Hello Mudduh Hello Fadduh: ILX Rolling Parenting Thread

our kid loves books, sometimes to pieces. we're currently on our second copy of "8 silly monkeys" (jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head, etc...). but he'll sometimes sit for 15 minutes at a stretch, flipping his way through a book, turning it upside down and flipping back, etc. when he wants to be actually read to, he'll bring one to us. apart from "8 Silly Monkeys" he likes "goodnight moon" (of course), "the fox went out on a chilly night" (because i sing it to him, to the burl ives tune), and really anything with bright colors and moving parts (we have a couple of pop-up type things).

xpost: Z can do the sippy cup, but he's not too into it. he's more interested in just regular cups, but the problem of course is after one or two gulps (half of which careen down his shirt), he just dumps the whole thing out. so i only really let him do that in the bath.

This is last summer when he was learning to swim - at one point he had a mask, flippers, arm floaties and a ring around his middle. My sister says it's because he's a Virgo and didn't want to take any chances, but I think secretly, he thought he looked cool. Like AquaBatMan. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/lunacee/boointhepool.jpg

This is him last September on the first day of school. The role of sidekick is being played by my mom. He's 8 now, in 3rd grade and has just been accepted to the gifted program which apparently doesn't really mean all that much in his school - except that he takes an extra art class after school on Wednesdays. He's going through kind of an asshole stage - which I suspect is the product of his growing up and trying to test new limits, and also of his having been slightly spoiled from the moment he was born, and so we're trying to talk things out, include him in making new rules and just generally be a little more grown up about things than we have been in the past. This is not easy, and tests both my patience and his as well. He is, without reservation or doubt, the very best thing that has ever happened to me, the very best thing I have ever done or been a part of, and will be, for the rest of the days I have on this earth, the true love of my life. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/lunacee/firstdayofschool.jpg

My wife and I have a 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Juna Ann. Here she is from Halloween:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/renart/kitty3.jpg

She's a joy and a constant challenge, like all worthwhile things. Her recent loves are animals, her grandparents, the works of Eric Carle, Babar books, building with those oversized Legos, painting and drawing, and dancing to almost any music I put on. I have an mpeg somewhere of her dancing to Gary Numan's "Cars."

She's been going through a bit of the terrible twos recently, but her contrariness occasionally produces some amusing results. Her step-grandfather told her the other day that she had a frog in her throat because her voice was low due to a cold. She told him indignantly, "No. I have a cricket in my mouth!"

By the way, for the parents of infants, I highly recommend Tana Hoban's "Black on White" and "White on Black" for reading books with them. They are just silhouettes of simple objects, but infants can focus most easily on high contrast pictures. When Juna was very little she loved to look at and point and recognize (I'm pretty sure) the simple pictures of bananas, teddy bears, etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/July-August2005bw049.jpg

(his big round head made charlie brown seem like an obvious choice)

It really is interesting how quickly children grasp the power of "no!"

:-) :-) Please to tell yer lovely lady wife N. hi from me, and that Julian is a treat.

Oh definitely. Especially when our daughter poops and pees just after putting off the dirty diaper. She's done this twice now. I'm used to the peeing - she does it at least once a day when I change diapers - but simultaneously squirting a bit of poopoo made me laugh. I couldn't help it, I just found it so extremely funny.

Recovery from my delivery has been relatively good but I do have some minor problems: pain in my pelvic bone is the worst. It really hinders me in carrying her. It's not impossible, just a bit harder to carry her around. :-( I am starting kine on monday. Hopefully it'll pass.

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(The little angel sensed I was going to gush about her on that internet again last night and so wailed for a good 40min; she always seems doubly cute when she finally settles down...)

Can we talk about raising boys vs raising girls? I'm an only child and I have no experience with little boys. Being a girl is hard but often I think it's harder to be a boy, you're just expected to be so goddamn tough all the time. I'm looking forward to parenting a boy and would love to hear some boy stories.

The main reason I was glad to have a girl was because of the socialization differences Teeny mentions above — "I think it's harder to be a boy, you're just expected to be so goddamn tough all the time." I was not so goddamn tough all the time, and bullied pretty thoroughly especially in high school, and didn't want my child to have to go through that exact experience. (I know adolescent girls have their own claws-out issues, and I've purposefully avoided watching Heathers.) I just thought then, and still think, that it's easier for girls to be imbued with a love of learning than boys, and if there was anywhere my wife and I could give our kid a leg up, it was in education. We weren't going to give it perfect cheekbones and the metabolism of a rabbit, and we weren't going to give it a flawless 18-foot jump shot or 120-mph first serve. I think I had a vague notion in my mind that the gender gap in pay scales would be narrower by the time she started looking for a job, and it is, a little bit, though the emphasis on equal pay for equal work kind of goes by the wayside with so many fucking Republicans and Xtians running things.

But basically, with parents who valued education over most other concerns, it seemed natural to prefer a girl, so I'm glad we got our wish. I don't think I'm writing this with 20/20 hindsight, but you never know.

Interestingly, my distinct uneasiness in 1988 at the prospect of socializing and educating a boy has borne itself out in U.S. society to the point where Newsweek a couple of weeks ago had a cover story about the gender gap in education.

I believe it was good for our marriage and I'm absolutely convinced it was critically important to our daughter's development. She saw no commercial television, therefore no commercials. She was an absolute joy to take shopping because she never "had to have" anything. She also didn't develop any dubious role models from MTV or even cartoon or children's networks.

Our rule was that if she wanted to watch a video, she had to watch the video. No putting a video on and then ignoring it in the background while doing something else. If she got tired of watching, she turned it off. I'm convinced that helped her develop an attention span longer than five minutes.

When she was five, we got TV back, but by then the habits were broken in our case and never set in hers. TV became a treat that she earned by doing chores, etc. Thirty minutes at a time.

She's 17 now, and we never went through any problems with her wanting to grow up too fast. I'm convinced that the best things we did for her - and we did then all by accident or lucky instinct - were:

* No TV for at least five years. Eight is probably better.
* No sodas, tea or other caffeinated drinks. Ever.
* We read to her every single night of her life from the time she was about two months old until she starting reading for herself. We took turns, and usually all three sat together for the reading out loud.

I'm not saying how we raised our kiddo was perfect, nor were we perfect at it. She was a stubborn little cuss, and still is sometimes. She'd argue with a fencepost. But she's never suffered from a cripplingly low self-esteem the way I did, from comparing myself to impossible people all the time, and she never tried to rush her own growing up.

And in my book, that's two gifts you can give your kids that nobody can take from them, ever.

Sorry for burbling on. And please don't take this as boastfulness or ego. It's simply lessons learned that I'd love to share.

but as for boys/girls, my wife really wanted a daughter and was initially disappointed when we found out he was a he. that didn't last long, tho. especially once she realized she could still dress him up in cute outfits (at least until he gets old enough to protest). i had no preference, but i love him to pieces and wouldn't change him in any way. if we have another, it'd be nice to have a girl i guess -- i think it'd be interesting to have one of each. plus having grown up with a sister, i think it's nice for siblings to have the other gender around.

i've heard other people say what rebekkah says, that girls are more work in some ways. it wasn't true in my family, but that's cuz my little brother kind of threw off the curve...

no soda ever. no juice at home--the only time they get that is at birthday parties where I have no control. they drink white milk or water and they are totally happy with it. Juice is nutritionally worthless for the most part--don't be swayed by seeing "100% vitamin C".

Our kids never get dessert if they don't eat all of their dinner. Ever.

i don't know. i'm sure there will be a lot of fights and adjustments along the way. on the one hand, i was always kind of proud of having been raised in a severely tv-restricted environment. on the other hand, i have lots of friends who grew up drenched in television, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them. part of me thinks, he's going to be living in a media-saturated world, might as well get used to it. but then, i also want to control what he takes in, at least to some degree.

Re television: I could watch as much telly as I wanted. Thank god, or else my English would be crap. (I learned the language from watching tons of subtitled films and also BBC.) So I'm not that against television. That said, knowing what I sometimes as a kid (hardcore porn,...), I'll try to keep her away from the bad stuff. ;-)

this is pretty much what we did. I still like to hover around while he watches, which is strictly limited, mostly to answer questions.

TV: I grew up in a limited access household--b&w broadcast channels from maybe age 4 onward, got cable around age 9, never a big tv addict--and would really like to throw the box out now that the kid's around. I say that but I don't know if it's really true because my husband likes tv so much I'm not going to have the choice. And of course I watch a ton of TV during the day because it's nice to have background noise and it's hard to do anything else and nurse at the same time. We're setting up our house with a tiny tv room and a big family room though, with places to play and read--I think this is good, keep the tv away from gathering areas. I'm glad we have Tivo to restrict access and cut out commercials when the time comes to introduce the kid to tv. And I do have fond memories of watching the twilight zone and Cosmos with my dad, there's good things about tv too.

Sending her to nursery makes us unhappy. She doesn't seem to mind, but we do. I don't think it will make her sociable, she is only 10 months old and takes no notice of the other kids (something I secretly find admirable). Plus she is always ill. If she carries on like this she will grow up to be like Morrissey. Before nursery she was vigorous and strong, a state she reverts to at weekends.

Photo:

ihttp://www.flickr.com/photos/25214957@N00/91393888/

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xpost!

We have the telly on a lot and Ava seems less interested now that packing boxes prevent her from licking/slapping the screen. We haven't thought so far ahead as to imagine what damage we may be doing to her with TV. She dances to all the adverts and I'm not taking that away from her.

I'm very weary of banning a TV (or any other media). You have to educate a person (child or adult) on how to watch television. The box is not evil, it's how you handle it. This is of course easier said than done, but I am not anti-TV (nor internet) at all.

And, yes, that's how I see it as well, Teeny: you can't spoil a baby. From six months onwards they do start to make connections and then I'll try to make sure she doesn't see the connection. I don't want a spoilt child but I don't want an unloved baby either. :-) I realize that dependency can be a problem: as a child I was very dependant on my mom and they really had to cut the umbilical cord later on: I would go absolutely mental if my mom left me alone (with my dad or anyone else). When I was about three, my dad told my mom to leave so he could cut the cord. It was painful but very necessary. :-)

Incidentally, Michael, you might want to have a word with Edith because she applauded Chelsea's goal the other day. Obviously she didn't get any encouragement from me.

ihttp://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=91393888&size=m