My kids and notes from Year 6.5
June 22, 2021
Growth
We’ve had to have the “don’t catch things with blades when they fall” talk. After they tried to catch a five-bladed razor when it was knocked off a shelf. 🤦🏻♀️ We then had a talk about bandaging technique and clotting.
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Why do parents say “I’m not going to say this again” when we absolutely will be saying it again?
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JB had a big fuss-fit over being told to write up their notes after a Spanish lesson. I was frustrated that after a lot of lessons, they still haven’t retained hardly anything. They were angry about having to copy down notes from the class notes to practice later.
After a cooldown period we sat down and talked. They complained that they didn’t WANT to have to write the words and they didn’t WANT to have to practice and they HATE writing.
I didn’t argue about whether they do or don’t hate writing. I don’t think they do but that’s beside the point. Instead, we had a long talk about how learning something new is always at least a little frustrating and it’s always going to require some struggle and being challenged and that for important things, we don’t give up on it because it’s important and still worth doing. I reminded them that writing was hard, learning to read took years, learning to ride a bike was frustrating but all of those things have resulted in their having so much fun getting to pick up new stories, getting to send mail to people, getting to ride bikes with their friends when we don’t get to do much else.
At first they were resistant because they wanted to fuss about how they HATE writing unless it’s getting to do her own thing but they really love riding bikes with friends and that they’re allowed to independently create correspondence that people like receiving so that turned it around.
I didn’t say it wasn’t hard to learn, just that it’s worth doing even though it can be hard. And there are things in life we will pick and choose to do. We don’t have to do everything. But the important things, even for adults, we have to stick with.
I shared that I have to learn hard things at work that I don’t like, too! It’s not easy and it’s not fun but sometimes, some things, you just gotta do. Even if you can’t see the payoff right now, there is often something pretty cool as a result of that effort later. An old friend and former teacher invited us to spend time at his house in Mexico. They can go make friends in Mexico if they learn Spanish! (This is where knowing your audience is key. That proposal for me would have fallen flat.) They perked up a little: I haven’t gotten to make new friends in a long time!
Exactly! How cool would that be to sing songs with a new friend in Spanish?
So we gotta try. Not for everything, for the important stuff, but we have to find a way. It doesn’t mean we keep doing the exact same thing, we’ll talk to the teacher and see if we can change our approach a little, but we’re not going to quit and we ARE going to try and practice.
I told them that I didn’t get to learn how to ride a bike so I don’t get to have that fun! They offered to teach me so I took the opportunity to point out that if they were teaching me, how would they feel if I flopped over and said no, I don’t want to try, I don’t like practicing, I don’t WANT to?
They seem to see that would be frustrating for a teacher and that we should practice respecting each other’s time by putting in effort and practicing.
Language
The last letter game. JB’s friend taught them a game where you pick a word and the next person has to pick a word that starts with the last letter of your word. So: hawk. Knight. Timpani. Italian. Noble. Elephant.
JB and PiC play it constantly and I’ve noticed an awful lot of common words end in n, e and t so when I play, I work really hard to find words that end in more interesting letters.
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They hear a fair bit of (light) cursing type language out in the wild, whether on TV or passing by other people talking or what have you. I’ve taken the stance that curse words aren’t “bad words,” they’re adult words that children aren’t allowed to say because they’re not mature enough to use them with discretion. Slurs are definitely bad words, though.
Responsibility
We’re incentivizing taking the initiative for doing chores and doing chores without whining again. There’s been some backsliding and I don’t want to hear it. But also I’m frustrated that we can’t seem to get one method to stick because we keep forgetting to reinforce it. That tells me the system doesn’t fit our lifestyle and we need to simplify or modify until it does but who exactly has spare brain cells for this?
Life with Smol Acrobat
Eating: For about two weeks, we puzzled over why Smol was eating less and less during the day. At one point, PiC was pretty sure the most they were consuming was 9 ounces of milk during the day. It took a while for that fact to sink in because we were struggling so much with the naps, eating (or not) and working and everything. It wasn’t until I complained to a friend that the lightbulb went on: Smol had switched to eating well at night. That was absolutely not at all helpful for our night sleep so at the same time as tackling sleep training, we tried to reverse the reverse cycling.
We went through a few types of nipples to find that the ones Smol likes and eats well with is the same set that JB liked.
Solids are fun to experiment with. They now want to eat, and grab for the spoon and shove it in their tiny maw.
Since they eat so little, it’s not worth making my own puree or soft foods. Or rather it would be if I had something to steam and blend such small quantities, but we just have a larger blender and a two cup blend would take two months for Smol to eat up. I picked up three jars of baby food, poured them into one ounce jars and froze most of them. They might eat half an ounce a day, if that, so those 4-oz jars at $1/each will likely last us three weeks.
They don’t actually like purees, though. At least not puree alone. They chomp impatiently on the spoon when I feed puree-only so I mix the baby food with rice or scrambled eggs to give them something to chew. That goes over really nicely.
After a week of taste testing, Smol’s appetite revved up and suddenly they wanted to eat everything! Their favorites: peanut butter soba noodles, tofu, unseasoned salmon.
Sleeping: Our pediatrician gave us the nod to start sleep training last month and we had a whole host of bad habits to undo. We hadn’t stopped feeding right before sleep, we never put them down awake (if they’re awake, they are WIDE AWAKE), they’ve been fully swaddled in the Snoo because someone has been reluctant to move away from the full swaddle. So we had to get Smol accustomed to sleeping without a swaddle, arms free, in a crib not a Snoo swaddle, without being nursed or rocked to sleep. SURE NO PROBLEM.
My first try was ROUGH. Every five minutes I’d pick them up for soothing pats. They’d stuff their hand in their mouth to self soothe immediately and try to doze off, hiccuping. When I put them down, hysteria ensued for 5-10 minutes, arms waving. Finally I decided that it was more important that they were going to sleep without going directly from the bottle to bed and tucked them into the Snoo with the full swaddle and movement and just gave up that first night. The second night was even rougher. They cried and fussed for 30-60 minutes at a time but napped in between. I figured out that night to stop picking them up for the calming, and to stretch out the time between each check in by 2-3 minutes each time. Gradually, they managed to figure out to use their hand to self soothe and the crying and fussing time began to shorten. By naptime the next day, fussing time was down to about 10-15 minutes on average. We seemed to have improvements each day for a week and then it all turned bad again for a week.
We experimented more. We had to get strict about feeding to make sure they were topped up before the end of the night. We worked on moving the last feed earlier in their bedtime routine so that it was the first thing we did instead of the last or even the middle. The sleep consultant had suggested we aim for a 30 minute window between the last feed and the sleep time. I added ten minutes of outside time after each nap to give them natural light and wear them out better. We slowly started getting better naps during the day but night sleep kept going back and forth and that was super frustrating. After a few weeks, we finally got to the point where nights were mostly two wakings, once for a diaper change and once for a feed, and settling back down on their own within 20-45 minutes. Not great but better. I find my overall stress levels ebb a little bit with each day where we get multiple naps and we don’t fight with them over every single one. The crying and fighting naps aren’t great but the more stretches of good naps we build up, the less painful it is when the naps go awry and they go sideways less frequently. I’m having more stretches where I’m happy to have a baby and unclenching previously wound-to-the-breaking-point muscles. My shoulders aren’t always up to my ears now. Thank goodness.
Reading: Smol has come around to loving their little baby books with the pictures of other babies. We say hello to our little friends every day with smiles, bubbles, and squeaks.
Laughing: JB continues to be the most reliable at teasing out smiles, chortles and cackles.
Pupdate
We’re starting to make a little progress with touch training! She’s still pretty confused about it. I hold the treat in one hand and hold the other out for touch. If the treat hand is visible, she just stares at it. If it’s behind my back, she will ever so briefly nose my touch hand while staring fixedly at the space where the treat hand may appear.
Precious Moments
Sometimes JB is a rude little gremlin and sometimes when I offer a treat of salami they say: Oh, no thank you, Dad said I could have yogurt but thank you for offering. I know you know I like salami a lot but I’m not in the mood for it, so thank you but I would like my yogurt.
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JB on the verge of having a tantrum when they thought they didn’t have enough time to catch a show after dinner: “I just need to calm my body. It’s ok for me to be frustrated because I don’t think I’m going to have enough time but if I whine then I definitely cannot watch TV. It’s ok for me to have my feelings, and I just need to calm my body, and if I ask politely later than MAYBE I can watch but if I whine then definitely the answer is no.”
(They are repeating lessons we’ve shared with them over the years. Their auntie wonders if they are particularly good at absorbing lessons or if we just don’t underestimate a kid’s capacity to learn. I have no idea.)
JB to me: Dad! I mean Mom.
JB to PiC: Mom?
PiC: I’m Dad.
JB: oh yeah, dad?
JB to me: Dad?? DAD!
Me: I’m Mom.
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Me: JB! In 2 minutes, please stop your craft and set the table.
JB, 2 minutes later: mom, do you know why I’m mad?
Me: nope. (To myself: but I’m guessing you’re gonna tell me whether I want to know or not…)
JB: Because that was just really bad timing!
Me: What was?
JB: I was in the middle of something and you told me to set the table and I’m frustrated because that was really bad timing!
Me: Ahh I see. That does happen sometimes.
Ten minutes later….
JB: Mom, don’t you like how, even though I was mad, I made a better decision and did not whine about doing my chores?
Me: I appreciated that you had your frustrations but still chose to act appropriately. Thank you.
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JB: What’s your favorite: beef, pork or chicken?
Us: Depends on the dish and how it’s prepared.
JB: Plain!
Us: Wait, with nothing?
JB: ok, salt and pepper!
Us: Just salt and pepper?
JB: ok, Hot!
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JB: Can I have a bite of your cookie?
Me: Here. After. (Meaning after they eat their meal.)
JB: AFTER. After the war I went back to New York -After the war I went back to New York
I finished up my studies and I practiced law
I practiced law, Burr worked next door!
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JB: did you know that dinosaurs lived in nineteen… eighty….. TWO????
