Tag Archives: attachment parenting

mutual guidance

Posted on by

I’ve been meaning to post for a while on what a difference Raising Your Highly Spirited Child has made in our family. But this article in The Atlantic pushed me to post sooner. (The article details how researchers have shown that, while some people have a genetic predisposition to psychological catastrophes, those same people, if nurtured well, can turn their potential liabilities into measurable assets.)

Our dear little Peanut, the tightly wound, sensitive, intense, persistent, introverted, empathetic, strong willed child is my greatest challenge. (When I typed “three-year-old” as a tag for this post, wordpress automatically suggested a previously used tag: “help, I’m being held hostage by a three-year-old.” ‘Nuff said.)

I can handle demanding bosses and confrontational colleagues and obtuse clients and tight deadlines, but my child is harder than anything I’ve ever come across. Because I want to do more than just love him; I want to allow him to be himself, guiding him to a future in which his self esteem and social skills will allow him to do whatever he wants with his life. I want to help him become his best self without squashing his individuality or molding him to my will. I want to find a way to apply gentle, attachment parenting styles to a child most parents would beat into submission and who, daily, takes way more out of me than I have to give. I want him to exist within firm, thoughtful, and broad boundaries within which he is free to explore with wild abandon whatever interests and compels him. I want him to be a full participant in our family, not a pet or accessory. I want what might seem like weaknesses now to become strengths, not just memories.

But it often feels like he is killing me.

To that end, I greatly appreciate Mary Kucinka’s Raising Your Highly Spirited Child because she breaks down some of the personality traits that parents find difficult to manage in typically developing children, and offers an empathetic perspective and some very practical advice on guiding (rather than managing or changing) behavior. One obvious technique she dispenses with quickly, before a lengthy quiz in which readers can discern just where on the spectrum their child resides and the specific realms in which she is “more” than other children, is to rename characteristics as assets. “Difficult” children can be strong willed, energetic, or cautious rather than stubborn, out-of-control, or shy.

What I appreciate even more than the specific advice, the enumerated parameters, and the reassurance, really, that my child has always been a whole handful and a half (and it’s not just my imagination), is the section that acknowledges that oftentimes the almost constant stream of adrenaline that comes from raising a spirited child intensifies when parents are highly spirited, too. I have been called by my family most of the negative terms Kurcinka urges us to reframe as strengths. Her bold acknowledgment that “recommending that spirited parents keep their cool was a denial of their own intensity….It doesn’t work to simply say, ‘I am supposed to be cool.’ The fact is, you’re not” rocked my world. I thought I was a failure for not keeping cool all the time. Now I know I was being me and just need different tools to keep both Peanut and myself from losing it at what turn out to be easily forseeable moments.

The retraction of Kurcinka’s former stance that parents should just stay calm during a child’s most intense moments absolutely melted me. Her book is not a license to autocratic parenting behavior, as so many are, and her suggestions are teaching me how to guide myself as I am guiding Peanut. For instance, I taught him (very easily because he was open to both the technique and the acceptance of his intense passions it implied) that it’s okay, when other people are too much, to politely excuse yourself to your room to have some quiet time and get enough energy to deal with them again. That frustration and anger and hitting come from feeling like you can’t get away but that, really, you can notice that before it happens and get the space you need. Now I have allowed myself to say the same thing to him. “Love, I’m out of people energy and need a little quiet time with a book; I’ll be in my room for a few minutes and you’re welcome to come with me to quietly read your own book” is now something we both respect (and really enjoy). He usually declines because he doesn’t find me draining, exhausting, or infuriating most of the time. When he does want to rip my throat out, he tells me in calm, reasonable tones that he doesn’t like my approach and offers his own suggestions for making things better. We work on issues until we find a solution we both like (unless it’s a non-negotiable issue, in which case I have firm boundaries. But at almost four he’s way beyond fighting sunblock, seat belts, or holding hands in the street.) But when we’re not pressed up against on of those, we’re having a much better time figuring everything out.

Allowance Day

Posted on by

It’s been a busy week. Peanut has been talking about getting something for the baby. A doll, he says, is what the baby needs. “I have money in my lion bank…maybe I could buy a doll for baby.”

We’ve never done the real money thing, the ‘go to the store and buy something you choose and evaluate and weigh the value of’ kind of thing. We put everything he wants on a list and he gets some of it for Chrismakkah and birthday. He never, ever gets something unplanned at a store. Ever. If we announce we’re going to the store for Playdough, fine. But if we get there and remember Playdough, it goes on a mental list for next time.

So he decided yesterday that he wanted to take his money and go to the store (where he weeks ago had a major meltdown about a blue frog, about how the blue frog was coming home with him and he didn’t want a birthday list he wanted to just take things. We made it out of the store after a lot of patient explaining that we couldn’t take and that I didn’t have money for a blue frog but that if it was on his list I would save and by Chrismakkah I might. He offered to take one for baby, too, back a month ago or so, but I wasn’t gonna fall for that.)

So we counted his money yesterday and went to the store and he picked out the same blue frog—one for him and one for baby. And when he heard what it cost, he chose something smaller for the baby.

Behold: Madeline the Monkey (gift from M.N. last Thanksgiving) with baby’s green frog and new, as-yet-unnamed blue frog named Pilot for his ability to spot airplanes.

aug 09 019

Very sweet. And today he wanted to take the rest of his money and buy me a hippo he saw at the store. So we talked about saving and about spending and about having some left for next time. And he still wanted to buy me the hippo. So I reminded him about the doll on his birthday list. Much better idea, he said. Small problem, I noted, dolls that he likes cost way more than the money he has left. His doll, apparently, needs to have a button for talking and must close its eyes and nod when he nurses it. (You must know it’s killing me not to comment on most of these pint-sized proclamations.)

So we introduced allowance. He’s a big fan of Frances, including A Baby Sister for Frances, in which our heroine mentions her allowance. So we told Peanut about allowance. And about taxes. And after some wrangling, we gave him his first weekly stipend: two quarters, two dimes, two nickels, and three pennies. And he paid his taxes a day early. (We were going to come for them Sunday, but he said why wait? My kind of guy.) We suggested one nickle and one penny as a not quite ten percent tax. He said no way. How about two dimes? Without getting into percentages (that was, like, 23%, that offer), we settled on one dime each week for taxes on his 83 cents.

His tax bracket sucks, since he doesn’t understand that pennies, his favorite, are not worth as much as a dime, his least favorite.

Sigh. Clearly he’s not ready to babysit. But maybe by then the frog Pilot will be.

We now rejoin our midlife crisis, already in progress

Posted on by

We went to the guitar store today to restring Peanut’s awesome little 1/2 scale SX guitar. He earned it potty learning, when he got 20 dry days in a row (and therefore 20 stickers) at 21 months. He bought himself a guitar with the stickers. You’re damned right, kiddo. Not yet two and dry all the time? Guitar? Fine.

Well the trip to the guitar mecca coincides with a midlife crisis I’ve been contemplating, based in part on the nausea I’m feeling at life, my choices, and the impending and rapidly growing BOMB that will descend on my already precarious situation. My midlife crisis today looked a LOT like a $2660 twelve string guitar. Then it looked like an $80 used and totally awesome used natural ash wood bass for the band my newest peeps and I are starting. Then my midlife crisis looked like a miraculous $3200 keyboard that sounded honest to goodness like a well tuned piano.

And then my midlife crisis reminded me what end was really up. Because besides not having even the $80 for a bass, I don’t have time for a new hobby. I have a novel to edit. Again. I have a paper to submit, another paper to write, and a PhD application to ponder for next fall. I have to find a babysitter and a preschool.

I grabbed an Atwood at the library, because there’s nothing to counter balance 32 picture books like an Atwood. We got home late and I had to wash dishes and make dinner. Peanut was in a lovely mood and tried to dump out a whole canister of ground flax. Sealed, luckily, but he was willing to test Oxo’s sturdy seal.

I asked him nicely to put it down, and he did. Sweetly. In the dining room. I continued thinking about whether, really, cowboy boots would serve the same purpose as a guitar, as midlife crises go. Maybe I’d need them for the band (blues, I think, but whatever. Everything goes with buckaroo boots.)

I went into the dining room to give Peanut some carrot sticks. He had dumped all the flax neatly on the table and was sorting it into piles. I took a deep breath and told him to get down. I asked, as I gathered the placemat parking lots, what he was trying to do. He was making pretend smoothies. Sure. okay. As I brought the soapy sponge back and forth from the kitchen, I explained that while pretend is a good idea, his pretend kitchen is a better place for pretend juices. And that using real food for pretend food isn’t a good idea. And that I understand how he wants to help, so he can make a real blender juice with my help. But real food always needs a yes from Mommy.
Okay?
Well, kind of. Except that now, at the dining room table, he has his face burrowed into my brand new, 64 oz. jar of organic kosher pickles. tongue fully extended, licking the brine in the freaking jar. i collapsed on the floor. Took a deep breath. Contemplated a good cry and realized that I already had his cold, so, no harm no foul. I mean, really, really foul, but I’ll be done with the pickles in a few days, so…meh. I told him how not okay it is to put hands or mouths on containers of food. I try to explain, I try to be forceful but casual. I remember a gorgeous burbinga wood guitar and take another breath.

So we make a smoothie together. He’s happy and proud of his blueberry pouring skills. I’m almost ready with dinner. I turn away to get cups for the juice. I pour the juice. I turn away to get lids for the juice.

And now I need one fewer lid because he’s poured all of one juice on himself, trying to get to the purple one first. “you can’t have thee purple one,” he began, before getting really wet and cold.

Here’s the thing, people. I’m barely hanging on. And now the flax-y sponge has to sop up 12 ounces of blueberry smoothie. WHY CAN’T PREGNANT WOMEN DRINK, AGAIN?

I don’t think a late night trip to the pawn shop to trade my wedding ring for a guitar is too much to ask.

Mmmmmm. Anger stew.

Posted on by

Just found a couple of really good threads at mothering-dot-commmune about controlling anger and yelling. Not because I searched for those terms, of course. Not that I’m yelling at Peanut a lot or angry about 80% of every hour or anything. Of course not. Just happened upon them. Like, um, like stumbling onto four-leaf clovers. Sure. Not at all in a searching maniacally for clovers, or anything.

And the two points that came up repeatedly were pretty interesting and helpful. 1) Anger is usually about unmet needs. So if I figure out what to ask for help on, or what to address in my own life that I won’t react so angrily; and if I acknowledge that the little person in my house has needs, too, and his anger and frustration are his way, since he doesn’t have too many tools for getting his needs met, of getting me to do things.

So if I either meet my own needs or modify them, and try harder to help him meet his needs, rather than reacting as though his behavior is something to control, I may just eliminate a lot of the battles, yelling, and meltdowns.

It’s nice to remember, when I go months and months, spiraling into the “Oh my goodness I can’t handle this, how do other people do this, why am I nothing like the parent I want to be,” that there are resources for people who have the same issues. I wish I didn’t go so long between touchstone sessions. Because really, I could make this a lot easier on myself.

(Yeah. Right.)

So Peanut and I just need to practice asking for what we need.

Gotta go and tell him I need 12 hours a day of peace and quiet so I can read and write. He’ll tell me he needs 16 hours a day of sheer frenetic activity and sensory stimulation.

We’ll see how that conversation goes.

Roller coaster ride

Posted on by

Know what I don’t like about parenting? That even the awesome stuff lasts about 12.5 seconds before it pivots violently and bashes you in the nose.

Know what I like about revisiting Infinite Jest this summer? The AA aphorisms about one day at a time and one minute at a time and that it’s okay to want and that any moment no matter how unbearable, is really only one moment and is, actually, bearable.

Is there a 12-step program for parenting? Other than getting a nanny or day care sitch or stun gun?

Thank dog for small favors

Posted on by

Dear Universe,

Thank you, thank you for making fruit that does not need to be peeled or cut.  Washed, sure, mostly. Thank you for berries and grapes; they make my life so much easier I might actually cry. (All you chocking-hazard types can just get bent because I’m having a freaking moment here, and I sit with him when he eats, and I haven’t cut grapes since he was a year, and I’m bending over backwards here not letting him cry and respecting him so if I want to endanger his life a little it’s my business since I’m the one whose given up almost everything I know as happy and good in the world to give him things that are happy and good so just back the hell up and choose another blog to safetyvangelize.)

Thank you, Universe, for screwcap wine being okay now instead of all box winey.

Thank you Universe for my son’s perspective. On our hike I saw a deer and three wild turkey (not the former because of the latter, though that might be a good story, too) and he showed me a hawk, about 20 feet across a gorge, in a tree. I see stuff that’s moving and blow past things that are still. He sees everything. I’ve never before seen a hawk sitting still, watching.

Thank you, capitalism, for making pipe cleaners so cheap. Seriously. That’s like an hour of free thinking time while we quietly make fake flowers together for the house’s many vases. (Cat bastards make sure no real plant goes unmolested. For those keeping score, cats are more trouble than a fetus; newborns and infants and toddlers are more trouble than cats. Now cats are back on top, causing way more headaches than a three-year-old, even one without child care or preschool or any time away from me god help me don’t know how to make it through tomorrow or the next day.)

Thank you, Universe, for hummus. I would thank you more for avocado if my kid would eat it, because it’s an even more complete meal than hummus. But, we play the hand we’re dealt, and I appreciate hummus.

Thank you, youtube. Just for being you. Except all the creepy parts. I don’t appreciate having to prescreen searches to make sure some Plushy doesn’t pop up when I search for aardwark vids. But, still.

Thank you, England, for losing. We totally dig our fireworks. And the kazoo parade at the Russian River. I’m a total Yankee Doodle Dandy, macaroni and all. Seriously, how would we make it from Memorial Day to Labor Day without an excuse for outdoor cooking and excessive desserts? Thanks, British Empire. Most of the other colonies got totally scrod, but we did okay.

And thank you, Spouse, for the help yesterday. Your willingness to move the dust mop AND the whole pile of dirt about four feet out of the way when shrieks from our child interrupted my progress really helped. I was able to pick up my mopping again the next day, almost as if nothing had happened. You’re a peach.

And thank you Universe, for continuing to throw a freaking bone to the family you keep tossing about like a plaything. Thank goodness the illnesses (times thrity-two, by now, I think) and the car accident and the spitballs of bullshit you keep hurling at them just miss. There, CB. I’m grateful for you.

Blue, cloudless sky

Posted on by

You wanna know how lucky I am? (Since I mostly post snark about loathing parenthood despite loving my kid, i figure today is the perfect reason to tell you why I totally lucked out, in spite of the whole “not  cut out for this job and seriously considering running away from home” technicality.)

In Trader Joe’s, which, in addition to tasty, affordable loveliness, offers kids stickers and balloons, and P was in fine form. “May I have a bar?” Nope. Already had one today. “Okay……May I have some juice?” Nope. Yesterday was juice day and you had lemonade at the party. “Yeah. That was good lemonade.”

He helps the checker by handing over groceries. She gives him stickers. “May I have one balloon?” Sure. We ask. They’re out of helium.

“Oh, bug, I’m sorry. They’re out of helium, the special air that makes the balloons.” Breath held, calm distractions planned, explanations of world and its unfairness and yet relative goodness calculated.

“Well. Stickers are nice.” Proceeds to decorate his shirt and mine with stickers.

Seriously, does it get any better than a three year old who can shake off balloonlessness?

Unoriginal post number 613

Posted on by

Wouldn’t you know I thought this observation was somewhat original, and then I read at Salon.com tonight that Ayelet Waldman said it earlier, and more concisely.

“Another parent’s different approach raises the possibility that you’ve made a mistake with your child. We simply can’t tolerate that because we fear that any mistake, no matter how minor, could have devastating consequences. So we proclaim the superiority of our own choices. We’ve lost sight of the fact that people have preferences.”

In her lengthy article on everyone minding their own business, she notes that attachment parents, particularly the Berkeley, non-TV, organic, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, sling-wearing, word-for-word Searsing (guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty, not guilty; phew this isn’t me [of course it is]), tend to be the most sanctimonius and in-others’-faces of the “my way is best why are you ruininng your child” set. Honestly, I think that’s because the hardcore Sears group works harder than the rest to make things harder for themselves, and feels pretty damned insecure because nobody else is having such a tough time. But what do I know? I only fit, like, half her criteria for the most annoying parent on the planet.

In fact, Salon notes that I’m way behind the curve.  I’ve been calling myself a bad parent for months on this blog, but apparently I was supposed to write a book about it.  This awkward joint review of totally different books shows why I should have penned a memoir about how totally I’m failing at this impossible fucking job.

You  know, I’ve been thinking of ditching the nighttime parenting, the bending over backwards not to do packaged food or television, the stay-at-home, offering options, respectful thing for the past week or so. It’s really just too much. So maybe I will ditch the surity that I’ve chosen the best path for us, get a T.V., get a babysitter, and have some goddamned Capt’n Crunch with my kid. Maybe I’ll like both of us better if I ease up a bit. [those who know me are laughhing right now. I havne’t been known to ease up a bit on anything in my control since my conception.] Because between “The Case Against Breastfeeding” and “Mind Your Own Kids,” I’m kind of feeling like, if they can justify letting their kids do some of that stuff, I can certainly make Pudding Day an everyday kind of thing.

Maybe.

And starting next week I’m Ferberizing my three year old. And circumcising him. With some fries from McDon*lds.

Denouement

Posted on by

It’s not surprising. It’s not heartbreaking or arresting or even a bit of a shame. It’s certainly not ironic. But I will admit that there is a rue-twinged sense to the day in which I return from my first vacation since making the tough decision to stay home full time with my child, my first weekend by myself in three years, my first flawless days since his birth, my first experience in which I not only controlled my own time, activities, and thoughts, but also had the added gift of seeing the world, this lovely world of solitude and adulthood, through the eyes granted to me by staying home full-time, eyes I would not now have had I not decided to seek to learn every day to see things from a small human’s perspective and to privilege that perspective, respect the learning and explorative needs of those eyes that take precedence for now over mine own; this day after the first time alone as the new whoever I am is exactly as terrible as could have been (and was) predicted. Not because I glimpsed my freedom and was dragged back kicking and screaming (though that is true); not because the tiny tyrant is any worse than any other day of being three years old in a family of people trying to follow an attachment parenting philosophy but hobbled by two of the participants who are prisons of the selfish lack of patience of overeducated, driven, self-absorbed thrity-somethings (for it is a day pretty average as three-year-old battles and nonsense and wonderment and bullshit go); not because I am angry that I took so long to take a break or that it will be so long before it happens again (there is no anger, there is no regret, there is only general lack of sanity and sense of futility and hopelessness  and frustration and borderline acceptance of this choice we’ve made).

No. Today is relatively awful because it’s hot and nobody slept much last night and we got locked out of the house and Peanut is glad I’m back but punishing me a bit, and is enboldened by my absence, wherein the other parental unit played by his rules rather than mine, and so the young one is trying to navigate which of his  tricks will work today, trying the crap that works on Spouse out on me, hoping I’ve changed my ways and will do something different than my new anti-yell stragegy (asking three times, warning that this is the last time I ask, then going to bed with a book…his idea of hell is my idea of the best time-out ever. ) So today sucks not in contrast with my 74 hours of self-directed living free from the hostage taker who is a brilliant, healthy, funny, loving, thoughtful terror of stubbornness and obscene and devious cleverness, but rather because it’s just one of those days.

And I think, given that it is one of those days, and that one of those days is following all three of *those* days, that I’m doin’ pretty well, thank you very much.

Spring in my step

Posted on by

So last week’s experience at a potential preschool has me doing ill-advised cartwheels (seriously, our house is small, there’s crap everywhere, and I’m old and not so bendy anymore in the adductor region) about my family’s freaking growth and development as decent human beings.

What the hell is in their Kool-Aid, you ask? Well, we don’t like that kind of talk around here. (Kool-aid is not on our preferred beverage list. “What the hell is in their unflavored rice milk, dammit” is more like it. Thank you.)

I can’t quite put my finger on it. Other preschool tours made me feel I wasn’t being something enough…one made me feel not stern enough, one made me feel not musical enough, one made me feel not detached enough. This preschool we just visited, though, made me feel that the approach I’ve always wanted is possible, and that with a few new techniques Spouse and I can be even more of the parents we envisioned when we had a good, old-fashioned panic attack about a little pink line.

Tell you this much…since the preschool visit I have been patient and hopeful and calm. Without feeling put out or thwarted or martyr-y. I’m doing stuff now because I want to, not just because several generations of Drs. Sears say so. I’m offering two yesses for each no because it makes sense and it’s fair. I’m more relaxed about telling Peanut what I need because I know I’m meeting his needs. I’m setting up sensory stations in the dining room and smiling as a paint-covered Peanut streaks the wall with purple then offers to clean it.

And the conflict resolution the potential preschool uses is TOTALLY working! How? Well I’ll tell ya. Peanut hits Spouse. A lot. To be fair, just between you and me and the ninety other people who read this blog, Spouse totally deserves it, but I can’t say that to Peanut, who is confused by the idea that grabbing stuff and blocking people from things, and generally not letting a person use their own body in ways they stinking want to is not nice, unless you’re big and lacking in patience.  So I  started taking each by the hand and asking the one more recently violated what he wants to say to the other. Then when he finishes, I ask the most recent offender what he wants to say. And back and forth until they stop. Then ask is there anything else you want to say? Each takes a turn. Then “does anybody need a hug?” It’s really freaking awesome because Peanut got the technique immediately, without a seven hour explanation from me, and always has one more thing to say.  Spouse never has anything else to say except, “No. Nothing to say, I just love you.” And when asked, Spouse always says he needs a hug.

Get this. Peanut always gives him one. Who are these people? Where do I sign up for this school? Oh. Behind the forty other families waiting to get in for September? I see. Is there anything for those of us who would like to have our lives back sooner, rather than later? No? Okay.  I’ll take your life-affirming techniques and apply them at home. Thanks. See you when he’s almost four.

So this potential preschool has Spouse and Peanut talking and hugging, has me running around joyfully placing tubs of dry beans and brownie tins full of raw flour and different sized scoops all over the house. What’s in the unflavored rice milk? Don’t know. But I’m getting a subscription on Amazon so it’s delivered every three months at a 15% discount.

Pleasant toddler movies: update

Posted on by

So I’ve taken your suggestions from an earlier post. And I’ve watched a billion movies for small people in an effort to find sweet, non-violent, non-scary, non-gender-stereotyped movies for small people. Here’s what I’ve found (spoiler: most are shorter shows, not movies):

We still love Signing Time. The pace is great, the tons of kids that come in thirty-one flavors makes us feel good, and the language skills built by children who learn sign language are all reason enough to watch these half hour segments. The best, though, is watching real parents and kids talk, with sign language, about feelings and activities. Captivating. It’s a very simple series, where you learn one word at a time, and build to a song that uses five or six of the key words you’ve learned. Catchy, catchy tunes. Check your local PBS station…they may play it weekly. If not, the videos are available though the Signing Time Foundation and the regular DVD sources.

Kipper is the sweetest, more unassuming, thoughtful animated show I’ve seen. He engages in all manner of roles, defying conventional gender and species stereotypes. He’s caring, has lovable friends who each have their own quirks. The gently drawn cartoons are 10-15 minutes each, which is perfect for limiting tv time. I love Kipper. He was clearly a sling puppy.

Maisie is pretty sweet, too. Another loving character who has endearing friends. Longer episodes than Kipper.

Planet Earth: watched with a finger on fast forward for the carnivore scenes, this is a gorgeous, sweepingly breathtaking tour around the planet. My favorite, though not Peanut’s. And since we only watch once a week or every other week, he never chooses it. But I’ll pop it in on movie day when I want to row, so he knows I get to choose some things, and he doesn’t have to watch Office Space, which I think is a little much for the preschool crowd.

Charlie and Lola. A bit tough for some American kids to get used to the accent, but once they do it’s a funny and loving pair of siblings. Probably best for ages 4 and up or the humor is lost on them. For ages 2 and up it’s good to see how gently Charlie treats his little sister, and to see how to creatively handle age appropriate behavior. As with all our other favorites, nothing sinister lurking in the shadows, no gender stereotypes, and no violence. The Christmas one leans pretty heavy on the fantastic and on Santa Claus as real dude, but maybe that’s your family’s thing, too.

Bob the Builder: surprisingly good…characters who are generally nice (some mocking, and really requires parental supervision to explain some of the poor choices the characters make). Interesting stories, anthropomorphized trucks. Exactly what most kids want. (I try to limit Bob movies because the episodes each involve me way more than I want out of a video, but especially because he’s one of those characters who appears on everything from toothpaste to shoes, and just don’t want to fight the character-marketed crap battles. But the videos themselves are quite nice.)

Backyardigans: some nice music and lovely focus on imagination, but very gender stereotyped, and often not ideal behavior (refusing to share, sarcasm, mocking others, vanity, etc). Peanut loves them. I spend way too much time discussing why there are better ways to treat people.

The Snowman: Of all the 1970s book adaptations, this is the most gorgeous, sweepingly epic and wonderful. Many of the old Westwood Woods book adaptations are fun, but some have of namecalling, violence, and menaces.

Boobah: Why do I love this show so much? Seriously? It’s goofy and nonsensical and musical and dancy, but I still tolerate it. It’s as though Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Twyla Tharp had a lovechild and raised it, frustratingly, on Teletubbies. Once grown and on her own, she responds with Boobah–the way lumpy, brilliantly colored characters ought to be.

Little Hard Hats: great for when you don’t want animation, or when you miss the garbage trucks on garbage day and are jonesing for some heavy lifting. Real people and live action of trucks. Descriptive but not over the head of a two year old, eco-focused without being preachy.

Didn’t cut it:

Winnie the Pooh: the films and the show have scary elements, and the older pieces have guns. But no name-calling. Thanks goodness for small favors.

My Neighbor Totoro: I adored this film, but Peanut was terrified when the little girl went missing and the authorities dredged the pond. Gross fear of death not his favorite in filmic entertainment.

Disney films: dead mothers, animal cruelty, princesses who can’t do anything without a price, menacing evil around every corner. After I previewed a few, I gave up on Disney. update: Even Frozen, which finally embraces the power of girls to find their own way in the world without male rescuing, has the snow monster and witch hunt. Too scary.

The Muppet Show: I didn’t remember it being so sarcastic and violent. But the love I have for those puppets stems from watching in my tween and teen years, when all that is less sinister. Not for littles.

Veggie Tales: seriously? really? the first episode we saw (at a friend’s house) was about being selfish. We’re trying to parent without labeling and name calling. We talk about behavior in positive terms and this series is just too heavy handed with the “proper way to act” stuff. Reminiscent of some of the least appealing Richard Scarry “pest” narratives that moralize in annoying 1950s ways.

Curious George (the series not the film). Like the science projects and the monkey. Don’t love marketing crap or the absentee parenting of old Mr. Worst Parent Ever.

So. Signing Time and Kipper and Little Hard Hats and The Snowman and Maisie. Then Charlie and Lola and Boobah and Planet Earth. Then Bob the Builder and Curious George. Not a big fan of the other stuff.

What about at your house?

One step back, now two steps forward

Posted on by

I have to say, while Peanut is in his room noisily refusing to sleep whilst concocting an elaborate triage center for his stuffed friends and the various wheeled vehicles that will rush them, surprisingly free of gore (for he is three and lives a sheltered life by design), to the doctor’s kit wherein they will be asked to give a urine sample and listen to Peanut’s heart; that he’s turning into an interesting creature.

It’s not true that things that don’t kill you make you stronger. For parents, that which does not kill you makes your kids stronger and more compelling humans. We’re still whittled down to nubs, but they blossom in the compost of our selfhood.

[pause while I go to the now open door and remind him that during quiet time he has to stay in his room. “Why?”  “Because the whole rest of the day is about what you want, and right now is about mommy wanting your body and brain to rest and grow.” “Why?” Because I’ll die right here if you don’t give me an hour of peace. “Because that’s the rule in this house.”]

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, yes, offering organic flesh ripped from my sanity as fodder for Peanut’s growth. Reread the Giving Tree when you have a chance. It’s about sacrifice and shriveling up into relative uselessness. Together.

That Shel Silverstein is another San Franciscan who knew his left from his right, eh?

The smiling fun of past two days are more than just my joy at being healthy, off crutches, in the bright light of spring, surrounded by flowering plum and cherry trees, and finally home again. Nope. This is about the trough in the parenting roller coaster that follows a week or two or three of every-cell-fraying individuation. This is the afterglow of personality development. This is the necessary calm in the storm that is growing up, the respite that allows moms to breathe, just for a moment, and to smile at the beautiful creatures they are lucky enough to have met.

Oh, I love you, little character.

Warning: fugitive at large

Posted on by

Police in the Bay Area are looking for the perpetrator of a heinous crime: teaching a three-year old to say, “Whatever, Mommy” in response to her urgent requests to “listen to her words”.

The authorities have a few suspects in their sights. First, the father of said three-year-old, who has been known, in both times of calm and of rage, to tell his wife, “Oh, whatever.” Also on the suspect list is grandma, who has been witnessed on numerous occasions to roll her eyes and sigh, “what-eeeever.” The select few who have seen both these suspects use the epithet in question have also been known to shoot her disparaging looks while intoning, “oh, right, like you’re perfect.” Police are afraid that if they don’t capture the Whatever Bandit, the toddler might become a snide, sarcastic preschooler.

The suspects were reported to police by the child’s mother, after she gave him a timeout and told him he could say ‘whatever’ to the cats or the ants that are overtaking the house, but not to people. When asked why she was so shaken by the child’s response to her requesting that he pull the drain plug at the end of bathtime, she answered that she is terrified that preschools won’t admit him, after the two year waiting list finally clears, because of his tween-y behavior.

“I’m just desperate to get him in the care of some responsible, child-development expert who will reinforce the gentle discipline we’ve tried to teach,” she says. “Or anyone else who will have him. If they refuse to admit him because he rolls his eyes and bleats his little falsetto ‘whatever’ to teachers, what the hell am I going to do?”  The bags under her eyes tell a tale of strained patience, as do the nervous tics we noticed while reporting this crime.

When asked if she, by chance, could have used the term, “whatever,” even in passing, she adamantly denied it. “Of course not. I’m very careful with my words. We say ‘you’re doing it yourself’ not ‘good boy;’ we say ‘you must have worked hard on this, you should be proud of yourself,’ instead of ‘I love this!’; and we always use ‘I love you and I don’t love hitting’ instead of ‘you’re going to go live with your uncle if you hit again, you terrible little terrorist!’ But if you don’t believe me, whatever.”

If you have any information about the whereabouts of the reckless cad who taught this small child such language and its appropriate use, please call your local FBPI (Federal Bureau of Parental Insanity) branch. They are willing to let drop the whole “who taught him to yell ‘dammit’ every time he drops something” issue, since they know it was reinforcement by both of the aforementioned parents that solidified that one.

Ah, perspective.

Posted on by

After getting so far in the weeds I couldn’t see the sky anymore, I grabbed my copy of Elizabeth Pantley’s The No Cry Discipline Solution.

I’m feeling much better now. A bit of perspective, a few new techniques, some reinforcement for our AP style, and a welcome reminder that all the stuff I used to do was very well grounded in child development and therefore might work again.

Sigh. Pantley brought some welcome help for our sleep issues (not a solution, by any stretch, but some help) and is now my new best friend for getting back to teaching and away from yelling. She might just be my Valentine this year.

I want to have a tantrum, too

Posted on by

You wanna know how bad last night’s tantrum was? You wanna know what made me so physically keyed up that I was shaking for about an hour after Peanut finally passed out from exhaustion?

Oh, boy.

We don’t get many tantrums here at the WaN household. (I love that acronym…never noticed writing at naptime is wan. Nice. I also like it when 20-20 calls our blog Nappy. That’s good clean fun, too, and not at all Imus.)

In fact, I have blogged the few tantrums we’ve had. I think we’re up to four in three years. (Four big ones. I am not fazed by the fifteen minute tantrums.) Not bad. They tend to last for two to three hours, but still, as two-year-olds go, we’re batting, like, whatever would be a really, really good batting average. How do they say that? Whatever.

But last night the other shoe dropped.

Started with a tough day. Some days just are and that’s okay. No nap, including a power struggle, the end of which included the statement, “Well it’s quiet time, and if you won’t let your body try to rest by closing your eyes for just ten minutes, then I’m ignoring you for an hour. You get to choose. It’s your body. But I don’t have to play with you.” Nice sign for impending doom.

It was bad enough that two hours later I made us both cocoa. That’s a big deal in our house. His first cup of cocoa was election day. He’d never had it before and I told him it was a special treat that we got because it’s so important to vote. It wasn’t a bribe because he didn’t know about it until after the voting, but it felt lovely to make a little ritual out of his outstanding behavior at the polls. He pushed the buttons on the televoting newfangled computer thing that, by the way, brings out the 80 year old Luddite in me. Where’s the paper? Well, this year there was a paper printout, so I’m all better now. Twitch, twitch.

Anyway, the second cocoa incident was thanks to a lovely gift from NM. She gave him a little tea cup, little saucer, and little tin of cocoa for Hogamany. Yay, NM. Very cute. Except that my kid thought we got to go vote again, and this time he wasn’t voting for no rules or no bosses. He was voting for himself so he could tell me what to do. He said so. I laughed. Big mistake.

Third cocoa was inauguration. Big day, y’all, and I felt it warranted cocoa. Plus, and this is a little wrong, but I figured since the whole world was gettin’ a little cocoa that day, that my kid could, too.

So yesterday things got bad enough to bring out the cocoa. And it helped. But the afternoon got worse by about 4. His body can’t handle being nap-free. He started to melt down in little bursts. Fell a lot. The usual stuff. I was lovely and comforting, for, after all, I was full to the rim with warm, chocolate-y goodness. By 5, when Spouse called, Peanut was on my lap, whimpering that he wanted to go to a playground. It was dark, it was cold, it was almost dinner. No playground.  Uh-oh.

I told Spouse on the phone it was a rare, choice, and in all other ways USDA bargain-basement, salmonella-grade day. Which the USDA is not required to tell the public, but I felt required to tell Spouse before he got home. Spouse didn’t hear me, or didn’t listen , for his arrival, later, would spin the situation out of control. What a shock. Take a delicate balance and throw a man in the middle and watch it implode.

Peanut went from whimpering to crying. He wanted to go to Longs. To buy tissues. I had offered that several times during the day to get him out of his jammies and out of the house. Nope. Not until 6pm does he want to go out. Fine. You go put on your clothes and I’ll have Daddy take you to Longs. Twenty minutes of “not Daddy, you.” Then twenty minutes of “I don’t want clothes, I’m too sad.” Then twenty minutes of “I want go Trader Joe’s.” *blink blink* Why? “I want go Trader Joe’s get mushrooms.”  Um, we don’t eat mushrooms. He won’t try them and Spouse and I pass whenever offered fungus.

“But I *need* mushrooms. I no have mushrooms long time. I need go Trader Joe’s get mushrooms.” Well, we’re not going. And therein lay the beginning of the end. As soon as he started to ask for things that defied logic, I knew I was done.

Spouse came home in a foul mood and pissed me off. I barked at Spouse. Spouse snapped at me. I asked Spouse to get dinner ready. Spouse emptied the recycling and rearranged the kitchen and complained about the overfull trash and…where’s the mother f—ing kid’s dinner, a–hole? “I’m getting to it.”

Yeah. Like *I’m* getting to a place in society that’s respected and well regarded. Right.

So I hobble into the kitchen without my crutches to make dinner and Spouse yells at me. Tells me not to walk without crutches and tells me he’s taking care of dinner. I yell back. That was fifteen minutes ago, and I could have had it all done by now. Oh yeah, you’re so perfect. Oh yeah, you’re never here. It’s all been said before, by countless others, including John and Kate. And if those mo-fos say it, it must be true.

So Peanut is still sobbing, though mostly to himself now because Spouse and I are passing him back and forth, knowing that if his feet touch the ground we’re done for.

Peanut doesn’t want ravioli, he wants burrito. Make him that, he won’t eat it. Now he wants ravioli. Fine. Here you go. “I’m too tired to eat.” amen. Go to bed. “Not time bed. I want play.” No, buddy. Bed or bath are your choices. “Mmmm, Bryce.” Bryce is not a choice. Bed or bath. “Not any.” Okay, bed. “No! Bath!” Okay. get naked. “I don’t want naked.” Okay, do you want bath in your jammies? “Yes.” That’s fine, but after bath you’ll need to change to different jammies because those will be wet. “I want these jammies.” Okay, take them off and put on different jammies for the bath. “No I don’t want take these off at all.” Okay, go get in bed. “No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” This bed bath cycle repeats for half an hour.

Now, seriously, how awesome am I to offer a bath with jammies? To offer a bath with different jammies just to keep the treasured mismatch of pink polka dots and red spiders dry? Awesome. I know. And you know. But that little dude doesn’t know. Please email him and tell him. ‘Cuz this would all be easier if he knew how good he has it, given the whole powerless and overwhelmed and full of newness and exploration and hope and change and stuff. He’s got it just about as good as it gets. Minus Mommy and Daddy fighting over the trash and a burrito. But still.

And thus began another hour of sobbing and writhing and hitting (he hit us, we didn’t hit him. Who are we, Glenn Beck to announce that we beat our child? We don’t, and we don’t believe in it, but we wouldn’t announce it. Are you kidding? In a blog post with the words Obama and inauguration and cocoa? We’re already getting a Secret Service visit, I guarantee you.)

Anyway, it was three hours of sobbing and crying and sadness and wanting everything but what he can’t have. Including mushrooms and cocoa and a bath in jammies that magically dry. Nope, not good enough. We wanted to hold him down and cram him in bed. We didn’t. I wanted to lock him in his room and leave him. Spouse wouldn’t hear of it because i’ts just too dangerous. I offered to let Peanut roam the house, glassy-eyed and convulsing with sobs, and ignore him until he passed out. Spouse questioned my new ignore parenting, wondering, mostly to himself because he’s smart, if all I do all day is ignore Peanut. Remind me to yell at Spouse again later. We cuddled the lad and maintained nice voices (after we got all of our frustrations out on each other…nice role models) and he finally passed out while I was singing the alphabet in his dark room.

And I shook for an hour and drank heavily but couldn’t get even relaxed. And at 1am, 2am, and 3am he screamed from his room, crying, that he wanted stories.

Are you kidding me? Obama help me, I’m gonna be 300 pounds, all cocoa, by the time this kid goes to school. And my poor readers, all eight of them, will have forty-thousand pages of lovingly creased and earmarked pages of printed out blog pages because my only sanity lies in telling the world that my kid, and my decision to raise him with respect and love and attachment and intelligence is killing me.