ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

sorry if that sounds depressing, i actually don't think it is at all! if you love something, take it to day-care, etc

There's this funny nebbishy partner at my work with college-aged kids who once said "You know that book The Giving Tree? That's what it's like. That's exactly what it's like."

lol "if you love something, take it to day-care, etc" should be the new board descrip
we're having issues w/ discipline/consequences/etc with out 3 year old. gotten into the habit of always saying "if you don't do this [usually tiny thing like washing her hands], you won't get this [something she wants to do/eat]", just this relationship of threat that seems like a bummer.

My nephew had mad separation anxiety when he first started kindergarten -- but the teacher kept making my sister STAY with him. Which just seemed crazy. In the end she just said to the teacher 'This is ridiculous, I have to leave'. After a couple of days he was fine. (Irony is that my sister had HYSTERICAL anxiety the first week she started school - used to chase Dad's car down the street after he dropped us off, and I'd have to run after and hold her back. :( )

Yeah, I think for some kids with some things, a painful break is the ONLY way. In fact, sometimes a painful break is anti-traumatic, because the kid goes through the experience and comes out on the other end ok, coming to the realization that s/he will survive, that mom and dad will still love him/her, etc.

sometimes i think that being a child is a continuous process of growing further and further apart from your parents - you begin literally inside one of your parents, then you're in their bed, then you move to a crib, then your own room, you start noticing things by yourself, making your own judgements, going to school, becoming embarrassed by your parents, going to college and moving away. the process starts on day 1.

Yeah, this is otm. My own formulation of it a few years ago is that the most important part of parenting is teaching your kids how not to need you. In that regard, as much as I love Sarah and am proud of her, I think my wife and I may have have failed as parents.

we're having issues w/ discipline/consequences/etc with out 3 year old. gotten into the habit of always saying "if you don't do this [usually tiny thing like washing her hands], you won't get this [something she wants to do/eat]", just this relationship of threat that seems like a bummer.

this is basically my entire parenting life right now, it is lame. constantly either threatening time outs or offering a bribe just to get the most basic stuff done. frustrating. we're trying to figure out what to do about it.

they key is to make the threat something you're actually willing to follow through with if you need to, nothing worse than being like "we're NOT going to the museum if you don't (x)!" and then they're like FINE and you're like oh fuck

but yeah agreed, i hate those little circles as well

sometimes i think you need to step back and be like wait a minute, is it really that important? sometimes i can get sucked into a battle of wills where his recalcitrance has provoked me to hugely magnify the gravity of whatever the issue is

and i try to go back to the mantras:

- say yes as much as possible
- don't ask, tell

i know, dude, i succccck at the whole "don't ask, tell" thing even though i know it's better.
& yeah when the whole day is built around an activity, we can't be like "we're not doing this" because that just means sitting around. and also, with halloween, it was easy to fall into the "you won't do this? OK NO CANDY" thing. which seems not great too. i don't know, seems weird to bring food into the equation. she does seem to be into just pushing our buttons these days, seeing what kind of reaction she'll get -- like it's entertaining for her to see us try to come up with threats. lame-o!

i'm really trying to get away from food-based rewards or punishments because i already worry that she eats too much and i don't want to give her weird food issues. she's right at the 50th percentile for weight so i'm not worried about that but it seems like she's always asking for food, even after she's just eaten a meal. it wasn't that big a deal when she was happy with healthy snacks but now she just demands candy or teddy grahams and then flips out when we won't give them to her.

time outs are the main punishment but i hate to use them because it just drags out the screaming and crying.

sometimes i think you need to step back and be like wait a minute, is it really that important?

my issue with this is that almost none of it seems that important, i'd rather her just be happy. my default would just be letting everything slide. but i have to enforce some discipline/rules some time.

i threaten timeouts on the reg and i don't mind following through - the crying and hostility usually gives way pretty quickly to "i'm sorry" or actually a nap - both necessary, depending - so i don't feel bad about handing them out, they're practical rather than solely a punishment

So this is kind of amazing to me and probably boring to most, but K learned how to answer a question for the first time. My wife asks her (in Hebrew) "What does the dog say?" and she answers "Hav" (hebrew equivalent of "woof"). She doesn't respond the same way when my wife says other things about dogs, only that specific question. She also claps on request in either english or hebrew.

how do you clap in hebrew??

right to left?

converted the crib to a toddler bed yesterday which ended up being a dumb move. evie's normally a very solid sleepr but she was up from 1 a.m. to about 4 a.m., wouldn't sleep in her bed, wouldn't even sleep in our bed (once we gave up on trying to get her to sleep in her bed). didn't seem scared, just seemed wide awake and like she wanted to play/hang out - i think it was just the freedom of being able to get out of bed that was causing problems. can't convert it back to a crib, so we're stuck with the bed. trying to think of solutions - seeing if there are guard rails that can be installed? maybe some kind of canopy would create at least a psychological barrier to keep her in? i ended up calling in sick today because i was so exhausted.

Fuck, it never ends does it.

K has a cold again, which came right on the heels of us stopping (again) night feedings which had started again because we moved and she stopped sleeping through the night. Now she wakes up over and over from congestion. We try the snotsucker on her but it's a lot of pain and crying for very little effect, and she looks at us like we've betrayed her, although she seems to forget moments later.

I do think there are toddler bed rails fwiw.

In other news, we've discovered Baby Einstein, which, although I was against TV at this young an age, is really, really useful for about 20-30 minutes every evening in between nap and dinner when she gets too cranky to do anything else. The people who came up with this thing are entrepreneurial geniuses -- it has to be the most cheaply produced thing I've ever seen. It's basically digital video closeups of toys, stock nature footage, and public domain music.

nick -- ikea sells some really cool indoors tent-like things in their kids section. (i've looked at them longingly for myself even though i know it's kinda stupid. i love the idea of a sleep tent.) one of them looks kinda like a circus big top!

think my wife just got the circus big top for our daughter for xmas. just to play in. we're not converting the crib until she's threatening to climb out/fall out of it on the reg.

much better last night, she only got up once at 1:30 but got back in bed and fell back asleep right away. i don't know if it's because i used the ottoman as a makeshift guardrail or because i said i would make her pancakes if she stayed in her bed all night.

i need some way for her to know when she's allowed to get out of bed, especially because it's so dark in the morning.

p sure it was the pancakes

August is now seven months old and for a month has been going from sitting position to standing without holding on to anything. She has been sleeping with us but we will be trying to move her into her own bed. The other night she woke up and was doing her standing thing. Afraid she will tumble over us and onto the floor. We need a good, sturdy travel crib. We have a Graco playpen that she is growing to big to play in and has never liked to nap in it.

K actually doesn't support her weight very well yet, and the doctor recommended an evaluation. The city has a free program for early intervention (irrespective of income, I guess, because they didn't even ask), which is awesome, but it was strange having a city services person come over and go through the litany of forms and questions and the like. I couldn't really say it was invasive, since it was voluntary, yet I'm sure the people who come are trained to be looking for signs of neglect and abuse and the like, which didn't occur to me until after she came, so the whole thing was more uncomfortable than I thought. Anyway, there's probably no serious problem but I'd rather make sure there isn't one. H teaches special needs kids and sees in denial parents all the time, so I'm extra conscious about not being one, better safe than sorry, etc.

guys...I know the 3rd trimester ultrasound isn't super super accurate but
my son is 36 weeks now, still in my wife's belly...and he weighs almost 8 pounds already

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJrsYX5NUs8/Ttx0LhsM8zI/AAAAAAAABNc/neVWqFL0NpY/s1600/giant_baby_one-1.jpeg

<3

pfft my baby could beat the shit out of that baby

Wow, Bison!

Hurting, did you know baby Einstein DVDs are free?

http://education-portal.com/articles/Baby_Einstein_Recall_Refunds_Offered_on_Educational_DVDs.html

We just watch them on youtube.

Believe me, it is immediately obvious that there is nothing especially educational/developmentally benefical about them, although I think they're mostly harmless in small doses.

We let August watch this cartoon called Baby Abuelita, bilingual show. It is only 18 minutes long and I use them sparingly now. There are only six episodes and I know them all by heart so....sparingly. It makes her so happy.

sylvie's pretty into angelina ballerina, which features the voice talents of dame judi dench. we use it pretty sparingly too, once or twice a week, but man, it is tempting to do it more. peace and quiet!

Aaaa-aaangelina ballerina!
A little star with big dreams!
Aaaaaaa-aaangelina baller-eeeeee-eee-na!
La la la la
la la la la
la la la la!

I can't get enough of that modulation on the la la la's.

I tried an ep of eebies on netflix. It was ok -- slow-paced and gave ideas for things you can do with your baby (water play activities e.g.), but K seemed to find it boring after 5 minutes.

evie's pretty obsessed with dora, which is very painful to watch as an adult (very very repetitive). she also likes yo gabba gabba and curious george, which are slightly more tolerable. i don't stress out too much about her watching tv but yeah we mainly use it when we really need a break (most often when she wakes up at 5:30 a.m. on a saturday).

yo gabba's awesome! abby likes Go, Diego Go. We've been through a lot of the kids shows on netflix. Her first crush was Steve from Blue's Clues.

(we spend a lot of time outside with the kids, but when we're home, the TV's probably on 75% of the time)

I have fretted and fretted about the kids watching too much TV, but watching Beeps draw pictures from the shows she watches and seeing her imagination take off, and Hankfoot walking around the house "looking for clues" does settle me down a bit.

my daughter (she's 5) gets to watch about an hour a day in the mornings on Saturday and Sunday - these days it's usually Angelina or Sesame Street or Super Why (she's outgrown Yo Gabba Gabba). and we let her watch movies sometimes if its a rainy day or something like that. I sort of hate Angelina and her posh accent

new babby takin it's time lol

his time, I should say

he's prepping to be awesome imo

enjoy sleeping while u can imo

yeah that hasn't been happening for months now so

ready for babby I guess

i just got over being sick for like two months in a row. apparently they pick up all kinds of sickness at school and it's like super toddler diseases that adults are not resistant to. today i felt better than i have in weeks.

things to look forward to!

http://www.baseball-catcher.com/images/readyStance.jpg

yeah I remember that. dunno if it'll be different second time around (will babby get immunity from being exposed to all of big sister's germs? or will we all just get sick from babby? who knows)

xp

are you past due date? (b'shaa tova, btw)