ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

I could probably write a 10000 word diatribe about relatives who get in the way after a new birth. It was worse with the first one, but they didn't exactly learn any lessons by the time the second one came along.

eesh that sucks. we lucked out, my mom was amazing in those early months. i remember the panic I felt the day after we got home from the hospital with sylvie, and then my mom shows up, and everything is OK. awwww.

oddly, her mom, from whom we didn't expect anything, has been a total lifesaver. Comes when we actually need help, never overstays her welcome, makes good but unobtrusive company. Maybe it's because it's the emotionally cool, unneedy ones who are more capable of actually being there for you in a true sense instead of "helping" for some kind of self-affirmation.

UPDATE: the kid who I suspect has some kind of developmental disability/autism/Idunnowhat, his parents are now looking into getting him into yet another preschool (this would be his 4th in two years). The mother was expressing some surprise the other day when it was pointed out that said kid does not engage in any imaginative play - like, at all. which is unusual for a 4 yo.

*sigh*

parental denial with things like autism is huge - my wife deals with it all the time as a sped teacher, and it's not always the parents you'd expect. I mean you get poor immigrant parents who have no idea what autism even is, but you also get highly educated parents who actually honestly still believe that their five year old who does not speak a word will "catch up" by "learning from his peers."

BTW only half-illustrative of the same point, but Leonard Lopate I believe has a child with autism, and I once heard him argue with a medical expert about the link between vaccines and autism on air!

i have a cousin who's got twins. his brother works with autistic kids and he has thought for a long time they show a lot of the early signs of autism. they're about 7 now. i don't really know what specific things he's seeing, but it's true that they can't focus on anything, they're very asocial, etc.. but their mother absolutely REFUSES to consider it. the very few times anyone in the family has broached the subject she has frozen up, shut down the conversation. the kids go to some kind of experimental school where there aren't any lessons or rules and which doesn't believe in "pigeonholing" kids, even those with autism. there are no assessments like that. in their eyes, every kid is just unique and that's that. i have a lot of time for that point of view and i do think that people's minds are way overmedicalized these days but these kids' mother's total refusal to even have them assessed by a pro is incredibly frustrating because it's impossible to even have the conversation. and the concerned brother is frustrated too because he says the longer you wait to deal with autism the harder it gets. GAH.

We saw the midwife today and talked about our fantasy birth plans! Planning our birth dinner. I learned how to time contractions and got teary-eyed, We're at 36 weeks now!

Soon soon soon! So excited for you guys!

We installed the car seat today...took 40 minutes and it was work out in the hot, Texas sun. Felt uber rewarding to get it in. J. did the most of the labor, I just read instructions and looked at illustrations and tried to make sense of it all.

sending you all my very best wishes.

car seats still stress me out, 2 1/2 years later.

I don't know why installing the car seat was so stressful but it was! The instructions weren't exactly easy to understand, I would read each step then look at the car seat, then read it again out loud and think what are they talking about! There were so many straps that we didn't use which made me think I was doing something wrong. Then once we thought it was finished, there was still too much play in it's movability, but we figured it out. I feel a little more like a dad already.

Thank you!

Are you installing without inbuilt LATCH system?

I saw something about LATCH in the instruction book. What does that mean exactly? We used the shoulder and lap belt and anchored it to the floor of the Jeep, per instructions. It was very stable after that.

Weirdly, I now find the car seat pretty simple to install, especially just the seat without the base with a normal seatbelt. I think a lot of what confused me was that there were instructions on installing it like four different ways, both with and without the base, and then like 20 diagrams of kinds of seatbelts you should or shouldn't install it with. I think most of the "shouldn't" ones were kinds that are probably only installed in like 1980s Saabs, but when I was ready to bring my baby home for the first time that was hard for me to see.

tera the LATCH system is standard on most 20XX model cars. Its basically a metal bracket hidden under the backs of back passenger seats that the infant/child carseat clips right on to. Super easy to install and uninstall. But yeah the whole using the seatbelt bit was v confusing.

Ah! Yeah we looked for that but the Jeep is an older model.

BROKEN ARM.

more to come

When Beeps was born, neither of our cars had the LATCH system. For awhile, she actually rode in the front seat of my 1998 Sonoma pick-up. I had to use the seat belt and one of these oh-so-very safe things:

http://www.seatbeltking.com/images/Child_Restraint_gated_buckle_SBK_ebay.jpg

At least I could turn the airbag off.

Though it wasn't the safest, I enjoyed our rides together in the morning where we could look at each other. I'd sing her a little song to the tune of "Eleanor Rigby":

On the way to daycare
Is where we're going now
On the way to daycare
We both will stay so strong.

(Hope nothing was serious Tracer. We went to a birthday party this weekend where a kid had a broken arm and let me tell you something, he was THE BAD ASS of the PLAYGROUND.)

uh oh broken arm!

I'm in peds clinic all week. so many WCCs. lemme know if I can snag u some swag, TH

WCC?

he's wearing a sling for the next two days until our appointment at the fracture clinic. he's so stoic that the doctors didn't think his arm was actually broken until they grudgingly did an x-ray. clean break about two inches below the shoulder. !!!!! he's pretty much fine but sleeping is tough. we load him up with ibuprofen before bed but it's still hard.

Awww, lil guy :/

eep, that sucks, my nephew had a broken arm and it was no fun.

& xps, i think installing a car seat is stressful because on ours there are all these warnings that basically say "FAILURE TO INSTALL CORRECTLY WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE DEATH" or something.

WCC?

well child check

ah! Do you get to do WBV too? BABBIES!

OUCH!Speedy recovery Tracer...poor kid, so brave.

maxed with a lil 9mo this morning iirc

and speedy recovery TH! when I was a ski patroller I had a kid come in after his mom was like he hasnt used his arm since crashing yesterday but refuses to endorse pain. sure enough, clean break.

and apparently the kid had broken an arm before and went FIVE DAYS before mom dragged him in. just had an incredible tolerance for pain. she naturally was like srsly this kid is nuts I'm not a horrible negligent parent he just doesn't complain

cf a fukkin nine year old (with no development issues) who had to be physically restrained by his mom and a nurse just to a g-d THROAT SWAB. literally screaming bloody murder for fifteen minutes, so shameful.

Culture was negative, oh how I lol'd

busting out of the quarantine but hey

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6212/7018682865_4969e12d5e_z.jpg

Tracer, your little trooper!

awww

Awwwww soooooo cute!

You guys, beware the kid who grows up content and happy, and doesn't hate her parents. She'll never move out. This may seem like a non-problem compared to heavier shit, but it's starting to create some real friction around here -- at least in my head.

ha, how old?

She'll be 24 in July.

hm, yeah, getting a bit old to be living at home imo. then again, isn't inter-generational living all the rage these days?
can't imagine having moved back in with my parents after college, and i have pretty much zero problems with them.

Aw man that kid is so adorable!

The boy started twisting some of the knobs on the new lawnmower and I pert near got misty-eyed.

Saw the midwife yesterday and nothing is going on. Our baby is sort of just casually hanging out and not packing up and preparing to move out. I feel like I have been rather casually going about things and haven't hit a nesting phase. Made a few lists for two days but that was it. I need that high energy nesting phase!

I was given some herbal pills, tea and have been doing an exercise. Anyone have any other tips to get things going? I will be 37 weeks on Thursday. EEK!

Off to bed, was told I need to get the insomnia under control because bad sleep leads to bad labor and hard birth.

hey *tera, this may be difficult advice to take but I think the best thing is to go about your business. things will kick off when they kick off. your body knows what it's doing better than your brain does! so just let it do its thing. this unique period of anticipation will soon give way to a whole different thing so soak it up while you can. (and yes, sleep is good!)

Isn't a good sexing session meant to be good for getting things moving?

What Tracer says. Apparently in France they give you a due 'period' to prevent the expectation a due date gives. Kick back and enjoy the last few weeks of having your baby squirming inside of you, it sounds strange but you'll miss it once they're here. Once they're out you have to share them but right now you've got him/her all to yourself. do some pampering, get a pedicure, read books, watch crappy tv, revel in only having to worry about yourself! I really really wish I'd done a belly cast. It can seem a little self indulgent, and what do you do with it afterwards, but I really wish I'd done one. That or had some really nice photos done that I could look back on.

Your baby will let your body know when it's ready to be born, and that's what you want if you want as natural/uninterventional birth as possible. It could be that you go into labour tomorrow, it could be another 5 weeks away so don't get hung up on waiting and getting impatient. Easy for me to say though! I got very impatient with Aidan, eat tons of pineapple, drank loads of raspberry leaf tea, went for long walks, I don't think it made any difference! I was far more laid back about it with Molly and enjoyed my last month way more even though I had a three year old to look after as well as myself.

You guys, beware the kid who grows up content and happy, and doesn't hate her parents. She'll never move out.

I plan to adhere to the adage of my parents: "when you're 18, you're out of the house." tbf I couldn't wait to get out of there...

also from the "complaining about other people's shitty parenting styles" files:

acquaintance of ours has apparently been raising her kid according to some parenting philosophy that foregoes ALL praise or criticism of the child. *rmde*. the kid is 4 and barely talks.

lol, wth are you supposed to say to your kid then, "Yes, that is a drawing that you made." "Yes, I see that you have thrown your spaghetti on the floor and that you're now throwing a shitfit"

Thanks, guys!!! I do love this advice. These days do feel special indeed.