ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

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.

this morning evie accidentally dumped a yogurt smoothie drink inside my leather boot, then five minutes later found a sample spray bottle of fancy perfume and totally doused herself in it

she redeemed herself though by telling me that we had a band called big rocket band. she even made me get her ukelele and my guitar so we could play our song "rockin' stars," but that didn't last long.

Sounds like a good smelling day for your family.

you should rename your band Yogurt Boot and The Perfumed Girl

Trying to work that into Cornflake Girl...

Yogurt!
You put it in my boot, girl.

PTA night at the Museum of Discovery. Holy fuck.

Kids had fun.

One way ticket to nightmarish fusstown the last few days. On the plus side tiny dude is getting rapidly less tiny. When he left the hospital he was 6 lbs 6oz, at his 2 week checkup he was 8 lbs 4 oz and 2 inches taller? Longer? Idk

sleep regression is the fucking worst imo

seriously though

story of my (parenting) life

I was driving around town at 4 a.m. and sitting in the driveway at quarter til five just trying to buy my poor dude an hour's rest and the tension of sleeplessness after two years isn't exactly easy on the ol' marriage

:(

Oh man. I'm sorry. Definitely know sleeplessness.

Thought that was all over for me but for a weird reason*, this summer everybody had to go back to sleeping in the same room again, which makes for a restless night as we all bump against each other and jostle for space. I'm a 6'3" 240 lb man sleeping balanced on my side at the very edge of a queen-sized mattress with my wife and little girl. My son sleeps on two child-sized mattresses pressed together at the foot of our bed. Sometimes I accidentally kick him in the head at night since my feet dangle off the edge. I regularly get pushed off the bed and have to bother my wife to let me back on at least once per night. The girl sleeps relatively well, at least, since she basically has half the bed. We're gonna look back on this and laugh some day.

*the window unit a/c in my son's room started beeping erratically and keeping him awake all night. We can't figure out how to make it stop so we just brought him into our room, where he's gonna be until the season changes.