March 19, 2024
Life with JB
Turns out, if I lower my standards to just “do the chores when told without whining (much)”, they’re able to meet that. Progress!
They’ve made a new friend who is much more available than their longtime bestie and equally interested in meeting up for playdates constantly and this combination is explosive.
They have had 4 5 playdates since October, two back to back, and they’re jonesing for as many more as they can possibly manage. I recognize this impulse from when I was younger and oh so lonely and wanted desperately to have a best friend. JB has many more friends than I ever did but is naturally limited in their ability to socialize all day every single day by their fuddy dud parents who have to work and sleep and such.
It’s a weird dynamic for me. We have met the parents and even the grandparent over the past year as we run into each other regularly but we don’t know each other very well. I miss the ease of knowing and liking their longtime bestie’s family. This is new territory in a few ways. We’ve never let JB go off with anyone else’s parents driving. We’ve never let JB go to a playdate without one of us around. Recently, their new friend’s parents allowed New Friend to come play at our house solo one day, and to go on a field trip with us another day. They’ve got more kids than we do and thanked us for the invitations because New Friend doesn’t get out much. They’re quite nice about it which makes me feel like a bit of a jerk wondering but, but why do you trust us? You don’t really know us! And I don’t know you! Not really. We need to give New Friend a nickname. We’ll call them Jay. The kids are getting to an age where it’s more normal for them to go play without their parents but I don’t know what I need to be comfortable with that with new folks. We’d be fine with that sort of playdate at Longtime Bestie’s. We know their family, we know they don’t have weapons in the home, we know they have boundaries and can make the kids mind. But they’re so busy now, we have to let JB branch out and make new friends and socialize. That makes me sad about not being able to hang out with the easy established friends and anxious about having to establish new relationships and rules with new people and navigating all that. For example, Jay asked their mom in front of us: next time can JB come over to our house??? And the look on their mom’s face as she murmured “oh our house is so messy…” I quickly said “look, you’re always welcome here, and this is probably easier to play without your siblings, right? We can keep Smol Acrobat out of your hair.” Jay acknowledged the truth in that. And I sighed inside with relief that I wouldn’t have to navigate THAT for a little longer. But probably will have to figure it out sooner than later. And they’ll keep pressing the issue.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol Acrobat is obsessed with transit vehicles which is perfect for their auntie who is also obsessed with transit vehicles. They bond over transit and cats. They’re so obsessed with cats they walk around pretending to be a cat every day. Basically this is the cat I can have so long as I’m living with an allergic PiC.
They’re still toilet training resistant. Sigh.
They’re talking a whole lot more. They’re starting to tell us short stories about their time at daycare, and it’s really cute to finally hear their point of view.
Oh, baby, no:
“Dis a fire hydrant. I open dis and fire coming out! You need to move, it will burn you!”
“S! S is in my name!” (no, it isn’t)
“T! for zipper!”
“L! for mommy!”
Pupdate š¶
Sera has a new Pavlovian response. Every time I take the lid off a new pot of rice, she starts drooling. She’s right, though, most of the time it’s for her.
Her bloodwork is currently the most frustrating teeter totter. One set of values goes down like we want, another set shoots up. We adjust meds, they flip flop. We’re on our fourth panel this week, and they are NOT cheap, and everything is crossed that we finally get a set of readings that show she’s responding to the medication without compromsing her liver. (Please please please.)
Evenings are tough. She’s relatively happy to do her own wandering and sleep routine while I’m working and JB is doing homework but she really doesn’t like it when I’m too mobile getting the kids to bed and all that nighttime stuff.
She follows me from room to room with an increasingly put-upon expression because she can’t lay down, not if I’m going to keep moving. More often than not, I hustle to get all my things in one place just so she can settle in for her snooze, even if it confines me to my desk or my bed. Anything not to disrupt the old and ailing dog. š
Precious Moments
Smol Acrobat, squirming under blanket: Can I sit wif youuuuu?
JB: Siiiiiigh. Stop it, make your own nest.
SA: *continues squirming
JB: Sttttttoooooppp squirming!
SA: Can I SIT WIF YOU!
JB: No, make your own nest. Why are you invading MY nest?
SA: But I wan’ sit NEX to you!
JB: *sigh* Do you want me to make you a nest next to mine?
SA: YES
I wondered if they were going to make it through that without intervention.
SA: Mommy, I want to read Team Spidey.
Me: Ok, go ahead.
SA: Da one wif Trac-E.
Me: … yes…. go ahead?
SA: I can’ find it.
Me: Go check your room, that’s where we read it last.
SA: *Leaves, comes back a few minutes later with a Bluey book* I will read dis instead.
Me: Can you get me the little booklet?
Smol Acrobat: *Blank stare*
Me: Can you get me the book we used yesterday?
Smol Acrobat: *Blank stare*
Me: The little book with the instructions?
*Blank stare*
Me: The one made of paper?
Smol Acrobat: OH YES! I gon get it fast-uh and fast-uh, ok? I go FAS. You stay dere! Stay WIGHT dere, ok?
SA: I’m putting my shoes away but I don’t want to put my socks away.
Me: Ok you can keep your socks on if you want to.
SA: Yah! Dat happens sometimes.
SA: Do you like potato?
Me: Yes
SA: I SAID do you like potato?
Me: I said yes!
SA: Do you hear me? I SAID DO YOU LIKE POTATO!
Me: I already answered you…!
SA: What are you saying to me? Do you like potato yes or NO?
Me: Maybe they’re talking to a ghost ….
JB: No offense to Luigi but he’s kind of a chicken. He cried soooo much when he was in the (unintelligible) lands. Mario is braver.
Me: You think Mario is actually braver or was he hiding that he was afraid?
Smol’s non sequiturs:
– I’m getting so many owanges. I’m not big, I’m smol. I’m not big anymo’!
– A monologue while playing by my feet: I have so many cards so we can go to the store. I will dwive you. I will drive you to Dr. Awin, ok? Vwoom vwoom vwoom vwoom vwoom. Ok, we here! Ok now I take you to anudder doctor. Vwoom vwoom vwoom. I take you to the nurse. I’m a doctor. I will put you down and put a shot on you. Ok waay downnn. Put a shot on you! Ok, all done. We go to our home now. I will dwive you. I have so many cards now. Wemme put dese cards away. I will p’ay different toys.
February 14, 2024
Life with JB
We have a nine year old! š JB got a small party this year.
We booked part of a pizza parlor early in the day so we were the only ones there. 9 kids (5 families) showed up of the 16 kids/8 families we invited. I was very worried about how much energy it’d take and how it’d go, especially because we were just coming off a rough week of illness, but it worked out really well in the end. It was small enough to be just manageable, with one family helping us with Smol Acrobat, and the other families occasionally assisting with stages of cleanup and kid management.
We splurged on the activity and the food, we saved on the cake (Costco: $25, first time we’ve ever had one of their famed sheet cakes) and the decor (Party City: $20). The place provided almost none of the assistance they had promised so I was orchestrating so most of the event unexpectedly. That kept me too busy to socialize but we did each catch up a little with each set of parents. JB was thrilled to see their friends and ran an illicit (temporary) tattoo parlor out of the bathroom for them. Of course they did. Smol Acrobat was briefly put out that they didn’t get one too, but they weren’t willing to wait with the older kid crowd and moved on quickly.
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January 20, 2024
Life with JB
Life with Smol Acrobat
Just like with a dog that’s not food motivated, I struggled to figure out Smol Acrobat’s motivation. (Sera started out as such a traumatized girl that food meant nothing to her either.)
Food is my natural go to lever for gaining cooperation. What do you do with these food indifferent dogs/kids? Well, I haven’t cracked the dog code yet, I just eventually found treats that were high value enough to break through Sera’s trauma induced anxiety to retrain her but Smol Acrobat doesn’t consistently like anything enough to have it be a high value snack.
Pupdate
Precious Moments
Smol’s reluctance to let me change their diaper sometimes leads to creative excuses:
Here, let me check your diaper.
January 17, 2024
Life with JB
We have this conversation every quarter when the Scholastic book catalog comes home. No, you can’t have another journal or cute thing, you have a large bin full of them!
Also, we just had Christmas and other presents in the past few weeks, most of which still don’t have a home.
I’m not doing this to be mean but even if I didn’t have bag lady syndrome, we have near hoarders in the family. We see them once or twice a year and their homes give me the heebies. There’s almost no place to walk or sit, because of their need to buy their kids everything they wanted as a child but couldn’t have back then. I know I wanted to order from the Scholastic catalog SO BADLY too but JB is not me. They own a bookshelf full of books. They get HUGE stacks of gifts each year and they get to shop at Comic Con when/if we go. They are not deprived, in any sense, of material things.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We’d taken Sera out for a walk together, the morning after their fever broke. On the way out, Sera’s sweater snagged on the bike, so I had to unhook her before we could leave. I didn’t think Smol Acrobat noticed but when we returned, they rushed ahead of us to push the bag that snagged her away and held it so she could pass! They have never been that thoughtful before!
They have been talking a whole lot more now. Stringing together sentences, and then stringing together thoughts to tell me little stories about what happened. They are ALSO using it to rat out JB (they still can’t say JB’s name yet, their close approximation is Wee) a lot. “Don’t kick at birds, that’s not ok.” Retort: “Wee does it!”
Oh yeah. We have a three year old now! That passed with so little fanfare here I forgot to record it. They only recently made a friend and it didn’t seem like it was worth doing a whole party thing when that’s not so much their thing right now. We had my cousin over, we enjoyed some cake. They refused to have candles on the cake because “fire is scary”. Low key was good for all of us.
Pupdate
Sera is sick. We’ve run a slew of diagnostics and still don’t know for sure what it is but we’re trying out a treatment plan to see if she responds.
Precious Moments
JB: Smol Acrobat, come here!
Smol Acrobat: No, I cannot, I have to change my diaper! I be a minute!
To me with a self-satisfied grin: I said I be a minute. I adult.
PiC muttered, “what did you eat last night, squirrel??” while I was changing an especially stinky poop diaper.
Smol Acrobat replies very seriously: no, I didn’ eat a squirrel.
JB has been convincing them to come along and leave me alone by offering “kitty snacks”.
One morning as I usher them out to breakfast: Tan Wee make me a meow meow kitty snack?
December 20, 2023
Life with JB
JB has been demanding war history at dinner without any warning at all so I’m having to drag my tired neurons into synopsis mode to try and distil the 9/11 attacks, World War 1 and World War 2 into brief coherent to a kid summaries at the drop of a hat. It hasn’t gone very well, I’ve mostly had to say “it’s complicated we’ll come back to it later” but I’m proud that I remembered correctly that Woodrow Wilson was the president during WW1. That’s something.
*****
They’ve chosen to do two scary things this month (let’s say it’s the kid’s equivalent of public speaking) that make them nervous but they volunteered to, anyway. I’m continually impressed/surprised by their willingness to try things I never would in a million years have been willing to even consider. A friend’s dad commented that “kids these days” are braver than our generation was. I don’t know if that’s generally true but it’s absolutely true of JB vs me. I hope it comes from a deep confidence that I never had.
When they were a toddler, I used to comment that they were born with the amount of courage and confidence that it took me 32 years to scrape together. That seems to hold true, still. And I’m doing my best not to ever share my own misgivings and fears to as not to infect them unnecessarily, like my inability to watch their swim lessons. My big fear of water means that their splashing around perfectly safely, but not yet proficiently, still all looks and feels like drowning to me. *shudder*
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November 15, 2023
Life with JB
Sometimes it’s hard to get out of the way as a parent. Meaning: I have all these hopes and dreams for JB as to the kind of person they will be and we are responsible for molding their sense of right and wrong. Sometimes the feeling responsible for their moral compass gets a little mixed up with who they are as people. I’m trying to unpick those. HOW they address a right and a wrong should be more in line with who they are. Our job is to make sure they know that they need to address wrongs.
Put another way: It was easier to appreciate how very much their own person they are when they were only 3 and 4 years old. Now that they’re making real choices that have bigger consequences, it feels less natural to take a step back and give them the freedom to make their own mistakes. I still firmly believe they need to at this age, it’s just harder to fight the opposing instinct that comes up telling me to teach teach teach. A beloved mentor advised me to work on building the relationship, not on teaching the lessons, but that’s probably my very weakest skill.
For example, my internal response to this moment in the League of Superpets movie:
Captured? By whom? Who are your allies and what are your resources? You must be here to put together the rescue plan!
The actual reply from a DOG CHARACTER (yes yes, written by humans but STILL) was totally counterintuitive to me:
I have a lot of work to do on myself because that literally never occurred to me as a possible response. You have a problem, you come to me, clearly you want me to fix the problem.
It’s very limiting! I know that but, as a parent, I haven’t built the chops to care more about the feelings than the fix yet. I’m still learning how to do that in just regular life stuff. It’s a work in progress.
School drop off has changed dramatically this year. Last year we’d run into 3-5 parents we knew most days. Sometimes we’d stop and chat a little. This year we don’t usually see anyone at all. One set of parents moved, so we know why they’re not there, but I’m not sure why we don’t see any of the other parents now. Also I had the weirdest twinge of guilt when we did run across one parent who was only there because she was volunteering to help.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We can cross off “panicking about pneumonia” off our parenting bingo card. Not a block I had any interest in checking but here we are. They’ve been in hyper-cranky mode for two solid weeks this month. It’s less than ideal. Everything is “no no no no no!” and bursting into hysterical tears when we tell them no.
When not sick: they’re starting to come up with mischievous answers to questions. JB asked them what their name is. They replied with MY real name. EXCUSE me??
It’s been a tough month with them.
Pupdate
Sera has entered her version of Bossy Old Dog life. When one of us is taking too long to go to bed, she’ll wander to the office door and stare until you make eye contact, then go back to one of her beds. If we’re being TOO oblivious, she’ll take an amazingly long time to circle and circle and circle her bed some more before she thumps down very loudly and pointedly. She’s also in her Era of Communicating only in Groans. No more huffing or yodeling at me, which is a shame. I like her yodel.
She’s also started patiently waiting for me to get to my desk and start working before she settles down. This is a polite echo of Seamus’s habit years ago. He used to yodel-scold me when he thought I was taking too long to get to work. Sera’s not vocally impatient about it but I feel just as guilty keeping her waiting.
Precious Moments
JB: We have a party at Auntie and Uncle’s on Saturday??
Me: DADDY has a party at Auntie and Uncle’s. You do not.
JB: ….. AWW!! Why not?
Me: Kids are not invited. Their place is too small to have a party with kids.
JB: It’s an adults only party?
Me: Yep. So you, me and Smol are home together that night.
JB: ….. *wheels turning, maybe pulling up the memory of the last time 3 years ago they pitched a 2-hour unholy fit that PiC was going out to a working dinner with a dear friend without us and how that absolutely torpedoed their chances at having a movie and popcorn dinner night which I explained the next day when they’d calmed down enough to listen* …..
Me: ….. *remembering the same thing* …..
JB: Can WE do something special at home too?
Me: Yeah, let me think about it.
This is funnier if you’ve read Blood Heir (amazon affiliate link; bookshop affiliate link). They haven’t so I don’t know where this is game coming from but they think it’s hilarious, too.
JB: Does Mommy have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Daddy have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does JB have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Smol have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
JB: Does Sera have a wristband?
Smol: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Mommy have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Daddy have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does JB have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Sera have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol: Does Smol have wristband?
JB: No no no! *giggles*
Smol Acrobat monologues
Wet’s go outside wittle bit! wet’s go find the street sweeper! Maybe dey comin now? Wet’s go wook.
My ears wet. I need COVID test.
I made cake for you, you want some cake? Come here here’s pie! Wook! I can weach! I get tall and tall and tall!
Smol: yummm
Me: yum
Smol: no, YOU don say yum, I say yum!
October 17, 2023
Life with JB
One of the school pickup grandmas was telling me that their grandkid, who has activities scheduled every afternoon and sometimes two, can be found crying over their homework some nights, probably from exhaustion. Usually this kid joshes JB about their incredibly light schedule, telling JB they need to go to more activities. Obviously our circumstances are very different. Their family has four adults, two who do work and two who don’t, in their lives to ferry them to activities. JB has me during the week. I prefer not to have PiC trying to chauffeur when he already has to handle daycare dropoff and pickup. And I work! Sometimes I feel a little twinge that I can’t be in two places at once.
Hearing that recounting made me feel a little better. Not that I’m glad he has those nights! But I feel a tiny bit better about our setting hard limits on JB’s activities. I never want to be committing my elementary school kid to that much. It’s too much. Not to mention the financial cost of private swim, tutoring, martial arts multiple times a week. I don’t want to imagine the time and money that would take.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Smol’s words are still coming in fast and thick. They’ve been struggling with pronouns. One morning they burst on the scene with “I want to hug you, Mommy!”
!!
Their mood swings are also something else right now.
We’ve had days where we couldn’t breathe without setting off a tantrum. It’s exhausting. And then after hours of this, they’re suddenly sunny and mischievous and chuckling. The joke’s on us.
Pupdate
Sera š¶ was off her feed about two weeks this month. She’s normally a hearty efficient eater, clearing out the bowl in two minutes or less. Out of the blue she started leaving parts of her meal in the bowl. She’d eventually come back for the rest but I’ve been very concerned about whether something is actually wrong with her. I’ve been monitoring her closely, nothing else seems to be the matter except a general sluggishness on and off, but may schedule her for another physical and bloodwork. We just did that in January, but this is weird. It feels like old age set in overnight.
She had impromptu playdates with two puppies on separate occasions this month. One of them she already knew from a very young age but we hadn’t seen her for months, I wasn’t sure Sera š¶ remembered her. The other one was a new friend that she was figuring out. They both went fairly well considering her prior history with unknown dogs. Her time with the dogsitter and pack of dogs, lots of training with us everyday, and time have all mellowed her out a lot. Age has a lot to do with it too. She’s senior enough now that the young pups are more deferential once she scolds them.
Precious Moments
After I’d made breakfast
Thank you, Mommy! And bacon! I wike bacon again. (Yesterday they did not like bacon, before they even tried any. But then they tried some and liked half of it.) Mommy, you’re yeeving soon? Going to school?
I do not think that phrase means what you think it means
Absolutely no one:
Smol Acrobat: ohhhhh DAS why
Teaching everyone to be accurate with their asks
JB: Can I have kitty?
Smol Acrobat: No.
JB: Can I BORROW kitty?
Smol Acrobat: Yes.
Smol Acrobat monologuing
Mommy daddy get timeout wif Miss Swamp! (Why? we ask) You say no! Wook at dat ting! Dat BEEEEEG ting fwying. (bug flying) Ooh, spiderweb! I scared of spiderweb. Good job, spider.
Running out of ice cream is a very emotional experience.
Smol Acrobat got a firm lesson in table manners and manners in general tonight. They looked at me after polishing off their scoop and asked, politely, can I share your ice cream? I smiled back and said, “oh that was a very good ask, but no. You still have some in your bowl.” Before I could say anything else, they FLIPPED into a full fury screech. Up to 2 months ago, before they could talk clearly, I’ve responded mildly to this reaction but they’ve been verbally communicating with much better clarity lately, so it felt like the time was right. “Oh, well, now the answer has to be no because you’re pitching a tantrum. That’s not ok. This is my ice cream and I’m not ready to share yet. If JB asks me, and I say no, what do you think they say?”
JB played along, “mommy, can I have some of your ice cream?”
Me: “No, sorry, I’m not ready to share.”
JB: “Ok! I’ll just clean my bowl some more!” *goes back to scraping every last molecule of ice cream out of the bowl*
Me: “Now, that was very polite and now I feel like sharing. So JB can have a bite of my ice cream. What if you asked me again and I still said no, should you scream and stomp?”
Smol: “No.”
Me: “Let’s try it.”
Smol: “Mommy, can I share some of your ice cream peeess?”
Me: “No, I’m not ready to share yet. Do you stomp and scream now?”
Smol: “No.”
Me: “What do you say?”
Smol: Say “ok”?
Me: “That’s right! Smol, do you want me to help you scrape your bowl to get all your ice cream out like JB is doing?”
Smol: “Ys. Peess.” (please)
Me: “Good job practicing better manners! Now I feel like sharing, you may have a bite.”
Smol: *Chomp* “Thank you. Daddy! I shared ice cream wif mommy!”
Size matters
Me: Can you get your soap?
Smol: No, I can’t reach it up dere. I have to do DIS. *reaches* I’m too small. Can you get it for me?