Tag Archives: gentle parenting

Full of surprises.

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The days I expect to go by without incident are constant battles of spirited-intense-intelligent-feisty small-person will versus spirited-intense-intelligent-feisty parent will. Hell on wheels trying to be gentle and only rarely succeeding is the baseline around here.

But when I think things *should* be tough Peanut makes me laugh and relax (as he did last year when we spent eight hours shopping in a holiday marathon totalling more than the rest of the year combined, and today when we needed extra supplies for tomorrow’s bake-fest of multiple goodies) He’s patient when I least expect it; giving, sweet, and loving not necessarily when i need it, but when I really appreciate it.

I laughed at several proclamations in the car and stores today, surrounded as we were by people trying their best to cram 4,000 things into their day, and doing a pretty poor job of holding it together—including “I want to have pfefferneuse every day if it has protein!” and “don’t worry, Mommy, if they don’t have healthy rice cereal we can make the cookies out of healthy oatmeal.”

My favorite, though, which had other people in the way overcrowded supermarket laughing:
P: I see candy corn!
M: Yes.
P: I think I want some.
M: Not today.
P: Well, for Halloween.
M: Halloween is 10 months away, so we’re set on candy corn for now.
P: 10 months?!?!?
M: Yup.
P: I can wait.

Dear Universe…

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Here’s the thing, Universe. I know you have plenty of secular humanist quantum physics believers coming to you for their own personal issues. I know some people ask God for a football win and some promise rewards to various saints for getting what they need. But you, Universe, are more than just convenience. You are the problem.

If you could just, for a while, and just in our house, suspend all your physical laws, I would really appreciate it. Because the reality in which objects fall when not balanced properly on a spoon, where yarn is not strong enough to operate as a tow line for a bicycle, where puzzles do not fall into completion without effort and within moments of tumbling out of their box…this reality simply will not do for a certain 3.75 year old who lives here.

Look, I’m not one of those helicopter parents who want to fix the world for their kid. I just want the screaming to stop. When a blanket refuses to stay on the handlebars of a two-pound scooter, he screams as though he were on fire. When a one-foot doll cannot fit into a nine-inch fire engine, he cries as though someone severed his head from his tiny body.

So seriously, Universe, do this for me. For my sanity. He’ll learn physics in school like everyone else, as long as this country still teaches science by the time he’s in school. If not, meh. He doesn’t need to be all exerciing his natural scientific abilities on my time. I’m doing my part for you, Universe, what with obeying the law of gravity and keeping a finger on the pulse on the whole “liquid on Saturn’s moon” awesomeness.

So throw me a freaking bone, wouldya?

Wax on, wax off

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I have twenty posts, or so, to write, and myriad other things to tackle, but I have to say this…
Why, since we got home from our five-day vacation in the snow (which went almost perfectly, considering the trouble we could have had flying into the high desert in December with an almost four-year-old and a whiny pregnant lady to drive into the middle of nowhere for fun in the snow with family and vegetarian posole) has my return home felt like the reverse of the Mr. Miagi clap-and-rub? All energy sucked from me by the cold hands of incessant, useless, endless repetition of rules and basic social tenets, greeted with surly and defiant nastiness. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off. Paint the fence.

At least Daniel got valuable skills in the film, and the chance, eventually, to kick the crap out of the nasty guy. I get the skills but no violent outlet. Mr. Miagi got the pride of being a fabulous coach AND he got his whole to-do list taken care of by someone else.

I get to do all the work and may, MAY someday get to smile as my kid uses his guts and skill to kick the crap out of someone else. For a change, please, kick the crap out of someone else.

Take that, parenting experts

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Let’s not bandy about the word precocious. Let’s not say anything about the apple falling from the tree. Let’s just say you parenting dorks and your stupid games are making me feel like an ass.

Me: Hey! I just heard that all the animals in the zoo are out roaming around and they’re hiding in someone’s mouth! Let me use your toothbrush to check your mouth to see if they’re in there.
Peanut: Mommy, we don’t put animals in our mouths because they have germs that can make us feel crummy. And did you know this? We use our eyes to look and sometimes a telescope.

Next day
Spouse: Gee, I can’t remember how to brush my teeth. Peanut, can you come in here and help me? I don’t know how to do this.
Peanut: Daddy, you went to college. You know how. And I saw you brushing today. Are you telling me a true story?

Next day
Me: Hmm. I’m feeling pretty fast today. I wonder if I can brush m teeth faster than you!
P: Mommy, we don’t brush quickly. We brush carefully. Are you feeling careful today?

Good luck, my friends who are in labor even as we speak. This might be genetic.

mutual guidance

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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?

Nasty, ugly debate

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I happened across a really troubling blog post on spanking and keeping kids in line and it made me wonder: with all the evidence that spanking makes kids violent, self-loathing, and diminished as human beings, why are so many people still advocating spanking as a discipline solution for their children?

One blogger talks about how children these days don’t know their place, and most of the appended comments recommend spanking. The blogger and commenters make the mistake of conflating spoiling with not spanking. There are plenty of parents who spank, yet spoil; and those who don’t spank, but don’t spoil. The two are not the same issue, despite the single line in the Bible (which can be interpreted to mean gently guide as a shepherd with her crook, rather than beat as an adult with a switch).

Another blogger writes about going against her culture’s insistence on spanking, with fabulously well-adjusted results. She argues that consistent, firm, well defined boundaries work much better than barbed wire for children.

It seems that spanking versus not is being touted as a disciplined versus undisciplined debate. But  discipline means “to teach” and there are many ways to teach.

Hitting teaches people to hit. That being afraid of authority is the way to survive. That might makes right. A survey of spanking studies shows spanking hurts kids long term, but gets them to comply short-term.

Drawing clear boundaries and insisting on respect teaches boundaries and respect. Seems pretty clear what parents and children all need to grow the next generation of thoughtful and respectful citizens.

Maybe not spending enough time together is the issue. Maybe a violent culture is the problem. Maybe not understanding the future consequences of an easy choice is the heart of our problems. Maybe cultures, social, religious, and otherwise, that teach negative consequences for negative behavior instead of positive consequences for positive behavior is wherein our dilemmas lie.

I just think that needing children to do what you tell them, especially on safety issues, is vital. But spanking isn’t the only way to get there.  And wailing about  “kids these days” without looking at how adults these days behave is ridiculous. What does our culture value? Celebrity, scandal, reward with minimal work, money over happiness, good people gone bad (or wild)…if parents sing these tunes, especially while their kids are in the other room using technology in which social boundaries are exploded and consequences are few, no wonder children are out of control.

*Among the respondents without a history of physical or sexual abuse during childhood, those who reported being slapped or spanked “often” or “sometimes” had significantly higher lifetime rates of anxiety disorders (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.43, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04-1.96), alcohol abuse or dependence (adjusted OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.27-3.21) and one or more externalizing problems (adjusted OR 2.08, 95% CI 1.36-3.16), compared with those who reported “never” being slapped or spanked. There was also an association between a history of slapping or spanking and major depression, but it was not statistically significant (adjusted OR 1.64, 95% CI 0.96-2.80). INTERPRETATION: There appears to be a linear association between the frequency of slapping and spanking during childhood and a lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse or dependence and externalizing problems.”  source Canadian Medical Association journal Oct. 1999

Unoriginal post number 613

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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.

I think you can. I think you can.

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Peanut skated into the living room this morning with one foot in a box car from his 1970s hand-me-down train set, flipping socks into the air with a silicone spatula.

P: Mommy! I’m flipping pancakes and skating!

M: [actually looking; in fact marveling] Yeah you are.

P: I’m cooking on the train. It very hot! [realizes what that might mean…] Just the cooking part. This part [indicates the box car] not hot. Just right. A little warm, but  I’m being careful. Don’t worry. I’m skating!

M: You sure are.

P: And flipping up to the ceiling and everything gets cold and then we eat it up!

M: You’re cooking on a train engine and flipping pancakes and letting them cool on the ceiling and skating in a box car and eating the pancakes when they cool down?

P: Yes!

M: Wow.  Keep up the good work.

Sure, cute and all. But now I’m jonesing for pancakes, have no idea where to find a cooking locomotive, and not at all sure what to pack first for our move this weekend, because clearly anything in a box is something he needs for the “rolling out dough for a quiche in a tugboat” project he’ll invent tomorrow…

Denouement

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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.