ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Content note, no children die in that article. It's about risk assessment, irrational fear, helicopter parenting, etc.

That was really good. As an anxious parent (as in a parent who also has anxiety issues in general) I can identify with this author a lot. I like the points she makes about isolation and competitive parenting, too. Also, it reminded me of this bullshit - http://abcnews.go.com/US/mom-jailed-breastfeeding-drinking-waitress-fired/story?id=21622331 (that video autoplays), which hits home because I have breastfed Ivy in public while drinking beer numerous times. Like, if you see a parent doing something you think is neglectful, but you don't feel like you need to intervene immediately to save the kid from harm, ask yourself how "neglectful" the thing you are witnessing really is. And with DCFS involvement, I can't help but think about the children who die of abuse/neglect while under putative DCFS supervision, with the excuse always being about lack of resources (that is a valid excuse - there is not enough resources) and then using those precious limited resources to counsel a parent that somebody videotaped leaving a kid in a car for ten minutes on a fifty degree day.

I appreciate the content note, too, since I would not have read that based on the URL alone (see parent with anxiety issues).

Oh man, that article was fantastic and I think we are going to get arrested the instant we spend more time outside of the house with the kids now

The author was really self-aware and thoughtful in a way not very many authors of popular articles about parenting seem to be. Like acknowledging that overprotective parenting is exhausting and can't actually protect kids from the statistically greater dangers while admitting she does all the overprotective things because what else can you do? (Also because she was arrested.)

I called across the house to my mother that I was going to run to the store to replace them.

“Me too,” my son said.

I asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to stay home with Grandma. “You hate going to the store,” I reminded him.

“No I don’t!” he said. I should have seen what was going on — my parents had been letting him play with the iPad in the car and he was trying to score the extra screen time.

Should have just tablet out of the car.

Being married to a mandated reporter has given me a very different perspective on protective services, at least in NYC. I think the city's services are very good, and also the error tends to be on the side of not calling rather than calling. Nobody wants to do it. And it takes a LOT for a child to actually be removed from a home even if they open a case.

FWIW though I was at Williamsburg parent meetups where well-off, educated women were definitely drinking while breastfeeding and nobody was gonna call the police on them for sure.

Yeah I've never gotten any grief from anybody either. I feel like the drinking while breastfeeding issue is less likely to happen in a city, especially a part of the city with a lot of families.

how's life OTM

Kind of amazed people think the beer's going to go in your mouth and pour straight out of your tits.

think of the possibilities

We were playing basketball the other day, and ball went into and across the street. I told Ben, "look both ways, and then go ahead and get it." He looked at me like I was insane. Sigh.

So now I can go back to our day care discussion and say we've been looking at infant day care because Sarah is going to go back to work after the new baby is born and oh my go$$$$$$h. Fortunately Evie will start kindergarten next year which will save us some money but there will be about six months where we're paying for day care for both of them, which will be interesting. We're also looking for a bigger (i.e. more expensive) apartment because I don't even know where we'd fit a crib in our current place.

I can send you the spreadsheet we used in picking a place. Not much cheap though. Other than the place we picked in Logan Square.

I already have it!

You hacked me!!!

We were playing basketball the other day, and ball went into and across the street. I told Ben, "look both ways, and then go ahead and get it." He looked at me like I was insane. Sigh.

― schwantz, Wednesday, June 4, 2014 1:26 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Living in Queens, fear of cars is like the #1 lesson I am trying to instill in my daughter (I mean after, you know "you are loved" and all that). I gave her the sternest talking to/timeout I've ever given for sitting down in a parking lot when her mom was trying to bring her home and carry groceries at the same time. In a way it pleases me to think that this is a timeless parenting thing, except that once it was probably bears or whatever instead of cars.

We'll be the same way. Strangers? Who cares, talk to them! Drugs? Go ahead, they're fun! Cars? STAY THE FUCK AWAY, THEY'LL KILL YOU.

Yeah, but he gets it at this point. Now it's time to start living life and chasing down his own damn basketball.

The only advice I can remember from my father was don't walk in front of or behind moving vehicles.

Yeah, my boys don't cross streets on their own yet, but they still run in front of blind driveways, which scares the crap out of me.

Follow up to the link I posted above: http://www.kidsandcars.org/state-laws.html State laws regarding how long you can leave a kid unattended in a car. In Illinois, we get 10 whole minutes!

The only advice I can remember from my father was don't walk in front of or behind moving vehicles.

― tokyo rosemary, Wednesday, June 4, 2014 4:30 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And you're still here. So thank him.

My son just made an abrupt shift from wanting to wear the expensive Assassin's Creed and Minecraft and Doctor Who shirts that we had been indulging him in. You know, so he could express his unique tastes or whatever. He now finds all such clothes completely unacceptable and only wants to wear solid colored shirts, of which he owns maybe 3 and they're all in the wash at present.

Dude's basically a teenager now, right?

― how's life, Thursday, May 29, 2014 12:00 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In 2014 he is basically a 35 year old now

Any of y'all know anything about or have any experiences with low muscle tone/hypotonia?

The people who did Ivy's early intervention evaluations noted low muscle tone during both of her evaluations, but it seemed more of a thing to watch for improvements in than a diagnosis. Is that something they noted in K?

Yeah, apparently she has it. I mean I've known for a while, but then some friend of my mother-in-law (it's always some friend of the mother-in-law) made it sound like it was some serious thing that she'll have to deal with for the rest of her life, and was probably exaggerating or confusing two different things.

I'm pretty sure I have/had it too -- I read descriptions and it sounds exactly like me. Difficulty running laps or doing pullups/situps/pushups at a young age, difficulty with handwriting and normal pencil grip, easier fatigue, etc. It sucked as a boy growing up, obviously, and I never really thought of it as some potentially genetic thing until now. I just thought "oh my parents didn't like sports, so I probably didn't spend as much time playing sports as other kids." But the thing is I spent a good amount of time playing sports, I was on teams, I played at recess every day, etc., and I did seem to be naturally bad at them, like other kids just mastered stuff way more easily than I did. It's simultaneously reassuring and frustrating to think of it as something that might have been beyond my control. At the same time, I can do quite a lot of pushups etc. now and am relatively physically strong, although it took work.

Anyway, I think it is still worse for boys than girls to have this, although it shouldn't be, and ultimately it may just mean I don't have a future varsity athlete, which is fine.

From my extensive (not extensive at all) internet research, it's something that has less of an impact if it's caught early, and that sounds like the case with K.

I definitely see that she is behind other kids physically. She walked after 18 months, she generally does not seem to like climbing or doing anything on the playground other than going through the sprinkler or going in the swing. She gets free physical therapy from the city once a week.

Boring things our baby likes watching on TV, a list: snooker, weather forecasts.

I've officially had to stop watching TV while breast feeding because Ivy will stop eating and turn and watch TV instead. Sigh.

Get 'em addicted now, and you've got something to withhold for misbehaviour in a couple of years' time, that's what I say. (I don't. But it has crossed my mind.)

I definitely use TV as a tool. If it weren't for the hypnotic power of Sesame Street I'd never be able to trim her Freddie Kruger talons.

We watched the French Open the other day.

tv works well for haircuts too ime

Ha D & J were ENTRANCED by the French Open, to the point where I am seriously considering repainting their room to clay-court red.

when michael never learns to read, remind me to tell him that i tried, but he turned into such a shit at bedtime around 8 months that i gave up.

in fact, i'm just going to use that for all things. "Son, the reason you are terrible at baseball is that i rolled a ball to you when you were 4 months old, and you put it in your mouth instead of rolling it back. I just didn't see the point in continuing."

Beeps got three awards at her first grade recognition ceremony. One was for being and accelerated reader and showed her AR score. Not knowing what the crap that score meant I went to the monster web and found out she is reading at a 6th level. Holy crap!!!!!

go beeps!!

Whoa! Way to go, kiddo!

aw Beeps. that's awesome!

Nice!

that rules

superstar reader! give her some kafka now, just to see how she does

fyi beeps yr getting the complete works of James Joyce for your birthday

We got a couple of parking tickets within a week recently and now Evie is a total backseat driver/parker. "Daddy, what does that sign say? Can we park here? Are we going to get a ticket? Is it ok to park here?" And yesterday we watched most of The Great Muppet Caper until Evie made me turn it off because it's "too scary" and now she's asked me four or five times why Miss Piggy was put in jail (the bad guys frame her to make it look like she is the diamond thief, which I guess is kind of a complicated concept). She did NOT like Miss Piggy being put in jail.

i lolled at this:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/60374321e56f42ecd4dbcb48cb202cff/tumblr_n780h1r9OK1qb3s9go1_400.jpg

My favorite current mispronunciation is "Lesterday". She's pretty sure of it too: "Do you mean yesterday? Yuh, yuh yesterday?" "No, lesterday!"

K insists on calling the elevator the aligator