ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

apparently I am the only person in the world without a sophie. There's posh Sophie baby bubble bath and stuff now too!

we got sophie as gift, iirc they are a little expensive?

Kickstarter to send kinder's kinder a Sophie...

14 feckin quid!

I have tons of loyalty card points so I guess it's that and nappies rather than nice makeup for me...

I'm getting lots of questions about "where did the world come from?" and "where did people come from?" and I've pretty much exhausted my ability to take what little I remember about the big bang theory and evolution and translate it into kid comprehension levels.

I found this goodreads list though which looks useful: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/77985.Kids_Books_on_the_Big_Bang_and_Evolution

The craziest thing is trying to explain how huge the spans of time involved are and not making it sound like proto-monkeys evolved into people overnight. It's hard enough for an adult to comprehend the time spans, must be tougher for someone who hasn't even been alive five years yet.

I look forward to this part of parenting.

Older than stars and Bang! are on my wish list.

yeah for my part I really enjoy trying to figure out how to simplify things enough to be understandable while still being accurate

and even though I'm sure a fair amount of it goes a bit over her head, Veronica really digs Cosmos :)

Yeah I can't wait to get into the explaining the existence of the world part of having a kid, though I imagine their capacity for asking "why?" might be much greater than my patience for answering.

I have discovered that playmobil men come w neckbeards now. Like, you remove the snap-on beard and there is painted on neck n chin stubble underneath.

I have this shirt covered in famous Communists drinking (Communist Party! ho ho) which Ella loves, and now she keeps asking for details about them. Points at Stalin, asks "Do you like him?" "Why not?" etc etc. Very quickly conversation gets out of control.

She's always saying "Wear the Connoniss!"

awww!

Points at Stalin, asks "Do you like him?" "Why not?" etc etc. Very quickly conversation gets out of control.

lol I had to explain WWI the other night. "Um so this guy Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated..."

looking at the wiki now I'm relieved that I got the dates and the various powers involved correct (*whew*) but I still had a hard time explaining the actual *why* of the war

ha

I actually remember being on the kid end of a lot of these conversations!

"If national debt is such a problem, why doesn't the whole world just start over?"

I'm still not convinced that isn't a viable solution (don't disabuse me of this notion, or at least don't expect me to actually read a post about it zzzzzzz).

I remember asking my parents why we had to be scared of the Russians if they were just people like we are or why Communism was so bad anyway. Also still valid questions, IMO.

And asking my mom what eternity was, and to clarify that going to heaven really meant eternal life, and like lying awake for days thinking of how awful and boring living forever in heaven would be.

Anyway, I'm super looking forward to this with Ivy, too. I'm going to give her better answers to the Communism question than I got, that's for sure! ("Because Communists believe everybody else has to be Communists and they won't rest until everybody thinks like they do, even if they have to nuke us!")

thinking of how awful and boring living forever in heaven would be

haha this is totally how I've framed the Xtian conception of heaven when talking to Veronica, a "place where nothing ever happens"

why we had to be scared of the Russians if they were just people like we are or why Communism was so bad anyway

I haven't gotten to communism yet (although it's only a matter of time given the number of books I have about Marx, Stalin, etc. lying around) Nazis have been a little easier to explain eg "they thought they were better than everybody else, and whenever anyone thinks that they use it as an excuse to do terrible things to people who are not like them"

wait until you get questions about the nature of time, those are the best

haha yes that is happening (thx Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

yeah, Nazis seem like they would be easier to explain since the entire ideology is pretty evil. Whereas communism is a pretty great idea that has been poorly implemented in the name of murderous madmen. Kind of like capitalism! (Except I think capitalism is a terrible idea. SORRY MOM I guess your early political indoctrination failed.)

SORRY MOM <there's your capitalisation right there

hahaha

I remember asking my Dad about the Russians and him telling me about Lenin and me thinking it was spelled Lennon.

Another mindboggler (other people I know have had this too) seems to be when little kids look at parental wedding photos from years earlier than their birth, and demand to know why they weren't invited

i must have asked mum 100 times what communism was & she always gave me some long weird answer about farms

omg so we are going through this thing now with Judah where he just WILL NOT GO TO BED. Initially when we switched from the crib to a toddler bed there was no big problem, bedtime routine stayed the same, he might put up some initial resistance and cry for one of us or whatever but he would generally stay in his room and (eventually) stay in bed and go to sleep. But for some reason now in the last few weeks he's figured out that after we "put him to bed" (ie, put his pajamas on, read him a story, tuck him in etc.) he can just get out of bed and do whatfuckingever, which to-date has primarily been wandering out of his room and then going to bother his sister in her room or coming downstairs and bothering us or just running around upstairs or opting to lie down halfway up the stairs and this goes on for HOURS. Like every five minutes I have to get up, take him back to his room, tuck him in and then rinse and repeat two or three dozen times. Is driving me insane. Veronica somehow developed the good sense at this age to just stay in her room and bang on the door if she wanted us.

that's always hard this time of year, as it stays light later and later

yeah I'm sure that's part of it. super-frustrating to have it last from 7:30 to 10pm though

I mean

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFEexjXUUAEqOhU.jpg

go to fucking bed already!

Oh man.

My approach is:

1. Find something they love (usually videogames)
2. Threaten to take it away (and actually take it away if you have to)

he's too young to grasp consequences tho! I mean he's only 2

Oh then just use violence.

JK!!!!

lol I did somewhat seriously suggest just locking his door but the wife wasn't having it

Could a baby gate across his door work? That's what my parents did when I went through the same phase

we had a babygate in the upstairs hallway but as he had figured out how to open it we took it down a couple weeks ago

he doesn't talk much but he is very mechanically minded

brutal outic, J (2.5) would sometimes call out and ask for water like 5 times before falling asleep and that was super annoying but it was nothing like what you've got going on

10pm is soooo late too, this is like your only time to feel like a human during the day sometimes, those couple hours after the kids go to bed are so crucial for me

exactly! I can't deal with these little fuckers from dawn to dusk, I need *some* downtime!

lol when I stared co-parenting a 7-year-old back in the early 90's I remember telling my mom "now I understand why you always made us go to bed early"

throw him in the pokey

brutal outic, J (2.5) would sometimes call out and ask for water like 5 times before falling asleep and that was super annoying but it was nothing like what you've got going on

^^^

Ella went from going straight to sleep to suddenly making a series of endless last-minute demands (I need water! Where's my rabbit! I dropped my (several extra spare) dummies! Read me a book!"

After about 2 months of this, I desperately told her, 'And please don't call out tonight!' when putting her to bed. She said, with weary indulgence, "Of course I won't!", and all was peace and quiet that night, and every night since (it has lasted 4 weeks now). This is obviously too preposterously easy to last, and of no use to anybody else, obviously, but I'm still in shock that it worked.