what kind of parent am I?

My friend Wendy and her kids came over this morning to play. Her son is about 2 months older than Frances and her daughter is a week older than Clark, which is fabulous for us (though if the genders matched that would be even better!). She and I are both only children and have both struggled with now to navigate having two, how to split our attention, how to deal with the lack of alone time, etc. She's been somewhat of a lifesaver for me.

But today she completely blew my mind. I know she's going to read this and have no idea what I'm talking about... I don't even know how it came up exactly, but we were talking about space in the house and where we hang out and about getting things done (like emptying the dishwasher) and that she doesn't get anything done at all when the kids are awake, which is now all day. Then she said it's hard for her as an only child because her only model is one on one, full attention, and she doesn't really know how to do that with two. And she somehow came around to telling me that all she does is play with the kids, face to face, conversation style. All day. "I don't think all kids need that," she said, "but these do."

Ahem.

Wendy's kids are the calmest kids you've ever seen. And one's a boy. They're agreeable and they listen to her and they are gentle with each other. I asked her today about this, about how much she thought was their temperments and how much was her mothering. She said a little of both. "They're so calm," I said. "Yeah, my mother-in-law says our house is peaceful." I also asked if she had problems with her older being aggressive with her younger and she said she didn't, and hadn't. I watched as her son nearly sat on top of her daughter in a chair and Wendy quietly said, "Ayvin, sit next to her," and he gently shifted over.

It definitely doesn't seem to me that her kids need that kind of attention any more than other children do. What seemed obvious to me when she said it is that all children need it, really. Some are just better at making do with less. So where does that leave me and my kids?

It's never occurred to me that my job might be to play with my kids. It might seem like an obvious thing I'm missing here. I've thought of my job as "taking care" of them. Playing some, yeah, here and there, in between doing dishes and loading the dryer, in tickling moments just after a diaper change or teasing while we eat lunch.

All day?

Maybe I did think this way when F was a baby, but then Clark was born and my time was spent nursing and changing diapers and just trying to get through the day. What do I do with my time now? I feel mostly like I change diapers and help the other on the potty and change clothes when there's an accident and organize snacks for the car and fix food and feed and clean up and pull Frances off Clark and reprimand and admonish and try to work in fixing dinner or paying a bill. Periodically I help set up Little People or push someone in the swing but then there's the arguing and I turn into a referee rather than a teammate. Hm.

Years ago I had a dog I loved. I spent all kinds of time with her, talking to her, petting her, throwing the ball or taking walks or snuggling with her on the bed. She was the best. She was calm and agreeable, and people commented on how pleasant she was to be around. I'd see other dogs at my friends' houses, nutty dogs who were needy and hyper and jumped on you, and my friends would marvel at the difference between our dogs. And I'd think "You don't spend time with your dog; you don't give her your attention. What do you expect?"

I'm having a revelation here and I'm kind of embarrassed how elementary it seems.

Could I DO that? Could I just play with my kids? It makes me think of that book--Playful Parenting--that I talked so much about awhile ago. That book is about specific kinds of play but what's stuck with me mostly from that book is the chapter on roughhousing. And his point is about using play to allow children to work out their anxieties specifically. I get that. But this--this is so much larger, so much more. I don't know.

And what about the skills they learn from playing on their own? It's true that much of their own play time turns onto push-Clark-into-furniture time, which is a problem. This might be the place for me to say, "a-ha. My kids need more face time with me to learn how to interact."

But the truth is that I think of playing with my kids as boring, and is one of the reasons I believe I should go back to work. But maybe I've been thinking of the wrong kind of play; maybe I thought I was required to do the boring kind. Or something. Don't I periodically have these realizations that if I simply sit on the floor with the kids for an hour it does them heaps and heaps of good? Interaction, not play, is what is needed.

I will pause here in what feels like an incoherent ramble to acknowledge that Wendy intends to homeschool, or unschool, or whatever, and perhaps she's just more cut out for this temperamentally than I am. I have all kinds of internal conflict about activities, as you know, and I also have internal conflict about preschool--how many days, is it helpful or hurtful, should we do it at all, etc. Also, Wendy does admit that because of the constant attention and interaction, she is completely burnt by 4pm.

I'd love for this post to open up conversation if anyone wants to weigh in. I could ramble on for much much longer--this clearly sounded the gong on some issues I haven't resolved, or maybe even acknowledged. What percentage of your kids' awake time do you spend interacting with them directly, face to face, conversation style?

vacationing

Clark is turning into a toddler. Willful. The other day the cashier at the ice cream shop asked Frances what her brother's name was and she said, "Maniac." Perhaps we should stop referring to him as that so often.

Last summer when we did this nutty 2-week all-over-the-place vacation I swore we wouldn't do it again, but here we are. It wasn't so bad this time though. Last year I had a 4 month-old and a toddler not yet 2, and this year things were much easier to handle. For those of you wondering, we were at a family reunion (Mitch's) in West Virginia for 2 nights, then my dad's in Virginia for 2 nights, then 4 nights in Winston-Salem while Mitch flew to California and back for a conference and we took day trips to Durham to see friends, then a week at the lovely beach in NC.

Then a hell drive home, which was hell mostly because the kids were done done done with traveling (Clark trying to physically bust his way out of the carseat), I was very premenstrual, and I95 was a traffic jam. A stop at Ikea in Virginia, since we were practically sitting still on the highway and we thought we'd get some meatballs and let the kids run around the showroom, turned into a 3-hour rest stop (during which we did acquire a very nice easel for F for her b-day. and the meatballs were yummy). Mitch wouldn't let me look at the textiles.

But the beach! Oh the beach is a wonderful place. It was still tiring, schleping both kids (my cousin and her husband were also there with their kids: 4,2, and newborn) to and from the beach. I kept fantasizing about how much fun the beach is going to be 3, 4, 5 years from now. Fun! We'll be able to play with them in the water rather than being on constant watch, build sand castles rather than constantly trying to keep them from eating sand (or throwing it on her brother), go to the water slides, the ice cream shop, the surf shop without having to worry about naptimes. At the beginning of the week someone would stay at the house in the morning while Clark napped, but by the end of the week we let him sleep in the stroller on the beach which was nice as we could play while he snoozed, but sleeping in his wet swim diaper gave him a yeast rash that was unbelievable. The kids all got along really well and we reserved a much bigger house for next year that's even closer to the beach. Yay!

i got nothin but pictures

I've been thinking lots about writing on the blog but can't find the emotional space. It's rather crowded here in this beach house, a thing that is good and fun but doesn't allow much time for reflection. Plus, there are so many little kids that every adult has to have their eyes on someone at nearly all times. Two years from now this trip will be much much easier, or at least less tiring.

I will say that being here with a 4-week-old (my cousin's 3rd baby) has reminded me how very sweet tiny babies are. It's also turned out to be great birth control--a reminder of why two is a good number for us. I don't have the patience plus I need intellectual stimulation that just doesn't come with parenting little kids. (I note that as F gets older it's becoming more and more interesting to me...) I told M that he should go ahead and get a vasectomy--quick!--before I change my mind.

Anyway, we leave here day after tomorrow and then I think it's going to be a 2-day drive home. It will probably be next week before I'm able to post in full. For now, enjoy the pictures!

traveling

I know I just fell off the virtual earth without any heads up... I plain forgot that my mom's house not only is without wireless, but without a computer all together. We did 1500 miles in 5 days and stayed in 3 different abodes and the bugs alone are reason enough not to come back to the southland, welts the size of a half dollar on both my kids' legs. In any case, having fun, seeing friends, lots to tell, off to the beach on Saturday for a week where there will be 1) wireless, 2) sun and water and sand 3) six adults and 5 kids age 4,3,2,1, and 4 weeks (!), but two of those adults will be 4) grandparents to help jolly the kids out of tantrums. I'm hoping to find space to type out some of my recent parenting thoughts, of which there are many.

Cheers until then!

more of that happy stuff

It's 2:00 and everyone's asleep but me (and I plan to be when I finish this post). Just before naptime we were outside playing in the water table. Frances kept dumping water on Clark's head and I kept telling her to stop that but she didn't and eventually I made her come inside. I was surprised that she didn't throw a fit about coming in but merrily went along and let me strip the wet clothes off her before she sat on her little potty. Then I cajoled Clark to come inside so I could herd everyone in a napperly direction. Frances was still naked as I got Clark's bottle ready and pulled off his clothes and changed his diaper, and the next thing I knew Frances was crouched over a big picture book saying, "Mommy, I pooped." What? But sure enough, there was a tiny poop on the wild animal page.

But the real excitement is that I was feeding Clark his bottle and she was being pesty and squeezing his hand and arm and leg and would not stop bothering him and my patience was starting to wear thin, and just then she asked if it would be all right if she went upstairs to lie down on her bed. Really, she did! She requested that I bring up her snack after I was done with Clark. Oh my. When I went up her eyes were squeezed tight and she was smiling behind her paci.

It's better--see?

And it's 88 wonderful warm degrees here today, a real summer day finally in mid July, and Clark is still in the most adorable baby stage. Mitch tells me Clark's not a baby anymore but I disagree--he still sleeps on his chest with his butt in the air, he still feels soft and pudgy and baby wonderful, he still lies back in my arms and drinks his bottle. He's in the pointing and having you name things stage, not talking yet. Today when I came to get them from the gym kid room, I picked him up and he hugged me and patted my back with his little hand. My baby. I wonder how I'll feel when it is clear he is not a baby anymore.

This too shall pass. But oh it's lovely now.

happy

Frances is upstairs in her big girl bed. It's naptime and she's been asking lately to sleep in the big girl bed rather than the crib but we've been resisting because of the Last Time disaster. I thought I'd try it today since naptime has been going so well in general: I give her a little bowl of pretzels or cereal or something, plus a small cup of water (okay, watered down juice), plus a couple of books, plus her baby, and blanket, and paci, and 2 Little People (if you don't know what Little People are just play along). And she's perfectly content. I know she's content because I finally got a second monitor so now I can hear her sing Old MacDonald (as she is doing this minute) and tell her baby all about gymnastics before she goes to sleep. She likes getting in her bed for nap now and asks me to cover her and her baby up, tuck them in. So I thought it might be a good time. Before I heaved the crib mattress from the crib to the toddler bed I talked to her about how she would have to stay in her bed and put her head on the pillow and close her little eyes and go to sleep, and she said she would. It will be a major victory if that is indeed what happens. So far I'm very hopeful.

In fact, I'm hopeful in general these past few days. After that last post I've been feeling pretty good and even before that post I'd noticed that although Frances and I were sometimes going head to head, we are also upping the frequency of good harmonious times between us. I'm getting in the rhythm of being home with them both and am almost feeling like maybe I don't want to send her to preschool this next year. Which I'm pretty sure is an insane thought. My friend Melissa reminded me that right now we can play outside and go places and do things with them and yes, it's fun, but that the winter here is very very different. A good point.

I won't make any drastic changes or new decisions. I finally did sign her up for the new preschool... something that I obsessed and obsessed over but don't think I wrote much about on the blog. For some reason I got completely stuck in the decision and just couldn't see my way out. I think it's because both choices (where she was last year and where I was considering moving her) were both fine options... neither was bad, and so how to go about making the decision? It didn't really matter which I chose--neither would radically affect the person she becomes, neither would be a failure. But it seemed so HUGE when I was trying to decide, as if ultimately it DID matter, as if one school would lead her down one life path and the other a different path, and how was I to choose when I could not yet see either? Anyway, made the decision now. Feel fine about it.

Just so you know: she's asleep. Didn't get out of the bed once. Yippee!

no maternal dean's list for me

I get a C-. Today and yesterday, though today we still have after-nap-before-dinner to go and perhaps I can do some last minute cramming and pull my grade up. Again I think of my friend who works in labor & delivery who always looks perplexed when I chastise myself for my parenting skills in her presence. Yes, I know she regularly witnesses truly bad parenting, births of unwanted children, neglect I wish she hadn't told me about. There are moments when I realize that simply providing my children with basic things makes me a good parent: food, clothing, nap schedules, stability, lack of screaming in the house, attention, and love. Those last two are crucial--there are many many children who don't get any attention. At all. From anyone.

Generally, however, I'm not grading on a curve. Or maybe I am, and the student body only includes the moms who are, in fact, providing all the basics. But now you want to know what I've done, don't you? Sigh.

Sometimes I just cannot keep my cool. Sometimes White Trash Mama (as my friend Alison calls her) comes out and does stupid things like this morning when Frances swung to hit me at the kitchen table and I jerked her breakfast away. (If you're gonna hit mama then you don't get to eat. So there.) Or yesterday when she hit Clark with a plastic block and I yanked her paci out of her mouth and stormed off with it. Writing this, these things seem pretty minor but when it's happening they come from a place of internal rage, something out of my control--not the way I want to parent. These responses are not helpful. They are in no way effective. If anything, they teach her just the opposite of what I want--they teach her to react physically in negative ways. It's VERY hard right now for me to keep in mind that many of the things she does she simply cannot help. She has so little impulse control... we're not born with it. She has to learn it, and she needs my help. Yesterday I wanted so badly to spank her and nearly called Mitch to come home and relieve me, but instead I turned on the television which turned out to be a very very good idea. (It's not infrequently that I think of the TV as a great tool for things like calming tempers, getting dishes done, eating dinner with my husband in peace. Yes yes it can quickly become a liability and there's a fine line to walk, but still.)

I beat myself up a lot about it all. Don't know how to stop doing that either.

One thing that interests me endlessly about this dynamic with Frances is that I never never never have felt this kind of impatience and frustration with Clark. Why is that? Is it because he's a second child and I've gotten more relaxed about things? Do I just have more patience now? I don't think that's it. I think he simply doesn't do the things that push my buttons. But, I mean, they're both children; they've both gone through the same developmental stages. You'd think he'd do the same irritating things she did. Or you might think it's just her age and I only have to wait and he'll drive me nuts too. But my frustrations with Frances didn't start with the terrible twos--no no. She's been able to push my buttons since she was about 6 months old. I have no idea what on earth she could have been doing then to irritate me, but it's the truth.

My only conclusion is that they have different temperaments and that Clark just isn't as impatient, as demanding, doesn't insist on control as much as Frances. Oh she's going to be a difficult teenager. No reason to worry about that now... Instead, I need to find an exorcist to rid me of this other woman who takes over my body. I wonder if I should give her a name?

boys and trucks

What is UP with the gender-specific desires for toys? Clark has out of the blue fallen in love with trucks. And construction vehicles. And tractors. When Frances was little we had some truck books and she never showed even a second of patience for or interest in them. These same books are still floating around our house and Clark has recently discovered them. HOW can his fascination be something simply ingrained? And what did cave boys obsess about? It all completely confounds me.

Recently the county did a bunch of construction on our sewer pipes and for weeks there were bulldozers and dump trucks and fellas in hardhats on our street: breaking up concrete, digging, moving loads of dirt, making lots of noise. Oh the joy. All I had to do was put small people in the wagon and take them out to the road. I'd pull the wagon into the shade under a tree and sit on the sidewalk beside them. We could pass all kinds of time this way.

Meanwhile, it's summer here; a different summer than I'm used to, but summer nonetheless. All Frances wants to do is wear her bathing suit because it shows her belly button, and all Clark wants to do it play in the sandbox. Both are problematic. For the former, it's often only 65 degrees, and for the latter, he gets sand in his hair and in his ears and in his mouth and down his diaper, and he's gritty and uncomfortable until he has a bath. Plus, his poop has been strange and grainy lately, and I only yesterday realized it's all the sand he's eating. You know how it's hard to wipe sand off your body when it's wet? Yeah, like that.

hard stuff

It's hard to know what's a stage and what's the perminant personality of the child, the result of my less-than-perfect parenting. I know that's a lot of pressure to put on myself, but seriously. Or maybe they're all stages and they will run right up against each other, one after another, until they finally give way to adulthood when the kid is long gone. Then he'll look back and think how grateful he is for all the things mom did for him although he didn't appreciate them at the time. (I use the masculine for that theoretical statement because I really only assume that might happen with my son, simply because daughters are eternally ungrateful. Aren't they?)

Sigh. Frances is difficult these days. We recently had a meeting with one of her preschool teachers to ask her how to get Frances to stop shoving Clark into furniture, and ended up talking a lot about this stage and independence and the changes that are going on in her life like Clark's asserting himself more. The things she said were really helpful and I felt very encouraged and prepared to go back to Frances with a new focus and approach. Then we got home and within 20 minutes I was hollering. Sigh.

One thing the teacher said that could possibly be really helpful if I can remember it at the appropriate moments is that I don't have to react RIGHT AWAY when she does something. I can take a breath and think about how I want to react. This is true: although Frances is doing things that hurt Clark or at least irritate him enough to make him scream (like dragging him by the arm over to where she wants him to play), she isn't putting his life in danger. I can probably afford to pause for a beat just to keep myself from leaping and reacting in ways that aren't helpful. But it's so hard to do! Some other creature takes over my body and I vault over furniture to separate them. I'll try, though.

busy busy

It's the baby boomers who did this to us. They are the ones who took on as their responsibility the fulfillment their children's every potential, who micromanaged them, who hustled them from violin to scouts to karate, who supervised homework and television watching and friends. I taught the first wave of these kids at Elon and it's not pretty. They have never made a decision in their lives, have never had time to be bored, have never found success on their own. They've always been supervised. What this means as far as college is that once away from their parents, they go C-R-A-Z-Y.

So now generation x is parenting and having all these activities is not our parenting style, but they've been implemented and it's difficult to fight. I mean, I could just keep my kids home rather than doing toddler preschool and music class and gymnastics, but it's not like Frances can just go out and play with the neighbors because none of them are home; they're all at soccer and piano and swimming lessons. Trying to schedule a playdate is just absurd. Everyone looks at the calendar and finally we find 2 hours two weeks from next Friday. And both our kids are under 3!

I have this other issue, which is naps. The downside of having two kids under three is that eighteen hours out of 24 someone is asleep. (well, that's also an upside, but not what this post is about.) Clark still naps twice a day though he'll no longer do it on the go, and Frances has a long afternoon nap as well. What this means is that we don't have much time to leave the house, very little time for groceries or gym or playdates. Wanna guess what falls by the wayside? Playdates, which is my social time. It's a sad situation and today I nearly forfeited my zumba class at the gym (SO much fun as far as exercise goes) to go to a friend's to play (kids) and visit (grownups). Sometimes I feel like I'm making a mistake being so rigid with their schedules, but other times it's very clear to me why I do this. It does keep everything running smoothly. I keep reminding myself that soon Clark will outgrow the two naps and an entire morning will open up before us. BUT even when it does open up, am I going to be obligated to fill those mornings with activities??? I want to fight this deluge of busyness, but so far I don't know how.