ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Ibuprofen is your friend.

Definitely

oh yea. J knows it too, he loves that shit

Had some parenting weirdness last night. Not really sure how to handle it. My wife bought some summer dresses yesterday. It's pretty out of the ordinary for her. She's been a life-long tomboy to certain extent and as a grown-up and parent has totally just worn what feels comfortable to her: scrubs, sweats, board-shorts, whatever. A few weeks ago she mentioned to me that she was thinking about wearing some sundresses this summer. Our daughter likes wearing dresses sometimes and I think she wanted to bond a little that way.

Anyway, so yesterday she came across a huge stack of sundresses for cheap and bought a few. I was washing them and found that they were "no tumble dry" so I began hanging them around the house.

When he saw them, my 10-year-old got so upset that he shut himself in his room sobbing. He really didn't want to talk about it except that he felt that his "mommy from two weeks ago would never have worn a dress". He cries sometimes when he's sad about stuff, but not inordinately for a ten year old. I cried a lot more than him when I was his age. But he spent as much time crying about this as I have when say, a pet died.

And this isn't the first time he's gotten traumatically upset about his mother changing her appearance either. Last year she had her long tresses trimmed into a pixie cut and he apparently had a meltdown on the ride back from hair cuttery. She has definitely had short hair before during his life though.

We don't really know how to approach this. We've both tried talking with him about how people get to choose how they want to appear and that she's the same mommy inside and that wearing a dress every so often won't change her tomboyish nature. But we don't really feel like anything was resolved last night.

So anyone have any experience with anything like this?

my kids get weird when we get new glasses and new shoes; I can TOTALLY get why yr kid's upset about this! but I don't think you need to do anything to resolve this except let your kid see that your wife is still mommy no matter what she looks like. sounds like a good lesson actually.

This is the same guy who's switching to plain t-shirts, right? I wonder if his anxiety about appearance in general is playing into this some, or he is feeling particularly insecure (about himself and his outward presentation) and his mom's style change has him feeling particularly unmoored.

Yeah, the same guy carl. And I think those are both pretty good points.

Ivy has opinions! She has these really cool art cards (http://weegallery.com/store/woodland-collection-art-cards-for-baby.html - they were a gift but I have never been able to figure out who gave them to her so if it is you, lmk because I owe you a very heartfelt thank you note. I love these things) hanging up over the changing table. She used to just look at them but now she grabs them and HOLDS ON and tries to eat them and last night and this morning when we tried to take the card out of her hand so we could take her off the changing table she YELLED LIKE A BANSHEE because she really wanted to stay put and eat that card.

This are about to get reeeeeeeaaaaaal interesting...

Fox now starts crying when I stop singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So I have to keep going because I can't bear the sadface.

My sons have discovered how awesome it is to shove their hands into their mouths. For some reason, my wife finds this upsetting.

Wait until they discovery the joy of putting their hands in their mouths and then taking that same slobber coated hand and shoving it in her mouth.

OTM.

I am pretty sure this is why she finds it upsetting

Awww Madchen. August hated coming to the end of books, so I had to kept reading or she'd cry. Doesn't last long.

how's life: I hated change as a child and struggle with it from time to time as an adult. I am also extremely sentimental. I was a child deeply attached to my world and very much in love with it. I was aware, at avery young age, that things could change and would and the thought of that alone drove me to tears and really, really hurt. I liked things just as they were.

I do remember crying when my mother tried to over correct her accent and pronounced things differently. Just made me cry because she wasn't sounding like the mom I knew, therefore not being the person who is mom. I was four or five. When my grandparents made changes to their home, they converted the carport to a den, I totally lost it when I saw them preparing for the construction I refused to visit for awhile. When I finally did return I cried all night. I was eight or so. When they had to cut down trees on their property or added a shed or took down a chicken coop...tears.

Crying it out helped me, having my grandmother reassure me that the change was good and pointed out how I would benefit from it helped.

Michael has gone from half-hearted commando crawl for 2 steps and roll over into all time speed demon "holy fuck where did the kid just go" belly up crawling in the last week. its ridiculous. also slightly terrifying because all baby-proofing projects need to get done uh right now.

baby proofing in my house mainly comprised moving the liquor bottles out of reach

It's going to be all about the tech cable strangulation risk chez Stet & Madchen.

strangulation or eating them, re: cables.

Had the entire house decked out in this stuff for about a year. It always fell off though.
http://img2.wfrcdn.com/lf/49/hash/4808/2088851/1/.jpg

I'm mostly worried about furniture toppling over. Our apt is old as balls and the floors slope a lot (eg we had to turn a filing cabinet sideways bc when it was positioned w/ the back to the wall, the drawers would slide open) so everything is shimmed and wouldn't take much coaxing to fall.

Yeah, we have the same problem but we never ended up doing anything about it, even after an earthquake hit in 2011 and my wife said the wardrobe was shaking like it was about to fall on top of her. I still haven't given up on bolting the furniture to the walls though. My 10-year-old son came close to proving the need for it this weekend when he tried to climb the same wardrobe (you know, just for the thrill of climbing it). So like, that's not just a baby-proofing thing. I'm hoping to rearrange the room this summer and do the bolting during that process.

the sweet-potato sized fetus presently rooming at Mrs A's has begun its kicking. the reality that there will be a complete wild-man three year old and an infant in this house before long is beginning to loom like a tidal wave gathering out there on the sea in slow motion

it's crazier than you can know

there's a kind of golden zone between 8-ish months or whenever they learn to sleep and age ohhh 3 or so. what i'm really dreading is when my 2-year-old turns into as much of a whiny haggler as his older brother is

Yeah I am also not sure how to feel about the impending insanity of two kids.

looking forward to following the plight of aero as a cautionary tale to keep me from throwing caution to the wind and having another kid at my advanced age.

Kinda feel like having one kid is way more punk rock and I'm selling out.

eagerly awaiting the announcement 5 months from now re: jjj babby #2

I'll be sure to pin it to my shirt before I hang myself

hang the jj
hang the jj
hang the jj

fwiw #3 is way awesome again b/c yr all like "I'm a pro now, f all advice forever"

lol

Something long-term I'm trying to figure out about having two kids - whether sharing a room is a good idea or not. We're looking for a bigger apartment right now and will hopefully have a separate nursery, bc I don't really want a crying baby in the same room as the four-year-old at 3 a.m. But once they're like 6 yrs old and 2 yrs old, they might enjoy sharing a room? Or does this cause problems?

my sister and I shared a room for 10 years - she still bears a scar on her nose from the time I kicked her in the face

ymmv

It's worth trying out. If it ends up causing problems, then just rearrange the situation.

lol VG

it seems most problematic with the infant/age difference. older sibling would probably resent the younger sibling moving in but idk.

we put our girls in a room together. sometimes it makes it harder for them to fall asleep at night (bc they crack each other up) but in general it has worked okay.

In our house, we all fall asleep in the same room, although we've taken to carrying our 10 year old back into his room after he falls asleep. Falling asleep together as a family is pretty fun.

We're planning on having (hypothetical) #2 share with #1 unless we're much richer in a few years.

yeah, who can spare the extra bedroom honestly

for most of our family's life our kids have shared rooms. for a year all three shared a room. this coming year the teen will have her own room & the others will share again. it's been good

Right now Evie is very enthusiastic about sharing a room with her sister but obv that will change once the sister becomes a physical reality.

In the USA we have five bedrooms (yay Midwest) and all kids have own rooms but moving back to Europe obv changes everything though we'll have a three bedroom, an improvement from the past when we all lived in a 90m2 apt

As an only child I can't speak to sharing a room with a sibling (although I did share a room with my mom at various points in my childhood) but if we were to have another child (we are not, fyi) they would definitely share a room.

The obvious ulterior motive here is eventually being able to turn the baby's room into an office/music room/guest room.

We are genuinely contemplating turning a coal cellar into a bedroom (yes we have a coal cellar), although not necessary at the moment.

I've just had a crash course in cloth nappies as well. It's a minefield! But I now feel a lot more equipped.

Bless all of you who go the cloth diapers route. Sometimes I think, "How would it have worked if we had gone with cloth diapers?" and then I laugh and/or cry depending on how much poop and/or laundry I'm dealing with at the moment.

I cry about all my money that's gone into pampers. Absolutely cry.

Our (new) washing machine broke almost two weeks ago, it took the repair people a week to get out here to look at it, they had to order a part that won't be in until the end of the week and it will be at least another week after that before they can come and install it. Our landlord, may the universe rain blessings upon him, has offered to reimburse us for drop off service but I still feel better taking Ivy's clothes to the laundromat myself (especially since I can get them all in one triple load and the drop off place charges extra for unscented detergent). Anyway I think I mostly just want sympathy.

I'm so sleepy.