By: Revanche

My kids and notes from Year 6.7

August 24, 2021

Growth

We had a lot of discussions about trusting people and how you decide to trust someone this month. I can’t remember how it started but the conversation continued when JB was reading the graphic novelization of CoCo. They wanted to know why Ernesto yelled “Security!” and what Miguel did wrong for Ernesto to call security to take him away – what was the justification? It was a great teaching example. We talked about when we trust someone: We observe their words and their actions, how they make decisions, whether they believe (as Ernesto clearly did) that the ends justify the means where the means are “sacrificing literally anyone else” and the ends are “so I get what I want when I want it”. We shouldn’t trust people who show us that they are willing to hurt people to get what they want, and a lot of times, people / abusers will hide who they truly are from the rest of us. Miguel didn’t do anything wrong but he made a mistake in trusting someone because he thought they were family, and family doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. We talked about how Ernesto had power over Miguel, who was alone and too little to fight back, and power over Hector who didn’t know that his best friend was a sneaking slimeball, but he chose to hide that part of himself from his fans because he wanted something from them. Very classic abuser!

JB very quickly connected the dots to: “You trusted your dad and you didn’t know he was going to hurt you! And Auntie trusted her husband, who isn’t her husband anymore, because she didn’t think he was going to hurt her!”

Yep.

Yep. People hide the bad parts of themselves from some people, notably the people they aren’t abusing. They hide it from the people who they want something from. So we can be fooled sometimes, it happens. It’s not doing something wrong – it’s a mistake because you don’t have all the information or the experience to know to be more careful around that person but then you’ve got to do something with the information when you do have it.

Responsibility

Nicole and Maggie bestirred my brain cells to thinking about helping JB develop a habit of maintaining their own paper planner. I don’t know if they’re actually the right age developmentally but they do use our family calendars to see what is scheduled so I think it’s just another step from using what’s in front of their faces to developing the skill/habit of writing those things down for themselves. I should have started earlier in the summer, though, more fun things to add than school things probably make this more fun? Oh I don’t know. I started when I started!

Life with Smol Acrobat

Eating: The good news is that Smol has increasing enthusiasm for solids. The bad news is that they consider it a zero sum situation: more solids means less to no interest in liquids. This isn’t good when they still rely on formula/breast milk for most of their nutrition! It’s pronounced enough that I can no longer give them their bottle sitting at the set dinner table before moving to solids. If they see the solids, they want the solids. I can’t wait until we can rely mostly on solids for nutrition. It’ll be a different set of challenges (mess mess mess!) But at least it’ll be all of us on the same program and not having to fuss over bottles.

They also refuse to hold their bottle. They’ll grab for it and pull it to their mouth and then drop both hands by their side like a puppet with cut strings. This is no good in a household where we push for independence! JB at this age was holding their own bottles for all their feeds. Then I remembered that they were also given plastic water bottles to play with in the car because we didn’t give them many toys. It occurred to me that that play probably helped them learn to hold the actual bottles. I was right! Within two days of giving Smol a small water bottle to play with, they were willing to try curving their chubby little hands around their milk bottle.

Growth: Oh. No. They can crawl. Or at least pull themselves forward on their belly like a sliding penguin. When they see something they want, they start flapping their arms and pulling forward in an on-land breaststroke. And they get there in record time! We’re doooooomed. This suddenly makes me feel a little better about the idea of daycare. Lots more for them to play with there and safe spaces to scoot around.

Sleeping: They do best if they can sleep a minimum of 5 hours a day across multiple naps. Less than that and their sleep at night is wrecked and their naps the next day are wrecked and we are wrecked, too. One notable day they only got two naps that added up to 5 hours. We planned for a much earlier bedtime and that night they slept 11 hours! Of course they went to sleep at 630 so they were still up at dawn. But that was the longest stretch ever! In contrast, the other notable day, they refused to eat much before their bedtime and then cried in their sleep for half an hour. I patted their back the entire time, and they cried the whole time with hand in mouth and never once opened their eyes or acted like they knew I was there. When I finally picked them up to try feeding them, they gave a little gasp like it shocked them. It was the weirdest thing. My little sleep zombie.

Personality: They are starting to show little signs of personhood! This is one quiet somber baby, most of the time. They have their belly laughs and cackly times, of course, but their baseline is a very neutral observational stoicism. Whenever they are introduced to something or someone new, they sit back and watch for the longest time. They won’t reach out and touch. I’m so used to JB’s baseline of “see a new thing, launch yourself at it like a rocket” that this is almost disconcerting. But it’s interesting to watch how they react to things, how they choose to act, when their mischief peeps out. At this same age, telling JB “no” was like egging them on. Telling Smol “no” makes them pause for a moment. Telling JB to “come here” would get you a laughing fast crawling baby in your face in 0.4 seconds; telling Smol “come here!” would get a baby starting to come towards you, see something better, laugh at you and veer off to the other cooler thing. It’s funny.

Growth. We have teeth! Nooo, no more all gummy smiles! Which really screws with the sleep thing.

Pupdate

Precious Moments

JB dropping off Smol in the office: ok I’m going to get a snack. They will be right here. We’re doing independence things now.

*****

PiC: Hey, where’s Smol?
JB: This is your work time, I’m in charge of Smol!

*****

JB shutting down their computer, Smol looks over to summon them: raaawwwwwk! Raaaaaawkk!

*****

This happens way too often:
Me: milk?
Smol: NOOOOOOO
PiC: milk?
Smol: NOOOOOOO
Me: milk?
Smol: NOOOOOOO
PiC: milk?
Smol: NOOOOOOO
Us: Fine, naptime.
Smol: MIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLKKKKKK 😭😭😭😭
Us: We. TOLD. You.

*****

JB: Hedgie is sleeping because she was up All Night.
Me: Why was she up all night?
JB: She was coloring almost the whole night. Her boss told her she had to. She also has bruises on her back because he made her do pullups and the thing was too heavy for her.
Me: what thing?
JB: the thing with the pull up bar with the round things at the ends.
Me: oh a barbell. She had to lift weights?
JB: yes. And Porcupine, her boss, took one of his needles and said he’d poke her with it!
Me: that is NOT ok. I think it’s time for Hedgie to learn about how we always save half our money when we work so that if we have horrible bosses, we have the choice to go work somewhere else.
JB: I’m going to find Hedgie another boss.
Me: That’s a good idea.
JB: I need a boss that believes in coronavirus.
Me: That’s also a really good idea! We always want to plan to find bosses who are going to treat us well.
JB: I think Hedgie needs an art boss.

:: If you ever think your kids aren’t paying attention, well…. ANYWAY,  how did you learn to trust people?

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