Tag Archives: gentle parenting

Freaking exhausted

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“What are the odds,” people said. “Of course the second one will sleep.”

Oh, dear Aphrodite, I’m tired.

Peanut didn’t sleep well. As a newborn he work the typical every two hours. He extended his longest sleep to three, four, five, even six hours until he started teething. Some nights we was up, screaming in pain, several times an hour. I’d comfort him to sleep, and he’d wake three minutes later. When not teething he woke every three hours. For three years and two months.

Of course that won’t happen again.

When Peanut was a newborn, other moms commiserated. Then they dropped like flies as their children started sleeping longer.

“Yeah, it was hard, but six months is much better.” So I hung on until six months. Six teeth, no sleep.

“Once he turned a year he magically slept.” So I hung on until one year. Thirteen teeth, no sleep.

“Wean him at night and he’ll sleep.” I didn’t believe it, but at eighteen months was losing my mind and probably clinically depressed so I night weaned. Twenty teeth, solid food, no sleep.

His first pediatrician told me to read a couple of studies that offered stats and findings about how some kids are just not sleepers. And that all kids reach adult sleep patterns by age three or four. I made him promise there were no seven year olds in his practice who woke frequently. He promised. So I hung on past age two.

Peanut’s second pediatrician said her daughter was the same, and that after age two you can reason with a waker, and explain how other family members need sleep and they need to pull up the covers, close their eyes, and go back to sleep as long as it’s dark. I hung on past age three.

With no fanfare, warning, rhyme, or reason, he slept through the night at three years two months. For four months his nightmares woke him but he didn’t need help back to sleep. Now the nightmares leave him screaming in his sleep but he doesn’t usually wake.

“Of course the second one will sleep. What are you, cursed?”

Butter woke every two hours as a newborn. Then extended his longest sleep to three, four, five, six, seven hours. And then he got ear infections. He went to every hour waking. Then two hours, now three hours. After I promised to worship the goddesses of nighttime he went six hours. For a week.

And now we’re back to every three hours.

Some kids are not made to sleep well until their sleep cycles mature. They’re not waking out of habit or to manipulate or because their parents aren’t doing the “right” things. If you think that, in the words of William Goldman, “feel free to flee.” My cousins woke every three hours for three years. My nieces wake about that (they’re almost two). Peanut woke that often. My friend’s daughter woke that often. My pediatrician’s daughter woke that often. My friends’ son is still waking that often.

But I don’t want to wake that often.

I don’t really want to talk logistics. Both boys go to sleep easily, wide awake, in their own beds. This is not a nurse-to-sleep issue or a rocking issue, though if it were, I’ve read the book to address it. About half the time I can get Butter back to sleep with a pat on the back, so it’s not a nurse to sleep issue (though if it were, I’ve read the book to address it). If it was any of those, and you felt the need to judge, you may back away from the computer, bend over, and kiss my ass . I have no time for people who sleep judging my desperation. And if the words “cry it out” are dancing around in your brain, keep ’em to yourself.

My friends fall into two categories: people whose children wake often at night, and everyone else. The difference, I’m convinced, is not childfree vs. parent. It’s families of any stripe who sleep vs. those who don’t.

I don’t begrudge people who sleep and whose children sleep. Mazel tov, I say, and many more great nights to you. But I also want to cry with self pity and sleep deprivation.

I’d really just like to rest.

Really, really want to rest.

Eeeek! Kindergarten!

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Research on what to do come kindergarten time is freaking me out. I’m appalled at how aggressive kindergarten is, both academically and socially.

Research shows kids shouldn’t be forced to read until second grade, and that countries who begin reading instruction at age eight have a 100% literacy rate. Could be correlation, but it could be that waiting helps more children learn. That homework and formal instruction in kindergarten are counter-productive. But public schools aren’t listening. Maybe they can’t, given how many layers of legislation governments pile on the how, why, what, and when of teaching.

I want play-based kindergarten. I don’t want formal reading education until second grade (that’s what public school was when I was a kid) or homework until middle school.

I want choices.

But paying a high price for the kind of schools we went to as children versus public subsidized pressure cookers for small children isn’t really a choice. A five-year-old who is struck by fits of noise, movement, and lack of focus isn’t disordered. They’re normal.

Why isn’t there an option for elementary school that honors a child’s developmental needs? Why doesn’t my area have charter schools that are trying out ideas based on research rather than legislation? Why is there no play-based option for kindergarten? Why am I not thinking seriously about homeschooling or unschooling when that makes more sense than cramming 20 five-year-olds into small chairs and insisting that they sit still for hours on end? How can I disagree with the way government runs schools without sounding like I believe science is a theory?
.

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.

Twilight zone parenting

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You know the ads make it look so cute. Babies make every scene adorable. Preschoolers make every moment lovable. Together they warm hearths and hearts.

So I was in potential heaven this weekend. In the kitchen, baking my favorite chocolate cake recipe for my mom’s birthday, listening to “Wait…Wait…Don’t Tell Me” on the radio. Gorgeous day outside, decent night of sleep…you get the picture.

Except that at each key moment in the broadcast, Peanut pushed a button on some infernal singing toy that blasted crappy kids’ music over the top of a clever and topical NPR rejoinder. And each time I measured and poured, the baby nursing in my sling reached out of his faux sleep to grab a fistful of goop.

The zen that used to be cooking, as most parents can attest, is now the zen of cooking and listening and showing and sharing and cooking and observing and correcting and cleaning and cooking and listening and ignoring and pretending and listening and watching and for god’s sake not blinking and sighing and listening and explaining and spilling and cursing and apologizing and crying and drinking.

Or something like that.

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.

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?

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.

Baby Steps

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SO I told you about renewing our efforts to parent gently and patiently. With empathy. Sans coercion.

Oh my god, it worked. One day, one incident, but it worked.

I picked him up at the preschool the other day and he was, as I arrived, kicking his best friend in the head. Yup. Glorious. Exactly what I was looking for in a carefully and thoughtfully parented child. A teacher was handling it so I took a breath and waited for him. Another parent told me he’d had a rough day. I wanted to read him the code of “we don’t hurt people” but I fought the urge. Someone had already done that.

So I asked what was going on. I got nastiness and barking and snapping. I breathed. We collected his lunchbox and shoes. I asked about his day. Barked nasty snapping. I asked what he wanted for snack. Snapped nasty barks. He had a cut over his eye and I asked how it happened.

“Nothing. My eye just comes this way,” he snapped.
“Honey, that looks like it hurts. Does it?”
“NO!” he barked. “This is how my eye always comes.”
I looked at him, buckled his seat belt and wordlessly, gently, closed the car door. I took a breath in my patented breathing machine (the slow walk around a car when the children are locked inside it).

By the time I sat in the driver’s seat, he said, “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

“In the morning Casey did something not nice—he took from me when we were playing Zingo—and I went away from him to play with Miles but we were playing and [he starts crying] I tried to go in the tunnel but I hit my head and hurt my eye and I didn’t like the snack and nobody was there to kiss my sore and I didn’t have any extra long pants I only had short pants for when I got muddy!”

I looked at him in the mirror. “Babe, that sounds just awful. Do you need a hug?”

He was sobbing by now and sputtered out a “yeah.”

I stopped the car and got out, walked around to his side, opened the door and kissed his eye. I hugged him. He cried. And I told him about how some days nothing goes right. I bit back the urge to talk about Alexander and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Because some days you don’t want to hear about that. Even in Australia.

But what you do want to hear, when you’re an ass to your friend and your teachers and your mom, is that some days are like that. It’s not that you are a nasty person. It’s the days, hours, minutes that suck. Not you, little guy. It’s not you.

(Only because it was so out of character. If I saw this kind of nonsense all the time, we’d talk about a new way to roll with this behavior. But because I took a breath and a step back and didn’t correct him or diagnose him or try to fix him, he let his guard down and let me see the tiny little vulnerable dude inside. Oh, now that’s the dude I can help. And maybe one day, he’ll help a little vulnerable dude, too.)

Open Letter to Alfie Kohn

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Dear Mr. Kohn,

I finally read Unconditional Parenting, which was recommended more than a year ago by a mom I really dig. At the time I was too busy to read it, and we were doing pretty dang well with the whole “respect kids don’t dictate to them; give them choices and empathy” stuff. I prioritized other work because I didn’t need your book at that moment.

Except that I did, because pretty soon after I put your book in my online shopping cart as a reminder to eventually read it, he turned Three.

All our parenting techniques went out the window as we fought to figure out how to get through each day. We started listening to those voices from family and friends who told us to take a harder line; as he got more out of control, we tried harder to control him. We tore out our hair and bookmarked the gypsies’ “going rates” page, and I cried almost every night in exhaustion and rage and terror at the creature who replaced the child we had parented so carefully. We drew the boundaries more tightly and he acted, predictably, as though the walls were closing in on him.

We barely made it out of Three alive. It took everything we could muster to survive. But unfortunately it meant we went from working with to doing to our son. And now that we’re coming out we know we’ve lost our way.

So thank you for the reminder that kids who are given firm rules and punished into following them misbehave just as often as children who are given respect and choices. And that those children who are treated as decent humans turn out to be just that.

Thank you, too, for the reminder that focusing on our long-term goals means both boys need to make as many decisions as possible now so they’re practiced in making good decisions later. That if we want to learn to influence them, we can’t coerce them. Not just because it’s demoralizing but because it doesn’t work.

Thank you for making me write down what I value so I’d remember that if I want these young humans to grow up and stand up for what’s right—to question repressive rules and fight for what’s important—they have to do it now. Gulp. With our structures (which are now more reasonable, generally created with his participation, imposed only when necessary, and flexible).

I feel more in control now that I’m not controlling. My son feels less caged and cornered and is a lot nicer to be around.

And we’ve redoubled our efforts to find an elementary school that refuses to create an environment where punishment and reward teaches kids only to obey, to do things for what their actions will get them rather than how their actions affect others.

Thank you for getting us back on track toward unconditional love and respectful, flexible, mindful parenting.

—The Calmer, Gentler NaptimeWriting Family

P.S. Dearest readers: don’t worry. The snark doled out weekly for most of the residents of this planet remains in all its bloggy goodness. There are only two mushy little dudes who get the aforementioned awesome me. The rest of you get the worn little nubbin that’s left after all the patient, respectful, engaged, long-term-focused defaulting to yes stuff.

Now THIS I could get used to…

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Peanut was sick today. Poor lamb. Went to school but had them call me an hour in because he wanted his Mommy. Brought him home and he spent all day on the couch, quietly, after telling me “no t.v. because I just need to settle down.”

So he ate quietly at dinner, crawled into his jammies while Butter had a bath, and waited politely for stories. Butter fell asleep during storytime, Peanut didn’t battle us over anything. After bathroom and teeth and songs, he went sweetly to bed. Butter woke up to nurse one last time before…well, before the next time…and I asked Peanut if I could nurse the baby on his bed.

Sure.

So I sang to both boys as I nursed the tiny one. I told the older boy stories about when he was a baby. I changed Butter, put him to bed, and closed the door on two adorable, sweet, quiet, sleepy, well loved children.

Internet: if this was our night every night, I would have dozens of children. I’m not saying I want easy kids, because easy kids scare me. Spunky children plus supportive family equals interesting grownups.

But seriously, I could take one of these nights every week without being worried. As it is, this is a semiannual event. At best.

The tragedy of Netflix

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Oh, streaming movies from Netflix is delightful. Spouse and I stream films the one or two nights a month we can find time beyond dishes and errands and food prep. And I found for Peanut both Kipper and Pingu for his movie day, thanks to the recommendations of readers who know my feelings about non-violent, non-menacing, non-commercial age-appropriate, limited-length DVDs.

Movie Day once a week means Shower Day for Mama Naptime. (Yes, that means most other days may not include showers. Show me the mother of small children who showers regularly and I’ll show you a woman with child care or a partner who is home during daylight hours.)

Movie Day with the DVD player also means Peanut gets the remote and watches, pauses, goes to the kitchen to eat a snack, comes back, watches, pauses, runs around, watches, pauses, snacks again, pauses, goes to the bathroom.

And that’s where the tale of Netflix’s wonderment goes horribly, horribly wrong. The remote does not work on streaming Kipper. Peanut is not allowed to touch the computer. Peanut cannot, therefore, stop streaming Kipper and life as he knows it comes to an end when nature calls.

P: Mommy! Mommeeeeeeee!
M: [soaped and NOT leaving the shower unless someone is on fire] Come on in here, Peanut. I know why you need me.
P: MOM! [crying] I need you. I need YOU!
M: Pea, come here.
P: [screaming, crying]
M: Peanut, I know Kipper won’t stop and I can fix it.
P: Mom, I have to go potty and Kipper won’t stop. IT WON’T STOP! [scream in rage, fear, and helplessness. piercing scream. new scream. painful scream.]
M: Peanut, come into the bathroom.
[he does, crying]
M: Honey, I know Kipper won’t stop. That makes you sad.
P: [sobbing]
M: Honey, go potty while I tell you how I’m going to fix it.
P: [sobbing louder, stis]
M: Honey, the remote doesn’t work on the computer. Kipper is playing from the Internet to the computer and the buttons you have don’t work.
P: [nodding, crying]
M: And that makes you so sad.
P: [sobs]
M: I know it’s sad, babe. You’re disappointed. But Peanut? I can fix it. I can make Kipper stop and go back.
P: [sobbing]
M: Honey, I can make Kipper go back so you don’t miss any of the new Kipper.
P: But it won’t stop.
M: Honey, I can make it stop and I can make it go back. I will fix it. You won’t miss any Kipper.
P: [crying]
M: Peanut. Take a deep breath. You’re sad. I will fix it.
P: [crying, wiping eyes]
M: I will fix it, babe.
P: [crying, washes hands, goes back to living room, and I thank heavens, again for Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. And as he continues to cry, I wonder if the empathy can stop in a while because, for crissakes, I said I could fix it and he needs only wait the ten glorious minutes I need to wash out the huge clumps of postpardum hair leaving my head in a fistful each hour of the day. ]

I rewound the playback to the exact moment he told me tragedy struck. And he watched the rest of the movie, scarred for life and terrified of ever needing to go to the bathroom again.

Thanks for the tragicomedy, Netflix.

Why Parents Hate Parenting

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Oh, boy. There are a big steaming bundle of quotes in this New York Magazine article on the huge pile of crap that is contemporary parenting. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

Did someone say their emotional life is “a high-amplitude, high-frequency sine curve along which we get the privilege of doing hourly surfs”?

Yes, yes she did.

Did somebody remind us of the research that shows “Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so”? Yup. Same article.

Hmm. “As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns,” you say? Tell me more. Despite believing firmly in attachment parenting, in offering a supportive, firm, and respectful environment, despite being on top of the current child development research on how discipline means teaching and therefore must be gentle, this article sings the refrain of how much parenting sucks.

The article mentions that people seem skeptical of this data, seem to pity those “for whom” this is true. Those must be the lying liars on facebook who claim life is always a bowl of cheesy-poofs.

Or, did I mention, they’re lying liars. Before Spouse and I had Peanut, my OB said, “avoid anyone who tells you parenting is bliss, wonderfully rewarding, or a blessing. Parenting is rarely joyful. Children can be delightful. Parenting is a hot steaming bowl of stress thrown on your favorite couch. While you’re on it.”

Some people, as one researcher notes, want children and think they’ll be happy, only to find that offspring “offer moments of transcendence, not an overall improvement in well-being.” The moments of bliss are opiate. And the rest of the day is 23.5 hours of drudgery.

Because, as the article quips, as industrialization led to sheltered childhoods (rather than apprenticeships and farm labor at a young age) children “went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

I bristle at the suggestion that it’s organizing projects and scheduling children that makes parenting difficult. Luckily, the article clarifies that it’s actively paying attention to children rather than ignoring them that is so freaking exhausting. Soccer and ballet aren’t the problem. Knowing that discipline means teaching gently and consistently, listening and responding empathetically teaches emotional maturity, attachment leads to independence, and subverting your desires to help your children become model citizens is simply way more work than any paid job.

And this parenting job sucks the life out of parents who work at home or who work outside the home. “Today’s married mothers also have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week); 71 percent say they crave more time for themselves (as do 57 percent of married fathers). Yet 85 percent of all parents still—still!—think they don’t spend enough time with their children.”

Not surprisingly, those societies (I’m looking at you, Holland) that value nurturing children, that pay for a parent to stay home with babies for over a year, that support breastfeeding, that pay for good education and health care, and that offer quality childcare to all workers means parents are less exhausted, stressed, and angry. “Countries with stronger welfare systems produce more children—and happier parents.” But we’re buying Baby Einstein crap instead of lobbying for social changes that will actually produce smarter, healthier, more self assured children.

This article makes me want to shake every person pining for a child and show them that: “Children may provide unrivaled moments of joy. But they also provide unrivaled moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak.” Parenting is not all buttercups and rainbows. And it’s not just the vomit and the late nights and the filthy carseats. It’s soul DRAINING, emotionally WRENCHING, personally EXHAUSTING bullshit day in and day out that leaves icky stains on life.

And yet we smile for the ten seconds each hour that our children are joyful, those crazy-making little monsters for whom we sacrifice what seems like everything.

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.