October 10, 2018
Feeding the book hunger
It was perhaps the one thing Mom never understood about me and even somewhat feared in me. She once asked me not to get “too involved”. There’s no doubt it’s led me to make foolish choices, and was the driving force behind my first not wholly honest transaction when I dipped into the coin dish without asking permission or forgiveness to fish out quarters to buy a book from a classmate in first grade. I would have gotten away with it entirely too if it hadn’t been for a teacher telling my parents at parent teacher conference time. I loved books more than food or sleep and honesty, drilled in me deeply, was only forgotten once in my sheer madness for books. Mom never understood it and she probably wouldn’t understand why I foster this love in her grandchild. PiC doesn’t have the book hunger either but he willingly goes along with feeding the flame, reading JB’s current favorites night after night after unforgiving night.
I know JB isn’t here to be our second act and I’m not trying to imprint a clone of either of us but of all things ze could have from me, let it be my love of reading and love of money management. One will feed zir mind and comfort zir soul, the other will help keep those together with a nourished body.
It will of course then likely be the source of many sleepless nights as ze will likely choose to read until four in the morning given the chance but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Even with the memory of the sheet scorched 28 years ago when I unwisely draped it over a naked bulb to hide the light from my parents. I’m the reason we shouldn’t have nice things.
New lessons and skills
See previous months for zir current responsibilities.
I taught JB how to wash zir own hair months ago, but then the skill just sort of laid there, unused. I wondered about it but kept my mouth shut and carried on washing zir hair as usual. There was the usual amount of manipulation in that “as usual”. Grouchy JB would gripe and moan about not being ready to have zir hair washed the second I started washing it. On good days, I would just agree and say, ok then if you’re not ready, rinse the soap out! I wonder when ze is going to realize that by the time ze rinses out the shampoo and realizes I’ve put in the conditioner, we’re already 3/4 of the way there and I’ve tricked zir. On bad days, we’d fuss at each other and my cleverness would be out the window. But the hair would still be washed, by me.
Out of the blue, ze started taking down the bottle of shampoo intending to wash zir own hair. I just made some suggestions on how a smol person might more easily pour shampoo from a large 30 ounce bottle into one’s hand and stood back. Ze took the initiative to lather up. It wasn’t thorough at all but I didn’t criticize, preferring to let zir make it a habit more than caring about it being done well.
The defiance is strong in this one
I don’t know if I documented all of our fights but this one by Elon James is 1000% characteristic of those days of defiance. They aren’t over, either.
Ze was being out and out rude the other day as we prepared for bed, then threw zir toothbrush at me. Ze didn’t have the gall to throw it so that it connected – I think we’ve established that that triggers the nuclear option. But it was definitely at me. And we do not throw things as an act of anger in this household. You’re allowed to beat up a pillow – you’re allowed to punch and kick a pillow if it’s time to Hulk out. But throwing things is not allowed.
I looked zir right in the eye, looked at the toothbrush (which was at the end of the 6 month span anyway), and tossed it with toothpaste smear and all right in the trash. Zir bestie has gotten that before. But we’ve only had to threaten it before.
Now, I don’t believe in bluffing so I choose my threats carefully. I have to follow through on them, every single time, if JB doesn’t get zir act together. But there was a moment of petty satisfaction when ze realized that if the rules are clear already, as in I’ve already said that you forfeit your belongings when you throw them, ze doesn’t merit a warning when ze is pushing the boundaries. It’s just going to happen.
There were so many tears. But then ze straightened up and stopped being QUITE so defiant. For about ten minutes.
Make better choices!
Speaking of discipline, I’ve been working really hard on keeping my cool when JB is openly antagonistic, defiant, and sulky. REALLY hard. So instead of raising my voice, I lower it. I breathe deeply to oxygenate my brain (and incidentally as a big red flag for zir that ze has left DefCon 5 and the numbers are now ticking downward).
We almost always give zir a chance to correct the behavior unless ze has slapped, kicked, bitten, pinched, hit, or otherwise physically harmed someone. The chance is generally: Should you be [doing the bad thing] or should you make a better choice?
If ze hasn’t gone to another world in zir head, rage world, then ze will stop to think and choose “make a better choice”.
So petty. SO SO PETTY.
JB: I don’t LIKE your turtles.
Me: Ok.
JB: I DON’T like your TURTLES.
Me: I didn’t ask you to like them.
JB: I don’t like my UNDERWEAR
Me: Ok.
JB: I DON’T LIKE MY UNDERWEAR.
Me: Ok. Maybe you can like them tomorrow.
JB: NO I’m not going to like them EVERY DAY.
Me: Ok, wear diapers then.
JB: I WANT DIAPERS.
JB: Can I have a yogurt?
Me: Yes, but only after I take a bite.
JB: Why?
Me: Tax.
JB: WAT.
September 19, 2018
Halfway to four
How did we survive 3 and a half years? Whew. What a journey this has been. I like JB a whole lot and there are a lot of days I don’t enjoy zir company so very much because it’s so frustrating just getting shoes on zir feet every morning why does this have to be an argument every single morning –
but I guess we’ll keep zir.
Hands on your belly!
Kitchen safety is harder to teach to an antsy 3 year old than I expected. I want JB to help and to encourage that zest for helping but also don’t want zir to catch on fire or slice off a finger, so instead of saying “Don’t touch X” which never ever ever EVER works, we do “hands on your belly!”
When we’re standing next to the stove together, giving zir wandering hands a docking station of BELLY! is the only thing that prevents zir from dipping hands into boiling water to fish out that one floating dumping, or stirring the pasta prematurely, or grabbing the pot handle and upending its contents all over both of us. (more…)
August 15, 2018
Looking Backward
Now that this particular transition is in the rearview mirror, I can breathe easy and be ever so grateful that we never had any trouble with reflux or transitioning JB from bottles to sippy cups to regular cups. (Ze still wanted zir sippy as recently as two months ago but just for fun, because rummaging through the cabinets gives zir nostalgia like it gives me, and has wholeheartedly embraced the late-introduced camelbak.)
A cousin is struggling with their kid’s transition away from bottles. They’re going on three and still refuses milk in anything but bottles and that reminded me that at least on that point, we were incredibly lucky. When I gave JB zir first couple of sippies just to play with around a year, ze chewed up the spout enthusiastically, then THERE IS WATER IN HERE. WHOA!
At around 14 months, I decided that traveling with bottles again sounded awful, so we were ditching the bottles. We started giving only water in bottles, and milk in sippies, then I started giving only water in sippies before naps because we were supposed to avoid teeth rotting from having milk before sleeping. Picky though ze was about many other things, this was a non issue. Within a week, the bottles were phased out entirely and the next time I heard a peep about bottles was when ze discovered the bottles stashed in the closet a year later and was Extremely Curious about what they were and why they were stashed. Thank goodness we had that bit easy.
(more…)
July 18, 2018
Not quite peer pressure
We don’t do a LOT of socializing and play dates, but we accept 2-3 birthday invitations a year from JB’s classmates. In some, the whole class is invited for a big bash at some place that caters to kids, which is probably at least a few hundred dollars, and for some, it’s just a family affair with a small group of classmates but still far fancier than any birthday party that we’ve had for ourselves in the past ten years.
That includes when we fed 18 people at a taco party for PiC!
Either way, they’ve got JB thinking about all the kids that ze wants to invite to zir party. Um … what party? We weren’t planning on doing any real parties for a while, our house still isn’t in any shape for that kind of entertaining. The indoors is simply too small to have more than 7 adults and 2 kids at one time, comfortably.
One day, the yard might be perhaps, but zir birthday is also not in September in those few weeks of the year that may be reliably counted on for warm weather and thus suitable for an outdoor / backyard fun thing. If it were, we’d reserve a BBQ at the local parks and let the kids run wild for not too much money there. But it’s not. I’m pondering what kind of compromise would make sense for a fun birthday that doesn’t cost $300 and a quarter of my brain. It’s not around the corner but if I don’t think now, nothing will happen by the time zir birthday arrives. I know me.
I’m always in favor of tacos again but then again, when am I not in favor of tacos?
(more…)
June 6, 2018
Imagination Town
Ever since spending time with a pregnant Auntie Crystal, JB has been pretending that ze has a baby in zir belly. Ze also pretends that PiC and I do too. It’s a little weird but whatever, we play along. Ze also enjoys reassigning our genders, for some reason (YOU da mommy, and you a BOY. YOU da daddy, and you da GIRL). Not sure where that came from.
Oh and ze also has an invisible baby hamster that gets wrapped up in zir favorite blanket, or goes missing every so often. Invisible baby hamster gets handed to me at the end of the night to “put on Daddy’s belly to keep warm”.
Morning Glory no more
Alas, JB no longer wakes up like a bright lightbulb clicking on. Ze has morphed into me: groggy, grumpy, so not ready for morning to come.
I’ve had to harness all the good cheer that I can find so that I can pass it on to zir and get us all out the door at a reasonable hour. I keep thinking that we really need to outgrow this or else it’s going to make the transition to school really tough. That’s coming up much sooner than I’d like to think.
(more…)
May 21, 2018
Meltdown city, continued
We had four glorious days with JB. Ze was calm and cheerful, reasonable, playful and obedient. That was an amazing four days. The OTHER days were soooo much harder. The tantrums of last month? Came to stay.
Ze was so prone to melting down over the most nonsensical reasons, it was incredibly hard to grab hold of my temper with both hands and hang on tight through it all.
We had to be alert for when ze was simply being bratty or when ze was losing ability to reason and react accordingly. One bleak afternoon, overdue for a nap, ze started to melt down AGAIN because ze didn’t WANT to go to put on pajamas, didn’t WANT Daddy, WANT MOMMY! (believe me, if I was the one putting zir to bed, that would be reversed immediately), don’t WANT to read a book.
I grabbed zir vest and dug into the pockets with both hands and told zir to do the same: take out alllll that attitude. Scoop out the grumpy! Pull out all your grouchiness and whining and tears and yucky feelings and dump them on the floor here. I’ll sweep it up later. Go on, pull it all out!
(more…)
April 30, 2018
Viral
This flu season is particularly terrible with a death toll. We’d all gotten our flu shots early but we also stayed away from humanity as much as possible. It didn’t save us from the common cold, of course, one of the lesser scourges of having a preschooler attending a daycare where only fevers and vomiting are stay home worthy. Generally it’s ok, we’ve gotten through the worst of it in year one but I’m still pretty cautious and don’t share food and drink with JB if ze is dribbling fluids. We’re really lucky that ze has been relatively robust, certainly more so than I am, and recovers well or has been only lightly touched by most germs but even still, those nights when ze can’t stop coughing rend my heart. Ze is having one such night so I’m sitting up cuddling a bundle of mostly sleeping three year old so that, even if the propping up doesn’t help zir breathing and coughing, ze knows I’m here and loving on zir. It’s almost more for me than zir. I miss my mom fiercely, never more so than when I’m sick or hurting to the point of vomiting, and long to lay my head on her lap. I understand now why she was sad that I didn’t do so as a young adult, when I was busy trying to carry a burden twice my size. At the time, I didn’t think I could afford to need my mom. I had to be strong every minute lest a crack in my shields break them wide open. All the more my loss. I could have gotten and given comfort that I’ll never have again. Now, with my own child, I know to hold on tight on these late nights when maybe all the comfort I can give is being a human pillow. That’s fine. As long as ze still wants me, I’m here to be zir pillow. (more…)