I see my little baby, and she isn't a baby anymore. She's a kid now.
A kid, with a full vocabulary and the ability to carry on conversations with herself. "Where's paci? I don't see it. Oh! There she is. Hi, paci," is an exchange she might commonly have with an inanimate object, one of many.
She is developing patience. She isn't very good at it, but she's trying doggedly to get better at it. As I make her dinner, she hangs on to my knees, burying her head in the leg of my jeans, begging please and suggesting, "Dinner's ready!"
She tells us what she feels like eating. When we tell her no, that we're out of watermelon or that a cookie comes after dinner, she shrugs it off and eats what's on her plate -- or doesn't eat it, and asks to get down to play. Her appetite is healthy and she has passed the picky phase that saw her eating butter noodles with Parmesan cheese for weeks on end.
She's a brat, but we're working hard not to spoil her. It's easier said than done.
I have a philosophy now when it comes to raising her, and when I stumbled upon it, it felt comfortable and right. The philosophy is: allow her to fit into the life that we already live, and avoid molding our lives around fitting her needs.
This sounds like I'm saying that I make her eat sushi-and-sake dinners, take in an 8pm Friday night showing of "Cowboys and Aliens," and leave her to her own devices while I check my email. That isn't case. (Okay, so the last one is partly true.)
What is really means is that I use this philosophy to stop myself when I realize that I'm spending too much time trying to guess what Sadie wants and what will keep her happy. I need to be better about deciding what the routine is, telling her exactly what that routine will be, and then expecting her to go along with it.
Take, for example, the process of getting ready in the morning. We eat breakfast, change her diaper and put on her daytime clothes, then move her into the bathroom where she brushes her teeth on the sink and I comb and brush her hair. On any given morning, this simple routine might be ambushed for a dozen different reasons. Perhaps today is the day that she re-discovers a book on her bedroom floor at the exact moment that I'm trying to move her to the changing table, and she demands to be able to bring the book up with her. Perhaps she would rather put the toothbrush aside and instead, put the cap on the hairspray bottle and take it off half a hundred times.
There are ways to keep her happy throughout the process, and I've learned them all. Swap out a forbidden toy with a safer one. Distract by singing songs, by making funny faces in the mirror, by promising "five more minutes and we're done." It didn't take long for Sadie to figure out that all it would take was a passing whine and her mother would contort herself into any position necessary to fix the problem.
One day I asked myself: "what would happen if I didn't fix the problem?" And instead of trying to fix it, I just let it happen. The whining continued, but it eventually wore itself out. Occasionally, it did lead to bigger fights. One toothbrush war in particular ended with blood shed on both sides, as I forcibly wrangled a toothbrush into her mouth while she screamed bloody murder and tried to stab the pointy end into my eye.
But by and large, the tactic worked. Go along with the plan, expect her to do the same, and make occasional -- but infrequent -- concessions to her changes of mind along the way. What I want her to do is to see that Mommy and Daddy are PEOPLE. We are not robots, designed for the express purpose of giving her happiness and new toys and occasional bites of their delicious pumpkin pancakes. WE ordered those pancakes. Because we were hungry, and IHOP sounded good, and you live with us now so you were lucky enough to be included on the trip. That in an of itself does not mean you have a right to grab the pancakes off of our plates, push a piece into your mouth, declare it "too much," and let the pancake molecules rain out of our mouth onto the IHOP floor.
My hope is that as I get better at applying my new philosophy, Sadie will come to understand that she is not the princess in the throne room, seated with a long line of admirers come to pay respects. I want to teach her that she has the ability to affect the feelings of people other than herself. I know that this is something that kids her age are only just beginning to comprehend, but I see the beginning of it in her and I want to encourage them. A boy cries at Target behind us and she turns to me and whispers, "Baby cry."
"Yes, the baby is crying."
"You hear that?"
"Yes, I hear it."
She focuses harder. "Why baby cry? Baby sad."
"Maybe he's sad. Maybe he wants his mommy to hold him instead of his daddy. Maybe he's tired and needs a nap." I watch her face, as she struggles to understand why another baby would be upset when she herself is not feeling upset, and what that might mean.
At home, I ask her for a hug and she pushes me away without another look, more interested in the new toy we've just bought. Then she catches sight of my face, which I have exaggerated to look extra sad. "I feel sad," I tell her. "It makes me sad that you didn't give me a kiss."
Instantly she leans forward and blows me an exaggerated kiss, followed by a bright smile that shows she expects everything to be better, now that Mommy is happy.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Water Baby
It's been a pretty hectic last couple of weeks. We've been thrown headlong into the terrible twos -- which feels pretty damn unfair, considering that Sadie's still almost three months away from actually turning two. We can only hope this means that by 2 1/2, she'll have gotten over the hump and transformed into an emotionally stable young lady. Which I'm so sure will happen.
I am finding myself lacking in the energy needed to catalog the many tantrums that we've weathered recently, and they're probably not too interesting to hear about anyway, so I'll stick to the positive stuff.
Sadie likes water.
No, seriously. If this summer has taught us anything, it's that our child has an almost alarming love of large bodies of water. Whereas my greatest fear used to be that my child would choke to death on a grape while I was distracted by something funny on television, my fear is now that she will sneak out in the middle of the night for some moonlight swimming in our neighbor's pool. Which is why we ordered her a "float suit" off Amazon.
We've taken her to swim class several times now; each time the only problem has been trying to keep her out of the pool before class starts, and removing her from it after class has ended. The first two classes, she was content to float around in our arms, splashing and pretending to kick.
I say "pretend" because this is what happens when you instruct Sadie to kick:
Me: Sadie, kick! Kick your legs! Kickkickkickkickkick!
Sadie: *halfheartedly kicks one leg*
As Scott pointed out, she has no incentive to keep kicking. It's not like if she stops, we're going to drop her.
Once you've taken a couple of warm-up classes, the instructors require kids to put their heads under water. I don't remember much about being a very young kid, but I do remember this: putting my head underwater for the first time was terrifying. Because of this, the instructors tried to ease us into it by teaching us to dip first our chins in, then to blow bubbles with our lips, then FINALLY work up to dampening the rest of the face. For big wusses like me, the process took weeks.
At this school, there is no working up. You just dunk them, and that's that. Ava, a girl in Sadie's toddler group who loved swimming until the fateful 3rd class, got dunked and now won't get anywhere near a pool. "No more swim classes for us," her mom told me, sighing and shaking her head.
Yet when the instructor approached us and showed me how to dunk Sadie, I resolved to give it a try. If anything, Sadie is too comfortable around water. Scaring her would be difficult, but it would teach her the important lesson that water can be dangerous -- and maybe it would stop her from hurling herself into pools every time she saw one.
I gripped her by her upper arms, facing me, and swam backwards while pulling her forwards. On a count of three I told her, "We're going under, close your mouth!" She completely ignored me, her mouth hanging open like a fish. I dunked her anyway. One...two...
When I pulled her up, her eyes were huge. She coughed and sputtered as the instructor showed me how to raise one arm, which apparently helps clear the water somehow. I waited for the screaming -- but it didn't come. Instead, she whined briefly, and then...she smiled.
And that was that. We went under maybe a dozen times. Each time, she ignored my instructions and kept her mouth open, ending up with a faceful of dirty pool water. Each time, she burst up blinking and shocked, like she couldn't believe what had just happened, then instantly recovered and got ready to do it again.
Tantrum? Oh sure, there was a tantrum. When I tried to get her out of the pool, at the end of class. So much for teaching her respect for water.
Since then, we've gone to the beach and we've gone, twice, to the public pool at the park nearby our house. If you asked me to write a list of places I felt comfortable saying I'd never need to visit during my lifetime, "the public pool" would fall right between "a train station in India" and "the men's bathroom at the beach in Santa Monica." Now, having been there, I can say, THANK GOD FOR THE PUBLIC POOL. They've got a little wading area for young kids, with a fountain and a foot of water in it, and we spent the majority of this past weekend there.
We know now that swimming lessons for our water baby will be crucial. I'm thrilled that she loves water as much as she does -- her dad and her grandfather share the same love, and when she gets older they will swim, bodysurf, snorkel and even scuba together. But for now she's just a skinny little toddler who has no fear of jumping in the deep end.
I am finding myself lacking in the energy needed to catalog the many tantrums that we've weathered recently, and they're probably not too interesting to hear about anyway, so I'll stick to the positive stuff.
Sadie likes water.
No, seriously. If this summer has taught us anything, it's that our child has an almost alarming love of large bodies of water. Whereas my greatest fear used to be that my child would choke to death on a grape while I was distracted by something funny on television, my fear is now that she will sneak out in the middle of the night for some moonlight swimming in our neighbor's pool. Which is why we ordered her a "float suit" off Amazon.
We've taken her to swim class several times now; each time the only problem has been trying to keep her out of the pool before class starts, and removing her from it after class has ended. The first two classes, she was content to float around in our arms, splashing and pretending to kick.
I say "pretend" because this is what happens when you instruct Sadie to kick:
Me: Sadie, kick! Kick your legs! Kickkickkickkickkick!
Sadie: *halfheartedly kicks one leg*
As Scott pointed out, she has no incentive to keep kicking. It's not like if she stops, we're going to drop her.
Once you've taken a couple of warm-up classes, the instructors require kids to put their heads under water. I don't remember much about being a very young kid, but I do remember this: putting my head underwater for the first time was terrifying. Because of this, the instructors tried to ease us into it by teaching us to dip first our chins in, then to blow bubbles with our lips, then FINALLY work up to dampening the rest of the face. For big wusses like me, the process took weeks.
At this school, there is no working up. You just dunk them, and that's that. Ava, a girl in Sadie's toddler group who loved swimming until the fateful 3rd class, got dunked and now won't get anywhere near a pool. "No more swim classes for us," her mom told me, sighing and shaking her head.
Yet when the instructor approached us and showed me how to dunk Sadie, I resolved to give it a try. If anything, Sadie is too comfortable around water. Scaring her would be difficult, but it would teach her the important lesson that water can be dangerous -- and maybe it would stop her from hurling herself into pools every time she saw one.
I gripped her by her upper arms, facing me, and swam backwards while pulling her forwards. On a count of three I told her, "We're going under, close your mouth!" She completely ignored me, her mouth hanging open like a fish. I dunked her anyway. One...two...
When I pulled her up, her eyes were huge. She coughed and sputtered as the instructor showed me how to raise one arm, which apparently helps clear the water somehow. I waited for the screaming -- but it didn't come. Instead, she whined briefly, and then...she smiled.
And that was that. We went under maybe a dozen times. Each time, she ignored my instructions and kept her mouth open, ending up with a faceful of dirty pool water. Each time, she burst up blinking and shocked, like she couldn't believe what had just happened, then instantly recovered and got ready to do it again.
Tantrum? Oh sure, there was a tantrum. When I tried to get her out of the pool, at the end of class. So much for teaching her respect for water.
Since then, we've gone to the beach and we've gone, twice, to the public pool at the park nearby our house. If you asked me to write a list of places I felt comfortable saying I'd never need to visit during my lifetime, "the public pool" would fall right between "a train station in India" and "the men's bathroom at the beach in Santa Monica." Now, having been there, I can say, THANK GOD FOR THE PUBLIC POOL. They've got a little wading area for young kids, with a fountain and a foot of water in it, and we spent the majority of this past weekend there.
We know now that swimming lessons for our water baby will be crucial. I'm thrilled that she loves water as much as she does -- her dad and her grandfather share the same love, and when she gets older they will swim, bodysurf, snorkel and even scuba together. But for now she's just a skinny little toddler who has no fear of jumping in the deep end.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Social Tendencies
I wish I had more pictures with which to illustrate this post, but the photos I take with my iPhone tend to be uniformly terrible.
After a pretty quiet winter, we've had a wonderfully social spring. There's something about not socializing that makes you (maybe just me) quietly paranoid that all of your friends have gone off to find someone more fun to spend time with. That's one reason why, as most of you guys know, we like to throw giant barbecues right around this time of year, so we can see everyone all at once and be like, "Oh, right! Friends! Eat our food and never leave us again!"
No barbecue this year, but now that we have Sadie, it's made more sense to spread out our visits and do it often. Things we wouldn't have bothered to do a few years ago -- going to the beach, going to the pool, having people over, social daytime visits that don't involve getting smashed on margaritas -- are finally appealing.
Spring began with a trip up north to visit my Mills friends, which I wrote about a little while back. That was like the spring kick-off tour. I felt like a vampire slowly crawling out of her coffin and blinking in the sunlight that is interaction with people her own age. We drank wine and ate homemade vegan risotto and stayed up past my bedtime.
After we came home, I started lining up play dates for Sadie. Aside from seeing our friends David and Tara and their son Sam, who's almost two now, we also had an afternoon with Addy, a girl Sadie's age whom we met through physical therapy. One afternoon soon after, we went to the LA Zoo with my friend Birge and her daughter Nova. A few days later, we were at Scott's best friend's house hanging out with their two kids, and another pair of friends and their young daughters.
One of the better evenings was last Saturday. My old friend Matthew and his wife Sarah (who read this blog -- HI, YOU TWO, WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE BURGERS AND ELMO) were in town for a wedding and brought their 18 month old son Zachary over so we could fire up the grill. In retrospect, this was kind of a foolhardy idea -- I'd already forgotten that 18 months is smack in the middle of the "let's see if I can crawl up on THIS dangerous object" phase of life. How neither of our kids managed to walk into a flaming hot grill is beyond me, but we stayed emergency-free. And even if something had happened, Sarah is a doctor, so we'd have been totally good.
I am what they call a "casual mom," by the way.
I used to be afraid of little kids, especially ones who could walk and talk and judge you with their eyes. Now, I like them okay. I still like my own the best, though.
After a pretty quiet winter, we've had a wonderfully social spring. There's something about not socializing that makes you (maybe just me) quietly paranoid that all of your friends have gone off to find someone more fun to spend time with. That's one reason why, as most of you guys know, we like to throw giant barbecues right around this time of year, so we can see everyone all at once and be like, "Oh, right! Friends! Eat our food and never leave us again!"
No barbecue this year, but now that we have Sadie, it's made more sense to spread out our visits and do it often. Things we wouldn't have bothered to do a few years ago -- going to the beach, going to the pool, having people over, social daytime visits that don't involve getting smashed on margaritas -- are finally appealing.
Spring began with a trip up north to visit my Mills friends, which I wrote about a little while back. That was like the spring kick-off tour. I felt like a vampire slowly crawling out of her coffin and blinking in the sunlight that is interaction with people her own age. We drank wine and ate homemade vegan risotto and stayed up past my bedtime.
After we came home, I started lining up play dates for Sadie. Aside from seeing our friends David and Tara and their son Sam, who's almost two now, we also had an afternoon with Addy, a girl Sadie's age whom we met through physical therapy. One afternoon soon after, we went to the LA Zoo with my friend Birge and her daughter Nova. A few days later, we were at Scott's best friend's house hanging out with their two kids, and another pair of friends and their young daughters.
One of the better evenings was last Saturday. My old friend Matthew and his wife Sarah (who read this blog -- HI, YOU TWO, WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE BURGERS AND ELMO) were in town for a wedding and brought their 18 month old son Zachary over so we could fire up the grill. In retrospect, this was kind of a foolhardy idea -- I'd already forgotten that 18 months is smack in the middle of the "let's see if I can crawl up on THIS dangerous object" phase of life. How neither of our kids managed to walk into a flaming hot grill is beyond me, but we stayed emergency-free. And even if something had happened, Sarah is a doctor, so we'd have been totally good.
I am what they call a "casual mom," by the way.
I used to be afraid of little kids, especially ones who could walk and talk and judge you with their eyes. Now, I like them okay. I still like my own the best, though.
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