The New Girl

Turns Out, It Does.

The knife makes a nice sound as it goes through the frosting to the bottom and then up the side of the bowl.  A kind of muted Click and Swoop as I scoop some out to dollop onto my Orange Cookies.  It's repetitive and relaxing and I'm calm in the quiet kitchen, working alone, after the kids have gone to bed. Frosting and setting aside each cookie, wondering if the icing sets or not.  I can't remember.  The fleeting urge to call my mother to check flares up a stinging behind my eyes and then vanishes.

The recipe was my great-grandmother's and as far back as I can remember, we had these orange cookies around the holidays.  The recipe card came from one of the two boxes that I brought back from my father's house, when we cleaned it out.  One box was full of my mother's recipes and the other box belonged to my grandmother.  The recipe for the orange cookies was in my mother's handwriting and for whatever reason, it still strikes me as crazy that these things survive, even when she does not.  There it is, though.  Her writing.  As familiar to me as the sight of her making some of the recipes that are now in my possession.

This year I have both boxes of recipes and I've decided to bake the cookies of my growing up years.  I rooted around in my gram's recipes and found the recipe for the Magic Cookie Bars that she made.  I layered the ingredients for her specific recipe and I thought about her.  I thought about how many times she'd used the stained, faded card.  How many times she'd done exactly as I did.  How things always change and nothing stays the same and how, as I'm baking now, off the exact card she used--we are still connected.  Through the years, through the baking, through the ether.

In my experience, it is the women of a family who weave the tapestry of memory and history.  It is the lineage of the women in my family who are the carriers of the knowledge of nurturing.  My great-grandmother died the year I got married when she was 95.  A few years after that, my grandmother developed dementia.  A few years after that, my mother died.  While my grandmother was still alive, she could no longer follow a simple recipe.  She died a couple years after my mother.  For so many years I had so many people to call for advice.  Women whose job it was to know and remember.  Women who crocheted the blankets and fixed the broken angel's wings and baked the cookies.  Women who knew if the damned icing sets or not.

They're all gone.  In a few short years, I lost them all.

Now, the women of my line start with me.  It's a big responsibility, in a way.  A little scary and a little lonely and more than a little sad, especially around the holidays.  The Sister and I are forging ahead, making new traditions for our children.  I'm doing my best to document what's happening now, in case my kids don't think to ask questions about themselves, about their childhoods until it's too late.

About the icing--there's no one to call. 

So, I'll just have to wait and see if it sets. 

 

 

Because 'I Think I Can,' Won't Fucking Cut It & 'You Can't Give Them Away' Just Depresses Me More.

So, I don't know if we are deep into some kind of heinous sleep regression or if there's a general sucky sleep formula brought on by two back-to-back trips away, weaning, learning to walk and talk (for the baby) and impending preschool and learning to run and climb somewhat fearlessly and scream exceptionally loudly for TLNG.

Whatever the cause, the result is the same.

A level of heartbreak and angst that is unexplainable, for the sheer number of superlatives involved.

In other words: Oh My Holy Fucking Hell.

It's one thing to bring a newborn home, into an already established family with a well-functioning sleep routine.  You just KNOW that shit is going to get harshed. And good.  But when that newborn grows and sleeps SLEEPS! Through the night!  And your toddler-slash-preschooler (is she REALLY a preschooler? Holy Shit,) is also a champion sleeper! Well, this kind of thing can come right out of left field to simultaneously bite you on the ass and run you over like a truck.

Part of it is that, with my son, I find myself losing track of those Sleep Regressions/Wonder Weeks/Whatever the hell reasons that you can find to explain the fucking insanity of early childhood behavior switch-ups.  I'm saying that next month (NEXT MONTH!) he's going to be a year old.  He's standing and cruising and balancing all by himself.  He's babbling and playing games and eating me out of house and home.  But because there's twice the motion and keeping track with two kids, I just..well, let's just say that a few nights ago I realized that I was going to have to plan a first birthday party and it took me..totally off guard. WTH?

I'm sure that the sleep deprivation is at least partially to blame.

I find myself slogging through, trying to force myself to work, to clean, to write, to address the frigging package to Jess already, because, DAMN.  The lack of sleep works on me, though.  It's one of the things that I most hate about parenting.  (One of the others is Mr. Potato Head.  Just saying.)

I know that I will sleep again.

I know that my son will start walking (send help when he does, cause, omfg) and talking and sleeeeeping again.  I know that my daughter will start preschool and will work through whatever the hell is making her scream her head off at 2:48 in the morning because she can't get her hair to go the right way.

It's temporary.  That's my mantra whenever we are in a 'bad spot,' sleep or behavior wise.  It's temporary.

The thing is: we're four weeks in already and there's no end in sight.

*sigh*

I think I might need a new mantra.

 

 

 

It's Like A Bad Phil Collins Song. Or Great, You Know, If You Love Phil Collins.

He's said it only a couple of times, mostly lightly, even in passing, but it never fails to unnerve me nonetheless--in spite of or maybe because of the inherent truth in it.

"It's like we're two people who happen to live in the same house.  It's like we're living separate lives, together."

It's not meant to be hurtful.  It's not even really meant to convey a problem from his perspective.  It's meant merely as an observation that's been inserted into a couple of conversations we've had about other things.

But it kind of makes me shudder.

Because it's kind of true.

I get up super early with two small kids.  I spend the entire day, almost every day, corralling, feeding, cleaning, wiping, changing, and herding.  With a side of becoming an indoor jungle gym-slash-drool cloth.  He gets up early and goes to work, braving a long-ass, awful commute and a hectic never-sitting-down-lucky-to-get-lunch-day.  In the evening, I'm juggling kids, trying to make sure only the dog is eating the dog food and trying to prevent his water bowl from becoming a mini-water table while at the same time, making WHATEVERTHEFUCK for dinner.  He is braving the long-ass awful commute back home and walking into controlled chaos. (Sometimes it's controlled. We have cable.)

We eat together and I take The Boy, he takes The Girl and we do baths and bedtime. 

Then he goes downstairs to do more work and I spend some time arranging and cleaning and then [fucking around on Twitter for a while] reading before collapsing into bed.  He's a night owl and I don't even know what time he comes to bed.

Then, you know. Rinse and REPEAT.

He and I have been together forever. Well. You know. Like 15 years or something like that.  Our relationship, our marriage, is solid.  Built on bedrock.  Having been together for 12 years, married for 8, before having kids has given us a couple of incarnations of our relationship, really.  Dating for 4 years before getting married, we were students, then professionals.  Married for the 8 years, we were professionals, working and getting promoted and having expendable income.  We traveled some.  We remodeled some.  We went to dinner and movies and shit like that.

And then we had two small kids.

We went down to basically one income. We travel less. We go out with the kids but not a whole lot without them.  The day to day caring for children, leaves me with less Nice at the end of the day.  It probably leaves me with no Caring For Someone Else, if I'm honest about it.  His job is stressful and demanding.  It's not easy, I'm sure, to have the sole responsibility of maintaining and providing for a family.  And although he never complains about it, I would be wicked stressed if the situation was reversed.

And so, there it is.

I don't think that there's anything wrong in our relationship.  I think that having two small kids, who rightly need a ton of attention and care, siphon so much of our finite physical/emotional energy, that our focus has shifted temporarily.

Does that make sense?

I just don't think that we're alone.  As strong and as deeply rooted as our relationship is, it's just not an easy time for the Couple Maintenance, if you know what I'm saying.

But, I think the reason it makes me shudder is that those very sentences are spoken thousands upon thousands of times. To, like, divorce lawyers. Or Oprah.  You feel me?

I am as sure as I can be of anything that The Man and I are long-termers.  I think, though, if we're living separately together, there has to be a liiiiittle more overlap.  Maybe we get a sitter and go to dinner and a movie (or maybe just dinner because *YAWN* I might not be able to make it through both.) Or, maybe I go to more of his baseball games with the kids in tow.  Or maybe I turn off twitter and go down into the basement and sit with him.  Or give him a back rub or bring him some cut fruit before I go to bed.

I don't want years to go by, with the only increasing busyness that comes with kids--when the bounce-house play dates turn into weekend-long travel soccer--only to find that we have stumbled into some tired but still painful cliche.

Because I love The Man so.  I really, really do.

I mean, you know.  That's how we ended up these Little Cute-Ass Time-Slash-Attention Suckers, to begin with.

Supply And Demand.

If I ever pen a memoir on my experience of being a mother, the title is going to be, 'Motherhood: Who In The Fuck Knows?'

Because, SERIOUSLY. WHO in the fuck KNOWS what's going on with this gig?

Not me, apparently.

When people tell you that the experience of parenting one kid has NOTHING to do with how you parent another, they are NOT PLAYING.  The ways that my two kids are different are numerous to the point of [insert the symbol for infinity here.]  And, indeed, the early indications are that the way I parent The Girl will have some overlap but may be quite different from the way I parent The Boy.

But if there was one thing I counted on being the same, perhaps naively, it would be my abundant boob-milk supply.  With my first kid, I had such a crazy over-supply that it took 10.5 (TEN AND A HALF) months for my supply to regulate. Initially, it was the same with The Boy.  (He ate so much that my supply regulated in mere WEEKS.)  He latched on immediately and ate a ton and gained a ton and other than some Thrush, we had no difficulties.  At his four month well visit, he weight about 19 pounds.  Off the charts for weight.

I started to notice some frustration from him a while back, when a let-down wouldn't come fast enough, but I just thought he was getting bigger and wanted a faster boob.  He slept through the night early (for us) and I wondered whether or not that was going to effect my supply. The Lactation Consultant didn't think so.  But then my baby sitter told me last week that The Boy ate 5oz of milk during the time in which I only pumped 2oz to replace that missed feeding. 'Hmm,' I thought.

He was cranky at night and during the day and although he nursed frequently, he was fussy. He protest cried at being taken off the boob at night.  He woke at night after an hour of sleep screaming and crying.  I thought, 'Q: Teething? Cold? Development?'  (Of course, A: WHO IN THE FUCK KNOWS?)

And then, the next day, the sitter told me that while I was out getting my hair done, my kid took SIX OUNCES of milk.  When we hadn't even missed a feeding.

That's when I weighed him.

Fifteen pounds.

I weighed him again, just to be sure I didn't make a math error.

Fifteen pounds.

So, I started watching him closely. The letdown took a long time and he was only sucking and swallowing for a few minutes.  He protest cried when I took him off the second side at bedtime. So I gave him another ounce of expressed milk in a bottle AFTER he ate and he sucked that shit down, like, 'FINALLY, motherfucker. Fi-na-lly.'

I panicked and went to Target that night. To get starter foods, some brown rice cereal and I looked at the formula.

Formula!

(P.S. I don't think it's Devil-Juice. I just never thought that *I*--font of milky abundance--would EVER find myself looking in that aisle.)

(P.P.S. I also had NO IDEA how many kinds there are. Or how costly it is.)

If you follow me on Twitter (I hate that 'Follow,' yeesh) you may have seen my frantic plea for help regarding a diminishing milk supply.

[If I could do a screen capture or whatever, I'd put it right here. Imagine it being 140 characters of OMFGOMFGOMFG...no milk!]

The response was immediate and helpful (except for a few smart-ass tweets about praying to trees for help) and I'm on my way.  It seems to be working, if quicker let-down and no protest crying when taken off at night and sleeping without waking to scream from hunger are any indication.

Oh, MAN, guys. 

I was STARVIN' MAH BEBE.

So, yeah.

Apparently, I'm still a rookie.

[Edited to add: Today, before nap, The Boy breastfed and then took, oh, FOUR ounces of expressed milk on top of that. So, uh, looks like I'll be going out to get that formula this afternoon. {Sad Trombone}]

Oh, Here We Go.

You KNEW it was going to happen to me, didn't you? All you Super-DJs, Who Think You're Fly. You knew that one day, probably sooner rather than later, I would be where I am today.

Today.

This morning, in my kitchen, trying to open my new Bonne Maman Preserves to NO AVAIL, muttering to myself, under my breath, struggling with the [mockingly] cheery gingham-printed lid while pondering my advancing age and worrying about possible early-onset arthritis which will disallow opening of jars when I'm home alone, or, you know, WIDOWED or whatever.

When clear as a bell, from the living room, my toddler asks, "Mommy, why you say fawk?"

Oh, man.

You know what this means, right?

You know.

It means I'm totally fawked.

Quite Right.

He is red-faced screaming and I am bewildered.

Tired?

Start bouncing and ear-piercing screams mean, 'Uh. NO.'

Hungry?

Latches on, eye rolling, screaming ensues. 'NO.'

Gas. It must be gas.

I give him two doses, back to back, of gas medicine and walk him around, patting his back. 

He quiets. Gives two little burps.

I bounce him and he whimpers.  His eyes close and he's asleep in 6 minutes.

The bewilderment at the crying makes me realize [just how fucking soft I've gone] how little he actually cries. How predictable his needs and how soothe-able his distress.  Since I wrote the post about the horrible, sleepless, [post-partum brain-fuck] angst, we went to the GI specialist.  We had a change in medication.

And I have a brand-new kid.

He smiles and giggles and coos and makes raspberries and has a social cough.  He eats every 3-4 hours in the daytime. And, get this: he's been sleeping through the night. And I'm not talking about the *6-hour-stretch-from-7pm-to-2am* that the BABY BOOKS pretend is 'sleeping through the night.' I'm talking about a solid, uninterrupted 10-12 hour stretch. Without crying or eating. AT NIGHT. Pardon my whisper.  I haven't wanted to tell you.  I haven't wanted to talk about it, think about it or BREATHE A WORD OF IT.  And I'm not even superstitious. 

I'm that amazed.  You could knock my ass over with a baby sock.

Seriously.

I find myself wondering just who IS this ginormous, happy, sweet, sleepy baby?  I also wonder what I would think of New Motherhood if this boy, this temperamentally rhythmic, predictable, good-natured boy, was my first baby. Or my only baby.  Wow. I can't even begin to imagine how different my perspective, my take-away would be.  The Man said, 'We'd have three more by now.' And while I think that's a huge exaggeration (I still hate being pregnant, yo) the sentiment is one that I understand. 

My daughter, my fire-filled, mercurial, girl child. She gave us a tough row to hoe.  A bonfire into which we threw our expectations, our assumptions.  And the blaze imprinted itself on my ideas about and my experience of new motherhood. Singed it.  Left it smelling smoky and a little dangerous. 

Don't get me wrong, there was lots of love forged in that fire.  But let me be honest and say that it was a site at which there was a trial. You know the kind.

Or, maybe you don't.

I'd like to think that if my boy had been my first or only, that I would still have as much empathy, compassion and understanding for the woman I see with the caterwauling infant and the distant, dazed-senseless look in her eyes.  Even easy babies are demanding, after all, there's no denying that. 

It's just that...I don't know. I'm not one of those people who believes that you have to have had the same exact experience as I have to understand me, to really get what I'm saying.  Your mom may be alive and well, say, and you still GET that my loss was tremendous. Pain is pain.  I'm saying that even if you've had easy babies, I still think that you can understand.  Mostly. (You'll never hear me say that condescending, 'Oh, you wouldn't understand.')

It's just that there's something about the experience of parenting one so tough that makes parenting one this easy a little...jarring.  I can't explain it better than that.  At least not yet. 

I know that some of you get it.  And I know that some of you have been there too.  I can still smell the smoke on your clothes. (Don't worry, it's faint.)

And The Man has taken to calling him 'The Gentle Giant,' which does not meet with 100% approval from me. 

You can guess what I call him from the title of the post.

Or maybe you can't, Whipper Snappers.

Mean.

"GET UP!" I screamed at her.

We were in the bathroom of a big (and kind of nasty) toy store.  I was hugely pregnant and had difficulty lugging her around in my condition. And she was laying and rolling on the floor (omg.)  She was hugely two and a quarter at the time. She was whining and screaming and tantruming and wouldn't pee (just because) and then she flung herself onto the floor to roll around with the pubic hairs and the mold spores and who knows what else and I lost it.

Not even the caps lock and the exclamation point can accurately convey the scary tone I took. It was savage.

It was so harsh and awful sounding that I kind of floated up and outside my own body. I astrally projected myself into the hallway and into the body of a potential stander-by and imagined what it would have sounded like from the other side of the door.  What a person coming into the restroom would have thought about me, about my relationship with my daughter.

***

I was 5 or 6 years old and I can't remember why my mother was yelling at me but she was so close to my face that she filled up my entire view of the world. Her expression was distorted with anger and rage.  It was a regular occurrence for her to lose her shit with anger.  She was in her mid-twenties, with a pre-schooler and a baby and a past that made her broken in some ways.

Although I don't remember why she was screaming at me, I remember everything else as if it happened yesterday.  I was sitting at the kitchen table (in my dad's seat,) waiting for the yelling to be done.  (That's how it usually ended.  The yelling just stopped and I would be raw and shaky for a while and then we would just keep on going like nothing happened.)  Her screaming was so loud and so close to my face. Her voice was aggressive, so severe and anxiety provoking that my brain conjured the only defense it could.

I smiled. (The budding Nervous-slash-Inappropriate Laugh? PERHAPS.)

This enraged her and she screamed, 'Don't you look at me like I'm crazy!'

***

After I lose my shit with my kid, I feel mean and small. I feel guilt and remorse.  I apologize and try to explain it as best I can.  It's a hard thing to understand.  For both of us.

When she was a little smaller, she confused her pronouns.  After an episode of yelling and apologizing, her level of world-rock would show itself in her language, in a way that would break my heart:

'I'm sorry I yelled at you, Mommy.  I'm sorry I yelled at you.'  

Now that she's older, with a better command of the language, she explores more.  Looking for the cause, the igniting incident.  After we've gone over what happened, she'll ask:

'What did I say to you, Mommy?' 'Why didn't I listen to you?' or, 'Why did I run away?'

She asks me these things like the answers are in my head.  It's hard for me to pin-point the reason that I whipped out the napalm for a run-of-the-mill infraction this time, when most other times it's just a stern-voice-time-out situation.  I try to separate what she did from my disproportionate response.  It isn't fair, in my mind, to make her responsible for my feelings in general, especially a temper tantrum.

I do my best (and am successful, mostly) to let go of any guilt I feel and try to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose, as relates to increasing my frustration tolerance.

***

When my mother was a little younger than I am now, she went into therapy.  She learned a lot about herself and her past.  She did some healing and putting-back-together.  She gained insight into the workings of her own mind and she unloaded years of festering guilt and shame.

And then, she apologized for emotionally abusing me.

It was a watershed moment in my life.  I still had a lot of my own shit to work through in therapy, to be sure, but it's hard to overestimate the effect of having your parent change.  And own up to her past fucked up behavior.

***

I used to frequently discuss my ambivalence about having children with my therapist.  As odd or as natural as it may sound to you (depending, I suppose, on what kind of childhood you had) a portion of my ambivalence was about my fear of potentially hurting my own kids.  Not physically, really, but emotionally.  I was afraid that I would replicate my upbringing, despite my wishes and efforts to do the contrary.

My therapist told me this: 'If you do ten good things for every one bad thing, you're doing great. Hell, if you do FIVE good things, you'll be fine.'  This advice has stuck with me and I know it to be true in my case.  Even in my own upbringing, the good greatly outweighed the bad.  As unsettling as the screaming was, I always knew that my mother loved me with the same intensity that made her anger burn so bright.

The Little Sister put it this way, (after which we both howled with laughter):

'Well, we took a reaming, like, every day and we turned out all right.'

Which, if you can appreciate some dark humor, is hilarious.

And very, very true.

Tips And Tricks: Time Outs

As a Child Specialist by profession and a Mother by Luck and Fortitude, I espouse a Time-Out system of discipline/rule teaching.  Over the years, I have heard many misconceptions and misapplications of this kind of system and thought it might be interesting to write a post on the topic. 

Obviously, discipline methods are way personal and this is a sum of my own professional and personal opinions, based on a couple books* and clinical experience/parenting a [Toddler-Sized Wild Thing] strong-willed kid.  I believe that with consistent, emotionless application, this kind of system can work with a good percentage of typically developing kids. 

Disclaimer: If your circumstances are outside this example, I realize that it may not be the ideal situation for you.  I also realize that it may not be a type of discipline that YOU espouse and that's ALL RIGHT, sisters and brothers. I'm not trying to convert you or judge your methods. We are all Unique Disciplining Snowflakes (tm Jonniker) and I'm only putting it out there for those who might be interested in such a system or who are having difficulty implementing a system like it. AKA: I respect your right to parent your own kids and AM NOT JUDGING. M'kay? M'KAY.)

Let's move on.

The Basic Time-Out System that I'm talking about is a counting, '1, 2, 3-Time Out' system. The kid gets two warnings and then a Time Out for misbehavior.  The time out is measured minutes:years of age (although there's some debate about this in the clinical arena, for ease and convenience, I stick with it.)

Here are my tips/strategies for integrating a Time-Out System into your family.

1. Start Early
I started with TLNG around 18mos. This is too early for a kid to get [what the HELL you're talking about] the finer points, and so don't expect your Toddler to hop up into the time out seat and be able to articulate 'what they did' to get there.  Why do it then? Good question, you.  My theory is that, by starting early, you're teaching two important, fundamental, lessons automatically, whether or not your child 'gets' the concept of the time out in earnest. You're teaching that a) Actions have consequences and more importantly, I think, b) YOU MEAN WHAT YOU SAY.

(Aside: In parenting in general and discipline in particular, it is hard to overestimate the significance of your children knowing that you Mean What You Say. And kids are wicked perceptive, so you have to, um, Mean What You Say...almost all the time.)

(Aside 2: If you don't mean it, try real hard not to say it. Just saying.)

2. Choose Target Behaviors (AKA: Your BATTLES)
Sometimes, in an effort to get a grip on toddler tantrums or preschool defiance, parents will start giving time-outs (times-out?) for every little piggy over the line.  It is understandable and even logical that this would be 'consistent' and effective but in my experience kids (and parents) rapidly fatigue in this situation. It's impossible to be on top of EVERYTHING and frankly, kids who are CONSTANTLY being herded to the time out seat are more prone to rebel and get CRAZY.  Pick one or two of the most offensive behaviors to work on first.  Especially if your child is young.  We're making a point, here, not putting your kid in time out jail.

3. Try for Consistent, EMOTIONLESS Delivery of Warnings/Consequences
This can make the most difference.  Consistency is key. Once you pick the target behaviors, be clear about your expectations and consistently address them.  Also, if you are able to [do the hardest thing ever] keep a poker face and offer no emotion when counting/correcting behavior, I urge you to do it. If it's difficult [HA HA HA!] TRY. And PRACTICE. Younger kids are intrigued by your strong emotions and older kids can 'pull' for it.  Staying reserved and CHILL [again, HA HA HA! Good luck with that!] works best.

4. Set Audible Timer
Something that your kids can HEAR works the best.  This way, there's no guessing about how long they've been there or when they're done. (If I'm out, or in the car, I use other tangible ways for my kid to differentiate 'in' and 'out' of time out. In the car, for example, I turn off the music and we don't talk while she's 'in time out.')

5. Be Clear and Concise (AKA: Talk Simple Then Shoot The Fook Oop)
Resist the urge to [blahblahLESSONblahblah] lecture or keep talking when your kid is in time out. Ditto for when your kid gets out of time out. They aren't able to process all the lecturing anyway, so save it.  Give concise reasons for sending them and when they're out, you can have a quick re-cap and then let it go. (If it was something really heinous that got them there, you can have a little talk if you need to, just try to keep it short and simple.)

6. Be Consistent, Consistent, Consistent and The Same All The Fucking Time
This is a tough one for [me] lots of people but the investment that you make to be consistent will pay dividends later.  Especially if you have a *hem-hem* Spirited Child, as I do. Temperamentally speaking, some parents have an easier time being consistent and some children have more need of consistency but for all small kids, it is comforting and reassuring (don't expect them to THANK YOU for it, though. It's their job to test [EVERY FUCKING LIMIT YOU SET].)

Remember:

Time Outs are NOT meant to be punishments and/or Torture for Children:
I hear parents say, 'Time outs don't work for us because Johnny doesn't care...he likes it, etc.'  It's fine if your kid doesn't cry or gnash his teeth.  Remember that we're not beating him into submission. We're TEACHING and teaching anything, especially behaviors, is a long-term goal. Being consistent and continuing to apply a technique over and over will reinforce that you mean what you say and your kid will eventually get it.

Adjust/Re-frame Your Expectations:
Similar to above. Don't expect that a week of time outs will prevent your kid from sticking his head in the dog's water (or whatever.)  It takes kids a long time to be able to cognitively work backwards through a sequence--to figure out that he shouldn't put his head in the bowl because he will get a time out.  It's not actually a DETERRENT for a young kid.  It's a way to consistently apply a consequence and is a building block for future and further disciplining.  The repetition is key in any kind of learning. (Think of that frigging ANNOYING book that you have to your kid over and over and over at bedtime. Same difference.)

Misbehavior Increases Before It Decreases:
If you didn't start early and/or you have been inconsistent and/or your system of discipline is a wreck and/or nonexistent, you needn't fear.  Just be prepared, the testing may be [fucking brutal] more intense before it improves, as the kids will push and push and push to see if you'll give up.

(Mis) Behavior Cycles With Development:
Even if you are consistently applying this or another system of discipline, you will notice that the need for it waxes and wanes with your child's development.  As your kid's social awareness, cognitive and physical abilities increase and expand, there will be 'waves' of testing and trying out new behaviors. Because there is often a regression before a developmental leap, you may also notice that your child is going back to past behaviors that had been resolved. (Oh, that is SO fun when that happens. BAAAAAH!)

Be Flexible and Creative:
There are circumstances when a time out might actually be REWARDING (and thus, reinforcing) misbehavior (i.e. your kid doesn't want to get in bed yet and so the two minute delay is [just what that little sucker wants] not advisable.  Creativity in these times is key.  When that situation happens here, I use the 'my kid understands that I mean what I say' to my advantage and tell my daughter that if she doesn't come to get dressed for bed by the count of three, that she will only get two (instead of three) stories. (Sometimes she gets down to one but she's lost all her stories only once or twice.)

All right. There you have it.

.

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*I often recommend '1, 2, 3 Magic' by Dr. Thomas Phelan. It is an easy read, in lay language and is a great resource.

I Swear, I'm Not TRYING To Be Birth Control.

'I don't want him. I don't even WANT him. And I don't want to be here.'

Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know I don't mean them, not really. But they feel good to say in those deep, dark, moments. I feel the swell of a giant wave coming to crash over me and keeping in the bitter words feels like trying to hold back the sea.  Not unlike the adolescent fights I had with my mother, yelling hurtful insults that I didn't really mean, like spitting so much bile. Now, as then, the horrible words and the inability to keep them in, serve as a gauge.  A pressure gauge. And I've been under a lot of pressure.

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My boy started out easier than his sister.  His reflux presented and was treated early.  He slept at night (OMG) in two chunks, each 3-4 hours, and even if I had to work to get him back to sleep, he'd go back down and stay asleep until the next feeding time.  About a month ago, though, his sleep started to erode.  Eventually, he stopped going down at night. Stopped sleeping almost all together, except in short, fitful bursts.

His 'bedtime' eventually landed at about 3am, where it stays now.  Any effort to put him down before that results in instant waking and screaming of indefinite length (let's just say that he can go longer than I can stand to listen.)  And this pattern has left me with less than 3 hours of sleep for 4 consecutive days.

My delicate constitution wasn't made to run on so little rest. Things start falling apart.

He is scheduled to see a pediatric GI specialist on Friday and I am hoping that with a better handle on his reflux that he might feel better and sleep better.

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Even while it's still dark, when he smiles or latches on or finally falls asleep, when the wave has crashed and it pulls itself all the way back, I curl in on myself, around him.  I put my lips to the top of his fuzzy head and I weep. And I feel so small.  Smaller than he is.  This little guy, this beautiful little guy, who would be a gift and a joy to anyone. To you. To someone who would enjoy this rapidly passing time, the way a mother should.  To someone who does better on limited sleep. To someone who could better handle the pressure.

And I know that those thoughts (the ones underneath, the ones making all the bile to spit, the ones that are much harder and less satisfying to say) are no more true or fair than the others. I know it. I know. 

And I also know this: when he sleeps better, so will I.

Then The Crazy will go back to wherever it hides and it will take The Crazy Talk with it.

Until then, my pregnancy-contemplating friends, don't listen to a word it says.

Just look here:

Bits Of Randomness Fact Friday On A Tuesday. Because, Apparently, That's How I Roll These Days.

* Instead of writing posts (which are brewing) about The Boy's birth story or my Post Partum Experience this time around (I know, those sound SCINTILLATING, right?) all I can think about is the MAD amount of TV (and new TV) that I'm watching.  Most notably, I watched the first two seasons of Dexter in three days (and then had like three dreams about dismembered bodies. Niiice.)  I became OBSESSED with this show and so when I ran out of seasons to 'Watch Instantly' (I LURVE me some Netflix), I went and got the first Dexter book from the library. Am a tool.) I also watched the first season of Weeds (the BEST EVER theme song, yo.)

* Yesterday morning I heard TLNG calling for me at 5:40 in the AM (DST, YOU can suck it, my friend.) Anyway, I was going to run in there and tell her that it wasn't waking-up time (6AM at the effing EARLIEST) and then go and feed the waking baby. When I got to her door it was cracked.  'Hmm. That's odd,' I thought to myself and when I opened the door? I saw a BEFUDDLED, STILL-HALF-ASLEEP, The Man, changing TLNG out of her diaper. Getting her up for the DAY. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVAR. Huh? Um. I'm all for the initiative, dude, but how about we try that say at 6:00--or better yet, on an EFFING SATURDAY?

* Most often, when half asleep, The Man is more amusing than annoying.  If you haven't read that post that I linked, you really should. I wrote it back when I was still funny.  The number of stories that I could tell about The Man leaping out of bed half [dressed and half] asleep to rescue someone is impressive but sadly, probably such a telling is verboten. 

* I hate my dog again.

* Guys, my son is 6 weeks old and I just had to buy him a whole slew of 3-6 month clothes.  And size 2 diapers.  What the hell, kid?  My daughter, you know, the TODDLER?  Two and a half, almost?  Weighs like 25 lbs. and my son weighs TWELVE POUNDS. OMFG. Half her weight.  He has also grown a whole inch since he was born.  He's 23 in long.  How is it possible to have one kid be a peanut and the other be a monstah?

* At the 6 week post-partum mark, I'm starting to have a few *body image(ish)* issues.  Not really bad, just, well, you know.  I don't feel motivated to DO much about it and the clusterfuck that my week of sleep is makes it hard (for me) to want to do anything but eat and sloth (when not bouncing or otherwise infant-toddler wrangling.) I didn't really have much of a pooch last time but this time, WHOO BOY.  Tis a little, er, FLAPPAY.  Hmm. I have decided that a daily dose of 457839058 packages of M&M's is probably not a great idea and so for now, I'm trying to just keep track of what I'm eating and do as much as I can (so far that's a couple minutes of stretching.)  

* We have also had (recurring) issues with The Thrush that make me want to throw myself off a bridge.  If you're on twitter, you know that this resulted in a [totally MORTIFYING] mildly embarrassing exchange with my new doctor, in which I told him the baby and I had The Thrush and he looked in my MOUTH, when, you know..it's on my nipples (hate that word.)  Since I couldn't bear to say the word aloud, me notifying him involved pantomimed circular motions with my fingers a la Kelly Le Brock in Weird Science and he grinned and told me that it's only called The Thrush if it's in your Mouth. M'kay.

* I think because I have the name 'Girl' in the blog title (and I curse a lot,) I get super-gross Search Engine Hits.  Today there was this one: 'Girl giving finger,' which took The Google Perv to this post.  HA HA HA! Sometimes ESL is a bitch, yo.