ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

When we sent our boy to school, we told him not to swear and that if he accidentally did and got called out for it, to tell them he learned it from his grandfather.

Lol

Grandpa agreed to the scheme too: "Send 'em to me. I'll show them my Purple Heart." Fortunately, we've taught him well enough about discretion and the appropriate social situations for cursing that it has never been a problem.

Okay, I'm definitely using that approach when the time comes. This kid's grandparents live in different states so they need never know...

I am so bad with swears. I unthinkingly yelled "FUCK YOU" at a birthday party full of children a couple of weeks ago, even (sorry about that, n/a). Not at the kids, mind you, just in relating some story or other.

lol

Adults unthinkingly swearing in front of little kids is one of those things that's always funny.

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

― #fomo that's the motto (Hurting 2), Tuesday, August 20, 2013 2:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

swearing is a good occasion for teaching kids to choose how to speak and act based on the situation. they'll pick that up anyway a little later but it's good as parents to be in on that so that you don't get written off as just another situation that demands a boring pretense.

Our latest thing is that we have a metaphysical "swear jar" we invoke whenever the other one curses. This has made me realize that my wife curses a lot more than I do.

I unthinkingly yelled "FUCK YOU" at a birthday party full of children a couple of weeks ago

you are Shakes the Clown

I feel a lot of guilt and anxiety around K being with a non-family member this many hours a week (about 25-30 hours per week. I guess it could be worse). I guess this is just what every two-income family (i.e. most families) goes through, but it's tough. She doesn't cry when the nanny comes but I feel like I see this look in her eye like "Ok, I'll be cool with this, but I'm not totally cool with this" or maybe a look that says "Is this the way things are going to be now?" I'm probably just projecting.

"Send 'em to me. I'll show them my Purple Heart."
I grew up with hearing this from my grandfather (Gran-po).

My dad, grandmother and grandfather cussed around me for years. I never did pick it up until my fight in the 7th grade, used under extreme duress. It would wound me to hear August have a potty mouth before she's a teen. Been trying to find different ways to express casual frustration but have been disappointed in myself. I said "shit pits" instead of "son-of-a-bitch" when I dropped the diaper bag and feared the sippy cup was leaking water all over everything. I felt really proud of myself for not cussing until I realized...

hahaha

That reminds me of the time I heard my grandmother say something about a guy being so good at guitar he must play with his third hand. I had to ask my mother what that meant.

omg lol

August was stung by a wasp this evening. I don't know how the stupid wasp got inside, but we were sitting on the couch and the started waving her hand and crying and T. saw the wasp. It stung her cheek first and she grabbed it and it got her hand too. Fucking nightmare, we couldn't do anything really to help her, T. put baking soda on her hand, and I found the wasp. It was her first time to be hurt by something. I hate wasps, they are intentionally mean.

It's really hard when you first realize that there are hurts you can't protect them from, especially when they're at the age when they can't understand what happened. I've definitely accidentally injured K once or twice, and those are the worst because you worry that she's going to think you did it on purpose or not understand the difference. Just the other day H accidentally squirted lemon into K's eye. But the good news is they seem to get over it quickly.

And that's also a good segue into my question -- how do you stop them from hurting you on purpose when they don't fully understand? K now thinks it's really funny to get a rise out of us by scratching our faces, grabbing our hair, etc. Today she literally tried to claw out my eye, like if I hadn't been sharp she would have done serious damage. We tell her firm no, we try to teach her that it hurts by saying ow in an exaggerated way, but this only seems to egg her on.

Get a cat?

K has this thing now where she insists on having a "hair", meaning one of mom's hairs to twirl around her fingers. This often means H has to literally pluck a hair from her head to avoid K's tantrums. I jokingly refer to her as the Giving Tree. So yeah, get a cat sounds right.

The hair thing can be tricky--our widwife was telling us about a (very young) baby who lost a finger because of a tightly twirled hair that cut off circulation overnight

midwife even

I know that sounds flippant but while you can bite a kid back under dire circumstances and carefully judge the force, I can't think how to give kids a "warning" scratch and be reasonably sure it won't injure them. But a cat sure can.

ah, now I think I'm catching on

Yeah, but then you get a household like ours where the children hiss whenever something comes along their way that they don't like.

^^^^this isnt a joke

Does this mean our kid is going to run and hide under the bed every time somebody rings the doorbell?

that is awesome xpost

trying to separate the breast from bedtime. what had become a pretty easy bedtime ritual is now again a nightmare, only with a bigger, louder kid.

The house of sunnyplains must be a magical place.

Alright here's where I get you all involved with a dispute between me and my wife (not really a full-fledged dispute): K has started going to this "mommy and me" class with her babysitter. Apparently the first couple of times she cried a lot and at least one parent complained about it. The director of the preschool that holds the class said maybe K is "not ready" for it. I was inclined to say "yeah, maybe she's not ready" and just pull her out. H thinks we should keep going regardless. I feel sort of bad about making the other kids and parents sit through K's wailing, and it seems like K is miserable there. H thinks she has to get used to it. We sort of came to the conclusion that we should try a couple more times and just have K come out for a minute to cool down if she cries. H thinks the class is important to get her used to daycare (it's at the place we want her to go to daycare). I think it's NBD because she's going to hate daycare at first anyway. But I do think maybe continuing to bring her to a place where she cries a lot every time would not be good for her or for our relationship with other families in the neighborhood.

I don't understand what kind of class she's attending. how old is K?

parents who go to child-centric events and complain about someone else's child crying are monsters btw

for real like what??

hurting all this stuff is so nebulous and day to day, what a kid is "ready" for, what YOU are ready for, etc. i'm sure you guys will figure it out somehow.

Apparently everything went fine at the class today so looks like there's no issue anymore. It's all good.

parents who go to child-centric events and complain about someone else's child crying are monsters btw

― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, October 1, 2013 7:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^ real

Yeah. Plus unless the kid is crying in an R rated movie or symphony or something completely adult, getting angry about kids crying generally is like getting angry at wind.

"Why don't those patents teach that two year old to express her overwhelming and possibly unfamiliar emotions in a calm, rational manner, preferably quietly in writing!"

Going back to the conversation about swearing in front of kids: last weekend we were driving and a guy cut in front of me and I honked my horn. Evie asked why I honked and I said "Because that guy... is... not doing a good job of driving." A quick adjustment in the heat of the moment.

I'm going to be so bad about not swearing. Poor kid.

Carl may be even worse than me.

lol CA

and lol NA

I've tried to reel in my bad-driver name calling as well. I still call them names, but I aim for less vulgar ones if I'm thinking about it. My knee-jerk, go-to reaction was just to yell "shitbag" at people. Nowadays I go for "nincompoop" or "nudnik" or "bozo".

Oh, and my kid went through a phase a couple weeks ago where he tried to cut out cussing by replacing bad words with the word "butter". Holy butter! What the butter? etc. It didn't last though.

So I take it as a positive sign that he's doing some conscious self-regulation there.

K seems to have forgotten the word "fuck" thankfully. It helps that she pronounces "fork" and "frog" very similarly, so we always have those as cover if she ever exclaims it in public.

just this last week I've become conscious of my ten year old son's inclination to swear when he's under pressure. we were playing a video game together & upon engaging one difficult enemy he exclaimed "what an aaa...." and let it trail off embarrassingly. it's fun to see him work his up to being a good swearer in the right situations! you have to feel it & know when to let them fly if you're going to be a good swearer.

lol "what the butter" I'm totally stealing that

Be careful. I tried it out as a substitute in "motherfucker", but I substituted the wrong word and caught ten shades of hell from my wife.