By: Revanche

My kid and notes from Year 1.11

February 8, 2017

The Gracious Host

JuggerBaby has learned to serve zirself at the dining table, sloppily and with very little coordination, at daycare because they encourage the kids to serve their own snacks from the big bowl, and bus their table afterward. The latter skill leads to a lot of food waste, though, because toddlers are mini lemmings sometimes and so when one finishes eating and goes to scrape off their plate, all the others quickly follow suit even if they had only just served themselves. Mixed success, that. But something they don’t teach is serving others because they also have no sense of limits, so if you let them add food to each other’s plates, even more chaos!

Which is why I’m puzzled as to where zir latest habit has come from: “more, mama”, and “more, papa”. We misunderstood that to be zir asking for more for zirself, but zir exasperation and eventual pointing at our dishes cleared it up. When ze gets more, ze wants to make sure we both also have more. When we clink glasses, ze wants to be sure all glasses are refilled. If you haven’t reassured zir that really, you don’t need more, ze will take the initiative and add food to your plate. Either ze is mirroring us serving zir, or ze has inherited that compulsion every cook over the age of 50 in my family has: insisting that everyone have more more more!

Which isn’t to say ze is selfless or anything less than pragmatic. When it was just the two of us sitting down to dinner for a nice hot vegetable barley pasta chicken soup and ze was ready for seconds, ze helped zirself to all the soup in MY bowl while my back was turned. Food thief!

Literacy

I’m thrilled that JuggerBaby enjoys listening to reading now, even if it means the same books ten thousand times.

Ze is now working on “writing”, which means squiggles and scribbles and colors. Ze got my old planner for Art Time which makes zir feel just like mama, and is convinced that the secret to my being able to form letters is the pen. After every word I write, ze forces me to trade pens because ze wants the Magic Pen That Contains Letters. It never seems to work, perhaps clicking it open and closed several more times would help? No?

JuggerBaby dictionary

At-yai: outside
Hap: help
Yight: light, right
Dooaaaannn: down
Chiz: please
Nom nom: please put that food on my plate / please put toothpaste on my toothbrush
Yees: let’s brush our teeth!
Jeep: sleep
Dit-dews: stickers

Parenting skills

Holding the firm line. Our JuggerBaby is the most headstrong child and we have to consistently hold the line against zir temper, demands, and recklessness. It’s business as usual most days, but we seem to have entered A Whole New Zone of irrationality.

SWEET CHRISTMAS do I ever feel like a hostage to this toddler’s terribleness sometimes. Even just the slightest thing sets off the crying jag of the century, ever-so-slightly worse than the last one ten minutes ago, like asking zir to come say hi, or to leave daycare, or to go TO daycare, or go eat, which, what? YOU LOVE FOOD! YOU LOVE FOOD SO MUCH.

But we navigate it. Like the one morning when ze was circling PiC’s legs like a horrifically large cat when he was trying to cook and I set off a stopover at Meltdown City because we asked zir to come sit with me instead. Ze just fell to the ground sobbing, instant tears and snot, because how could we do such a thing??? Three rounds of tears later, I suggested that ze might want to look at pictures of “baby” (zir own baby pictures), and perhaps ze might want to do what baby is doing in the picture (eat)? Through many tears, ze forced out a YES. Ze even begrudgingly managed to dredge up the energy to shuffle over to the table, and then was immediately distracted by the crayons, and had to be convinced all over again to “show baby how to eat”. It’s possible that the current key is that ze likes to set an example.

Teaching manners. Ze went through a long phase of being a jerk to Seamus. Yelling “no!” at him, getting in his space, even putting zir hands on his side and trying to push him. As if ze could shift his 100 lb bulk. Nevertheless, it’s rude, it hurts his feelings, and it’s not ok. There have been consequences every time ze has been rude to him, and lo, miracle of miracles, it paid off! Ze accidentally kicked him in the face whilst flailing about one day, and turned and apologized to him without prompting! There was a lot of happy parental gasping in that moment. And some praise for the JuggerBaby.

Best moments …

Bath time

I drew a shallow bath for us. One minute we were practicing lying on our backs in the water. The next we were embroiled in a splash war. This kid believes the best defense is staying on the offense and ze isn’t wrong.

Reading time

Ze handed me a book but refused to lie down. Instead ze insistently pointed at zirself, garbling zir name over and over. “You want to read this?”
YES.
*shrug* Ok, you read to us.
Ze stared at the page for a while. Handed it back.
“Can’t read?”
No.

Too much snuggle

I lay down next to zir on the Boppy, elbow draped on zir leg.
“NO!”
Get elbowed off.
“BASE!” (Space)

Bed Time

PiC lowered zir into the crib. Ze bounced back up. YIGHT! Ze had to turn them off, personally. Ok fine. Lights off.
Bye GiGi! (Seamus had fallen asleep early and forgotten to come over for bedtime.)
Back in the crib. Bounced back up, arms out. I leaned down expecting to thwart an “up!”
Instead, arms went around my neck for a big hug, and ze flopped back down into the crib, satisfied.

Ponderings

“Pick one book, then it’s naptime, JB.”
Ze tapped zir finger on zir nose. “Hmmm.”
Where did that come from??

Roar!

JB pointed at zir shirt, then threw zir arms in the air: “RAWWWRR!”
*expectant look turns impatient*
“RAWWWRR!”

Zir shirt had …. DANDELIONS!

Favorite books

Nursery Rhyme Comics
This was the gift that just kept giving. Ze gets to pick three books to read before bed, and ze always picks this one. We’ve read it no less than 6 times a day, every day, for weeks. WEEKS.

Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep! by Todd Tarpley and John Rocco

You know JuggerBaby has robots on the mind when ze yells beep beep!

:: Does anyone else antagonize their kid/dog/cat/turtle just a little bit for laughs?

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