metaphortunate son

Last week was a hard week. Traffic gets worse as it gets later, and it takes us longer to get home, so I've arranged my schedule so that I only need to pick the kids up lateish from daycare one day a week. Except that last week, for various reasons, it was four days. So we were getting home late, having a long exhausting commute, eating dinner late, going to bed late, still getting up early. And one late afternoon, having already picked up Rocket and carrying him on my front, and my backpack with all his gear and milk and so on on my back, I was trudging up the stairs on my way to get the Junebug. And I love the Junebug, I do. But I got passed by one of his little classmates' mothers, and I saw little A. beyond the glass doors jumping up and down and waving at her mother, and just for a second, I had this momentary passionate wish that I were on my way to pick up a kid who was going to be happy to see me. Instead of what the Junebug does, which is see me, shriek, and run away, sometimes hiding.

It's not that he doesn't like me - I swear. It's honestly for a very good reason, which is that the last thing of the day is outdoor free play, which he adores, and he loves his daycare, and whenever I pick him up he is busy playing legos or digging sand or playing doggie with his friends or something like that. And I am there to interrupt his game, take him away from his friends, make him use the potty and then make him go commute. So he's not happy to see me.

It's also just his personality, though. He's always been this way. Remember "oh no! Why are all these smooches happening to the baby?" Then we had Rocket, and I was shocked to discover that some babies kiss you back! Rocket loves snuggles and kisses! The Junebug would rather eat a bug! That is just the way he is, and I do a lot of gritting my teeth and remembering that I need to love my kid for who he is, not who I want him to be, and accepting that he expresses affection with headbutts and asking us to pretend to be "stingrazors" with him. (Stingrays. But I must admit that his version is cooler.)

FUCK, though, this week my mom is here, and she is not at all on board with this accepting people for who they are. She thinks the lack of hugs is my fault, because apparently I haven't taught him how to show affection. I.e. I say "You don't have to hug if you don't want to." And I thought that she was coming to spend time with the kids? But she hasn't volunteered to keep either of them home from daycare with her any days, and finally Mr. E and I said why doesn't the Junebug stay with her tomorrow and they can go to the zoo, but this afternoon she was saying that if he doesn't like her anymore (i.e., won't accept hugs) maybe she shouldn't. So, fuck, I don't know. How much of this is her sulking because the Junebug doesn't hug, and how much of this is because we suggested it and there's her thing where she would donate both her kidneys plus her liver to me as long as I don't ask but if I ask for anything then I'm being difficult and she doesn't want to do it.

Fuuuuuuck. Hey, guess what? Rocket has his first sign! Guess what it is?

Yeah, he shakes his head "no". Way to live up to the stereotype, kid. Still. Exciting!

My mother and I took the kids out to dinner tonight.

Sitting at the next table on the patio were a group of people with a number of small dogs in doggy football jerseys. They looked at the 12-month-old, with his toothless grin, who cannot speak English, feed himself properly, or stand up without holding on to things; and then they looked at the 3-year-old, three times his age, who speaks in complex sentences, walks for blocks, pretends to be an airplane, pours his own water, butters his own bread, and cuts his own meat; and then they asked me if they were twins.

Non-parents, I know it's just three short years since I left your ranks, but you are hilarious.

Mr. E and the Junebug were out to the East Coast for family stuff for a couple of days, and here’s the thing. Once you’re used to two kids? Taking care of just one baby who isn’t even crawling yet is like:



Like, what the fuck was even my problem when the Junebug was this age and I thought my life was soooo haaaaaaaard. Whatever. Hung out with laurashapiro today, and basically had uninterrupted adult conversation except periodically I got to blow a raspberry on a baby to make him giggle. Glorious.

One of my mom’s friends has a gay kid, which my mom knows because he’s out on Facebook, which she thinks is “just wrong” and I think “literally what the fuck else is Facebook for,” and talking to her about this stuff is always such a trip because the basic assumptions are just so far apart. Like, she’s telling me that this couple with the gay son, sometimes they’ll be watching TV, you know Univision, and some cross-dressing comedian will come on and the dad will get furious because he hates it. And I’m trying to clear it up, and I literally cannot figure out whether the dad is angry because the comedian is making fun of trans people/gay people/men in women’s clothing, or whether he’s angry simply because a man in a dress is on his television reminding him that actual trans/gay/crossdressing people exist. No amount of questioning can elicit a straight (sorry!) answer. And by the way, yes that is all one thing in their world, you are just talking about dudes who act like ladies or vice versa. If you try to explain that transgender, gayness, and crossdressing are not the same thing, you get met with a sort of blank stare like “look, I’m sure sparrows can tell each other apart, but what the fuck is the difference to humans?” Ah, family.

Speaking of gayness, I am completely over Jane Austen adaptations, which makes me angry that I just realized that what would be completely awesome would be a lesbian Pride & Prejudice AU, where Darcy is a girl - named Darcy - who stands around Firthing and resisting Elizabeth’s charms not because Elizabeth is broke and her mom’s intolerable but because Darcy is desperately clinging to straightness and refuses to admit that she’s fallen in love with a girl. Best part: the title? PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Come on, that title is a million times better for the lesbian AU than it is for the original!

Thinking about this because my body has decided to let me know that we are ready! To try for another baby! In other words, this is your periodic reminder that the natural wisdom of the body is frequently an enormous load of horseshit. No more babies. Rocket is my last baby. And yes I am sad about that, but sad in that way that anything you do or have for the last time always has a bit of a breath from the grave. It’s me I’m mourning, and the narrowing of possibilities in my life, not hypothetical future babies. Because I love my guys but they are enough. I’m good.

However, one thing I am truly savoring about my last baby is something I did not know enough to know was a special joy of the baby phase when I had it with the Junebug. See, when the Junebug was a tiny baby I wanted to kiss him basically just all the time. He was always covered in lipstick. But, see, what I didn’t know is that that urge to kiss him all the time, it wouldn’t be going away. It’s still there.

From something Mr. E’s mom said once, it may not go away when he’s in his thirties, either.

But people who are nearly three, they don’t want to be kissed all the time. There are logs to climb and songs to yell and trucks to push around and scooters to ride and racecars to vroom and who’s got time to stand around and be kissed all the time? Hell no. So - while I cannot precisely say that I am enjoying every moment - at midnight, 3 am, and 5 am you will hear me murmuring in a soothing voice that this is exactly why nobody likes babies, you tiny jerk - I can say that I am delighting in every moment that I kiss Rocket’s fat little cheeks or soft little belly or tiny toes or delicate little fingers or squishy little elbows, and he beams all over his face or even breaks into laughter of joy. Me kissing him is the highlight of his whole day. Oh man, if I zerbert his face, it is the funniest and funnest thing that has ever happened to a baby. I want to kiss him all the time, and he wants to be kissed all the time, and for this brief brief moment, I hug him and kiss him, and we are one in our delight.

Okay, this is why parenting is terrifying.

Elodie Glass lays out 85% of interpersonal problems ever:



For the non-image-enabled: basically, if you don't like a thing that someone does, and you have already asked them to stop, and they don't stop, you can either live with it or peace out. You cannot make them stop doing the thing.

Except when you're parenting, you HAVE TO. YOU HAVE TO. All the time! Like, you HAVE to teach them not to shit their pants, and you have to keep them from setting the cat on fire, and so on. You can't just live with them shitting their pants forever, and you can't go away from them. You have to repeat "ask them not to do the thing" like one million times, and then move on to

bribe them with M&Ms? -> Do they still do the thing?
showers -> Do they still do the thing?
time outs -> Do they still do the thing?
loss of privileges -> Do they still do the thing?
cute underwear with Elmo on it -> Do they still do the thing?
long term bribery -> Do they still do the thing?
long explanations -> Do they still do the thing?
????????? -> Do they still do the thing?

CAN'T YOU JUST MAKE THEM NOT DO THE THING? No! You cannot - there is nothing on the chart that leads to "make them stop doing the thing!" And yet WE HAVE TO. We are literally off the chart of human interaction here! strange geometries surround us - losing san points as we speak…

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AND ROCKET HAS A TINY LITTLE POINTY THING IN HIS MOUTH. What even is this week, oh my God!

I have always been insistent that we are teaching the children, by talking and by example, about consent, and that one's body belongs to oneself, as much as possible within the limits of childhood. So, we talk about how everybody has to go in the carseat and get strapped in whether they want to or not, and if the Junebug doesn't want to go, I will put him there. Because that is a thing that has to happen. But if I want to tickle him, and he doesn't want to be tickled, then I don't tickle him, because tickling is just for fun, and if fun isn't fun for everyone, it's not fun.

(That concept was introduced to me by kcatalyst: that if a game isn't fun for everyone, you have to play something else. My immediate reaction was "that's ridiculous! That would never work! How could you find something that was fun for everyone?" But I think kcatalyst is very smart and has done a lot of thinking about how life should be, so I sat with that. For a long time. And I have been convinced. It sure wasn't the way I was raised, and I think there's probably a useful addition somewhere analogous to what Cliff Pervocracy has to say about the validity of unenthusiastic consent; i.e., it's okay if something's not someone's favorite game, they may be willing to play it to trade so that later someone else will play their favorite game, or whatever. But, rules lawyering aside: yeah. The idea that if a game is fun for three out of the four of you and the fourth is crying, it's not a good game…yeah. Wow, I really like that, and I'm sad that it took me so long to realize that.)

So I've been asking the Junebug if I can smooch him, or hug him, or tickle him. And he almost always says no. And I have strictly respected that. So, no smooching, no hugging, no tickling, no nose booping…the other day, though, I did something that, if I had done it to another adult, would have been really skeevy. I said I was going to boop his nose, and he said, of course, "No! No nose boop." I did not boop his nose. But I teased him, sort of exploring the limits, and ended up booping his elbow, and his toes, and he ended up shrieking with giggles, and the whole rest of the evening was playful. The truth is that I respected the letter but not the spirit of his "no". And things went much better. It was the evening that we had such a lovely time together.

And I've been doing that more over the past few days. And things between us have been going much better. I've stopped explicitly asking if I can tickle him, etc. I've stopped strictly respecting the spirit of "no, don't tickle me!" in the way I would with an adult. And I think we're both happier.

You know, the reason that the Junebug does not get to make the decision whether or not to ride in his carseat is not because he would make the wrong decision. Even if he liked it and would choose to, that wouldn't mean he's competent to decide, because he still wouldn't understand the situation and the consequences. He is not competent to decide whether he wants to be strapped into the carseat.

That was immediately obvious to me; it has been less obvious, but I have learned, that he is not yet competent to decide that he doesn't want to eat breakfast. With an adult, or an older kid, I will someday be able to say "That's up to you, but if you don't eat now, you'll be hungry on the way to daycare." The Junebug is not old enough to make that decision, I know. He doesn't follow that chain of consequences yet. It is up to me to get him to eat breakfast so that he has a happy morning.

I am starting to think that he is not competent to decide that he doesn't want to play and he wants to reject any friendly overtures and be in a bad mood that will last all evening. I want to give him as much autonomy as possible over his body, but - the effects of not being played with are more subtle than the effects of not having his butt wiped, but I see now that they are there. I don't let him choose not to have his butt wiped. And things have been going better when I have not been letting him choose not to be played with.

Conclusion…I don't know. Consent in kids is a moving target, I guess. We will have to keep paying attention.

Chill out project, today's result:

1) Attempted not to freak out about things but just take things one at a time.
2) Junebug ate dinner late, got to bed a half hour late.
3) Junebug was an entire delight all evening, with a few freakout exceptions possibly caused by hunger.
4) Junebug can go upstairs all by himself and fetch Rocket a clean bib. In fact, will insist upon it.
5) Rocket has been sucking the ol' boobs dry, but that's probably not related.

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On another note, is there like a one drop rule for gender in kids' clothing? Rocket has a blue pyjama with pink piping and I realize it kind of looks like girls' clothes to me because of that pink despite that it is like 90% blue. I mean, he's wearing it anyway because I don't care, but I thought that was interesting.

We had rather nice holidays. Well, we were asleep by 10 on New Year's Eve. Which was also what we did on Christmas Eve, for which my mom called us carrots. Well, "zanahorias", which literally means "carrots" but is slang for "losers". Apparently it's been a while since she had two kids under 3. Well, I should know: it's been over 35 years. I had my birthday, by the way, and Mr. E got me a surprise hour-long massage. IT WAS WONDERFUL.

Other delightful thing Mr. E has done recently: we have an hour and a half phone timer set to put the Junebug on the potty. Mr. E is teaching the Junebug that when it goes off, that is his booty call.

Anyway, New Year's Day we went over to the house of the parents of one of the Junebug's little daycare buddies. I wouldn't say we're friends exactly yet but we're definitely going in that direction, which makes me happy. Lots of little kids there and parents to keep an eye on them. The Junebug is just beginning to be old enough to play by himself at a party so that both parents can go in the next room and have some quick socializing and mimosa. It is great. The mom of the two and four year olds who were there made a point of gripping me by the arm and looking into my eyes and telling me that it gets better. Which I really appreciated. She said that by the time her little one was 6 months old they were ganging up on her (i.e., parent scolds baby, older kid says "You can't talk to her that way!") which I said was exactly what I want.

Oh, my mom. I realize that I am at full on bitch eating crackers mode with her, which is, I won't exactly say unfair, since I didn't get here by myself, but unhelpful. And the worst part is she knows it. So whenever she's suggesting or asking about anything that she doesn't really consider important, she's heartbreakingly deferential and hesitant.

So, this is my mom suggesting that we listen to some tunes:
"Do you think we could…I have on my iPod…we could listen…or no. No. Maybe we better not. Maybe you wouldn't like it. Never mind. Unless you really want to, that is."

And this is my mom telling me that I'm holding my baby wrong:
"Oh my god, you're not holding his head, he's going to fall. Look, let me carry him."

Now if it were up to me, I would reverse the confidence with which those two suggestions are made. And yet, I can see the logic!

Also speaking of getting things backwards, I discovered one of the reasons why my mom spends so much time eye rolling at our baby raising practices. Apparently 40 years ago when I was a baby, the medical advice she got was - though to be honest, by "medical advice" she probably means "my terrifyingly fatphobic dad told her" - that babies should be on a feeding schedule, because otherwise they'll want to eat when they don't really need to. So my brother and I were on strict feeding schedules from tiny babies…but on the other hand, we never had a bedtime. Like, never. Whereas around here, anyone still nursing (that would be Rocket, at this point) gets to nurse whenever and wherever they want to, but we respect the naps* and the bedtime.

Which explains why, when mom watched the Junebug for us one night last week, we got home around 11 and I asked "So what time did he go to bed?"
"Well, when we talked on the phone he was still eating, you know, and it takes a while, you have to go upstairs, put on the pyjama…it takes a while."
"Right, so what time did he go to bed?"
"God, I don't know, okay? I didn't have my phone with me!"

…he went to bed at 10:30, didn't he. *facepalm*

And in my experience, no, babies do not eat just because they are bored. Babies eat when they're hungry. Mom asks, how do you know he's hungry? He just ate! And my answer is, I don't know, until I offer him the boob and see if he eats! I assure you, my baby has no concept of the polite nibble! If he's hungry he eats! If he's crying not because he's hungry but because he's tired, or his bib is uncomfortable, or he wants his diaper changed, or the moon is in the seventh house, or he's become overwhelmed by having hands, he doesn't politely react with "Aw, mom's doing her best. I will nurse a little to make her feel better." HE SCREAMS HIS FOOL HEAD OFF. MOM, YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. TRY SOMETHING ELSE. It's not ambiguous.

Ugh, my least favorite thing is when the Junebug is being two, and I can tell that if I were in a better mood I would find his endless energy and wanting to help adorable; but, because Rocket is screaming in my ear, or I'm tired, or something completely unrelated to him, it drives me nuts and I snap at him. Poor little guy, it's not his fault. I do my best, I swear, but sometimes my best is simply not good enough. ;____;

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* Way back in the day, before I went back to work the first time, we thought we would do a nanny share for the Junebug. It didn't work out, and he goes to daycare, and we're happy with it now, but before we tried daycare we tried meeting a number of people to see if we could work a nanny share with them. It was like trying to do a polyamorous arranged marriage. It was very complicated, which is why it didn't work out.

But there was one woman whom I met and she said that she had previously been doing a nanny share with another family, but it wasn't working out because they wouldn't RESPECT THE NAP. When their kid was with them, they would just get right off the nap schedule, and then it messed everything up for the nanny for the rest of the week. She needed someone who would RESPECT THE NAP.

At the time, my reaction was "Ooookay, lady, I think we need someone who is a little less control freakishly precise. That's…not really our bag." Now - of course she was right. The nap is key. RESPECT THE NAP.

Spend time around the hippie parenting areas of the internet, and you will run into the attachment parenting idea that leaving your baby alone to cry at all is a form of child abuse.

At first I thought this was wild-ass exaggeration. Now I think it's - these are all people with only one child, right? I mean, to even come up with this idea? Because let me tell you, when the toddler shits himself and starts to run around the house like a maniac giggling, I will be putting the baby down. And if that baby chooses to cry the entire time I am collaring his brother and wrestling him into the tub, then that is just what he will have to do, because I can't help him while I am dispensing justice and hygiene. I cannot have him strapped to my chest, not unless I want him being sharply kicked and having his poor little head shoved around by the large and active toddler making his very best effort to escape. Which incidentally wouldn't do much for the cause of not crying.