ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

August copies all I do, I can teach her dances because she really copies me so well. She is still babbling with a few words that come through like "baks" for books, eyes, baby, this...I really don't want her to be a potty mouthed kid. My dad cussed up a storm in English and Spanish when we were growing up but it wasn't until age 12 that I used anything I heard. After that, no stopping me.

I think I started cursing on the reg when I was 9.

That's a very difficult to habit to tame. Cussing is one of life's little joys. Maybe I can pass that on to my son. "Son, when you stub your toe on the furniture, nothing quite beats the rapid-fire deployment of fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck to ease the pain."

my wife said dammit so much with our first listening that the little one started saying (what sounded like) "debit" and that's become our standard correction for cussing with the kids

also the kids LOVE use/mention shenanigans with cussing, eg "mom why did you just say 'shit'?" clever ones

Ha!

knock on wood a million times / bli ayin hara but the new baby is so relaxed and calm compared to her sister. our first time around i was up all night holding the screaming baby. it's not like that at all this time. (part of me wonders if we're just better parents from going through it once before)

that's awesome! fingers crossed for u

When I first met my wife/son, he was four and she had not cussed around him at all. After a couple years, we got really lax and loosened up and started cussing in front of him. We made sure to explain to him which social situations it's appropriate to cuss in and that if he ever got in trouble at school, to tell them that his grandpa was a Vietnam vet and taught him those words. His favorite these days is "shit-ton".

With Abby though, she's just picking up on what we say. Most of the time, she has more important things to say, like "play toys with me", but she's dropped a "fucking shit" out of nowhere too, which I sometimes get a little bummed out about.

The word I'm most proud of teaching her is archeopteryx.

I'm starting to feel like half of Keren's waking hours are spent either with her singing, me singing to her, or her music playing on the stereo. Hope it's healthy.

evie has never seemed very interested in music. she likes "call me maybe" and "beautiful" (by one direction) because they play them at her day care. i find the lyrical sentiment of "beautiful" pretty gross so we don't play it at home, but we'll play her "call me maybe" if she wants to hear it. we thought she might want to listen to music more if she had control over it, so i took out one of our old iphones, which isn't connected to wi-fi or anything, downloaded a kids music controller app, and put some music on it for her. she seems to like that.

we were in the car the other day, i was flipping around on the radio and landed on the rap station. they were playing "no new friends" by drake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9OWiH9XtV4) and evie was like "why does he say no no friends?" so i was trying to explain it to her. then i thought maybe we shouldn't be listening to that song if she was actually paying attention so i switched stations but she said "i want no no friends." then she spent most of the weekend wandering around chanting "no no friends, no no friends, no no no no no"

Keren has this idea now that every song needs to be infinitely customized and infinitely sung. So example if I sing "Muffin Man" I have to come up with every possible occupation and what "lane" they live on. And if I sing "there's a spider on the floor" there have to be a bunch of other things also on the floor (each of which is on every different body part I can think of, so there are thousands of combinations if not millions).

Beeps plays Dance Dance Revolution at daycare and her favorite song is "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by TMBG.

That song was annoying (and verrrry catchy) 25 years ago. Hearing it now six times a day though is about to do me in.

Almost makes me miss the days of Katy Perry's "Firework".

10 days to due date, so i should have a kid somewhere between 3 weeks and 20 minutes from now

omg

experiences w/ near constant unstoppable whining plz

Baby gtfo srsly

dude you know the due date is just an educated guess and first-time moms in particular often deliver late, right?

Oh no, I know the actualities, but still, little dude should get out here where I can stare at him.

lol you false alarmed me, i thought you had an announcement.

Beeps plays Dance Dance Revolution at daycare

I'm the worst at controlling my language around the kiddos but its been 6 years now and Ive never heard it repeated back.

!! we control our language fairly well but my 1.5 yr old is already saying "shit", at least when goaded into it by his brother.

re "stupid" my rule is that they can call THINGS stupid but they can't call PEOPLE stupid. i don't think that's too tom's-of-maine, is it?

"tom's of maine" giving me irl lols rn

tom's of maine is dope, do not fear the association
also that is a good rule about the word stupid as well as lots of words tbh like fuck and shit
stub your toe yell shitfuck real loud, ok
do not call your lil sister a shit-eating fuckface, thats belittling

So we're two days away from 18mo and she's not walking. She'll walk for blocks holding my hand, but she won't let go and walk by herself. I've seen her a few times take steps on her own to grab for something, but it's really hard to get her to do this -- often if you put something just out of her reach, she'll get down, crawl to it, and then say "Good! Good job!" Anyone have suggestions? Seems like it's as much about confidence as skill at this point.

Hello fellow people makers, I know I am doubling up threads, but I am officially in your number now. I will save most of my "what the goddamn hell is happening" posts for this thread.

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:D

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Congrats jjjj

Has your pediatrician said anything about her walking, Hurting? That almost seems worth a special visit.

Nothing to compare to actually doing it obv, but man, watching someone you love go through a long and difficult labor is really emotionally devastating. Yeesh.

pics I have of #1 crowning are...epic

Has your pediatrician said anything about her walking, Hurting? That almost seems worth a special visit.

― pplains, Wednesday, August 14, 2013 1:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

At prior visits the word has been "as long as she's making progress" and "there isn't much we can do anyway." But 18 months is supposed to be kind of a threshhold for "serious delay" or something. She IS making progress, but she's pretty far behind.

OMG Euler.

we wound up with a C, but my take was always "I am happy to sit along the first-base line. I don't need to be behind home plate."

^^^

the doc wanted me to help pull #1 out, which tbh sounded cool, so my presence at home plate was medical orders

still can't believe that I had the...moxie?...to snap the photo though. total warzone tbh

'total warzone' is a perfect description of childbirth

K started walking today!

mazel tov!

Here's a parenting lesson of sorts -- we had known she had was on the verge for a couple of weeks (had been taking a few steps between furniture and the like). Today she kept taking a two or three steps on her own and then falling, and we would clap and say "good job" for encouragement. Well after a while she started to clap herself and say "good job" every time she fell, and then we realized she was falling on purpose -- she thought we were clapping for her falling. So we stopped doing that and instead started clapping WHILE she was taking steps. Within a few minutes, she was walking.

that's so cool

yay!

booyeah

and wai to go jjj et al!

Yay!

k is a corker imo.

She was probably strolling all over the apt while you slept, she just wanted you to keep being so impressed w her falling abilities.

i feel like i may have posted this story before but Ks deliberate falling reminded me of it.

my bff has an autistic son. one of the many tricky traits of autism is that all conversation is taken literally. like EVERYTHING. One day, when he was in kindergarten, they were attending a school picnic together. He wanted to play on the monkey bars so his teacher tells my friend, who is engaged in conversation elsewhere, that she'll take Louie to the monkey bars and watch over him. Louie climbs on the monkey bars for a while and then starts swinging from a high bar. Then two things happened: the teacher turned away to talk to someone and Louie slipped, falling down from the bar onto the hard ground, landing on his back. Much tears from Louie and much apologizing from the teacher follow. My friend, thinking that a get straight back on the bike attitude is needed, comforts louie until he is composed and then suggests he give it another go. Louie is hesitant so she pushes it until he agrees. He gives her a weary look while slowly walking to the monkey bars. Again he climbs up and swings from the bar and boom falls on his back again. Only then it clicks to my friend that to someone who take everything literally 'give it another go' means do everything you did before including the back breaking fall.

Gah what? Yikes.

Oh and also there was this:

Today we drove to Storm King Arts Center, only to see a chain over the gate

Me: "Argh, is it closed? Shit!"
K: (gleefully) "Fuck! Fuck!"

― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Monday, August 19, 2013 10:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

k is a corker imo.

― estela, Tuesday, August 20, 2013 11:42 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:) this is especially high praise coming from you

i don't know about that but :) back, k is lucky to have you for a father.