My kids and notes from Year 6.3
April 27, 2021
Nesting
Not me, JB. One of their favorite things to do since the pandemic started is making up their bed. I don’t mean making the bed in the traditional sense. I mean creating a giant nest atop their bed with every pillow they can get their hands on.
It’s escalated to thieving blankets from various parts of the house.
Responsibility
JB had a ton of chores over last summer to train them to be a contributing member of the family at an age appropriate level. It didn’t completely eliminate the whining but it cut down on most of the foot dragging and related whining. Now that Smol has arrived, and Seamus has gone 💔, I’ve reduced their regular chores to laundry, cleaning, and putting up clean dishes because these happen more frequently than before but I also want to make time for them to spend time with Smol. They’re already at a point where Smol would rather spend their waking hours with JB than anyone else and JB adores hauling this sibling sack o’ potatoes around so that’s good for all of us.
I have added things like loading the dishwasher when clearing their dishes, though, it’s good for them to keep adding life skills to their repertoire.
They also occasionally declare TODAY IS CLEANING DAY and pull out the Clorox wipes and go to town scrubbing the tiles or the countertops. I’m ok with this.
Shopping from a box
JB has lived their life in hand me downs and I’m riding this wave as long as possible. Typically, we’d get a bag or a box from one friend or family member who was trying to purge a closet and I had a series of “next size up” boxes for each size. As they outgrew their clothes, I would invisibly bag up the too small sizes to pass along to the next smallest kids. Then I’d break out the next size up box and resupply the closet.
This month was the first time I allowed them to participate in the process of refreshing their closet. Though I rushed them through the trying on process because I didn’t have the time or patience to make it a thing, they were thrilled to get to see all the new stuff, and make some decisions about what fits and what doesn’t. I sent them to put away the clothes they were adding and packed up all the things that they weren’t. I also did a more thorough purge of their dresser, and reorganized it as well.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol is very interested in seeing if they can fit an entire hand in their mouth at once. It hasn’t been achieved yet but they’re persistent. They’ve achieved rolling over onto their tummy but not rolling back yet which means they happily roll over, hang out for a bit, then get tired and angry.
Other developments: Smol has discovered their mirror image and finds it hilarious. They also really like eating my hands. They’ve been going through newborn like not-sleep at night, and totally terrible 30 minute naps again during the day. Sigh. They’ve begun expressing their displeasure AND pleasure in whatever the state of affairs happens to be in short sharp shrieks. They’re chuckling when tickled, interested in tasting everything they can reach, and drooling everywhere.
They spent ten minutes examining their toes the other day. They’re happy to lay there staring at JB singing, dancing, narrating and reading for long chunks of time.
JB is, as predicted, as devoid of jealousy as a human can be about sharing my attention. It helps that PiC has always been the favorite parent. It doubly helps that they are head over heels at having their own baby. That’s right, THEIR OWN. Because if anything, they’re now fiercely possessive of this new playmate even from us. It works out, somehow. They’re now sharing Hamiltunes with THEIR BABY.
On the one hand, babies’ needs are simple: food, clean diapers, clothes, shelter. On the other hand, they need to come with an incredibly precise manual customized for each model. Getting them to sleep regularly for example feels like it requires a combination of freakish good luck, voodoo, incense, prayers to kindly ancestors, an exact and precise alignment of the sun, moon, and stars, and a protector Seamus who will lay nearby and show them the way. I’m saying, we are not getting much sleep. This is torture.
Pupdate
It’s a very up and down relationship that JB and Sera have. One week, JB wants to hang out with Sera all the time. The next, they are moody and judgmental of all Sera’s flaws and they don’t want Sera going with them anywhere. I don’t quite know what to make of it. Sometimes it feels like Sera gets the short end of the stick because even if she tried, she couldn’t fill Seamus’s paw prints and he set the bar impossibly high. But she doesn’t know to try, she’s a dog.
She also doesn’t have the capacity that he did. Most dogs don’t. He was a precious gem for so many reasons but it came from the fact that he just came that way: smart as a whip, loving with a huge heart, empathetic and better than any three average humans. I don’t think that’s something you can train a dog to be. At least I’ve certainly never learned how.
We have to work with the dog we do have and Sera does her best (limited though she is, Super Seamus has ruined us). This might be the side effect of treating the dogs as siblings, too. This could be a form of sibling rivalry.
Precious Moments
JB: What time is it?
PiC: Soup time!
JB: Soup time soup time I’m John Laurens in the place to be!
Me: 🧐
*****
JB: outgunned! Outmanned!
PiC: outnumbered, outplanned!
JB: I’m gonna need my right hand man! It has to be a man, there isn’t a right hand girl.
PiC: yeah there can be, it’s just an expression. I guess I’m mom’s right hand man.
JB: no! You’re a left hand man! Mom’s the right hand girl, because in your marriage, she was standing on the left. See??
*****
JB: THERE IS A DRAGON BEHIND YOU.
Me: A friendly one, right?
JB: NO IT IS THE MEANEST OF THE MEAN
Me: but I have the dragon gem! It tells dragons to be friendly!
JB: NOPE RUUUUNNNNNNNN
Me: Well ok I can’t run, I’m pushing a heavy stroller and I have Sera on lead so, better hope that dragon doesn’t see me!
JB: Ok I’m going to get my backpack out of the stroller then.
Me: Wait, why? Do you have a Dragon Shield in there?
JB: No, if the dragon gets you, then I don’t want it to burn up my backpack too!
Me: Wow. That’s cold.
JB: What?
Me: Just heartless.
JB: What?
<3 I love JB. But, save the backpack, let mom burn to a crisp? Haha.
Baby sleep is such a frustrating mystery. I have never solved it…
Right?? I would like to guess that it’s because the backpack was more saveable since they can pick that up and move it and not because the backpack is more important BUT I DO NOT KNOW.
SUCH a frustrating thing. I keep telling myself over and over that this is just one phase of many and we’ll make it through but each day of sleep debt feels like a YEAR.
So precious!
I’m pretty new to cleaning wipes, ha – makes me feel terrible about the environment but sooooo convenient.
Sleep. Spud wakes around midnight or sometimes a bit later every night and joins me in my bed. I don’t hate it. He’s also into FIGHTING, SHOOTING, HITTING, lots of imaginary play, wanting to “eat me all up” and pretending to be chased/bitten by various animals.
NZ Muse recently posted…Parenting is like writing (painful, prolonged, precious)
Now you’ve got me wondering about their effect on the environment. As a general rule we only use them for the worst of the worst cleaning situations and when disinfecting is truly needed. Like when we’re scrubbing grime out of the tile that would destroy our cleaning rags utterly before making a dent in the dirt.
I remember a friend said that their little (at the same age Spud is now) would come cosleep in the middle of the night a lot because they had nightmares.
Sounds like Spud and JB have a lot in common!