metaphortunate | Entries tagged with parenting

Also,

Dear lady at the Tate Modern two years ago, who moved seats from sitting next to me in the cafeteria when I started nursing the Junebug, saying that you didn't want to intrude on our "intimate time":

At the time, I thought you were being hilariously precious. Last night, as I was nursing Rocket in a sling while simultaneously cooking dinner (and let's be clear, when I say "cooking dinner" I mean "boiling pasta and heating up frozen meatballs in jarred pasta sauce") and resignedly playing my part in the Junebug's attempt to determine whether his magnetic letters will stick only to the refrigerator and the dishwasher or whether they will also stick to Rocket or me, I thought of your consideration, and it nearly moved me to tears.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/58337.html

Internets, I come to you for advice.

In my previous incarnation as a much more attractive person who had no children, I didn't come into contact with a lot of kids. And when I did, in retrospect, I realize, I kind of interacted with them on their own level. I didn't do much dealing with them as an authority figure. I set boundaries more in the way that kids set boundaries with each other: rather than as parents do, with rules.

Now that I have kids, I have rules. No spitting in the house, spitting is only for outside. Use your inside voice inside, outside voice is for outside. You may only throw things if they are squishy. You can climb into the baby's crib but not stand in it because it is not stable enough. You can poke Mama gently but not hard. You must be gentle with the baby. If food lands on the floor, your meal is over. You must ask before picking up my phone. That sort of thing.

So that's easy enough to do with my child - relatively speaking, I mean. Mr. E and I decide what the rules are, and the Junebug decides whether he would rather follow them or take the consequences, and we decide what the consequences are and enforce them.

But then there are other people's kids. Other people's kids come over to our house or whatever, and now there are questions. Do they have to follow our rules? If they don't have to follow our rules, why does the Junebug have to? Especially if it's rules about not grabbing toys or hats from each other/taking turns/not hitting: I want to enforce good manners from my child, but I really do not want to teach him that I will enforce rules about respect on him but not on anyone else. If other kids have to follow our rules, do I enforce consequences if they choose not to? Their parents will have Opinions about that. If I had infinite time to discuss with the parents in advance, I'm sure we could come to reasonable agreements, because my friends are all reasonable people: but we don't, and consequences need to happen in real time for kids to take them onboard.

And how do I back up other parents' consequences? If a kid does something to me or my stuff that their parent has told them not to do, how do I reaffirm that it's bad and I don't like it without implying that their kid is bad or that their parenting is bad?

Internets, how do you deal with other people's kids, when you're not in an official position of authority over them? (Nannying is different, I expect.)

This question brought to you by the frequent interaction of:

Junebug: *grabs at someone on the bus, or at their phone*
Me: Stop. Do not grab at the people. They do not want to be grabbed.
Stranger: Oh, it's okay, it's fine.
Stranger: *wants to make me feel better about my ill-mannered child*
Junebug: *learns that Mama is making up rules for no reason*
Me: *is frustrated*

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/57884.html

In my ongoing effort to care about baseball, I recently made Mr. E watch Moneyball, as recommended by luna. That was a genuinely funny film. It had a real uphill battle to make me like it, starting by being in one of my least favorite genres, (Almost) Nothing But Old-ish White Guys Staring Grimly At Each Other. And there was a lot of bleak in it. But, perhaps by contrast, the funny lines left us helpless with laughter for minutes on end. It was a damn good film.
I went to see Vienna Teng with dr_memory and it was fantastic, she is fantastic. Live is really the best way to see her and her crew. Check out "Copenhagen".

We were talking about how the music that is on the radio these days, 95% of it, the lyrics, it has as much relevance to our lives as if it were about the habits of the mantis shrimp. Which, mantis shrimp are very beautiful and interesting animals! I would happily listen to a song about mantis shrimp. A number of songs about mantis shrimp, even. But, uh, maybe not nothing but music about mantis shrimp? I mean, what about, just to mix it up a little, music about lemurs? Music about the majestic and serene squid? Maybe even music about people because you know sometimes you like to hear a song that says something about your interests.

Anyway, so, Vienna Teng's latest album, Aims, includes a song about Occupy Wall Street, one about big data collection and privacy, another one about privacy and the fluctuating definition of the self, one about technological infrastructure, one about taking care of aging parents, and so on, and it's fantastic. Don't listen to it in the car; the music is delicate, you need to be able to hear it.
With two kids now, on weekends, when the toddler is home all day, it is like I spend the entire day cleaning asses. By the time I go to bed I don't even wanna take a dump because then I would have to take care of my own ass and I am DONE WITH CLEANING ASSES FOR THE DAY.

And before you ask, Mr. E does diapers. He does all the nighttime diapers - all of them. And a fair number of the daytime ones. I think we may be feeding the toddler too much roughage. He likes broccoli, though. And apples.
Urgh, I don't know. Things. Hey, if you saw me this week, and I looked like I was literally about to die, I'm feeling better. I got some sleep. It was good to see you all, though, even if I was a Poe-esque silent slumped figure of death at the party. Sorry about that.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/57667.html

I had lunch with

laurashapiro today!

She came over. "Come in!" I said. "Don't walk over there. The Junebug just pissed all over the floor. I haven't been able to clean it up yet because I have a baby attached to my boob." Eventually the Junebug finished getting cleaned up by Mr. E and wandered into the living room. He stared shyly at Laura in silence for many minutes.

Finally he volunteered, "I farting in mine underwears."

My life is FULL OF CLASS.

Lunch was goddamn delightful though. I took two hours off from children for the first time since Rocket was born. Mr. E took both of them solo for the first time and Laura and I went off to a French restaurant to have charcuterie and vegetables and caffeine and booze and truly decadent, possibly even degenerate, dessert.

Lunch had been scheduled in advance but there is no day that I could have needed it more. I woke up beat down. The Junebug came home sick from daycare on Tuesday and there was a lot of vomiting and laundry and then just, I don't know, he's totally well now which is wonderful but the kids have been wearing me down. I've been getting upset over things that are really not worth getting upset over. Having a break has helped SO MUCH. It reset some kind of internal switch. I was able to be fond of everyone again for the rest of the day. And now I will go and pass out, probably with a baby attached to my boob.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/56700.html

We're very excited over here because the Junebug has transitioned to the room for the next older kids in his daycare. This is exciting because this is the room in which they start doing toilet training! Oh, the teachers in his old room were willing to ask him if he wanted to use the potty once in a while, but this is the room in which all the kids are doing it and it is seriously part of the daily schedule. And while we have agreed not to start sending him to daycare in underwear in the same month as he switched rooms and gained a baby brother; we will phase out daytime diapers entirely next month, if all goes well.

Unfortunately the more immediate consequence is that he is in a new room, with brand new kids to make friends with, who are carrying a variety of exciting new diseases. So he and I are both sick. Poor little guy. To no one's surprise, the ability to recognize that you are not actually feeling overwhelmed to the point of breaking down in tears because you were given bok choy instead of broccoli for dinner, but instead because your nose is running and you are tired; and to accept that the cure is not broccoli, it is going to bed early; is a fairly advanced one. It does not seem to manifest at the age of two.

Frankly it is still sometimes hard to keep in mind in my late 30s.

If you haven't had a baby in the last 20 years or so, you may not have heard of the Safe to Sleep or Back to Sleep campaign. Basically, they have started recommending that babies under the age of a year sleep by themselves, on their backs, in light clothing, with no blanket, without a hat. And since this has started, deaths from SIDS have dropped by 50%.

Which is, obviously, great. The only problem is that no one has yet managed to explain this to the babies. And most babies - okay, babies vary, and I know there are lucky people whose babies prefer to sleep on their backs alone on an infinite plane, but it turns out that most babies prefer to sleep on their bellies. Most babies like to sleep on a person, or near a person. They like to be held and they like to be warm.

And when they're newborns, they need to eat every two to three hours. Not from meal's end to meal's beginning; from beginning to beginning. And if you're nursing, then you, lucky person, are the one who has to wake up every two hours. And stay awake, perhaps, for at least half an hour, if you're not lucky enough to be able to sleep while the baby nurses, which is less likely when the baby is a newborn who is still getting the hang of this nursing thing and needs help keeping the boob in his mouth and so on. So there's a good chance that you will sleep, max, for an hour and a half at a time, for weeks on end.

And so at two in the morning you will find yourself, with your dulled mind, facing the fact that you can lay your baby down, on his back, in the approved safest fashion, in his crib, and he will cry and fuss for forty minutes and then perhaps you can sleep for forty minutes and then he will cry until you wake up to nurse him again. Or you can put him on his side in your bed next to you and he will be asleep in five minutes. Maybe less. And you can sleep twice as long. And he has a higher risk of dying. And not only that, of course; if he dies of SIDS on his back in his crib, that would be a terrible tragedy. But if he dies in your bed, that would be a terrible tragedy which will be your fault. So, you know. You can think about that while you go to sleep.

God forgive us all, if you take that risk for an extra half an hour's sleep, you'll be far from the only one.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/54737.html

For those who have not yet reproduced, but may in the future:

There are basically 3 changing table options.

1) No changing table. This is what we thought we'd go with, originally, with the Junebug: we got this type of changing pad, and figured we'd put it on the floor or sofa or bed or what have you for convenience of wherever we happened to be. This might even have worked if it didn't turn out that newborns need to be changed 8 to 15 times a day. Our backs were killing us by the end of day ONE. Mr. E had to go on an emergency shopping trip to get us a thing we could change the baby on without stooping.

But it still probably wouldn't have been a good idea, because the other thing about a permanent changing table is, it gives you a convenient place to store the diapers, wipes, diaper cream, lotion, washcloths, medication, etc. that you need when changing the little wrigglers.

2) A mobile changing table. That is what we ended up with. Please note that storing things on open shelves like this is an invitation to your toddler to go digging for buried treasure and strewing things all over the floor. Also, once the kid hits about 25 lbs or so, you're going to get motivated to toilet train it before it starts bouncing around on the changing table and collapses to the floor in a big pile of owie and kindling.

3) A changing pad on top of a dresser like this. Sturdier, and neater storage. However, the big disadvantage is: especially if you have a boy, when you're not fast enough with the new diaper, and the kid pisses all over the wall and down behind the dresser and onto the floor, it is going to be a giant pain in the ass to clean all that up, as opposed to the wheeled one you can just roll away.

And yes, he will get the wall, especially if he simultaneously shits all the way down the other side of the changing table and barfs all over himself, at 2 in the morning. Sometimes all you can do is stand, awestruck, in the face of Nature.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/54349.html

And then I had two baby boys.

Rocket was born in the wee hours a week ago.

( Cut for birth details )

( First world problems )

Anyway, I need to go to bed. Expect more doofy hormonal ramblings in a few days, I'm sure.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/53381.html

You may have seen that article going around about how it's totally useless to tell your white kids that "everyone is equal". (Spoiler: it has no effect on shaping your kids' beliefs on race because it is prompted and shaped by no actual beliefs on race.) Someone on Twitter - I can't remember who, sing out if it was you - said, well, what do POC want people to tell their white kids about race?

And I've been thinking about that for days on end.

Partly I don't have a good answer because my kid is only 2, and I know exactly as much about parenting as you need to know in order to have a 2 year old. I don't know anything about kids older than that. I'd love to hear from parents of older kids.

Partly my answer is very simple and not trivial for everyone and, for the reason mentioned above, appropriate for a 2 year old. Mention race. Like this:

(while reading picture book) "That little black girl is playing ball. That little white boy is running."
"The president is black. His daddy was from Africa."
"Our neighbors are Taiwanese. They are Asian. Asia is the continent across the Pacific. You are white. That means your family came from Europe [a long time ago/when your grandma was a little girl/two years ago]."
"Your best friend at daycare's daddy is black and her mama is white. Doesn't she have pretty curly hair?"
"Mama's friend S. is Indian. They're coming over this afternoon and you can play with R."

And it's not trivial because to do it right you have to actually have the neighbors and the kid at the daycare and the friend. That's the important bit. It's helpful not to act like being other than white is some kind of embarrassing faux pas that other people are doing but that polite people never mention! But as the article says, if you talk about how everyone is the same, but your kids see that you only ever spend time with white people….well. Kids aren't dumb.

But of course that's not the beginning and end of the story of race. God. Me personally, just off the top of my head: we're going to have to talk about the Civil War, and the Japanese internment camps, and Israel and Palestine, and hip-hop, and all that shit my one cousin says about Trayvon Martin, and why the people look different in the different neighborhoods in our city, and, eventually, why I call my kid white but myself not quite*.

And, after thinking and thinking and thinking about it, there's a lot I want white kids to hear about race. But the really hard parts aren't race-specific. Though of course it will be important to explicitly connect them to race, because otherwise people can develop some truly hilarious blind spots, it will be just as important to connect them to other inequalities. And these are the things I have no god damned idea how I'm going to try to teach:

1) People are frequently unbelievably horrible to each other, and profit by it, and suffer no bad consequences. But don't do it anyway.

2) Sometimes when you do the right thing you will get no reward of any kind for it, and in fact you'll pay for it, and sometimes you'll get shit on. But do it anyway.

And if you have advice on how I can make that sound convincing, I'd love to hear it.

------

*Mr. E is white, and if you've never met me, these days my expressed racial identity can probably best be expressed by the fact that my one co-worker has (unsolicited) told me (twice) that I look totally white. That about sums it up. The genetic mix of us has produced a kid who looks like he could be made out of mayo, basically. So this question is relevant to me.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/52098.html

Well. There's so much to do before the baby comes. I had been daydreaming of taking a sick day from work.

However, an important part of my daydream had been not actually being sick. Sick days when you are sick are surprisingly unproductive. Although not entirely un-fun. If you have to be sick, there's a lot to be said for being sick while the toddler is at day care and you can lie alone on the couch by the window and read. Or sleep, even if it is a feverish, tossing and turning kind of sleep. Incidentally I do not recommend trying to toss and turn when nearly 8 months pregnant.

Actually, quick note to my friends who have said that they are thinking about second kids. Do not discount the exhaustion of pregnancy. It was not easier this time. It was harder. This is probably individual, but my experience was probably because of two things. 1) So much energy goes to the kid I already have. 2) I am in much worse shape for this pregnancy. Before I had the Junebug I worked out all the time, I was in great shape. Before I got pregnant with Hypo I got to run maybe once a week, or twice if I was lucky, and bike to work once a week rather than four or five times. That has made a huge difference and not a good one. My margin is razor thin right now. Do you know why I'm sick today? I'm pretty sure it's because last weekend I decided to be disciplined and get shit done and I stayed up late. Stay up late to get things done one day = be sick for three days, lose one day of work entirely. I literally cannot push myself: the resources are not there.

Something to think about.

In good news, the Junebug continues basically delightful. 25 months has been a revelation. I can tell him something as complicated as "Your toys are in the living room. You could go get some toys and then come play in the kitchen while Mama makes dinner," and he will go and get his toys and bring them back. And sit in his toy bin and tell me how it is a double decker bus. It's wonderful. Less wonderful is his occasional need to listen to "The Wheels On The Bus" fifteen times in a row, but I remind myself that he can't make me, I have the authority, but he has control over so little in his life that it is an act of generosity and kindness to let him listen to the song he wants, plus it is okay to say that fifteen times is enough.

Sometimes I will catch sight of him and have a moment of weirdness - there's a little boy in my house! What the hell? Whose little boy is this? Where are his parents? before it's like my brain snaps into focus and I realize that my baby is gone, this is my little boy. And then I have to go over and hug him really hard because we are the only parents he has. Nobody else is going to take care of him. I'm his only mama, and sometimes that makes me want to cry for him, because some part of me feels like he should have a real mama. God only knows what I mean by that. Someone younger? Older? Someone who always wanted kids? Maybe someone who stays home full-time? Probably someone who owns a sewing machine. I think some part of my brain thinks that a real mama has the time and sewing skills to make a kid's Halloween costume. I know rationally that no kid who eats as much meat and berries as this kid does could really be described as anything but insanely lucky and possibly spoiled, but you try telling the deep patterns in my brain that.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/51938.html

Alas. I fear it can no longer be denied. After two blessed years of the Junebug being equally fond of both parents, dammit, he has decided to pick a favorite.

I am personally convinced that this is sheer fuckery motivated by the desire to demand that the 7.5-month pregnant woman be the one to haul his nearly 30-lb butt up the stairs several times a day, despite the presence nearby of a perfectly good daddy, plus obviously my enormous and fragile belly is the one he needs to jump on during weekend mornings when we get to laze about in bed for a few minutes. But it's no fun for Mr. E either; as he says, how come you get the cuddles and I get to unclog the toilet?

Have y'all dealt with this? Has it been temporary? Has it switched back and forth? Any advice?

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/51489.html

Hey! What have y'all been up to?

siblings

Last night I got to hear the story of Mr. E's friend's older son meeting his newborn brother for the very first time. They had a homebirth, so toddler boy got whisked away early in the morning and came back to find a very tired mama nursing a very small baby. Well, mama was happy to see him of course, and he got to climb up on her lap, and since he was still nursing at that point too, he started nursing on the other side. Latched on. Looked over at his newborn baby brother.

Reached out and just straight-armed him right off the boob.

Oh, this bodes well. (The Junebug isn't nursing anymore, though. Maybe that will make things easier? No idea.)

toilet training

Toilet training is…a thing. We're still going. I have been tempted to give up many times. It is definitely a two-steps-forward-one-step-back kind of process. Things will be going so well that I'll think it's time to try taking the underwear out on a trip. (What we're doing is, he wears underwear at home when he's awake, and then he wears diapers for outside the house, naps, and bedtime.) And then he'll have a day with five accidents. :(

Things that have helped:

We haven't tried M&Ms yet, although I have been considering it. Instead, we have presented flushing as an exciting treat that you only get to do if you actually use the potty. It involves cheering, waving bye-bye, and talking about how the poop is going off on its poop adventure through the sewer system to the ocean.

We got underwear with dogs on it, which he enjoys wearing and requests; and also, we talk about how the doggies HATE being dirty or wet, and every time we pull down his trousers and his underwear is dry, the doggies bark for joy, which the Junebug really likes.

What has been a HUGE help is the Aqueduck faucet extender. It was getting really hard for me to lift him up so that he could wash his hands, and he hated it, so it was trauma every time, which is something we were trying not to associate with using the potty. We put this on the faucet and now he can reach the water from the stepstool without any help - it's changed everything.

This week I am hopeful because for the first time he has requested to wear underwear to daycare. We told him that when he can use the potty at daycare every day, then he can wear underwear to daycare. If he starts WANTING to wear underwear, the battle will be more than half won.

the dangers of generalizing from your own experience

I'm at the stage in this pregnancy when I see outfits on mannequins in shop windows as I go by, and they go in at the waist, or have belts, and I get all angry, like "who the fuck are they thinking could wear that?" And then I remember, oh yeah - anyone who's not currently six months pregnant or more, which is actually most people, self. (Clothes in shop windows that would never fit me no matter what are a different issue, but I'm not talking about those. Just, totally normal outfits that don't accommodate a whole different person bulging out of your guts.)

accidentally washing your own brain

Mr. E went out of town for three days to his sister's wedding. It was the longest I've ever had to solo parent, because I have been so very lucky. And it is not that long. Three days.

Now, Mr. E is not one of those like 50s detached dads who don't know how anything in the household is run. The way we do things is that he does most of the dealing with the Junebug in the mornings and gets him off to daycare, and I pick him up and do more of the evening stuff. Friday was, I think, the very first time in the Junebug's life that I was the one who packed his lunch in the morning. (And then I forgot it, but that's another story.)

And yet. In just three days of solo parenting. When Monday came around and Mr. E was back and organizing the Junebug's breakfast just like always, I caught myself having the thought, maybe I should stick around in the kitchen instead of going to take my shower, just in case they need help.

Three. Freaking. Days.

I had this conversation with my friend J one time. There are many reasons why women still take on so much more of the childcare burden. J has her own business - but she works from home, while her husband works full time out of the home, and if you've ever worked from home you know how it is almost impossible - for you and others - to think of your time as unavailable in the same way. There are societal pressures as to outcomes (clean house, kid behavior) that bear on women that are much lighter or nonexistent on men. There's lots of things. But one of those things is that as women we are socialized that guys cannot be trusted to take care of their kids and will not do it as well as we will. J openly said, yes the working from home, etc., but another one of the reasons she does most of the child raising is that she wants things done the way she wants them done and she is willing to take on more work in order to make more of those decisions.

Me, I want a more equal division of the work, and I get it - but the tradeoff is, I have to accept more things being done Mr. E's way. And Lord knows you've heard some of the arguments about that. And in three days my brain decided to sneak in some programming about how maybe I should take some of that work off of Mr. E. You know. Just in case he needed some help.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD, PATRIARCHY!

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/50033.html

Took the bus home with the Junebug on my lap as usual, talking about inside voices, about how the doors on the bus open and close, just like every day.

Right before our stop, another woman on the bus asked me: "Are you the babysitter, or...?"

"No," I said cheerfully, "I'm his mother."

"Really! Wow, well you're really good with him! So many people just seem so, you know..." she said, and then it was our stop so I just said "Thanks!" and we got off.

??
!!

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/49474.html

Don't have kids, guys.

Seriously. Just don't do it. Have long lazy afternoons puttering around. Have inventive, acrobatic, energetic sex that you're not too tired for and don't have to get finished before the baby wakes up. Have good relationships where you can pay attention to each other. Have relaxed lazy evenings in bars with friends and interesting cocktails. Have a career you can put your heart and soul into. Have hobbies. Have political interests that you can do work on. Have good friends, that you can stay close to. Have conversations that don't get interrupted four times a minute. Have parties. Go to parties and don't leave at 7. Go to parties that don't cost $60 for the babysitter. Go on planes and don't spend fifteen hours with someone crying and trying to climb up you by hanging on to your nipples. Don't spend your life wiping poop. Don't spend your life wiping noses. Don't spend your life wiping someone else endlessly. For the love of god, don't put yourself through pregnancy. Don't fill your house with plastic crap. Don't fill your life with worry about whether the baby's doing all right and getting everything it needs. Don't shift yourself down to about #12 on your own list of priorities. Don't get yourself stuck in a situation good and hard. Don't spend all your time having to tell someone "no" literally every 2 minutes, all day, every day. Don't spend all your time fighting with someone about every single thing that has to get done in a day, from going up stairs to eating dinner. Don't do it. I'm telling you: don't have kids. Let other people send you pictures of their kids and feel a bit wistful about it, before you move on to your latest book or TV show or project or pet or trip or job or nap. Have a life. Have love. Have yourself.

The Junebug continues to be wonderful and adorable. He continues to be the easiest baby ever. I don't regret having him. But I can sort of tell that I can't. It's not biologically possible right now, apparently. Which I'm sure is for the best. But if you haven't gotten yourself into this yet? Run. Run now. Run away from anything that might get you into this and never look back.

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/48743.html

Request for specific toilet training help/information: ( Cut for explicit discussion of dealing with poop )

Crossposts: http://metaphortunate.livejournal.com/48033.html

Also, I motherfucking hate Mother's Day now. It means for a week the entire newsocommentarianet has been full of pieces and comments and forwards and bullshit based on the respected peer-reviewed journal of Pulling Opinions Out of My Ass about motherhood, and how awful it is, and how we are screwing up our children's lives, and our own lives, and the world, and blah blah blah, and while normally I just let that kind of opinion from people I don't know slide right on by, it turns out I am extremely insecure about parenting, and motherhood, and so this shit gets to me. It gets me right in the unknowable. So I've spent this week anxious and depressed. Bastards.