My kid and notes from Year 3.4
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?
Up, down, all around the merry go round
Mornings have been TOUGH since JB turned into a threenager about them. Every morning is groggy and a grouchy demand to read first, or “I need space”, or “I want DADDY, not you Mommy”.
It was entirely exhausting going through morning after morning, taking an hour and twenty minutes to get ready to go, with two meltdowns before we could get shoes on. We tried cajoling, sternness, tough love, even bribery. But nothing worked for more than two mornings in a row – a sleepy JB is simply not motivated to move faster on the basis of earning a “dollar” for zir book fund.
Breaking up each Getting Ready thing into stations helped a little: potty station, changing clothes station, brushing teeth station, breakfast station, and sock and shoes station. It didn’t stop the “I’m NOT READY” or “I need a minute, please” but it was more tangible to say “let’s start with one station” than “GET READY OMG SOME OF US HAVE TO WORK”.
It all came to a head one especially fun Monday morning when I told PiC to just leave when he was ready for work and don’t even wait for us to get up. He had early meetings and I didn’t need a cascade of grouchiness bouncing from father to child to me and back again. So off he went and was fine. When JB got up, though, whew! It was as though the heavens had been torn asunder. Zir face ran with tears and snot: DADDY IS NOT HERE!! WHERE IS DADDY??? WHERE???
We got through it, not without frayed tempers, but it did give me a tool to work with – the next few mornings, I’d gently kiss zir cheek and ask “Do you want to get up to say hi to Daddy before he has to leave?” Even if he was the one doing drop-off, this worked, but the trauma always fades and I have to come up with another motivation.
The next one I tackled was warm clothes: ze never used to care about getting dressed in the cold, my winter child, but recently started complaining that ze didn’t want to get out of bed because it was cold. I rigged up a way to safely warm zir clothes in front of the space heater for a few minutes and urged zir to come with me to get dressed while they were still toasty.
These will only work for a short while and then I’m going to have to come up with new tactics.
New lessons and skills
See previous months for zir current responsibilities.
I half-jokingly told JB to go feed the dogs if ze wasn’t going to nap, and ze DID IT. Ze raced out, picked up their food box, sat down with their medicine bowl, filled up their bowls with the kibble and the right number of medications / supplements each, and then asked to do the sardines zirself. I didn’t want zir to cut open a hand peeling open the sardine can so I did that part but I let zir scoop the fish out into the bowls. The dogs were ever so confused. I was so proud!
Taking the time to reinforce already learned skills is paying off. I haven’t added much to zir list of responsibilities at all but when I started folding laundry and called zir over to put zir socks away, ze did so without complaint and then speedily went to bring me hangers without even having to be asked for them.
Precious Moments
Music in 2018
Me: What song do we listen to first?
JB: AN AD!
Me: … Well, you’re not wrong.
Generosity of spirit
JB: When you get bigger, you can bowwow my sunglasses!
Me: When *I* get bigger?
JB: And you can bowwow them for SIX YEARS.
Me: Whoa, that’s generous.
JB: Yes, I ahm a verra naice person!
Aphorismically
Me: With great power comes g…..
JB: Gorilla!
Me: …… well. Sometimes, I guess.
Purely hypothetical conversation
Me: Do you want a brother or sister?
JB: I want a sister
Me: What if it’s a brother, is that ok?
JB: I want a brother AND a sister. I want to draw their heads.
Me: Babies do have heads. The good ones do anyway.
Truthful, like it or not
On high pain days, PiC takes JB out to run errands together. Bless that honest child’s heart. Every time I tell zir to “Be safe, listen to Daddy!” now, I get this explanation: “Well, ah’m goin to TWY but I might nawt lissen. But I will be’ave!”
I think we have different definitions of “behaving”.
Getting philosophical about death
Reading a book on the highlights of the movie “Coco”, I point out a character who died. Oh look, she’s in the Land of the Dead, now, with her Mama and Papa.
JB: Why?
Me: Because she died.
JB: Why she died?
Me: Because she was very old and eventually her body was too tired to keep going anymore. Everyone dies at some point.
JB: Your mommy died!
Me: Yes, she did.
JB: Dat’s why you’re sad.
Me: Yes, that does make me sad.
JB: But das ok!
Me: It is?
JB: Yes betuz she cannot die again. So is ok!
Me: That’s true, you can only die one time.
JB: *joyfully* Yes! You tannot die again and again and again. Jus’ one taime!
Anything but the doctor!
JB, rounding the corner to the kitchen: “Ehy Daddy I want to show you something, Daddy where are you?” *sees him standing on a chair, becomes alarmed* “Daddy! Be careful, you might fall down and you will haf to go to da doctor!”
Literacy
Uncle: What’s this letter?
JB: C
Uncle: What’s this letter?
JB: A
Uncle: What’s this letter?
JB: T
Uncle: what’s that spell?
JB: CAT!
Me: *gestures wildly at PiC to pay attention, whisper* ze spelled cat and knew the word!!
20 minutes later…
PiC: hey JB, how do you spell cat?
JB: B S T I*garble garble* 7 8 9 10!
PiC: oh. Uh. Ten?
JB still going: and a Y and den you cawwy da 7 and % Ļ and ā and ā and DAT IS HOW YOU SPELL CAT.
Trolled by a toddler.
SO precious! I wish I had kept a record of my children’s conversations at this age. Really, really wonderful. “I want a brother AND a sister. I want to draw their heads.” That was a laugh-out-loud moment for me! Even those conflict moments are sweet to read of from a distance – though I remember how exasperating and even awful they could be when I lived them. JB is bright and perceptive and compassionate – and has a very strong personality š
I’m so glad that this blog exists so that I thought of doing it. It never would have occurred to me before but these little chats tickle me.
Compromise: Have the party at daycare during daycare.
GENIUS.
An AD!!!! *roflmao*
Is it sad that I can’t really remember any birthday parties? There are photos of some pretty awesome cakes for early birthdays though…
I only remember being mad about birthday parties because I hated that my parents insisted on inviting other kids.