ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

yeah were doing the $5K child care thing too. anybody know if that payment can still be deducted come tax time?

when you express mild reservations about whether daycare might not be 100% the best thing for babies/very little kids

parents are an insecure bunch because we don't know how to do it, are just faking it all the way, and it can be hard to react well when it seems like someone is judging your steez. what you call "expressing mild reservations" might have been interpreted as "doubting my choices".

possibly--was very careful to be mild, not like I know what I'm doing either

I have no clue about the tax implications, because I'm incredibly stupid with such things. The dependent care money is only going to cover about a 1/3 of the year for childcare expenses. No idea how that effects the eligibility for the childcare tax credit.

OK, I guess with the tax credit we could only get $600 a year, since we make both make combined more than 43K a year. Using the dependent care flex account, we would save twice that.

btw in case American parents are tired of hearing from the britishers how awesome their health care is we deal with the same criminally high child care costs

cool, global anti-family conspiracies

Been off ILX a bit because we got a puppy and with August and puppy at the same age, it seems...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7341/10710907076_7fe712d75b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5537/10710867094_cc590f1464.jpg

someone is always being a little too rough with the other

parents are an insecure bunch because we don't know how to do it, are just faking it all the way, and it can be hard to react well when it seems like someone is judging your steez.

lol being a parent has made me totally judgmental of other parents

August + puppy = <3

lol being a parent has made me totally judgmental of other parents

oh me too. it's impossible not to be. and it feels so goddamned good!

parents are an insecure bunch because we don't know how to do it, are just faking it all the way, and it can be hard to react well when it seems like someone is judging your steez.

Ha I was just saying this to someone the other day.

And guess what. Kids don't know how to be people half the time either.

IS THAT A BLUE MERLE COLLIE PUPPY BRING IT TO ME

oh me too. it's impossible not to be. and it feels so goddamned good!

I know rite? In general my attitude is "hey we're all in this together, parenting is rough btw you are doing it wrong"

yeah, and speaking of which, some real bad tantrums starting up all of a sudden lately. She's 20 months. Sometimes there's a "trigger" e.g. "no, we can't watch brushy brush elmo for the 11th time, it's time for a bath." But what's kind of bothering me is that it used to be she'd get upset, but then it would go away or you could "short circuit" it by starting something else. But the last few times it's just been impossible -- tonight the tantrum lasted probably 15-20 minutes, through the whole bath, into bedtime. She had one this morning too when the babysitter came. She may be tired or something especially with the daylight savings time throwing her off, but somehow I feel worried there might be more behind it. I don't know why, but something about her tantrums lately really bothers me. But maybe I'm just not used to them.

orbit: a mishmashed pup supposedly lab and blue heeler but Australian shepherd has been suggested. Easy going so far.

hurting: tantrums make me feel embarrassed, inept, not capable, like a failure, like I know nothing about raising a child...so yeah, tantrums suck. However if you are getting a 6th sense as a parent that there is more to it then there might be.

August started tantrums at 15 or 16 months and they are becoming more tantrum-y as we go along. One thing that can trigger one is when we let her roam, call her and she keeps on going. She use to come when called but that ended a few months ago. She keeps on walking and looking at us ...so we tell her to please come or we will go get her and end up having to pick her up and that results in screams, wails, crying....not always but usually.

What I have been hating lately is saying ,"No." UGH! I hate saying no and resist until there isn't anything else I can say. It can really bring me down having to say no over and over for what seems like several hours a day. I have been reading Happiest Toddler on the Block and hope it helps. Now, with the puppy, there is no for him too. I try to just clap loudly and give a stare...to both, but it doesn't work. Soon we will be in a living situation allowing for more yes rooms for August.

what's the matter with saying "no"?

i think the bummer comes when you feel like youre saying it 100 times a day

we have some parent-acquaintances who have tried to raise their 5yo daughter without literally EVER saying the word "no" to her. I'm sure there's other reasons for her issues (parents divorced when she was 3, the dad is a 6-foot tall version of Wallace Shawn who peppers his conversation with words like "alack and alas") but I can't help but think its contributed to some of her, er, more difficult behavioral traits. Kids need boundaries set for them! imho.

I start to feel bad about it when I'm saying no rather than either engaging/playing with them or giving them suggestions of things to do. Often my kids have a hard time figuring out something to do that isn't mostly bugging the shit out of each other. But, if I just take a few minutes and get them started on something (even just shove a book in their hands and say "read this"), they are pretty good at sticking with whatever it is.

I feel I am saying it 1000 times a day. In our last place she had a playroom and nothing there was no and it's where we spent most of the day. It was pretty luxurious, big, safe. She is into climbing right now. I try to change it up a bit: not for August, stop, please don't...then there is the general screaming and wailing when I try to dress her.

I'm a fan of "pick your battles" with no. The ones I try to be consistent about are safety issues (e.g. no touching the stove/burners), outright screaming, throwing food on the floor, throwing things generally. I also think of no in the beginning as a kind of groundwork-laying -- they may not immediately get it or respond to it but eventually the message sets in.

Yeah, I do reserve the no's for safety and our last duplex had zero furniture aside from stools for a bar. Furnished homes that are not childproof.... the next place is childproof and sparsely furnished.

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/11/other_parents_suck/

How timely.

Evie is HARDCORE into ballet right now. A dance studio opened in the same building as her day care and had a special deal for kids from her day care so we signed her up. Turns out no one else signed up so she was basically getting private lessons for a few weeks. We just had her bumped up to the next level so she'll actually be with other girls. And since it's literally next door in the building, they just come pick her up from day care and take her back. They have to wear "ballet clothes" so we went to Target and bought a cheap leotard, tights, and ballet slippers and she never wants to take them off. She got mad bc we wouldn't let her wear them to school today. The "ballet" she actually does seems to be a combination of ballet positions, yoga poses, and somersaults, it's pretty cute.

It's weird thinking about how strident I was about gender neutrality and fighting gender norms before she was born and how girly she is now - she only likes pink, she likes princesses and fairies, etc. Her day care is pretty old-school about what girls like and what boys like so that's where a lot of it comes from (plus the other kids). Sometimes I'm a little sad about it but also I feel like I have to let her be her own person. And if she says something is just for girls or just for boys I will still contradict her, so hopefully that's sinking in. And we were playing pirate ghosts yesterday.

She's been unusually gassy lately and playing ghosts involves being under a blanket with her so it was a genuinely frightening game of pirate ghosts.

Tell her gassy is not girly.

It's the fart game. You'll play one day, son.

Took personal leave from work today. Wife gets a frantic call from her friend, whose baby-sitter was unable to watch her 7 month old. I'm pretty unhappy about the situation, but I know the friend is going through some hard times, financially and everything and is basically just juggling the baby among whomever she can.

However, there's a weird thing where the father is coming by at noon to pick the baby up for a doctor's appointment, then bringing him back in an hour so he can go back to work. So it's a weird, complicated situation, but whatever. We all gotta stick up for each other in these economic times.

Dad stops by, gets the kid, brings him back. By the way, this wasn't just a 7 month well-visit or anything. Oh, we didn't tell you that he had complications from his circumcision and he had to go have his penis re-sliced while you were taking a lunch break? Well, the doctor put some medicine on to numb it. Gotta get back to work! See ya!

Kid cried for an hour and a half. Eventually, we got so pissed off that we called the dad back out of work. Sorry guy, this really wasn't part of the bargain.

damn that is ridiculous!

Her day care is pretty old-school about what girls like and what boys like so that's where a lot of it comes from (plus the other kids).

its interesting how/when gender roles get asserted in child development. which is not to say there is not a degree of fluidity, but around the age of 4-5 kids have essentially "picked" a gender, and will start to express opinions in gender-differentiated terms (ie "I am a girl, ergo I do not ____"). However, what constitutes being a girl/being a boy is highly environmentally dependent and contextual.

xp

they circumcised him at 7 months?!?

his penis was fighting back!

anyhoo, re: the gender stuff, yeah, my 4-year-old is deeply into very girl things at the moment -- pink, princesses, ballerinas etc. but her best friend is a boy, she just finished a very fun soccer season... i don't know, i guess i hope it balances out a bit.

tylerw basically has it right. He was circumcized at birth, but it reattached or something. : ( Totally bummer for the kid, but parents! If your kid is even having minor, outpatient surgery....

years ago i used to work in an out of school club, with kids aged 4 to 11. we had a box of "dressing up" clothes - really just cast-off stuff that i can't remember where it came from. some of the boys went thru a phase of putting on these oversized bridesmaid dresses and sliding on their knees up and down the hall in them.

i got some delighted looks from fathers who came to pick up their sons only to find them swishing around the place in tatty gowns.

this being SF my daughter's already dealt with transgendered classmates and families with two mommies (but not two dads! I dunno why that is) so she's been exposed to a pretty wide spectrum but yeah its hard to tell what's going on in her head as far as gender sometimes. she loves totally girly shit - princesses, fairies, for the longest time refused to even draw a picture of a boy/man (because she only draws GIRLS) - but on the other hand she is pretty rough and tumble and loves comics/superheroes (the latter being totally my fault) so she's plenty interested in traditional "boy" stuff too. There's a range, every child is a snowflake etc.

i don't think it's ever/will ever be possible to separate out what kids are picking up gender role-wise from their environment, despite what ev psych peeps want to claim.

nv I love that image of little boys in giant bridesmaid dresses, lol

i think the point i was after was this was a kind of genderless play based on the utility of the things and maybe a bit of a sense that they knew they were being daft but the big gendery elephant only appeared in the room when Dad knocked on the door

There is almost too much going on these days. Happened over night, 18 months..BOOM!

i used to think gender likes and dislikes were put on by parents/society but jesus christ try to keep a 2 year old boy away from a train set. impossible. Henry loves anything that GOES which i now tend to think is an inherent boy thing because trains etc were never deliberately introduced to him. they say girls innately need one on one contact while boys are about moving and things that move. nurturer vs hunter/gatherer? I don't know. theres still a good percent of neanderthal in all of us and im not willing to dismiss evolution just yet.

tbf i should also note that henry will often disappear into his sister's room only for us to later find him in his own room dressed in the pink faux-satin splendor that is beeps' sleeping beauty costume whilst awkwardly balancing a bridal veil on his head that inevitably falls off every minute or so because he dons this regal attire for the express purpose of smashing the living shit out of a couple of hot wheels cars possibly manned by a pair of highly accident prone, imaginary race car drivers, stunt men or the dukes of hazzard if there were two general lees.

lol yeah this is confusing

i'm not saying there's no evolutionary stuff in there either, i think it's obviously a mix of imperatives, but we don't have any kids raised totally outside of any society to use as a control group. who knows what cues those inscrutable little brains are picking up when we don't notice?

if she says something is just for girls or just for boys I will still contradict her

These are some of my proudest moments tbh, because it's not coming from here (at least not expressly) so there's some kind of higher-level information-processing going on. Would be far more concerned if he got much further not noticing who wore shirts and who wore dresses, or that boys/girls wasn't a handy & useful way to understand the world.

Also iirc life up to about sixteen becomes to a greater or lesser extent about fitting in with one's peers. I'm kind of troubled by to what extent any parent should be trying to restrict that. Not sure how much of a parental role there is on that front beyond instilling basic right & wrong, and otherwise trying to make sure he/she has the confidence to do their own thing when instinct tells them to. Selecting what the peer group is, in broad terms, seems like about as far as you can go.

partial, blurry proof <3

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/1733/ys6r.jpg

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=parents-peers-children

not saying she's absolutely correct but she's interesting, persuasive and i dig her work

xp sweeeeet

Henry's eyes look like how mine feel right now

wish i had a dummy come to think of it