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.

a trip alone

The trip. A quick overview: we drove Wednesday from NY to Michigan, eight and a half hours in the car with a dog and 2 kids under 3; one stop to halt the screaming, one for dinner and running around, one for Frances to sit in the back of the open van on her potty. Clark refused to sleep in the car though it was hours past his bedtime, finally dropping off about 10 minutes before we arrived at Mitch's parents', and woke as soon as the car stopped. Thursday we left the kids with their grandparents and Mitch and I drove to Detroit where I got on an airplane for Boise and he drove to Ann Arbor for a conference. Boise was amazing, as wonderful and lovely and close to my heart as I remembered.

It was a true break for me, a time that was only mine, and kind of surreal because of that. I'd gotten rather used to having my life be someone else's. I cried often while I was there, sometimes out of nostalgia but sometimes for no reason at all. My friend Sylvia suggested it was the relaxing--it was probably the first time I'd truly relaxed in almost three years.

Being away from my kids--it was like I reverted to some former self, felt like a person I used to be and that I'd forgotten. My friend Tamara compared having little babies to war, and I don't mean to make light of war or say parenting is anything as tragic or life threatening, but it probably feels something akin to being in the trenches: constant anxiety, on constant alert for any sound, any movement; ready to jump and fight, snatch someone from danger, perform CPR or rush to the emergency room. Maybe it was the absence of all this tension that made me feel like someone I was before. I don't know how to parent without this tension. I just don't know how.

In the airport I felt contained--I didn't have to worry about anyone outside of myself. I didn't have to watch, to reach out and collect some little person; to cajole or entertain or chase; to worry about anyone's hunger or grumpiness or tiredness. (I also didn't have to respond to other folks when they commented on cuteness or asked how old...) I was relaxed. And something strange: I saw parents with babies, toddlers, and I no longer saw their tension. At home when I see these fellow parents I imagine what's happening internally, and it's the same thing that's happening to me. (Chatty conversation usually proves me right.) But while I was away and alone, these parents seemed calm. It makes me remember what I, at age 20 or 25 or maybe even 30, thought having kids would be like. I don't know if I can explain--but I thought I'd just be myself, with some extra company. I didn't realize I'd lose myself for a time, give myself over, become someone new for the sake of my children. I thought of taking care of babies as something I'd do rather than something I'd be.

I have a childless friend who has said to me over and over, ever since Frances was born, "You're an amazing mother--you're so relaxed!" She says she doesn't think she will be as relaxed with babies and I keep trying to tell her--even if I don't show it externally (and do I really not??) there is rumbling, there is constant anxiety.

I wondered how long I would be away from my kids before I longed for them, and I don't really want to admit it, but I didn't get there. All I felt was relief. Relief relief relief to be alone with myself, to relax, to not have to worry or do or be. It made me a little ashamed, as if there might not be a limit... as if maybe I wouldn't ever miss them. But that's probably not true. I was only away 4 days; maybe a full week would make me ache. I did respond differently to the crying babies I witnessed. I used to be one of the people who was particularly annoyed by a crying baby on a plane, but this time I only felt sympathy--mostly for the baby, but also for the parents doing the best they could. It seemed odd to me that anyone would feel annoyance about the crying.

Maybe my nostalgia for Boise is nostalgia for myself--it's hard to say. While I was there I kept trying to imagine having Frances and Clark in the back of the car, but it was hard to envision. And though being in Boise made me ache and want to stay there forever, I also missed Rochester--a surprise. I'm not sure I'll ever fall in love with Rochester the way I was and still am with Boise, but it's my home these days.

coming soon....

I've been AWAY all weekend, in Boise for a wedding ALL BY MYSELF. I have all kinds of new thoughts about parenting that the separation provided me and I want to write about them. But right now we're in Michigan, driving back to Rochester tomorrow. I'll post soon!

welcome to 3!

We have a screaming defiant lunatic for a daughter. She won't be three until September but I believe this is what people are talking about when they say three is way worse than two. We're on our way!

Yesterday Frances was pushing Clark in our plastic Fisher Price swing in the backyard while I lugged things in from the car, and then there was screaming. When I got outside the entire swing structure was on its side, Clark still in it. He wasn't hurt thank god, but when I turned to ask her what happened (as if that were unclear), she ran off down the driveway. We've taught her well to stop at the sidewalk and she did stop there to see if I was coming after her, but then she turned and ran down the street. I had to sprint to catch her. She wasn't in any danger since she was running on the sidewalk (and our little one-block street has almost no traffic) but she completely ignored me when I called to her to come back. It's the first time in a while that I've wanted to spank her.

She's been pushing Clark a lot more lately. The hitting has stopped almost completely, but she will just randomly reach out and shove him into a doorframe, into the toy box, into the dining room table where he falls back and whacks his head. I can't wait for him to be big enough to turn around and clock her.

She has some cute traits in this new developmental stage too, but at this very moment of typing I can't recall what they are.

ALSO! I did a little experiment about eating and letting them self-regulate, as the book I posted about previously suggests. It was just this morning and perhaps is not enough data to make a sweeping judgement, but so far I'd say it's a failure. I give Frances a snack mid-morning and usually try to make it something with protein like cheese or these peanut balls I make. Today, however, she found a mini bag of cookies and I told her she could have them. We went to the park a bit later and when it was time to go she completely fell apart. Now maybe the tantrum was just coincidence and maybe it had more to do with her dad's being there and her not wanting their time together to end. (Poor guy is at the end of his term plus is presenting at a conference next week and is crazy busy and often not here...) But I suspect it also had to do with the sugar rush/crash that accompanied her mid-morning snack. Maybe the other things would have upset her also, but I wonder if she wouldn't have been able to handle it better if she'd eaten something else. THIS is why I try to limit her sugar intake. Still, I'll keep an open mind about it for a bit. Besides, I need to actually read the book and not just the article about the book before I judge, dontcha think?

new relaxed mama

I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to become a relaxed mama rather than a stressed and obsessive mama. I am!

I read this article recently--an interview with a stay-at-home dad who just wrote a feeding-your-baby cookbook--that made me shift the way I go about things, at least for the moment. In the article he mentions parenting magazines and that from them he has mostly learned that moms feel guilty about everything. Well, of course we do! The pressure we have to be perfect parents, to attend to our children's every need, is enormous. I have to keep reminding myself (and letting my therapist remind me) that situations where my children look to other people for comfort (when I have sitters, or when I leave them in the childcare room at the gym, for example) are GOOD for them. It's healthy for them to learn they can get comfort from people other than me. It's healthy for them to recognize that they can be away from me and be okay. It's good for them to be away from me and know I'll come back again. Still, these are things my brain has to tell my gut over and over. There in my gut I just feel cramping.

There's one stay-at-home dad I run into fairly often at the gym, both of us dropping our kids off at Kidtown at the same time. Our gym recently opened a fancy outdoor pool and the other day when I saw him he was heading out there to sit in a chaise lounge with his laptop. "It's the best thing Rochester has going!" he said. "You're not going to work out?" I asked. "No," he said, "I did that yesterday." I asked him how he liked being at home with the kids (a 3 year old and a 4 month old) and he said he loves it. He didn't say, "It's really freaking hard and thank god for Kidtown and the pool." No, he said he loves it and that he was excited to have some alone time. There was no guilt. There was no justification. There didn't seem to be any angst. He seemed to see getting his own time as natural and necessary and nothing to feel bad about.

My guess is that these dads don't feel the same pressure moms feel; parenting is not part of their identity in the same way. They can make their own decisions about what kind of parent to be based on their own ideas of parenting, rather than on the pressures to be perfect.

So back to my new take on my own parenting.... It started the other night after I'd read the article and then talked to the fella at the gym and then Mitch called to say he wasn't going to be home until after the kids were in bed. I was tired. I was tired of working so hard. And the thing I stress about most is food. I hate feeding the kids. It happens so often! Three times a day plus snacks, and I feel like I'm bullying them every time. So that night I just quit. I decided we were going to have snacks for dinner and I didn't care if all they ate was crackers. Soooo, rather than cajoling Frances into eating, I simply asked her if she wanted a banana, or some cheese, or some yogurt, or whatever, and if she said no I said, "okay," with no pressure or frustration. A simple question. I fixed myself a little plate and sat beside her on the sofa, and I let her have tastes if she asked for them. I swear she ate twice the amount of food she usually does--I think it was because she wasn't busy resisting me.

All of THAT made me think about my parenting in general and that perhaps I should just chill and let her be who she is--picky eater or whatever--and not try to control things so much. For the last 2 days I'd say I'm at about 50%, and I'm choosing to think of that as success.

above average cuteness and candy

Frances spent the ENTIRE Memorial Day parade today with her hands over her ears. I wish I had a picture.

This morning before we went she told me she didn't want to go to a parade. This, after so much parade discussion and youtube parade watching and general parade excitement. I suppose the parade at the Lilac Festival demonstrated that the ones on the street in person aren't as exciting as the Rose Bowl on TV. "We're going to go with Ruby and Henry, isn't that exciting?" Ruby (4) and Henry (almost 3) are my friend Carrie's kids and Frances literally follows Ruby around mimicking her. I thought Ruby's presence would be a sure thing but it didn't sway her. "You know what, Frances?" I said, "I think there's going to be candy." I had heard that they throw out candy at this parade, unlike the Lilac Festival which is just a regular ole parade. I'm not a fan of the candy thing--it's not mardi gras. But! I was right. "Candy!" she said. "I LOVE CANDY!"

This conversation happened while Mitch showered and got ready. It was my job to convince her to go to the parade. I also thought I would coach her on the holiday in general. "Do you know what the parade is celebrating? Memorial Day," I said. "Do you know what Memorial Day is?" Then I wondered if I should continue. I went the easy route: "Soldiers," I said. "Do you know what a soldier is?" It occurred to me she might not know, and she didn't. How to answer that question? I wondered what I was getting myself into. I went with: "It's someone who protects our country." Among other things. Anyway.

When we were in the car I thought I'd show her off a bit for Mitch so I asked, "What is the parade celebrating, Frances?" And she said, "CANDY!"

Maybe they give out candy so parents can convince their kids to come.

Turns out they did in fact have candy. They also had loud marching bands and loud gunfire and loud police motorcycles tooting their loud high-pitched horns. Someone told us they might fire canons and I'm very thankful we missed that part. I thought Ruby's presence would carry more weight once we actually got there but no--. In fact, most of the time Frances was on Mitch's shoulders way way back from the road. She felt safer there. Once in awhile she would get down and sit on the curb (hands still on her ears) in hopes of candy, but as soon as some tootsie rolls came spinning her way she was up again asking to "go away from here." Poor girl.

Clark, on the other hand, had a ball, though it had very little to do with the parade. I spent most of my time following him around, pulling him out of the paths of double jogging strollers on the sidewalk and making sure he didn't walk into the street in front of the marching band. He's in a painfully cute stage, mostly steady on his feet and marching all over the earth to see what's what. One woman on a bike going by said, "Above average cuteness." Yes, yes it is.

decisions

I've been struggling again with whether or not to have another baby. I have all these lists in my brain--the pro lists and the con lists, the things we can't do as easily with 3 and the ways we can get on with it with only 2--and the reasons sort of jumble up together and come out like tangled brambles of a pitiful unkempt shrub. I feel like the decision to have another--or not--sort of drives the rest of my life, like the way my life will go will depend on how many kids I eventually have, which I suppose to some degree is true.

But something occurred to me recently about this decision, and that is that rather than the number of kids driving my life, my life will probably drive the number of kids. What I mean is that I don't know how things are going to go with my life, whether I'll eventually fully settle in here in western NY, whether Mitch will stay in this new job, whether we'll move back out west instead. I do know that right this minute, with two kids that are still very small and no family nearby, having another baby is not what I want from my life, is not the best thing for me or for my family. But it might be the case that I get to a place where it turns out to be the best thing, where I feel settled and emotionally supported and grounded in my mothering, and another baby is the decision we make.

All of this is to say that I don't have to make a decision. What a relief! I've felt so pressured to figure this out, to cut away all the dead stuff from the shrub and see what's really going on under there. (I've been working in the yard, can you tell?) It turns out, like a heck of a lot of life, all I have to do is calm down and wait and listen.

pooping in nature

A few Saturday mornings ago Mitch and I went hiking with the kids. As we were loading kids into kid backpacks Frances announced she needed to go to the bathroom. There was, of course, not a toilet in sight, but there were lots of trees, so I taught her how to squat and pee. She couldn't do it by herself--she would have wet her pants around her ankles, but I was able to sort of hold/prop her while she went about her business. She thought it was grand. There was another time not long after that when we were out in nature and she needed to use the bathroom, so we did it again. Potty training coming right along.

Last weekend my mom was here for a visit and it happened to be the first weekend of the Lilac Festival. We rode a pony, listened to a high school band in the band shelter, then spread out a blanket in the shade and ate some ice cream. After that the kids were romping around in the grass when Frances came over and said, "Mommy, I need to swat." "You need to swat?" "I need to swat." Ah, yes--squat. She needed to pee. I didn't even try to locate a port-a-john; they were far far away and we never would have made it before an accident. "I need to poop," she said. Well. What to do? Okay, I thought. Here we go. Nearby were some scrubby crepe myrtles surrounded by pachysandra--a ground cover that looks a bit like ivy. I walked her over to the pachysandra, pulled down her skirt and helped her balance. I hoped the few people nearby wouldn't be offended by the half naked child, and really hoped none of them would realize she was doing more than peeing. After a moment or two I said, "You done?" "No," she said. "I have to poop more." I waited. "You done?" "No. I have to poop more." More? Really.

Thank goodness my mom was there to keep her eyeballs on Clark because Frances and I were occupied in the pachysandra for much longer than one would think necessary. Afterward I used a plastic bag I keep in the stroller for walks with the dog and tried to clean up as much as I could but it was kind of hopeless. I just hoped no children would come tromping through the greenery. Again: what to do?

A few days ago during Clark's nap Frances was playing in the yard while I gardened a bit. While I yanked dead limbs off the shrubs in back she came over and said she needed to squat. "You need to use the potty?" I asked. "Let's go inside and use it there." "No, I wanna swat," she said. "I have to poop." I tried to explain that we only squat when there isn't a potty around, that it's much better to poop in the potty because poop is dirty and then we can flush it down the toilet etc etc. She was insistent. I ran inside and brought her little potty into the yard. "Here, Frances, If you want to poop in the yard you can do it here on your potty." I actually got her pants and undies around her ankles and was gesturing to the potty when she completely fell to pieces. "I WANT TO SWAT I WANT TO SWAT! SWAT SWAT SWAT!" Screaming, flinging herself on the grass. My retired widow neighbor came around the fence, gardening gloves on, a distressed look on her face. "What's wrong?" "Being two is hard," I said. Frances was still screaming, still on the grass, her butt still naked. "I've never seen her behave like that," my neighbor said. "That's because it usually happens inside," I told her. My neighbor never had children and really doesn't know what to do with them, how to interact with them. I think she believed Frances never threw tantrums. I could see her adjust her opinion of what kind of kid Frances is. You know, the troublesome tantrum throwing kind.

Just so you know, she pooped in nature again yesterday just as we finished a hike. Again, not a toilet in sight. I wonder if she holds it until just the right time?