I’d been wondering something in my quiet moments. Why I haven’t started that business yet, or finished a creative project? Surely I’ve not gotten lazy and complacent?
It’s possible but it doesn’t seem likely.
Despite knowing that I’m awfully tired from constantly being on the go, oh and also you know, health, it’s hard to fight the sneaking suspicion that my lack of greater achievement’s down to a personal failing.
To get to the truth, I decided to Time Study myself. What do I do all day? Where can I make improvements?
Between two full jobs, a full toddler, Seamus, and the odd hobby or two, there is no such thing as a typical day.
Our days fit in three categories: both of us are home and I have work, I’m home with LB and have work, I have work and no LB.
So let’s dive right in!
A day where I work without the baby around
PiC gets to sleep in until 6:20 am, could lay abed even later if he wanted because LB doesn’t stir until 6:30 but he likes to get started ahead of hir.
It’s 7:47 before I hear it. The door creaks open and a cackle floats in. It’s time for my morning kiss and goodbye, it’s a Daddy and LB day, which also means it’s a Mom and Seamus day.
I sit up. “Can I have a kiss?” Obligingly LB leans in and suckerfishes to my cheek. Little lick, little nibble. Baby kiss!
“Can I have one more?”
Ze convulses in a silent laugh, then twists upside down and sideways out of PiC’s arms to dangle over me, expectant.
I catch hir blithely trusting form and ze grins. One last kiss for the family and they’re off. Seamus and I look at each other, and flop back in bed for another ten minutes of cozy peace.
Sooner than I’d like, I crawl out of bed. It’s time for Seamus’s morning routine.
Checking email on my phone for emergencies, I brush my teeth and get dressed. The favorite part of my telecommuting schedule is usually living in my pajamas but somehow getting dressed in the morning feels more efficient than waiting til we have to go outside later.
Within 15 minutes of waking, Seamus has his medication and we’re headed outside. This used to be a quick dash to take care of business while I distractedly checked email on my phone. Thanks to a reminder of OHIO, I’ve adopted a firm stance about time wasted on rereading emails, so this is now our time to contemplate and appreciate nature in companionable silence. We move slowly at first in the morning chill, watching the last bits of fog lace through the tree branches, letting our old joints warm up.
By the time we find our stride, it’s time to mosey on back. Our morning jaunts take 25 minutes, and then Seamus prances at the door, anticipating breakfast. I get him started, start a load of whites in the wash, get a glass of water, find my glasses, and settle in to work.
Thirty seven emails and 4 hours later, it’s time to hydrate and grab a mini chocolate bar from the fridge. As an afterthought, and a placatory gesture to the adult somewhere in me, I also take the yogurt cup with me. Funny how when you set the yogurt and candy on the desk together, I end up eating the yogurt first. Don’t get me wrong, the candy disappears an hour later, too.
Think about eating a real meal. Keep working.
Early afternoon brings a quick flurry of activity: put clothes in the dryer, wash the dishes, prep the veggies for tonight’s dinner, open, recycle, and shred mail. Put together the week’s to do packet for bills. Then, back at the computer for three more hours.
Seamus dines early these days, but he always starts the dinner dance 30 minutes before just in case I can be wheedled. Most of the afternoon is dog-naps, but his internal clock is something to behold as his perked ears bob up behind my computer screen five minutes before I intend to take a break. Dinner for him is the work of a few minutes, then I’m back into the computer glare for another hour.
By 5 pm, a break would be welcome, as would be dinner, so I head into the kitchen to throw something together. Starch, veggie, protein!
Put the pot pie in the oven and sit back down to quickly draft about two-thirds of a blog post from that scrap of an idea that bubbled up with the pot pie fixings. 30 minutes later, the oven is cozy just in time for LB and PiC to get home, exclaiming about the buttery pastry scents wafting out the door.
LB hands me the contents of the daycare bag, one by one, and I quickly wash up hir bottles and lunch boxes.
LB’s still unbelievably upbeat after a long day with hardly a nap, so ze cackles hir way through deconstructed pot pie, and then experiments with gravity. Hey look! The chicken will SPLAT just like the carrot did, and so does the green bean! That’s hilarious! *cackles*
We know it’s a necessary phase but child, stop that!
We bundle The Messy One off to hit the showers once the play time turns to boredom and most of the food now gets rubbed in hir hair. A bottle of milk warms during shower time, and the non-bathing parent clears up the dinner mess.
By 8:20, ze’s creaking and chirping from bed, falling asleep, and I get a shower! I wryly think back to the early days of newborn life when a shower was a complete luxury and give myself a full 10 minutes before it’s back to work while PiC does post-dinner washing up.
My concentration starts to waver around 10:30 and I realize that the last ten minutes were lost to mindless oblivion. It’s time to call it, so I check everything one last time to make sure I hit my deadlines and head to the kitchen.
Usually packing LB’s lunch is still amusing: ze eats everything so I just compose a sort of balanced collection of snacks in bite sizes and that’s set. (Yes, I’m easily amused.) I’m the most underachieving bento box packing mom ever and I’m only that because it totally entertains me. If I could justify it, ze would be carrying hir own R2-D2 to daycare. Heck, if I had to pack a lunch that sucker would be MINE. PiC is in charge of the bottles and labeling everything according to daycare procedure.
Oh and Seamus needs his meds so I check on the supply and make a mental note. Second half of the month is always time to figure out if we need more medications or pill pockets, or basically anything on Amazon’s Subscribe & Save. I’m aiming for that 15% off, if we get a delivery.
The kitchen’s cleared up, lunch is packed, and we’ve made it through another day. I deserve bed and a book. If only sleep came to adults as easily as it does to the dog whose been snoring for the past 2 hours! These hours of the night are the most wasteful part of my 24 hours: I have to read to relax enough to sleep. There are days, though, sleep eludes me til past 2 am.
Yesterday, I worked til 2 am so at least trying to sleep is an improvement for this hour of the night.
As much as I love seeeing LB’s face all day, when it comes to working, daycare is a blessing. I get so much done when it’s just me. I have so energy left at the end of the day to snuggle hir and do bedtime routines. If only daycare wasn’t a petri dish but that immune system needs to be built sometime and early is better than later.
Daycare has made a huge difference in our ability to get things done and not be exhausted every second of every day. It’s been absolutely critical in letting us both have our alone time professionally, and therefore have the energy to give each other personal time.
I’m not a morning person but sometimes my pain drives an extra early morning whether I intended to or not. This means that it’s not always a good idea to insist on getting everything done the night before. For the first time, I’m becoming relaxed about doing as much as I can, when I can, and trusting that the rest will get done in its own time.
:: What morning routines work best for you? Are you decidedly at your best at any particular time of day or day of week?
LB confidently climbs onto and off of furniture now, safely, and faceplanting only rarely. Except that one time onto concrete. Oops. That was sad. Ze pivots on hir face a lot. All in service of a greater cause: climbing onto furniture and making a grab for the remotes, the books, and the tissue box. Oh lordy the tissue box is the BEST. 5 seconds of silence means ze made it and is pulling fistfuls of tissues out, shaking them on the floor, taking an experimental bite out of one or the other handful. If you time it right, ze will turn and stick hir be-tissued tongue out for you to scrape out the latest indiscretion.
We <3 books
We’re constantly reading to LB, several books a day, and ze normally “listens” while cruising for the latest bruising. These days, the listening is active and participatory. Ze wants to help turn pages, really looks at the pictures, sometimes touching them, sometimes just urging us to turn pages faster. A lot of the time ze will shut the book on my hands just to be able to open it up again. Ow.
Lapbaby, lapbaby, where are you?
Today, ze picked hir plushie, pivoted, and plopped hirself into my lap! This is a new thing. Since the day ze discovered self-locomotion, we haven’t been able to get the kid to sit still. We suspect this is a by-product of fighting for attention at daycare.
They’re decently staffed, but the kids there compete for attention as kids do. When a kid crawls toward an adult, it’s a cue for the rest of them to converge on that adult. PiC said it looked like being pursued by a tiny mob of tiny zombies.
Big Brother
Ze still isn’t cuddly with us but is trying to form an alliance of affection with Seamus. When he sniffs hir face, ze leans in with an open mouth to lay a kiss on his nose. He never lets hir land the kiss, deftly dodging like a submarine dodging a calf and thus thwarted, ze will crawl to his back and lay hir face on it instead.
Independence and (un)coordination
We haven’t lost an eye to fork stabbing yet but it’s not for lack of flailing. Ze’s use of spoons and forks involves much banging on the tray, excited waving in the air, and holding both ends of the utensil while biting down on the middle. Most attempts result in half the food on the ground and half down hir front. Never mind, ze will carefully place bits of food on the utensil and try to steer it into hir mouth, oftentimes flipping the fully loaded spoon face down and getting absolutely nothing to each. That’s alright, ze carries on with determination.
The clean-up crew knows to (literally) shake hir down for food scraps after a meal.
We had some of our worst sick days yet. So many middle of the night wake ups and so many pitiful little sobs. We tended to hir and cuddled hir as best we could, sleep-fuddled and clumsy, but most of the Motrin ended up inside hir, at least. (Thanks, daycare.)
Pirate-raccoon-kitten
Most small things are unsafe around hir. Everything goes into the mouth: hair clips, binder clips, small toys. Hair ties on my wrist are pulled right off, gets clamped between hir teeth as ze pounces for a water source like a pirate of old, cultass clenched in mouth, there to … wash the object?
Yep.
Have shiny object? It will be stolen and washed for you. Possibly returned, but only after a thorough wash.
It’s not getting a ton of use specifically as a walker, but both LB and Seamus rock out to this learning walker.
We have some great hand me down alphabet toys that LB likes to chew while we decide what “B” stands for. This combines two of LB’s favorite things: magnets and letters!
Over lunch, a friend asked me if we do “Good cop, bad cop” with LB and for the life of me, I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea. Ze is one year old. Is there a point to doing a good cop / bad cop routine? For 3 minutes, I stared at her, silently pondering what that would look like for an infant.
Besides, I’m no one-note mama. I am all the cops. Sometimes the good cop, mostly the bad cop, always the tickling cop.
I’ve made some first year remarks already but as I said then, there’s a lot about parenting that you just don’t viscerally get from a babysitting or professional aunt/uncle role until you’re there in the thick of it and there are no returns.
Experience has changed my viewpoint on some, not at all on others. It’s been a lot of “ohhhh that’s what that looks like,” or “what, exactly, is happening right now?”
Discipline
Pre-kids: My sibling’s the Exhibit A of The Bad Seed or a cautionary tale for the ages. It’s hard to know which.
It’s a Pyrrhic victory to hear your parent admit that everything you’d warned them would happen if they wouldn’t listen to you did happen, after they wouldn’t listen to you. I don’t know, can’t know, if we’d still have the same end result had they listened to me, but we know it all went to hell when they didn’t.
Post-kid: LB first heard “NO” at four months and hasn’t stopped hearing it since. Ze still doesn’t care what no means but soon enough ze will understand how to use language and I want hir to know there are times that are “yes”, and times that are “no”, and NO MEANS NO. From us, from anyone else, from hir.
Ze may act clueless or disregard the first admonitions but repetition is our friend here. When we’re consistent, we see the results of that efforts months later.
We don’t enforce *discipline* (punishment) specifically at this age, ze is too young, but we enforce the boundary of No especially when it comes to hurting others (*caveat: Unless they hurt or intend to hurt you, in those cases, gut ’em), or hurting hirself.
Responsibility
As in, having it. And then teaching it.
Pre-kids: This felt like an anchor around my everything. I don’t know how to motivate a kid to care about something that’s not a fun thing. From early on, I’ve always been the intrinsically motivated kid, competing against myself, but I’m necessarily an extrinsic element to LB so how do we foster that intrinsic drive? We cheer ze on for trying things, even if ze falls down or fails a lot, because we want hir to keep trying. And ze does. But how do we avoid turning hir personal motivation into a praise-seeking situation?
Post-kid: The responsibility is still daunting. I still don’t know how we’ll teach hir everything we hope to. But I have to hope that talking to hir, honestly and carefully, and demonstrating the desirable behaviors will have an impact. Maybe I was lucky to have been the passive kid I was; Mom and Dad always seemed pretty reasonable, I never wanted to rebel even if their rules chafed a little, and by the teen years, I assumed that acting like an adult would mean they’d treat me like one, so I did, and they did. For the most part.
We have to shape LB so that ze is prepared to succeed in a world we probably won’t understand in 20 years, being the outdated geezers that we are. We have to guide hir to build character, to have compassion, to be money savvy, to work harder and smarter than those around hir. I’m not sure how we do that. And in this world today that’s full of bile and anger and horrible people, how do we protect hir? Every single day I read another horrifying story about how someone abused, killed, and hurt their spouse, child, boy/girlfriend, complete stranger that looked at them wrong or was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We can’t wrap hir up in bubble wrap forever but it’s a scary damn world out there.
I don’t have any of the answers. To some degree, you can do it all “right” and still lose your child to whatever’s out there. But today, right here and now, I’m ignoring those what-ifs and soaking up the baby goodness and trying to get it right one day at a time.
Love
Pre-kids: Everyone says “it’s totally worth it” but it always sounds like they’re trying to rationalize the choice to have kids when it was prefaced by a story of how frustrated or annoyed they are by the kid. Which I’m sure all our parents felt at one point or another.
Post-kid: I absolutely adore this kid. Even when ze is difficult or confusing or frustrating. It didn’t happen the second ze was born like it does for some people. We needed time. I needed time to heal. I will never forget my fear and despair in Months 2-3. We needed time to get to know each other. Ze needed time to be more than a baguette.
Right now, it’s easy for me to feel both love and frustration at the same time and roll my eyes at weird infantile things like licking the dog or having a meltdown over having hir ankle grabbed as ze tips over the edge: “You won’t let me sustain a concussion waaahhhh!”
It’s interesting that one of my oldest friends knew bonding could take some time but didn’t tell me until I was past the 4th trimester. A mark of how well she knows me, and respects boundaries, that she wasn’t going to dictate to me what my life experience was going to be like some people do with their “wait until you … !”
So far, it’s hard work and it’ll only get harder. I think we can make the call in 30 years whether we did a good job and if it was all worth it because it’s way too soon to tell but right here and now, I’m just glad we took the chance and aren’t regretting it.
Sleep-crying is a thing. It’s as pitiful as sleepbarking (by Seamus, not LB) is cute: real baby cries but you can’t comfort them because they’ll actually wake up and then you’ll regret everything.
I used to hold my breath a lot: would these snorks and soft sobs wake hir or would ze shuffle off to sleep? Don’t know why I bothered. Oxygen deprivation for me wasn’t going to affect the outcome for hir. Wakefulness was either a need for a cuddle, or a full bore scream and arched back of misery that meant FEED ME. Which, in my sleep deprived haze, would often be misinterpreted as “I’m sad, soothe me”. Less than 1% of the time is the latter, why do I always forget?? Oh right. Sleep deprivation.
But it got easier
Ze cried all the time. For months, it was a constant cycle of crying baby, change hir diaper, soothe soothe soothe, feed the baby, soothe soothe soothe, crying baby, try again.
We walked hir, we rocked hir, we patted hir, we sang, we shushed, we passed out sitting up with a baby cradled in our arms.
Not a single thing made hir sleep better or more.
Then ze stopped. Either ze got older and less anxious or hir needs were being met. Who the hell knows? All I know is ze wouldn’t sleep through the night for months. Some nights, we’d be up with the dawn because we’d hardly gotten back in bed much before that.
There was that odd night back in Month 4 ze slept through for a solid 9 hours like a horrible, torturous carrot ze was dangling in front of us. It would be 3 months later before it happened again for a few nights and then it’d stop.
Suddenly, 4 or so months after that ze did. No warning. Just started sleeping through and waking at 5 am. Then started sleeping until 6 am. Once, ze slept til 730.
Lesson learned? It can get better. But nothing we did had any influence over it. I used to be terrible at dealing with uncertainty and after a hard year of training find that while it may not be comfortable, it won’t keep me up nights.
But not easy-easy
That’s not to say we don’t still have our moments of frustration. As ze grows and explores, ze will confuse and frustrate us. We forget, every so often, that ze is just a baby still because ze has grown so fast and is so amazingly interactive.
My favorite age
A friend said that whatever age you’re at, you’ll revise that to be your favorite age. I used to love babies best at Months 3-6. But now I think he was right, I adore LB at this age even more than I did when ze was fresh-baked, or when ze was just learning to lift hir head, or when ze finally learned to hold hir own bottle.
I miss those earlier days with that sort of wistful nostalgia when I realize ze is no longer willing to cuddle. Once ze became mobile, that was the end of baby+mom liedowns together. Ze simply cannot stay still, period. But despite all the exhaustion running after hir now, I love it.
Now is: climbing onto furniture without help, proudly showing off “gentle pets” for Seamus, mischievously crawling and poking at sleeping Dad’s face, industriously pulling down books and folded laundry faster than I can put them up, mad dash crawls with top of the range squeals as ze tries to beat me to the Forbidden Anything Zones, curiously tasting anything ze touches and pulling faces, then sticking out hir tongue for me to remove tasted and rejected item.
Now is a busy time. There’s the nonstop exploration of all the same things, repeatedly. The thrill of discovering new things in the recycling to bang around and share with Seamus. The excitement of pulling out Legos to share with me. Discovering how to put things back where they came from. That last is a much coveted skill but as I understand it, it’s going to take some time. Ze’s working against muscle memory and instinct when putting things back in the box, you can see this when ze places a Lego back in the box, ponders for a second and grabs it back out.
The first step is the hardest
LB took five steps in a row, racing toward hir teacher with delight. Ze has been trying hir sealegs since, taking a step or three here and there, aiming hirself for a relatively soft landing or hurling hirself the rest of the way at us.
I adore hir face
Even when ze is crawling right over my throat to get to the toy on the other side of me, across me being the straightest line from Point Baby to Point Toy, I adore hir.
Ze might be in danger of being spoiled if I thought love was money or love was indulgence, but I think love is support and boundaries and equipping hir with as much skill, knowledge, and confidence to take on the world.
Therefore, no, I will not pick hir up every three minutes just because ze would like to hitch a ride and they always pick me up at daycare! They surely do but I am not a mule-momma and I need to conserve my strength for the most important things.
Oh, right, more importantly, as my parents always said: we say no, and we tell you the hard truths because we love you. Someone who didn’t love you would have no interest in doing the difficult jobs that help you be a better person.
May I always have the strength and clarity to love and guide LB as I was loved and guided in the early years.
Here’s a question for you
It’s been fun putting together monthly updates but now that ze has achieved a full year, we’ve stopped counting in months. Would anyone still like to see monthly updates or have you had enough?
I hate it but it’s time. It’s time for this kid to meet people who are not me or hir dad on a regular basis.
Mostly I hate the idea because I don’t want to socialize but it’s considered child abuse to put a nametag and leash on and send hir out with Seamus to go play. Or at least it’s negligence. So here I go, sucking it up to make this thing happen for hir because this child is all about human interaction. Weird.
Ze firmly believes that no stranger is destined to stay that way and has initiated more casual conversations since being able to hold hir head up than I have my entire professional career. Ze can’t speak words but can sucker strangers from across the room into make absolute fools of themselves making faces for hir enjoyment. I’m not sure if you’ve ever encountered dudes who looked like they just rolled off the WWE set and threw on sweats to grocery shop, but every time we do, LB is determined to make them play using only intense staring and smiles. And it works every time.
Meanwhile, there’s me griping about having to put on pants today so we can go out in public.
Separation anxiety what?
Everywhere I turn, people gush at how engaged LB is, and then in the same breath reassure me that separation anxiety is coming, if it hasn’t struck already. This explains a bit of it. Though I was expecting anxiety, this kid is incredibly independent, far more than I ever was before, oh, 25! When there’s someone or something cool to be investigated, that’s far more important than making sure that we’re around. Ze is remarkably secure, and yes, I’m quite certain ze loves me plenty, I’m pretty secure too, and that’s pretty cool to observe.
It’s fun, and bemusing, to watch hir select new people to bond with and just make that happen with a sunny grin and infectious chuckle. I don’t even know how ze does it, that certainly didn’t come from me. It might be the charisma in the family that I didn’t inherit. There were lots of talents in the family I didn’t get (and did reasonably well without), but it’d be like watching SuperMe if ze is anything like me PLUS has extra talents. Whoa. An independent SuperMiniMe. Bracing myself.
Species Specific….
I have a sneaking suspicion that ze and Seamus are mixed up. Ze holds out hir hands to him for “up!” He wonders why ze gets “table scraps” but he doesn’t. I know we call hir puppy but ze is human, so we probably want to work on the distinction a little.
My favorite part of going out with the two of them is counting their social conquests. Seamus is still ahead by an average of 3 encounters per trip, but they both have strangers stopping to talk to them or casting compliments their way.
We ought to send the two of them on the road to earn their keep. Not yet, though. That pesky child negligence thing.
So helpful
I was just wondering when I could put LB to work around the house. Our little destructor takes apart anything that’s put together, pulls down anything that’s put up, tears up and eats any paper in reach. I don’t bother picking up after hir until ze has done a thorough wrecking job, that’s just a fool’s errand.
Ze has always had a fascination with the front-loading washing machine, often holding onto the window with both chubby fists, leaning hir forehead against the bubble, watching the swish and thump! with open mouth and wide eyes.
I was unloading the last load of the day when ze popped up at the washer door again. This time, ze reached in to grab the spun dry clothes, sniffing, and experimentally licking them. “Can I have that?” I asked. Ze handed the washcloth to me and turned back for a sock. Lick. “Can I have that?” Ze hands it over, shakes out a washcloth. Lick. “Can I have that?” Piece by piece, we emptied the washer together.
SOON.
Sharing is … eh
LB loves to gnaw on things, so much ze loves it. And ze obviously loves me because ze thinks I should partake too. It’s cute. But it’s not a signal that ze is civilized yet, as clearly evident when ze is with other critters approximately hir size. Ze just reaches out and takes what ze wants. This is normal, but we’re now working on the concept that we don’t grab things out of hands.
We demonstrate this as adults: we ask hir for things back and don’t simply grab it back like you might when the kid has no concept of giving.
Then we worked on this with blocks. Ze would have two blocks. I would have none. Ze would either offer me a block, of two, or I would ask for one. Ze would give me Block 1. Then ze would try to grab it back but before hir hand could, I’d offer it back. Soon, there was a tiny pause after ze gave me Block 1 where we’d make eye contact and ze would wait for the offer. After a few rounds, Block 2 rotated in. I ask for, and get, Block 1. Then I ask for, and get, Block 2. Then I offered both blocks back. Repeat. We could play like this for twenty minutes. It’s just a start and a kid hir age probably isn’t going to be so willing to engage in trading, or know what the heck is going on, but I like that ze is now waiting a breath to be offered the toy before grabbing it.
Coming into the 11th month, ze was comfortably cruising along, holding onto things for support, but one day, ze started doing freestyle squats: Carefully standing up with no support and then clapping with glee. Lowered hirself back down and stood up again. More glee!
Ze is a very strong baby and I’m going to credit hir home-gym circuit training for that. Pull-ups on the refrigerator bar, balancing on the stroller, legwork on the climbing boxes.
So far, 11 months in?
Parenting is sort of fun. Not the sleepless nights, not the worry, not the diapers oh my nose not the diapers, not all that stuff. But it’s well balanced by what LB has brought to the table. Giggles, personality, mischief. An intense need to get into everything that reminds me that Mom’s “someday, you’re gonna have a kid just like you and you’ll deserve it!” curse is alive and well. Though truth be told, this might be my sibling’s curse transferred because Dad points out every so often, LB is way more clever and interested than I was at this age. Thanks….? Though I can do without ever hearing “just wait until…” again. Let me enjoy this moment, alright? Geez.
We are happier, generally, because there’s always a source of hilarity, whether it’s laughing with hir or at hir. Especially when we’re running our Who has the best picture of hir looking like the saddest panda? contest! Call us mean, call us opportunistic, but don’t say we’re slow to pull out the camera when ze is having an unwarranted cry.
There’s a whole litany of things people focus on losing when they have kids. Sure, we don’t have the freedom to just book a weekend away, or the funds to randomly splurge on something pretty. That’s ok. We didn’t permanently lose that. We simply traded it for our wonderful, curious, charming, adorable wee puppy warrior for now. And that doesn’t feel like a loss at all.
Like Meg, our work-life balance is getting better thanks to having hir around. It’s not perfect, but it’s still awfully nice.
LB has always been a bit of a Pull Everything Off Everything and Throw it Around kind of kid. Naturally, this is great motivation to get mobile and mobile ze is. These days, we often catch hir doing pullups on the most unlikely objects, and trying to swing hir leg up on said objects in order to escape or get into something. SMH.
Ze has now scaled piles of boxes, the bed, the sofa, and the refrigerator. I wouldn’t worry if ze demonstrated a lick of sense about getting down from furniture that ze does when climbing on boxes – at least climbing off boxes ze holds onto things. Beds? Nope. Just dives off, headfirst. This kid is jonesing for the world record in earliest self-inflicted concussion.
***
LB & sharing. I thought it was too early but ze started offering hir chew toys to Seamus, and then graduated to offering (forcefully offering) things to me. Ze thought I should enjoy tasting the folded clothes that ze was pulling back out of boxes and was quite insistent, mashing it against my mouth.
Ze offered hir auntie some prechewed snacks and saw right through hir fake eating motions. Ze was displeased by the fakery.
I’m seeing shades of past me and past sibling in hir.
There’s a story about how Mom once “had” to take a big bite out of a fake donut my sibling made. Heartless younger-me said: “why on earth didn’t you just pretend to take a bite? What does a kid know?” I’m starting to see why Mom just rolled her eyes, saying HE KNEW.
***
Things that are absolutely hilarious to hir: Scrunching up hir face with a grin and making the zzzzzzzzz sound.
Blowing mostly-spit raspberries. This might be a holdover from pool time when ze was encouraged to “blow bubbles” (baby translation: drink the pool water)
Having us pop out from behind things going BOO!!!
Going limp when we’re picking hir up. Just because. Not even because ze doesn’t want to go where we’re going, just because it’s fun. Ze also likes to hang onto furniture and hang backward as far as ze can like the tiniest gymnast that could. Then occasionally forgets to keep holding on and lands on hir head/butt. Still doesn’t stop hir.
***
“No!”
Ze has been hearing this since Month 4. No, we don’t tantrum to get our way.
No, we don’t chew on electrical cords, do you want to end up like that puppy who could only lick out one side of her mouth?
No, Seamus doesn’t want you to check his mouth while he’s eating! He’s gonna bite you accidentally and then feel so bad about it.
Ze still reacts to “no” with a grin and does whatever “no!” referred to, faster.
That’s my kid.
Speaking of Not Foods, we’ve officially joined Club Dog Food. Oh yeah. That’s right. LB found a dog bowl with kibble in it (fools! fools!) and sure enough, a handful went into hir mouth. Five kibbles later, I’m pretty sure I got them all but I’m not going to feel guilty if I didn’t. You’d quit diving into a chompy infant’s mouth after they sprout a couple of ivories, too.
I swear, ze bites more than 20 years of dogs combined.
Things we enjoyed…
We were reading regular books to LB because we like stress and fending off grabby hands. Ze loved it too, spending most sessions trying to “turn pages” more than listening (anyone who’s seen an infant knows that means “tearing them out”).
We are now converts to the board books, only about 6 months after they would have been super useful. What? We’re fighting clutter.
I’m a fool. Was offered the opportunity to go back to sleep somewhat peacefully and I squandered it. LB got up at 1:30, upset about something, nursed hir back to sleep. Ze was nestled peacefully against my arm so it seemed like the perfect time to put hir in the crib.
Ze protested, but it seemed like a token protest. I covered hir up with a light blanket so it wouldn’t feel like a shock going from my body heat to a cold crib and crawled back into bed. No sooner did I settle: *squawwwwwwwk*
I ignored it.
*squaaaaaakkkkk squaawwwwk*
Still not listening.
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE* for ten minutes.
Ok ok ok geez.
Ze was unbelievably pleased to be grumpily bundled back up into bed with me, even after a half recumbent diaper change because who would appreciate their infant to stay STILL when being changed in the dark? No one, says LB, so to show my appreciation I shall writhe and wriggle as hard as I possibly can which is pretty hard since you feed me so well, and it’ll therefore be impossible to fasten that diaper with fewer than five hands and an elbow.
Ze didn’t try to play when we got back to bed, thank everything, but hir idea of “settling down” was a series of flopping from back to front to back to front to back, burying hir face in the comforter I’d piled at the foot of the bed to prevent another Great FaceFirst Launch Off the Bed, squeaking and doing a Baby Gregorian chant. If I didn’t know better, and I don’t, ze could have been summoning the Greater Gods of Baby-induced Sleep Deprivation. I’m tired.
After about an hour of this, LB was content to mostly stay still with one foot propped on my ribs, the other on my chin, hands reached up over hir head in an attempt to create a tiny human bridge between me and hir father, still doing that odd Gregorian chant / kitten yowl every 20 seconds in case I might fall asleep. Cute. But when ze was evicted from this womb I’m pretty sure there was a clause in there about not kicking me in the ribs anymore. Ze is in clear violation of hir parole.
Two hours later. I realize that ze has finally stopped emitting any sounds and movements have slowed to nearly a standstill. Oh blessed sleep.
***
Related: The baby food lie: blast from Nicole & Maggie’s archives still holds true. I vaguely remembered the information in this post if not the post itself and with full endorsement from our pediatrician (which was nice but not strictly necessary), proceeded with not very reckless abandon.
We are working on food and not food categories. Food goes into the mouth and is eventually swallowed. Not food includes: any part of Seamus. Confidential documents. Electronics. Remote controls. Any of my comic books. My toes – dear god why would you chew on my toes?? Head bands. Shoes. The dishwasher. Power cables. Furniture. Seamus’s leash. Seamus’s collar. Seamus’s toys. Seamus has made a bid that anything associated with him should be off limits to being eaten. I agree.
Things that still aren’t food but I can’t be bothered if ze chews on them: Legos. My arm. Tags. Bedding. Pillows. Blankets. The drying rack.
It’s a steep learning curve here.
***
Mimicry has suddenly started happening here. We always echo back at LB when ze vocalizes because it’s funny, ze has started echoing back at us when we do it to hir. Everything is just funnier when you’re an infant.
Actions, too. If we do a thing, ze tries to, sometimes. Right now ze is in an ET phone home phase: holding hir index finger out to touch PiC’s when he holds up his hand. Ze won’t do it with me, though. I guess it’s just a daddy-kiddo thing.
***
Word babbles are happening. Ze suddenly added about 5 more consonants to hir 2 vowels. Conversations are still not deep but they’re entertaining. Except when it’s “I’m putting your legs in your pants. KEEP THEM THERE” or “STOP worming away when I’m diapering you!” Then I vaguely wish for five months ago when ze could barely flip. But I guess that’s less language and more Infant With Shit To Do.
***
Ze thinks it’s funny to elicit a reaction out of us by licking inappropriate things. I just figured out ze was just playing me when ze leaned over to the wall, glanced at me, waited til I looked, then licked the wall. Then chuckled at my expression.
***
Teeth are starting to happen. Ze was remarkably pleasant when they started breaking through. Then two days later, it all went to hell. Ze was clingy, upset, every little thing was the end of the world. Dosed hir with Tylenol while we waited for the teething tablets to arrive and we were back to normal. Getting new teeth is a tough business.
Best part: ze is genuinely curious about this “teeth” thing and occasionally pries open PiC’s mouth to investigate what’s going on in there. That’s also just a daddy-kiddo thing, ze has no interest in my teeth. I think it’s for the best.
Things we love
LB most preferred to chew on my arms when hir gums were uncomfortable but when those teeth finally poked through, that was a no-go. A combination of frozen teething rings, hard teething toys, and teething tablets saved us all. The tablets were miraculous for those middle of the night wake ups when ze couldn’t stay asleep.
We introduced sippy cups a while ago, but while ze is willing to drink water, ze hasn’t quite got the hang of the whole thing.
I’d been wondering something in my quiet moments. Why I haven’t started that business yet, or finished a creative project? Surely I’ve not gotten lazy and complacent?
The Gymnast
