back all with baby strapped into the wrap on my chest. And I almost cried.

I told you. I told you. I ask everything politely and gently the first time. Second time. Third time. A million times a day you disregard and refuse and ignore and refute and sass. I still don’t know why you don’t listen. I mean…you do, then you don’t. It seems to go beyond the developmentally appropriate hear only what you like. And you totally deserve for that thing to fall on you. I hurt myself helping you. I daily hurt myself trying to help you.

And it doesn’t seem to matter. Whatever you want you do. Whatever I say you don’t want to do and you don’t do. You hit me no fewer than twenty times today just trying to leave school at the same time we always leave school.

I’m so sick of this. I’m done.

Except I can’t be.

This is the only job on the planet you can’t quit.

Graduate seminar in toothbrushing

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Oh my god with the toothbrushing. Why, why, why is this such a chore?

We’ve been brushing teeth with Peanut for four years and two months. And we have tried the following tricks, in order, to win over a resistant child:

1. brush his teeth hanging him upside down
2. sing a song while brushing
3. get a flashing firefly toothbrush
4. brush like animals (elephant brushes slowly and heavily, hummingbird quickly and lightly, platypus changes each time because what the f*%#?)
5. you brush then we brush
6. count teeth while we brush
7. tell a long story while we brush
8. play red light, green light dance-style while we brush (green light, you dance while I brush; red light you stop while I brush the tough parts)

And I swear to his future periodontist, I’m gonna let these baby teeth fall out of his head before I invent another game to get these stupid, no-good, replaceable, temporary, cookie-begging teeth clean.

Sure, offer your tricks below. Please. But I can’t pretend I have the energy for anything really creative, so skip the eighteen-part games even if you swear by them. Simple, please. Be gentle with me.