ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

haha

cornstarch is amaaaazing for nappy rash

tonight we hung out with other parents of young kids and ate dinner and drank awesome beer and wine and that is like the best fucking thing in the universe, thank fucking god for other parents, just felt like I needed that so badly. they were so chill, we ate back porch and everything was a fucking mess and there was food everywhere but nobody gave a shit. after they left I got to wash the dishes drunk and feeling great and very satisfied with the state of things. thank you to all ILPM folks you all rule and i would get drunk and cook food with all your families anytime

There seems to be this incredible effect where four drunk parents are better at making sure two kids don't kill themselves than two drunk parents (who are married to each other) are at watching one child.

And yeah, those friends are essential. We have a semi-regular friday night thing with a neighbor family where we basically just eat takeout and drink and bitch, it's very cathartic.

We're staying with some friends who we haven't seen in two years and we both had babies since we last hung out and it's pretty great. A bunch of other friends we haven't seen in an equally long time came over last night and we ate a shitload of tacos and drank beers and talked about ridiculous things like we always did but now there are an 8 month old and a 20 month old around and it felt totally normal despite being unprecedented.

aw that sounds great. I'm getting a bit pissed off with my group of mums (in the UK there are a bunch of pre-natal courses you can pay to go on that lots of people do just to meet other couples having their first babies at the same time). Since the babies hit 6 months we're all a bit more lax about meeting up but we have a WhatsApp group which I never seem to get a response on. I get that ppl are busy/on holiday but I want to know about specific things that they're usually really helpful about but they all seem a bit flaky atm.

also Scik Mouthy, I think we are hitting something similar to you guys. It's not as bad as that but I'm still struggling to get more than 3 hours of sleep in a row. His daytime naps are fine and he doesn't have a problem going to sleep (if anything he's overtired when he finally goes down, which I'm going to try and address). He just wakes up a ton in the night - I'm guessing a mixture of teething, starting to roll over and doing that a lot in his sleep, being in his own room, getting over a cold. I thought it was temporary but if anything he's getting worse, actually waking and staying awake for an hour at night. Apparently there is a 'late sleep regression' around 8-10 months but this has been since at least 7mo.

The good thing is he's fairly chill about it and I'm doing my best to get as many chunks of sleep as possible but we had a REALLY good thing going not long ago.

Kinder, we found the same with our NCT group and it's really been falling apart since the mums went back to work. A quarterly pubnic is the best we can do, usually somewhere convenient for the four families who live near each other (which doesn't include us). Fortunately the other family near us are lovely - though our parenting styles are completely different we get on pretty well.

Did you know NCT also run 'tea groups'? I've heard they're good for meeting people if you're not getting on so well with the people from your class. Keep meaning to check the website for our nearest one.

In our group we've had a stillbirth and a suicide, so as well as the unimaginable awfulness for those directly affected, it has affected the group dynamic as well.

Luckily I was folding laundry at the time and had the presence of mind to grab a pair of underpants to catch the turd before it fell onto the white chair Ivy was standing on so it could have been worse.

― from batman to balloon dog (carl agatha), Saturday, July 18, 2015 5:50 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao that is amazing

I think there's a certain zen to having two kids, if you allow it to wash over you. Like, there is just going to be something demanding your attention at all times, so you learn to accept that and maybe it can even quiet some of your self-obsession and anxiety.

Also K is just at such a fun age now in certain ways -- 3.5, and she's a total daddy's girl. We have great conversations, I take her swimming, to museums, we play music together, she makes me do dialogue from movies with her, I know it's bad to be too much your kid's "friend" but she's kind of my best friend lately, other than H of course.

something demanding your attention at all times

You mean like this? "Hey dad look over here. Hey dad. Hey dad, turn around and look. Hey dad, check this out. Hey dad. Dad, turn around. Hey dad Hey dad Hey dad!"

Yeah, like "Honey, can you pick up E--" "Dad, look at what Winnie the Pooh is do--" "--WAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Does hearing bad news about babies/children ever get any easier, as your own kids grow up? I've lost count of the number of times I've been sitting at my desk at work, catching up on the news with tears welling up reading about a freak accident/insert other bad thing here, because I can't help but put myself in that child's parent's place.

and finally, after dad has managed to turn the burner off under the skillet and deposited the kid in his left arm safely to the floor and pushed a tall, full glass of lemonade out of harm's way, all in one motion, he turns to see what the hell the other kid has been HAMMERING him to pay attention to: "look, i balanced this pencil on this other pencil!!!"

xpost i don't think so

xp, I can't read stories about bad stuff happening to kids, I cannot even get through them. Even "heartwarming videos" about someone entertaining a child with cancer in the hospital or something, I just can't fucking watch. Hard to even type this.

^^^

stupid fucking empathy

empathy but also just sheer terror at the thought of anything ever happening to my kids

^^^see Nick Cave thread currently, for example

7:30pm. 12:30am. 4am. 6:30am.

King of the world! Now if only we weren't awake waiting for her to wake. And if only she'd nap in the day.

i think i have weighed in before on how U&K the daytime naps are

Indeed; Em's at the end of her tether today re: daytime naps. Today it's especially humid and unpleasant, but basically Nora only sleeps in the buggy or on Em during the day. wtf can we do to get her to nap during the day?

hey if the buggy works use it

That's kind of my attitude but Em's against it'; I think she sees it as failing. Also, she'd like to be able to get an hour in the house to do stuff during the day.

yeah totally. pushing a buggy aimlessly waiting for a baby to maybe or maybe not fall asleep is really no fun at all

back carry?

^^^see Nick Cave thread currently, for example

― as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Tuesday, 21 July 2015 07:26 (6 hours ago) Permalink

perfect example of a story that came up in my feed and I did not read

J recently became able to sleep for longer times in his cot, it's a total gamechanger now that I don't HAVE to push him around in the buggy come rain or shine.

I cannot deal with any bad sad stories about kids - my brain goes no no no no no no no and I cry a bit or a lot. Bad news about moms gets me too. A mom of two very young kids here was recently killed and I had to stop listening to the radio in the morning yet fb told me more anyway. My heart.

my heart feels like it's expanding and enveloping those kids and moms while exploding and seizing at the same time

Awww. Yeah, that sounds about right. <3

Woke at 1am and 4am last night, and then for the morning at 6:45. I'll take that.

And yes, sad stories about parents or kids are pretty much unbearable to me now.

snap Scik! I fed him at 1am but he seems to only need settling (ie giving him his dummy) regularly at 4am ish and 6am ish.
Really wish it was practical to have him sleep next to me again so I could just do it semi-asleep.

Four days of travel to a timezone 3 hours earlier where the sun sets at 10pm and an onslaught of grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, second cousins, and great aunts and uncles really messes with an 8 month old's bedtime.

Shitty thing is that the fuckery of all that tends to last after the trip ime

2am and 4am last night. That first stretch is stretching nicely by an hour each night.... will it last????

So the trick to getting Ivy ready without screaming seems to be:

1. Let her brush her own teeth. (aka eat toothpaste. Her baby teeth are going to rot out of her head by the time she's 2.5.) (jk I get in there and brush 'em good once she's done.)
2. Let her take off her diaper.
3. Let her try to put on a new diaper then run around naked (risky business) carrying the new diaper until she acquiesces to being laid on the floor so I can strap the thing on her.
4. Let her pick out her own shirt which requires me holding up all of her shirts for either a "Nonononono" or a "Yeah."
5. Let her try to put her shirt on until she acquiesces to my help.
6. Same with pants.
7. Let her comb my hair so I can comb her hair.
8. Count all of her toes.
9. Let her try to put one sock on while I sneak in and put one on her other foot. Switch for shoes.

It takes approximately 1.5 hours and we have to get up at 3 am now.

All this to look forward to.

Not to get all Facebook sappy or anything but she also is learning her ABCs and can count to five in Spanish (not English, though) and is able to communicate now so this whole exercising autonomy when getting dressed thing is just a (frustrating) part of of something that is truly amazing to witness and be a part of. So while I'm tired and using all of my remaining energy to be patient with her while she's running around naked, carrying a diaper and grinning like a fool, the larger part of me is in utter awe of her.

Cool.

Sorry if that came across lecturing or condescending. I'm just having a lot of

http://38.media.tumblr.com/a54dbf9cc90e5066d506318f117e3606/tumblr_nliz88lOLn1rvzbdgo1_500.gif

moments these days.

Also I don't want to be like this woman I used to work with who was always like "You think it's bad now, you just wait, your life is ruined, having children the hardest thing ever done, you'll cry yourself to sleep every night and wake up depressed, children are a blessing from god."

So you know just trying to balancing out the challenges by pointing out the parts that are amazing.

lol I think about that Holly Hunter bit quite often

Things Tilda says:
dadadadadadada - this is her default speech so I try not to think of it as her talking about me but who knows
eh-VA! eh-VA! - this could be her talking about Evie but who knows
tatatatata - she just whispers this to herself, who knows?
bluh bluh bluh bluh - talking while rolling her fist around in her mouth
mama - she FINALLY said mama the other day, Sarah is relieved

I bet she is talking about Evie!

I was very relieved when Ivy first said "mama," too, although now she only says "mama" when she wants a drink of whatever I'm drinking. So her name for Jeff is "dad!" her name for me is "*high pitched shriek*" and "mama" is her name for cans of Lacroix.

Judah's finally expanding his vocabulary, his pronunciation is predictably shit but he is repeating words and coming out w new ones all the time so that's gratifying (he's 2 1/2). My wife tried to make me promise not to teach him to say "poop on balls" but I was like, "what, he poops on his balls all the time, I can't help it"