Happy?

A few months ago, Xander started this new…”thing.” Anytime we have to reprimand him, or use a stern voice, or anything that makes him feel disciplined, I guess, he starts shouting “happy happy happy?!” It’s a cross between a plea and a demand. He works himself into a full tantrum if we don’t say yes, mama’s happy. Daddy’s happy. Even if, you know, we’re NOT.

I feel a little like I started this. When he would do something very nice, say, share a toy unprompted, or give the dog a gentle pet without me asking, I’d point out how it makes someone else happy. I wanted to teach him empathy, and show him how his actions affect other people. He sometimes would follow that up by asking “and Mama happy?” And, yes, when he did something nice, I was happy.

But now it’s a problem. He’s so freaked out by the idea that JS or I may not be happy with him, and it makes me so sad! (Irony!) I try to say things along the lines of “No, mama’s not happy when you hit, but I’m always happy to be your mama and I always love you.” But all he hears is the “no,” and he panics. So, for now, we have to say yes, yes mama’s happy and wait for him to calm down to try and explain it. “Mama doesn’t feel happy when you hit her, it makes her sad, but you’re not hitting now, so I’m not sad now.”

It’s a tough one. I do not want him to worry about our happiness. That’s not his job. And I do not want him to base his happiness on ours. Maybe it’s a normal developmental thing. I have no idea. But I remember this feeling. I was this way as a kid, and still am. I soak up tension like a sponge. And if someone is unhappy with me, specifically, it makes me sick to my stomach. I’m a peacekeeper, middle child syndrome sufferer, whatever you want to call it. But I don’t want Xander to feel this. I want him to take responsibility for his actions, yes, and know that what he does has consequences other than a time out. But I don’t want it to become part of his personality, this worry about making sure those around him are always happy.

Besides, how can you look at this face and NOT feel happy? It’s ridiculous.

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The Diaper Post

Because I know you’re all just DYING to know, this entire post is dedicated to Lady Baby’s diapers.

You’re welcome.

While pregnant with Xander, and after reading all about Amalah’s foray into cloth diapers, I picked the easiest sounding diaper system and decided to try it out. I got an assortment of pocket diapers, mostly BumGenius and FuzziBunz, and waited for our teeny little baby to be big enough to fit into them.

Going with cloth was not nearly as hard as I thought it’d be. With a baby, doing laundry was pretty easy. He didn’t really move around much, at least not quickly, and wasn’t yet pissed off by baby gates and other containment devices, so I could slip out of the room and start a load without an issue. I never found a decent nighttime solution, though,  so I stuck with disposables for sleeping and while on vacations (just for convenience and to avoid the “Do you mind if we put some of our baby’s poop in your washing machine?” questions).

The biggest problem I had with the diapers I chose is that Xander was sensitive to the microfiber material. He got red pretty easily, especially if I didn’t change him fast enough. And with the PUL covers, it was hard to tell if he was wet or not.

Once he moved into full blown toddlerhood, and was constantly moving and freaking the eff out any time he couldn’t see me, I gave up. He was coming off another round of antibiotics for an ear infection, suffering the typical, erm, distress of the digestive track, and so I had him in disposables so I could use the heavy duty diaper cream, and just never went back.

I haven’t really missed it, per se, but I do feel kind of badly about it.

With Lady Baby, JS and I both want to give cloth another try – the waste of the disposables is pretty mind boggling – but I don’t want to use microfiber again. I also want something that will fit her sooner than six-ish months. So I sold my stash of pockets to a mom in my MOMS Club who wanted to try them out, and bought prefolds from another mom selling hers, and some ridiculously adorable fitteds from a WAHM on Hyena Cart.

So far I’ve managed not to go too far over budget of what I regained by selling my old stash, and only really need to get some small PUL covers for the early days, and some wool and fleece covers for nighttime use. I hope to collect, slowly, a handful of All In 2 diapers, to use while out and about, and I am oddly excited about our new system.

Obviously, since I have just written an entire post on the matter.

I much prefer the idea of using natural fibers, if only because of Xander’s previous history and my own insanely sensitive skin. And knowing that I won’t need to buy months worth of disposables at first helps to offset the initial costs even more.

And, as always, the diapers are just so damn cute. I mean, c’mon, look at this little baby with the big butt.

(None of those are affiliate links, by the way. I just put in there in case anyone wanted to click through and see what all those crazy diapers words mean.)

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Balancing Act

I give him the peanuts from my Pad Thai.

I cut his sandwiches into triangles.

I wait until he’s at school to wash his blankie.

I have resisted the urge to “lose” the more irritating of his bedtime stories.

I sing his night time songs slowly, so I can linger on his bed a while longer.

I drive out of my way to the grocery store with the snacks he likes.

I let one TV show turn into two, just so he’ll sit on my lap for another 20 minutes.

I make sure his purple bowl, plate, spoon, and fork are always washed and ready to use.

I point out every school bus, every blue bus, every fire truck we pass in the car, even if I’d rather be spacing out to the latest Glee song.

I always smile at him when he asks, “Mama happy?” even when I’m frustrated.

I breathe him in deeply after his baths, committing to memory the smells of Burt’s Bees and strawberry toothpaste.

I turn his bedding back so that he sees his favorite dinosaur when he climbs into bed.

I know the perfect moment to stop tickling him before it turns from a game into a tantrum.

…But, on the other hand…

I snap at him for stopping so much on our walks, for being so slow.

I let my voice get sharp and angry more than I should. More than I want to.

I get dramatic and annoyed when he pushes my buttons.

I tell him to stop crying, stop whining, stop stop stop, even when he does it for a good reason.

I check my email and Facebook when he’s building (another) block tower.

I say “just a minute, baby,” and let it turn into five.

I get impatient when he doesn’t do something the first time.

I match his stubbornness with my own.

– – –

It’s so easy for me to focus on the latter list. On what I do wrong. On the ways I mess up and fail. On the ways I should be more, be better. But I try to keep the first list longer. I try to tip the scales. Or, at the very least, strike a tenuous balance.

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Lesson Learned. Again.

One of the drawbacks to being a SAHM while your partner works out of the house a lot is that your child can develop a VERY strong attachment to you. This is definitely true with Xander. It can be very sweet at times, but also rather frustrating. If he doesn’t accompany me to the bathroom, he stands outside the door and bangs on the wall. He whines if I wander into another room while he plays.

And, for a while, he was being incredibly rude to JS. If Xander and I were playing, or snuggling after a nap, and JS came into the room? Xander would scream and cry, shouting “Go away!” It was ridiculous. We tried explaining how that hurts Daddy’s feelings, that it wasn’t nice to use mean words, that it was against the rules. I even tried time outs.

NOTHING WORKED.

Then, like the Mensa candidate that I am (spoiler: NOT REALLY), I thought, hey, what if I tried to teach him something else to say, instead? So we practiced waving and saying “Hi, Daddy.”

Guess what? It worked. Quickly, too. He may start to get agitated when he thinks JS is “taking over” Mama time, but he quickly smiles, waves, and says “hi” instead.

I don’t know HOW many times I have had to learn this the hard way. That instead of saying “no” constantly, and then disciplining him for not listening, most of the time all it takes is teaching him a new thing to try and then praising him for it. Why is this such a hard lesson to learn?

Unrelated, Xander has started the fun phase of wanting to pick out some of his own clothes. I absolutely love it. I always have. I love it when little kids run around looking ludicrous because they insist on wearing fuzzy slippers with a cowboy hat.

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Lose Some, Win Some

Saturday was a crap day. Xan is coming down with a cold, so he wasn’t feeling well. Plus, we’ve switched him to the Big Boy Bed and, though he’s sleeping through the night just fine (!!), naps are more or less play time with books and stuffed animals. So he wasn’t feeling well AND he was over tired. (I’m hoping he’ll go back to sleeping for naps, because I honestly don’t think he’s ready to go an entire day without one.)

As anyone who’s ever met a toddler could imagine, this led to him being the worst behaved I can remember. Tantrums and screaming and hitting and kicking and oh, it was awful. And, of course, after a few hours of this, I was not my best self, either. I was tired from waking up early and tired of hearing him scream and tired of fighting him on every.damn.thing. So I got crabby and short and yelled at him and then felt guilty for yelling because, you know, he’s two and sick.  At one point I yelled at him to stop crying.  Then I cried to JS that I’d changed my mind about the baby we’ve yet to have because CLEARLY I am not cut out for this.

We put him to bed at 6:30 and JS convinced me not to list New Baby (I need a cooler name for the cooking one, y’all) on Craigslist until the morning. Morning came at 5:45, but it quickly became a pretty decent day and Xander was happy again and still loved me.

So, New Baby can stay.

***

Today I took Xander to a farm by Lake Champlain. We both love it there. It’s gorgeous and has amazing views, hiking trails, and a delicious (and cheap!) food cart for lunch, which are all things I love. They have a tractor ride and chicken, cows,  sheep, and goats that the kids can pet, which are all things Xander loves.

He had a wonderful few hours chasing chickens and patting animals and laughing hysterically at the calf that kept trying to lick his hand. We went into one of the indoor barn rooms, where there are lots of toys and puzzles and games set up for the younger kids, and Xander started playing with the pretend food. He lined up the fruits and vegetables by size and color, carefully making sure the tops of the food was all perfectly even.

Two older kids, I’d say 4 or 5, came in with their moms, and also started playing with the food. I still keep a pretty sharp eye on Xander around other kids. He’s improved immensely, but he still gets kind of shovey and territorial over toys that he sees as “his.” But this time he did great. He moved over a bit and protected “his” lined up fruit, but let the other kids play. Then they started slowly blocking him out and pushing him aside so they could take over all the toys.

Xander looked over at me, angry and sad, and I glanced at their mothers. The moms were watching, but didn’t seem to care. When one of the kids swiped the plastic carrot out of Xander’s hand, I stepped in. I held my hand out for the carrot and returned it to Xander, and said (with an angrily shaking voice) that there were enough toys to share, and that Xander was much smaller than they were and it wasn’t nice to push him.

Their mothers still said and did nothing, just looked at me with mild annoyance.

When they left, I told Xander that if someone took something he was holding, or touched his body in way he didn’t like, he was allowed to say “no, thank you.” Then we practiced a little. I “stole” his toys and reminded him what to say. He thought it was funny, but he seemed to catch on a little.

I don’t like public parenting. And I especially don’t like having to interfere with someone else’s child. I debated letting Xander sort it out, but quickly realized that he’s TWO. He doesn’t know how to sort it out. His reaction would have been to hit or pull their hair or cry, all of which are reactions I would have understood. I also wanted him to know, WANT him to know, that JS and I will always stand up for him when he’s treated unfairly. I want him to learn to stand up for himself, too, of course, but I don’t want him to feel like he’s alone.

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Monday? AGAIN?

You guys, it was JUST MONDAY. How did this happen? Cliche, yes, I know. But still. It’s nuts.

This weekend was so much better than last. OMG. Ha ha. We still did plenty and had fun and went outside and all that good, summer stuff.  But we did a little less of it and made sure Xander got his regular naps (or, at the very least, an hour to hang out in his room and coo to his stuffed animals). We were all much happier for it.

This will suprise no parent, especially (maybe) no parent of a male-variety child, but y’all: this kid has ENDLESS ENERGY.  He’s up with the sun, and before I can crack my second eye open I hear “ow-site? pay? pay ow-site? tattoo?” Tattoo is, for no known reason, drawing with chalk on the driveway. And then Big Fat Tears Of Toddler Angst because, lo, before we can tattoo, we must get dressed. Also? Mama must have at least a quart of coffee. Today, we went to the store, stopped at the park, tattooed and played with trucks in the driveway, had lunch, all by 11:30. IN THE MORNING. I was about ready to keel over while His Royal Toddlerness flat out refused to sleep. He did have some “quiet (ha ha ha ha, as if ) time” in the afternoon, though, so I could actually get shit stuff done.

It’s fun, though, I must admit. It’s insanely exhausting, and I have so much more sympathy for my mother who did this with THREE of us, than I ever have, but I love it. Last year he didn’t really play. And it’s not that I didn’t enjoy hanging with him, but it was a lot more of just….hanging around and staring at his vaguely mobile body while wondering how guilty I’d feel if I read my Kindle instead of savoring this preshush baby moment. Now he runs and laughs and points and tries to talk (the talking! I love toddler talking! They sound like very nice, non-weepy drunk people!) and occasionally stops what he’s doing to throw his grubby arms around my neck and give me a very wet “mah!” before he’s off again. I still can’t, you know, DO anything while he’s playing, he demands my full attention, but it’s more engaging and interactive than it’s been.

Don’t get me wrong, the drama and tantrums still suck. A lot. And just the thought of not getting his way sets him off into ear-bleeidng wails. I’ve more than once just picked him up, football style, and strong-armed him up the stairs to the house because SERIOUSLY, if you want to eat dinner I cannot possibly watch you draw another squiggly line on the asphalt. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t want to eat dinner.) And I do use the iPad to lure him into a few minutes of quiet self-entertainment while I wash dishes or prep dinner or, you know, check Facebook on my phone.

But he’s becoming a little person and it’s so fun because I LIKE him. I mean, yes, I love him, of course. But I like him. He’s funny! He does these goofy little dances to make JS and I laugh. He pretends to fall asleep then spies to see what we’re doing. He reads us his stories, and rubs our arms saying “niiiiiiiiice” when we get out of sorts. He freaks out when he sees a bird out the The Wild (our deck), because he knows them from his books. He thinks grapes and berries are the best thing ever, but if you try to give him mango, he will hurl it so far across the room you may not find it for months.

At the end of the day I’m so ready for him to go to bed, so I can have a few moments of quiet. A half an hour to read without interruption. A conversation with JS that’s not drawn out because of requests for snacks or cups or “up! up!”. But after the stories are read and the songs are sung and the last kisses have been given….I miss him. I peek at his little sleeping body, butt up in the air stink-bug style, half a dozen times a night. I have to stop myself from going in his room and smoothing his hair, or running my finger down his still snub-nose, because I just ache to touch him again.

Of course, then he has to go and ruin that by waking up before God.

So, you know. Grain of salt and all that.

 

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Future Thespian

Oh, hey, so how was Mother’s Day? We’re just gonna sorta pretend it never happened, over here.

I have a hard time knowing how to write about Xander’s….shall we say “challenging” moments. Partially because, yes, obviously I love him and even the bad days are nothing but magic and lightness and wafts of baby-head-smell blah blah blah LYING CAKES (except for the loving part, sheesh), but on the other hand, some days just suck and he’s a little turd and I want to be able to say so without 1) feeling guilty about it and 2) hearing about how just wait until he’s 2 3 4 15 whatever age will make me feel like an idiot for complaining now.

Saturday. Oh, Saturday was lovely. It was sunny and warm and we went to a festival and let Xander free a few balloons (nah-noo!) into the sky and eat french fries and pick flowers (fo-fo!) to his heart’s content, then we slipped home for a nap, and then dashed off to a birthday BBQ in the country (yes, even parts of Vermont are classified as “the country.” WHO KNEW?) with cupcakes and more nah-noos.

 

 

I guess we just over did it and Sunday is when we had to (start) paying for it.  It began by him waking before six, loudly, and insisting that I tend to him. Then the inevitable food throwing nightmare over breakfast, a tantrum when he ran out of berries, a fistful of fur from the dog’s back – just because. JS and I foolishly thought that getting out of the house might help. OH HO HO HO, FOOLS. We went to one of our favorite places, an outdoor museum, that was reopening for the season and Xander melted down at Every. Single. Thing. Riding the carousel. Getting off the carousel. Decorating a birdhouse. Not decorating a birdhouse. Being picked up. Being put down. Being asked if he wanted a cookie.

I think we tallied the day up with JS getting two slaps to the face and a kick to the stomach, and me getting a PUNCH to the face and a few attempted head butts.

All before lunch.

It was funny, in a way, because we were THOSE parents. The ones staring bewilderedly, half laughing, at their writhing-on-the-ground-while-making-nonhuman-noises child, while everyone around us was walking hand in hand as adorable families in new spring dresses and pressed khakis.

In another way, I sort of wished I had my old single apartment to go back to, before JS and I were together, so I could watch a TiVo marathon of Veronica Mars and LOST without interruption except for when I paused it to refill my wine glass.

Anyway, we’re getting back to normal, more or less. Still more tantrum prone than a week or two ago, but having a semi regular routine really helps Xander keep his shit together at least a little bit. As much as a 22 month old can. (Spoiler alert: NOT MUCH.)

However the weekend went, though, I did manage to snap some good pictures of him between the meltdowns. Sorry for the Facebook redundancy with the pictures.

 

 

 

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MilkSleep

Tired. Tired tired tired. The standard answer for any parent of young children when someone asks them how they’re doing.

I’m no exception. Xander wakes too early. Still drops paci and needs help finding it at 2, 3, 4 AM. Gets scared of something and needs us. Sometimes it’s an easy fix. Plug him back in, show him Blankie, and back to sleep (or, as he signs, milk-sleep; the two are inexorably linked).

Sometimes, though, he whimpers a bit longer, and I just cannot let him cry alone in his crib in the dark. At nap time, sure, I can draw a harder line. But at night time, something switches and all I can see is that he’s my baby, my sweet little boy, forever that squawky newborn flapping free of his swaddle in the co-sleeper. These times I lift him up, sniffing his curls as he lays his head against my shoulder, and sit in the arm chair in the corner, humming “You are my sunshine” while we cuddle in the orange glow of his night light. He stares at me through impossibly long lashes, and his dimpled fingers run up and down my arm, mimicking the rhythmic stroke of my hand along his fleece-clad body.

Slowly, slowly, his eyes flutter shut and his breathing slows and he sleeps.

I stay there, though, humming in the dark, feeling the weight of him against my chest, on my legs. I may be tiredtiredtired, but I never wish the time away. I never wish he’d stop needing me. I stay as long as I can before returning him to his crib, my arms already missing the feel of his skin, even if just for a night. And when the next night comes, I find myself once again wishing that he’ll sleep straight through, and that he’ll wake up and want me. The two wants are inexorably linked.

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Rambly McRambleson

*whispering*  We’re all healthy again. More or less. JS had a lingering cough. And I have Stomach Flu PTSD and panic at every gas pain.

Those were dark days. Dark days, indeed.

Once I got better, JS got sick. Right when we thought we were in the clear. I wasn’t totally 100%, and still exhausted from the virus, and Xander had decided he was tired of being good and inside, so my day on full baby/dog duty was pretty awful, and I may have cried more than a few times when Xander was mean to me (dude, HE BIT MY LEG). We did all survive, though. So that’s good. I was so disappointed with myself, though. I did not handle Xander’s jerkiness very well. It’s even worse because I KNOW why he was acting out – he’s teething (I swear he is getting EVERY SINGLE TOOTH all at once. Every time I manage to peek in there, there’s a new one showing it’s ass-face), he was still run down from being sick, and, you know, that whole “I know Mommy and Daddy are weak so I must exploit it” intuitive biological whatever-ness. And at times I just lost it. I snapped at him. I was mean. It got me thinking, too, because I was the kind of  mean that I would never have been to a child who could speak. But, since he doesn’t talk (much), I let myself think that he didn’t understand what I was saying. Which is so lame. ( I mean, I didn’t, like, tell him I didn’t love him or that he was rotten or anything like that – though I may have thought the latter.) He understands so much. I can see it. He follows simple requests, he signs all the time, he knows what’s going on around him. He’s just not saying what he sees, yet.

I could beat myself up over it (and I did, for a day or so), but really, it just reminded me that I have to mirror the kindness and respect that I want him to learn. Gentleness is most important when you don’t think you have any gentleness to give. I need to show him how to use his words (kindly) to say when he’s angry, or sad, or tired. I can’t snap at him, and then expect him to know that when he’s overwrought he needs to stay calm. I wishI could take back that day of my grumpiness, but instead I’m going to keep it in mind as a reminder of how I don’t want to act. Kids are so impressionable. They don’t have context to tell them that “Mommy was mean because she was sick.” All they know is “Mommy was mean.”

Moving on. Bullets!

• LOST remains one of the greatest TV experiences ever. And the 2 shows produced by LOST personnel (Once Upon A Time and Alcatraz) are proving my point. So far they are both well written, clever, and don’t fall into that SUPER ANNOYING plot contrivance story line where things happen that make zero sense. Yay!
• I ran today! The first time since my half marathon this summer. This is impressive for many reasons. One, because it was cold and I ran anyway (barely above freezing…which is kinda warm in these parts, but I’m a Cali Girl still) and two, because if not for my half marathon training, there is no possible way I would have been able to just up and run three miles without any build up. But I did! This amazes me.
• Every time I cut Xander’s hair myself I say “I will never do this again!” Cut to (HA!): yeah, I cut his hair again. Just the front (do boys have bangs? if they do, I cut those) and the duck tail in the back. The back looks fine. The front, well, JS is calling him Prince Valiant. This is not a compliment. Also? If not for his curls, he’d be at total risk for a mom mullet.
• JS and I are still trying to plan a warm vacation for this winter/early spring. It’s proving difficult, as airline prices have skyrocketed and we need to deliver Xander to my parents (I love him, I do, but a vacation with a toddler is an oxymoron). I spend way too much time researching Caribbean hotels, these days.
• I have finally started working on a personal writing project. I’m excited about it, and I’ve done a pretty decent job of finding time to write, even when there is none. I tend to psych myself out about writing, so I’m not going to be blogging much about it. I want to keep the steam in the pot, so to speak.
• A week or two ago Huffington Post had one of their photo essays on famous serial killers, and I (LIKE AN IDIOT) clicked through it. Nights later, I kept having dreams of their creepy faces lurking in the background. *I* knew they were serial killers, even if no one else in my dream did. Note to self: YOU ARE A PANSY. STOP IT.

Hopefully I’ll be back to a somewhat more regular posting schedule (haaaa ha ha, schedule) now that no one is puking down my shirt. No promises, though.

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Memory

It doesn’t take being a parent to know that toddlers are challening. They’re demanding and loud and unreasonable and pushy and prone to fits of pint sized rage over the family dog eating the cracker they just threw off the high chair tray. They cry when it’s bedtime, when they can’t have a snack before dinner, when you tell them “no hitting,” when it’s time to get strapped into the car seat, at every single diaper change, when Elmo isn’t on the TV right away. It’s easy to get frustrated, to get annoyed, to feel defeated and ineffective as a parent.

But every night, when JS and I are getting into bed, these things are the last things on our mind.  Because toddlers are so much fun, too. When we talk about our days, we talk about the dance parties we have, and how funny Xander looks shaking his booty to the music. We talk about the hour after dinner he spends running after the dog, shrieking with laughter. We talk about the dozens and dozens of stories we read, worth the repetition if only because of the way he slowly walks backwards into our laps, determinedly clutching his book.

It makes me wonder what, if anything, Xander will remember from his toddlerhood. I can’t personally think of any specific memories before the age of 3 or 4, I’d guess. JS says he remembers some stuff from before that, he remembers a few impressionable things from being a baby. I find myself hoping so much that Xander will, too. That he’ll remember twirling in my arms, tilting his curly head back to watch the ceiling spin above him. The way JS walks him around the house to inspect any item he points at with interest. The way he loves to crawl after the dog with his head down, giggling with anticipation of the face licks to come. I want him to remember how we distract him from tears at changing time by blowing raspberries onto his thighs until he’s laughing so hard that tears stream down his face. The Victory Song we sing after every bath-time.

I want him to remember how much fun we have together. All of us, JS and myself included. I want him to remember how much we love him now, at this moment in time. And how much he loves us, too (the other day I came back upstairs from doing laundry and he was so thrilled to see me that his whole body shook when I picked him up). It wouldn’t change anything to know that he won’t; it wouldn’t make us try to get by with a little more coasting and less effort. It just makes me a little sad to think that these wonderful times that I will remember every day of my life may not be as accessible to him as he grows up.

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