July 17th, 2010

Living with a Pint-Sized Lawyer

Last week, my mommy BFF noticed the frequency, intensity, and commitment that Jonas displays when arguing with me.  Of course he does the same sort of Yes/No tug-o-war that I think most children at his age do, but his debate skills seem to go far beyond that.  Once my friend pointed out Jonas’s funny (well, funny to her – intensely annoying to me) behavior, I started paying attention to see if other children argued with their moms the way my child argues with me.  I thought this was a preschooler thing, but I’m starting to realize that maybe it’s not.

The thing is, I try not to argue with him.  I see no point in a 32 year old woman arguing with a nearly-4 year old child.  If I say we can’t have any more cookies before dinner, then to me, that’s the end of that discussion.  To him, that is just the beginning.

First, there’s begging.  Then, there’s jumping up and down.  Then, there’s the screaming.  Next comes the negotiating: “Mommy, but if I do x,y,z, THEN can I have more cookies?” And of course, when nothing else works, he’s got persistence on his side.  He will stand in front of me for an hour or more and say “Mommy, you WILL give me cookies.  Right now!  Do you hear me MOMMY!?!?”  (This is what he was doing when my friend commented on his superb debate skills.)  Meanwhile, I go about my business, and fantasize about having one of those agreeable children that I read about on other people’s blogs.

Sometimes, He goes straight for the big guns:  Guilt.

Jonas has mastered the art of what some people call Catholic guilt, even though this is a god-less household.  I think his father’s 13 years of parochial school somehow passed into Jonas’s genetic makeup.  Here’s a list of guilt trips I hear on a daily basis.

But Grandma lets me watch more TV!

But Mommy, if you leave the house, I’ll be lost!

But Mommy, I need to eat food so I can be healthy! (when I refuse the cookies)

But Mommy, I have bad dreams in my bed.  I have good dreams in your bed!

And the list goes on. Every day, he finds a new approach, and I realize that 20 years from now, I’ll be running “Crosley-Corcoran & Sons, Attorneys at Law.”

Now, when he starts trying to wear me down, I try to be proud that my child is so passionate and committed to his views.  Maybe he’ll grow up and become a leader who hounds the present administration into giving us real healthcare. Or maybe he’ll pass federal legislation protecting breastfeeding.  Perhaps he’ll make a billion dollars selling ketchup popsicles to ladies in white gloves.  I don’t know what he’ll end up doing with this skill, but I imagine it will serve him as well as it has served me.

In the meantime, it makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

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Tell me, does your child do this?  And if so, how do you survive the day without shipping them to the nearest unsuspecting relative?

July 10th, 2010

Jonas Does the Dresden Dolls

I’ve been singing this song to him since he was a baby.  He and his brother both know all the lyrics.  One day they’ll actually figure out what they mean.

P.S. You can hear Julesy (2 yr old) singing along into a play microphone in the background.  He wouldn’t let me video tape him (as per usual.)

June 11th, 2010

Breaking Up The Boys

Our boys have always shared a bedroom. Well, technically Julesy slept with us until he was 2 months old, but once he started sleeping in his own bed, his crib was in his brother’s room.  I didn’t prefer for the boys to bunk together, we just didn’t have the space for them to each have their own room. Our little house is technically a 3 bedroom, but our “master” bedroom and bathroom were additions on the house, and the original owners used one of the bedrooms as the entrance to new “master suite” (trust me, that sounds fancier than it really is.) This means you have to walk through one of the bedrooms to get to our bedroom, so we never considered that middle room a real bedroom. It was really more like a glorified hallway to us. For the last three years we used it as an office, which was great for me, but it meant the two boys had to shack up together.

Last fall we realized that Julesy was ready to have a big boy bed, so we bought Jonas a full-size bed and gave Julesy the toddler bed. Almost immediately, Julesy decided that Jonas’s full-sized bed was the place to be, and he abandoned his little toddler bed. After a few weeks of the toddler bed going unused, we took it out of the room and let the boys both sleep in the full size bed. It seemed to make everyone happy – for a little while.  They would snuggle up together and fall asleep, which was off-the-charts adorable.

Prior to this time, the boys had great sleep habits. I’m a big fan of getting the kids to sleep at the same time every night, and establishing a solid bedtime routine. At one time, they were rockstars with the bedtime routine.  However, once Julesy was no longer contained by the crib, he started treating bedtime like a free-for-all. It didn’t happen overnight. It was a slow, gradual decay in their sleep habits. Once upon a time, we were able to get both the boys asleep between 7:30-8:00 pm.  John and I could then spend about four hours a night (8:00 pm to midnight) on homework, or being together, or whatever else needed to be done.

However, the last few months the children’s bedtime routine started spinning totally out of control. Being in the same bed – the same room – made both of them turn kooky. Jules would pick on Jonas and Jonas would scream. Then when we got Jonas calmed down, he’d turn around and steal a stuffed animal from Jules and then Jules would scream. All of this kept escalating until we saw ourselves spending an average of two hours each night breaking up fights and soothing everyone down until they finally fell asleep at closer to 9:30-10:00 pm. Then, because there was still four hours each night of homework or housecleaning that needed to be done, John and I began needing to stay up until 2:00 am every night in order to catch up on our own work.

Something had to give. So – I gave up my office. It took me about a month, but I finally managed to convince the Hyphenated Husband to move the piano and desk to different areas in the house, and give Julesy his very own bedroom. Neither of us was excited about losing our office, or making a huge change like this, but we began to feel that breaking up the boys was our only option to restore some peace to our evenings.

We took a whole Saturday and transformed the glorified hallway into a room fit for a toddler. We set back up his toddler bed, decorated his walls in his favorite thing (decals pictures of sports balls) and filled his shelves with his favorite board books. I felt terrible taking him away from his brother, but Jonas was absolutely thrilled to have his own room back.  Once Julesy saw the basketballs and footballs on his wall, he was happy with his new space too.

The very first night, it was clear that our plan worked. Jonas went immediately to bed without a single objection – due (I’m certain) in large part by him not having to fight off his rambunctious little brother. Julesy protested a little, but we sat with him until he got used to his room, and now he’s sleeping better than ever.  (notice him bed-sharing with his basketball – the kid is fanatically obsessed with his balls.)

So now, Julesy sleeps in his own room for the first time in two years.  The boys are both asleep by 8:00 pm again, and the adults no longer have to stay up until 2:00 am doing homework anymore.  The whole house is more peaceful… more harmonious.  Yeah, it sucks to have to walk through Julesy’s room to access the rest of the house, but it’s really not as bad as we thought it would be.  I feel foolish not to have separated them before, but the transition is bittersweet.  *sniff, sniff*

My babies are getting so big.

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Do your kids share a room, and at what age?  How does it work in your house?

May 16th, 2010

The 2 Year Anniversary of My VBAC

10:01 pm tonight marks the 2 year anniversary of the moment my second son emerged from my body.  He came out the way that I had envisioned for nearly 22 months – not through an incision in my abdominal wall the way my first boy entered the world – but through my vagina.

People said it couldn’t be done.  My doctor said it wouldn’t be done.

But it was done.  All 9 pounds, 10 ounces of this little boy came through my pelvis, through my cervix, and out the same way he was put in there.

I had a second degree tear.  I fought through 38 hours of labor while hospital staff put me down and accused me of being reckless.  I cried many, many times.  And a few times, I even thought about giving up.

But I didn’t.  I simply couldn’t give up.  It meant too much to me.

Having my boy by a vaginal birth meant he could come straight to my chest upon exit and begin nursing immediately.  This helped him latch right away, which got breastfeeding off to a wonderful start.  It also helped me bond with him because we were never separated at all.  Having him this way meant there was no surgery to recover from – nothing to stop me from picking him up and cuddling with him.  This meant we could practice side-laying nursing without me fearing that he would kick my fresh cesarean scar the way I feared with my first baby.  Having him this way meant we could go home sooner, back to our own bed and our own food instead of the stale, sterile hospital environment I dreaded so much.

Having him this way meant I could do it, no matter who told me my pelvis or uterus couldn’t handle the task.  Having my baby this way meant I had been lied to the first time.

Having my VBAC helped me avoid re-wounding the post-traumatic stress disorder I felt after my cesarean.  Having him this way helped heal a part of me – not all of me – but at least a part.

Both of my children’s birthdays will always be special to me.  But Julesy’s birthday means something just a little different.  It was a day that I laid claim to something that so many people tried to take away from me.  It was a day I triumphed over all obstacles.  It was a day I climbed the mountain and came down the other side as a woman with one less uterine scar than they wanted me to have.

Happy Birthday, Julesy.  And thank you for my VBAC.

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Had a VBAC?  Hoping for a VBAC?  Tell us about it… links to stories are welcome.

April 20th, 2010

Saying Goodbye to the Bink

Some people call it a pacifier.  Some people call it a Binky.  We simply called it a Bink.

They’ve been in my life for nearly 4 years.  When Jonas was born in 2006, the hospital sent us home with one of those handy-dandy breastfeeding-sabotaging formula bags, which contained at least a dozen shiny new Binks.  They immediately became a staple in our home, and our son latched on to them far better than he ever did to me.

The Bink was a lifesaver in the sleep department.  Starting at 6 weeks I could just plug up his mouth, swaddle him tight, and he’d sleep all the way through the night (which was especially useful because I was already back at work by then, and really needed sleep myself.)  Jonas loved the Bink the way most kids love blankies.  It was his little piece of security and comfort.

But I didn’t want my child to walk around with a Bink in his mouth when he was old enough to be drinking from a cup.  Just before his brother was born, we got Jonas to give up the Bink during the day.  He only used it for nap time and Night-Night time.  We were on the road to recovery.

Then, Jules was born.  Julesy also took to the Bink, even though he was exclusively breastfed.  I got lucky; he had no nipple confusion and my supply was great.  Julesy came  to love the Bink the same way Jonas did, which was a huge help for me because if Jules had his way about it, even at nearly 2, he’d be latched to my nipple 24 hours a day.  The Bink was the only way my boobs could catch a break.

But because Julesy used a bink during the day, it was hard to stop Jonas from doing the same.  Jonas would find them laying around, or even steal them right out of his brother’s mouth.  Last fall the Dentist told Jonas he had to stop using the bink or his teeth were going to be crooked, and that worked for a little while (he really liked the dentist and wanted to please her, that little weirdo).  But before long, the Dentist’s pep talk wore off, and we were right back to where we started with my preschooler trying to suck on a Bink all day long.

I’ve known I needed to take the hard road and get rid of the Binks all together, but, if I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I just didn’t want to deal with the fallout from that.  I figured the children would lose their precious little minds if they didn’t have their trusty companions to suck on any time they were sleepy, or cranky, or sick, or even just too wound-up.

But after noticing Jonas’s teeth a few days ago, I decided I needed to step up to the Parenting Plate and put the kibosh on this once and for all.  I warned the Hyphenated Husband and his mother that it was going to get hairy around here for awhile because…

The Bink Fairy Was Coming. Duhnt-Duhnt-Duhhhhhhhnnn.

I told Jonas for two straight days that the Bink Fairy was on her way to take all the Binks to the babies who needed them, and she’d be leaving him an awesome present in return.  He asked the Bink Fairy to leave him a “Robot Dinosaur”.  Then, before heading to Grandma’s house for the night, he and Julesy helped me gather alllllll the Binks from around the house and put them in a bag for the Fairy.

Then Jonas ran around in circles yelling “I’m so excited!!!  The Bink Fairy is coming!!!“

The Hyphenated Husband and I spent our date night in Toys ‘R’ Us looking for the perfect “Robot Dinosaur” for our excited little boy.  To my surprise – they had exactly what he asked for.  I wasn’t sure they made such a thing, but there it was – a stomping, roaring Robot Dinosaur.  Boy, would he be thrilled.

It was harder to pick something for Julesy because he’s at an age where his interests are constantly evolving, so we figured some indestructible board books would work for him. The next day, we brought the kids home where they discovered that the Bink Fairy had, in fact, brought them each a gift.  Jonas was so thrilled he could hardly talk.  So far the Robot Dino has not left his sight.  He even sleeps with him.

HOWEVER – The real test would come at night.  I never dreamed I could get the kids to sleep without a the little silicone suckers in the house, but much to my surprise, the boys went to bed without incident.  They each asked about the Bink once or twice, but I reminded them of the presents they got and that was enough to quiet them down.

We almost hit a road bump when Jules-The-Squirrel managed to find one stray Bink hiding wherever-it-is he stuffs things when we’re not looking.  But we got it away from him before he popped it into this mouth, and managed to divert his attention before a real meltdown occurred.

Then, Julesy even napped today without a Bink.  This is monumental. Unbelievable.  I never thought I’d see the day.

So, I think I’ve proven that we probably could have ditched the Bink long ago.  Mama and Daddy were just too lazy, and a little too comfortable with the way things were.  But I know now I’ve gotta start giving my kids more credit, because when I do, they always pleasantly surprise me.

And maybe, just maybe, we won’t bring any Binks into the house when the next baby comes along…

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Did your baby(ies) use a Bink? If so, how’d you put an end to that? At what age?