Category Archives: Child Wrangling

California is still the Old West

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Peanut: Can we have beets for dinner?
Me: Sure.
P: Raw, please. Or cooked.
M: Which one?
P: Raw. Shredded.
M: Okay.
P: With goat cheese, please. And balsamic. Or I’ll shoot you.

I’m quite over the shooting phase. It has been 10 days, and the boy can make anything into “a shooter.”

He doesn’t know a thing about guns. He only recently learned about bows and arrows. We’ve not shown him any movies with any projectile-firing weapons, and we don’t have any toys that fire projectiles. I was raised with guns, know my way around a gun, and have a terrified-respect relationship with guns. I want to live in a world with no guns. [Shut up with your “it’s too late for that, you commie liberal.” I know that, you jackass. And I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the parents who read this blog because their kids drive them nuts, too. Go pay the NRA to lobby for your Constitution-misreading right and leave my blog alone.]

And yet he’s up every morning at 6, demanding tape so he can attach something to something else and pretend it shoots. Mostly his contraptions shoot me, because I’m the one lucky enough to be locked in a house with him far too many hours a day.

I asked the teachers, who said the same thing all the books do…pretend violence is not real violence. It’s natural and acceptable play. As long as you don’t give him something that fires projectiles, and as long as you don’t make a big deal about it, all will be fine.

So when he points at me, I say, casually, “please don’t point at me because I don’t like it.” And then I move on to something else, distracting either him or myself so we can not focus on the damned shooter.

Nope. 20 hours a day that kid is pointing something at me and bellowing, “soot soot soot!” [We have issues with the /sh/ sound.]

I’d be fine with a finger as a shooter. I’ll play pretend whip cream fight or pretend water hose like any other goofy mom. Heck, I’ll play pretend poop squirter if the mood strikes. But please don’t point construction paper-taped-pencils at me and say you’re going to make me dead. I know you don’t know what dead is. I know you don’t understand why pointing at anything you don’t want to kill is absolutely not okay. I know you need a fantasy life.

Can you please get it somewhere else?

Because you’re the one who wants shredded raw beets with goat cheese and balsamic. And if the other shooters heard you, they’d shoot you just for saying that.

Texting while parenting

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Article from the New York Times about how hurtful it can be to kids when we pay attention to screens instead of our offspring.

I used to have a “no computer or phone while he’s awake” rule with Peanut, but had been easing that lately so I can check email while he’s in the yard or the small one is happily talking to his mobile. Guess I’ll go back to the daytime blackout, which is great news for my need for adult interaction and freelance work.

Sigh.

Worth the co-pay

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My first visit to the therapist this weekend resulted in this bit of wisdom:

All parents find that to be good—really good—at raising a child, some part of them needs to go underground. Some people let their hobbies go, some let their careers go, some let their marriages go. But something needs to give. Just be careful what you sacrifice because the stuff that gets pushed underground may never come back up.

Damn. That was totally worth the $20.

Because for the first three years of Peanut’s life, I thought that I had closed all the doors to my future. Instead of choosing what went subterranean while I made the sacrifice to parent full time, I shovelled everything under. I was not willing to choose a few thing to die so the other bits could thrive. I just jammed it all in a box labeled: Do Not Open until 2011.

But framing the choice I’ve made in terms of pushing a few priorities to the back burner and shoving some effectively off the stove and into the trash is enlightening. I knew I wanted to fill each hole that arose as my family grew less and less needy with bits of me that I had stuffed in that box. But I didn’t (and don’t yet) have a plan for what comes out when. Just bringing dribbles of *everything* whenever there’s a spare moment will not work. I need to make room in the fridge and bring myself back a gallon at a time.

So I’m going to spend the next few weeks thinking about what I’m willing to toss, what I want to keep on hold, and what could slip back into my life, in one gulp not tiny sips, so I’m more of a person than I’ve been for a while.

What are you letting go underground while you do your most important work, and what are you carefully guarding and tending so it won’t get buried as you do your “have to” and “should”s?

Moment of clarity

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I’m having a tough time accepting a lot about my life—that the novel is still not published, that my PhD is still a distant dream, that two totally awesome and timely journal articles are languishing at 95% complete and not yet submitted, that Spouse and I are destined to be poor…

And that my eldest is testing out being the school’s resident a–hole.

This troubled me for several weeks, hearing about the times he had to be separated from his partner in crime, stifling my horror as he tells me of his antics, wondering if I wasted my time being so carefully respectful and gentle and loving and patient. If he’s going to throw sand in the face of the sweet and shy one at school, why did I try so hard to do everything thoughtfully, mindfully, and (what I now consider) self-effacingly? Why not actually lock the door when I pee, or shower regularly, or say no to playing with him, or negotiate a little less if he’s going to be antisocial and embarrassing?

And I asked another parent at school, tearfully, “is my kid an a–hole?”

He said something I really appreciated: “No, he’s usually sweet and he’s doing some awful stuff. But that’s his job. Now, my kid’s an a–hole.”

Not true. But I realized we all see things in our children we don’t like, that the socialized side of us wants to just beat right out of them, and the kid side of us wants to run from. The preschool dad who talked to me has a child with some unsavory characteristics sometimes, who is not an a–hole. My kid is trying out some awful behaviors to get attention and see the responses, but he’s not an a–hole. What he is, is different than me and separate from me. We’re now walking that thin line where it’s my job to teach him what’s okay, and it’s his job to choose the okay over the not-okay.

I thought about it, and Super Cool, Sweet, Awesome Lady X at school has a child who is genuinely an a–hole. Sometimes. And another child who is delightful. Mostly. And neither is her fault. And the total a–hole parent at school has a kid who is generally okay. And that’s clearly not due to parenting.

You do what you can and try your best, but some of your child’s behavior has nothing to do with you. (Yes I knew that, but now I have to repeat it more often than “please don’t pick up trash from the street.”) As I try to let Peanut separate and become his own person, I need to stop being embarrassed and realize that he is, in fact, his own person. And he’s four. And if he’s hated that’s his problem and if he’s loved it’s his problem. And all I can do is give him what I can to help get him through. He has to do the rest.

And damned if that isn’t the hardest part so far. Because from this side of the preschool fence, that adorable and feisty and opinionated and persistent and intense child is sometimes miraculously delicious, and sometimes a giant a–hole.

Wanted: job share

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This is way, way too much work for one sane person, so I’m seeking another to share the work. Here’s how the breakdown of how my proposed job share will go:

Both halves of the job share team will be creative, goofy, intelligent, patient, well read, loving, gentle, and sassy.

My half of the job will be to enjoy my children. To revel in their originality, listen intently to their stories, marvel in their creativity, laugh at their jokes, enjoy their antics, celebrate their achievements, cheer their efforts, foster their explorative natures, and build their self esteem, language, and knowledge. I will specialize in games, projects, smiles, and wonder.

Your half of the job will be to handle the actual parenting. To correct behavior, to guide impulses, to direct aggression and anger into positive outlets, to offer alternatives to batshit insane ideas, to anticipate and divert meltdowns, to gently socialize without fundamentally changing them, and to clean up all discharge. You will specialize in gentle discipline, positive reinforcement, and patience.

I will write novels and articles when I am not enjoying these delightful little creatures.

You will cook and clean whether or not they are being delightful.

I will get all their best moments, their hugs and kisses, and their adoration.

You will get the tantrums, the whining, and the age-appropriate bullshit (i.e., hitting, screaming, lying, swearing, and pouting).

I will celebrate them.

You will socialize them.

Please send applications to Naptime Writing c/o the unicorn right next to you.

Repost: Laws of Motion, Child Sized Version

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(repost, as in “to post again,” not as in “offensive follow-up to a parry,” of musings from February 2009)

First Law: net inertia. Subjects at rest tend to stay at rest until you settle in. Then they spring into action, usually of the death-defying (or at least social-convention-defying) sort. Conversely, subjects in motion will tend to stay in motion until such time as you enjoy their motion. Then they will stop.

Second Law: F=ma. The relationship between the force needed to cajole a small person into even the most pleasant task is Force=(minutes needed to perform task without small children)x(age, in years, you feel after the task is complete). Exempli gratia, force required to put on child’s shoes=(.25)x(57)=14. Units may vary. 14 minutes, 14 different techniques, 14 different pair before they finally agree to leave one on, 14 threats to leave without said child if they don’t put on their flipping shoes NOW…

Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You get dressed, they glitter paint the cat. You prepare breakfast, they remove all the tape flags from your research books. You strike up a conversation with the clerk at the market, they strip down naked and run away laughing.

You don’t see how those are equal and opposite? You must possess logic and reason, then. Ah. You must not have children.

Two Months, just checking

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Okay, so you know I was terrified of having two children. You know I have a super intense first-born, and that I feared for my sanity and his safety if having another baby was as hard as I thought it’d be.

I heard two schools of thought from other parents: “one plus one is twenty”; or “the second is much easier.”

We’ve only been doing this two months, and it will change, but here’s what I’ve found so far: the second has made life in our family much easier.

The obvious part is that I know more this time around, and my bag of tricks is not only full but indexed, cross-referenced, and dog-eared. I know what and why and how…and his particular pat of Butter is delightfully easy to read. He has his own sign language already, and it makes life much easier than my first, squalling, hard to read Peanut did.

But the bigger stuff is easier, too. The shock of having a child is enormous, and I was not prepared for P. I had clothes and car seat and slings, I was not really ready because I had no idea that not one second of my day would be my own for years after having a baby. My mom always said that parenthood means never reading the newspaper all the way through; in our house it meant never getting past the headlines on the front page. I had no idea that having a child meant never thinking a thought all the way to completion, rarely showering, never peeing in peace, and crying of some sort every single day. I didn’t know that having a child led to loss of self and to both love and hate. I didn’t know my day would never again follow my rhythm, but rather someone else’s, which made me feel like I was living on another planet, upside down, with three heartbeats guiding me through the fog.

Well, a second child doesn’t change any of that. Those huge changes don’t get bigger. They’re done. I’m not myself and my day’s not mine; that was already true. I can’t grab my keys and wallet and just GO; that was already true. I don’t have time to read or write; it’s been four years, so what’s another four? I’m up at night; already true. Not much has changed except the number of beautiful, perfect, wonderful, needy, crying creatures in my house.

And I’ll tell ya, since my first is so freaking much, so much more, it seems, than most children, the second is an emotional break. He’s a reason to detach during the big one’s tornadoes, the ones that made me feel like a hostage negotiator. Butter is a sweet little lump of need who gives me the distance to see what Peanut needs versus what he wants. Butter bean creates a triad in which I don’t perpetually put myself second because that’s not possible any more. Instead of being last all the time, now sometimes I’m second, sometimes third, sometimes fourth. But here’s what’s new: sometimes I now come first. Because the new balance allows me to see when that’s possible. Little windows in which I am human again.

I don’t know what I’ll feel next month or next year. And I’m done trying to figure it out. Because having children teaches you there’s almost no point in planning, yet I still tried for four years. Having a second baby is teaching me what I’d miss if I spent all that energy again.

Big thumbs up to having two. I laughed as our friend j from 20 Fingers 20 Toes foretold months ago**, but having this wee lad has made me more mellow and life quite enjoyable—the whole “life not being my own” and whatnot notwithstanding.

** “perhaps the new human is a harbinger of calmness entering your life…” 1/10/2010, j

Phew…that was close

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Well, it’s a dang good thing you can’t pronounce /k/, my little Peanut.

Because when I caught you spitting out your first “FUT” in the living room, it took some of the edge off.

And though I explained it’s an angry word that we don’t say, despite your insistence that “Daddy says it!”, you’ve slipped a couple of times.

Thankfully, nobody knows what a fut is.

When are the robots coming?

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Seriously, a robot could do this job.

I will soon be replaced by an old school tape recorder…each morning press the button and hear:

Good morning sweet thing…Peanut, honey, that voice is a little loud for so early. Can you please…honey, please be gentle with the cat. Peanut, furniture is not for banging…Please brush your teeth. Please put down the seat.

Please eat your breakfast. Honey, that’s what you asked me to make, so eat it or make your own breakfast. Babe, please keep the food on your plate not in your hair. Please face your food. Please put your legs under the table and face your food. If you’re done, get down. Peanut, playing with your food means you’re done, so please get down…Okay, then eat…Fine. Get down….Then EAT!

Please get your clothes. You’re right…don’t get your clothes. I’m faster at getting clothes so I’ll just go get them for you…what? You’ll do it? No way. Please don’t dress yourself or I’ll get so, so, so angry. Oh, dear, no…. Love, you need a jacket. Fine, don’t wear it, but choose one just in case.

Sweetie, whistles and megaphones are outside toys. So are bicycles. So is that fishing pole and hockey stick. Would you like help choosing an inside toy? Please come outside if you’re going to throw the ball; in the house we roll balls. We roll balls inside, P. Peanut! Roll the ball or go outside, those are your choices.

P, jumping off the couch is okay, but jumping off the cat tree is not. Sweetness, please listen to me: that is not safe. If you jump off the cat tree you will get hurt. I’m not going to say it again…I’m sorry you got hurt, but I told you not to do that. Mommies know what can hurt you. We make rules to keep you safe not to irritate you. Yes, I know rules are irritating. So is enforcing rules.

Please eat your food. Please face your food. Please stop that. Please help me. Please listen. Please wash your hands. Please put that away. Please stop yelling. Please answer me. Please listen. Please answer me. Please listen. Please answer me. Please eat your food. Please face your food. Please make better choices. Please…ppppppplllllllzlzzzzz rhskf kdmnewik sdofnm rrr rojmksdfnk r r r …

Even the damned tape recorder broke doing that shit every day.

Don’t judge me…

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Don’t judge that I let my kid dress himself. Of course not, you say. Why would I? It’s an effective way to let them feel in control of their day and their bodies. Well, if you saw him, you’d be tempted to judge. Just know that his new linebacker girth is due to more than a half dozen shirts and several pair of pants. He thinks it’s funny, this month, to wear as many clothes as possible. So laugh if you want, but don’t question my sanity because three undies, two pants, and five shirts equals 15 minutes of peace every morning as he gets ready, without prompting, all by himself.

I don’t think that serving peanut butter and honey for dinner makes me a bad mother. I don’t think that serving it for lunch and dinner on the same day makes me a bad mother. I think, now that we’re on day four of peanut butter and honey, I might be crossing into bad mother territory. So maybe I’ll have Spouse make dinner. Know what he’ll make? Peanut butter and lemon curd.

Hey, I know it’s not wise or thoughtful to stick my baby in the swing so I can take a business call. I never thought I’d be that person. We wore Peanut every hour of every day. Poor Butter is only in arms or sling 23 hours a day. And I feel retched about it. But don’t judge me. It was a quick and productive call (not one thing about parenting is quick and productive) and he didn’t even fall asleep in the swing. Alert little bugger, that one.

Don’t judge my late night stupidity, either. I woke after midnight for the first early a.m. feed and found Butter and his little co-sleeper bed soaked. Thoroughly drenched. Confused in part by the dim light and placement of the wetness, grogginess made me absolutely useless. He was wet everywhere, front and back, neck to waist. Did he puke? Wet through his doubled cloth diaper? There wasn’t anything near his face, and his pants were dry. I stripped him down to his diaper and nursed him while pondering. And then I changed him. The diaper was bone dry, except for the waistband. I had apparently diapered him pointing up rather than down, and he peed all over his chest all night. What do I know…I don’t have that optional and ridiculous equipment.

Evil genius

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At lunch over the weekend:

Peanut: Mom, you know: you can be not nice at my school.
Me: Really?
P: Yup. You just have to do it and quickly run to the next room. Because the grownups have to stay in their area and won’t follow you to tell you about being nice.
M: [blink. blink. blink.]
P: The teachers will follow, though, so you have to chose a no-teacher room.
M: [wide-eyed, forgetting to blink…]

It took him six months to expose the flaw of our Bev Bos inspired preschool.

I really hope he uses his powers for good some day.

Voted his prison’s most likely to succeed…

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Me: What did you do at school today?
Peanut: chased people with shovels.
Me: Pardon?
P: Chased people with shovels.
M: Why?
P: To see if I could make them sad.
M: Did it work?
P: Yup.
M: And then what did you do?
P: Chased them with shovels again.
M: How’d that work out for you?
P: Mom, did you know this? A’s mom takes away the shovel if you chase people two times with it. But B’s dad waits for three times before he takes it away.
M: Oh. Um…Well, people are all different. But we all have the same rules.
P: No we don’t. Three times is not the same as two times.

Um, so we’re learning math and how to choose the most lenient parole officer today at preschool?

We now rejoin our regularly scheduled rant…

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already in progress:

…and you’d better call the insurance bastards to see if it’s covered.

As for you, Peanut, you are a very interesting introduction to the fine, fine phase that is Four Years Old. Nothing could be worse than Three, it is true. But if Three was all Mr. Hyde and no Jekyl, Four is the maddening experience of discerning what dropped hat sends you from Jekyl to Hyde and back. No, I will not pick up the toy you kicked across the room. You threw one, I took it away. You threw another, I took it away. Most of your collection is on top of the bookcase today, waiting to see which version of you comes out of your room tomorrow morning. So when you kick a toy out of anger, you get to pick it up yourself. No, you do it. Cry all you want; I no longer flip out when you’re in distress. A newborn has made me immune to your terrorist tactics. Butter is the antidote to my occasional Peanut allergy.

Butter, you’d better stop it. Seriously. Knock it off. I followed all your nonverbal cues, I did everything you wanted, and I got you to sleep. Just because I moved the slightest bit does not mean you can flutter your eyes open and start flirting with me. Yes, you’re cute. Yes, you’re still tiny enough that everything you do is precious. Your loud sleeping is delightful, your recent partial baldness is adorable, and your waste products are coo-inspiring. But go to freaking sleep, you little monkey!

And quit suggesting that you want to nurse just so you can gather huge mouthfuls of milk and the spit them on me. That’s not funny, despite what your brother says.

Hey, agents who have my novel and haven’t replied in well past the 6 weeks you promised: screw you! What is wrong with you? All the other rejections came within the appropriate timeframe. It’s rude to set a deadline and miss it without notifying involved parties that you need longer to complete the task. I don’t want your representation, anyway. This thing is gonna be huge, and so will the next dozen or so I write, and you’ll rue the day. You’ll weep, you’ll rend your garments and pull out your hair. You’ll want a time machine to take you back to when you first heard my name just so you can jump at the chance to take on all my current and future brilliance. You will self-flagellate, and you will be correct in so torturing yourselves.
Asshats.

Sure, Peanut, we can go to the playground. Sure you can climb that big ol’ thing you’re always scared of. Sure I can help you down. Just turn around and…no, I can’t climb up there with you. I can’t help you from up there. I can help you from down here. No, I can’t take baby home and come back without the sling. Even if I did, I’d still be short and unable to lift 35 pounds down from well above my head. I will stand here and talk to you gently for 30 freaking minutes, convincing you that I will help and you won’t fall and you can do it. And after that interminable period of patience and goodness and model mothering, during which I have to take two time outs to keep from beating you and one to nurse your brother, I will grab you by the ankles and pull you off the play structure. Yes, you technically fell. I mostly, kind of caught you, though. It was a slow fall. Are you hurt? No? Good. Come on. Time to go make you the dinner you request and then refuse to eat.

Dearest Butter:

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Want to know how we can tell that you are loved?

Every sling and wrap that you ride in is covered in food stains. We don’t put you down, Butter bean, because you don’t like it. And we’re too selfish to put our hunger second to your comfort. That’s why the pesto on your blanket and the marinara on your Moby and the CheeseBoard crumbs on your Hotsling. You had beans and rice nestled in your neck when you were three hours old because Mama needed a burrito after 47 hours of labor but wouldn’t put you down even for a minute.

Your brother declared today that he’s tired of Mom and Dad being with you, and that he wants you to be just his. So he has plans to move to a house where it’s just the two of you. And even though he refuses to feed or clothe or wipe me, he said he will dress you and wipe your bottom and feed you candy sometimes. And, “if he looks like he’s going to die I’ll feed him something with protein, like a sandwich with almond butter.”

Mama invented something for you. Because the sounds you hear all day—chewing, typing, and occasional yelling—aren’t on the white noise machines available for purchase, she made a loop of the noises that help you sleep. She recorded tortas de aceite and blogging and cursing at your brother to play near your sleeping places. So you feel all comfy. You’re welcome.

You’ve actually had a few baths. Tonight you even had your first experience with Dr. Bronner’s soap-like substance. Don’t know why. You’re not dirty (except for the aforementioned burrito, but Mama dug those beans out of your neck weeks ago when she was in search of a snack). But you are just over the moon for warm water, so we bathe you. More often than we thought we could cram into our crowded weeks.

Tonight you went to bed with chocolate on your head. Not from mama, which is a first. No, tonight you had a small, four-year-old sized chocolatey lip print on your balding melon.

That’s how we know.

Let’s just be honest

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On a road trip this weekend:

Peanut: I wish I was the grownup so I could make the rules.
Mama: You know, I used to say that when I was young. And then I got to be the grown up, and making the rules is no fun.
P: Why?
M: Well, you have to make rules to keep people safe. That’s yucky. I want to play in the street, and jump in a car and drive off with no seat belt, and never, ever wear sun lotion.
P: Yeah!
M: But then I got to be a grownup and have to keep people like you and Butter from getting bonked by cars, so we hold hands in the street. And I have to keep you safe, so seatbelts and sunscreen. Dammit, I didn’t want to have those rules. But we have to. Dammit.
P: What else?
M: Well, I like to play with food and I want to play with food, but when I turned into a grownup I had to start cleaning up food, so I had to make a rule about no playing with food. Dammit.
P: [laughing]
M: And I want to be dirty and not take off shoes and blow bubbles in the house and climb the furniture and read and write and not cook and not clean and never listen to anybody. And I want everyone to stay up all night and never go to bed.
P: Me, too!
M: Yeah, well, I’m a grownup and grownups have to clean up dirty people so they don’t get germy and don’t make big messes because grownups have to take care of sick people and clean messes. Dammit. And grownups have to pay for furniture, so they decide pretty quickly we don’t climb on furniture, dammit. And you know what else?
P: What?
M: Grownups learn that people who don’t sleep get grouchy and yucky and sad, so grownups have to make rules about going to bed. Dammit! Grownups have to listen to everybody but nobody listens to them. Dammit! Being grownup is just a big bunch of dammits! Dammit, dammit, dammit.
P: [laughing, then thoughtful] You can be a baby if you want.
M: Oh yeah?
P: Sure. You can be a Baby Mommy.
M: So you’ll carry me and feed me and wipe my bottom?
P: Nope. You have to do all that.
M: Well, dammit!
P: [laughing] I don’t want to be a grownup! Dammit!

Yeah, well, if you were, you totally would have seen through that little game. It’s fun to be your grownup sometimes, Peanut.