Kidding
How on earth did SweetPea suddenly go from baby to cruiser?? I simply don’t know. She’s 9 months old, just now, and she stands up, pulls herself up on any piece of available furniture, crawls fast, and is starting to walk around holding on to things?! SuperBoy is less than impressed. I think he preferred life with her stationary, or perpetually in “the pouch” as he calls the sling. He cheers for her, but when she encroaches on his baseball cards, or his puzzle pieces, there are lots of reminders from on High (me, that’s me, Big Boss) to be gentle. Thankfully he does love his sissie, or chunky love muffin as he likes to call her. So when your baby is suddenly a cruiser, you simply have no time to yourself because you’re constantly shadowing her. And watching her bonk her head. And kissing her boo boos. And loving that she’s on the move. I wrote about SuperBoy being at this stage long ago in the blog’s nascence. {HERE} But hating that she knows how to quickly get places before you can intercept her. She also has amazing vision and can eyeball a good piece of lint up in a few seconds, zip over to it, and plop it in her mouth. Good thing she is still the perma-happy babe. She makes motherhood an extra joy. And you’ll be pleased to hear the update on Mr Terrorizer that the timeout/isolation from the herd appears to be working. He gets…
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So when your extended family all get together over the holidays and one little person is screaming in the bathroom with you on the other side of the door keeping it shut, what do you do? Oh, that’s me and my two and a half year old. It’s time to talk about little-person-induced-trauma around here again. I have a whole series on tantrums & toddler behavior viewable on the bottom of home page, here. But really, what do you do when your smart, sweet, adorable, intense, intelligent, and very headstrong little child is seemingly out of control? 1) How did we get here? First, a little background on SuperBoy’s development towards this behavioral cliff, you might call it. He’s a bright child with a highly developed sense of language and comprehension. Am I biased? Sure, but I don’t say this to brag. I mean, he talks a ton and seems to understand a half ton. So when he corrects us, or insists on something, or has to have it his way, I’m often just bemused by how aptly he can articulate his position. Or how brilliantly he can negotiate. Or how splendidly he can wield concepts and words to get what he wants. Lots of yeses, lots of negotiating, and few hard & fast nos. Lots of talking talking talking. Lots of attempts at reason (I know! I know! Don’t try to reason with a 2 and a half year old! Rule 1 of parenting a little person!). Lots of…
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This is a common developmental occurrence. Child prefers one parent to the other. It can vacillate, or it can seem like a perpetual stream of “dadadadadadadadada” or “mamamamamamama” to infinity and beyond. Here’s how this plays out in our life, and how we handle it. 1) Encourage love of the other parent. I’m with SuperBoy and SweetPea all day long. When AA comes home, I want to encourage them to be excited, clap, hug, go wrestle him/leap into his arms. I practice saying “da da da da da” all day long with our almost 8 month old daughter. I’d be delighted if it was her first parental address, as it was SuperBoy’s. It’s not a competition. Conversely, AA encourages SuperBoy to take a break during their evening playtime to come give me a hug, talks up how much he loves me, hugs me in front of him, and always backs me up when I issue an executive maternal order (No, you may not eat the lotion.). 2) Don’t take it personally. SuperBoy adores his father. A-DOR-ES him. The world stops when he comes home at night, and he wants him to put him down, look at his baseball cards, help him eat dinner, brush his teeth, and read him a story. Yes, there is a little daylight’s worth of room for me in there, and it’s not as though he expressly shuns my company (sometimes), but the majority of it all is dada-centric. It’s been this way for about a…
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Life is a roller coaster, right? The high highs, the low lows. Children punctuate those highs and lows, lending a deeper height and depth. Whole Parenting is all about familyhood, developing the whole person of your child, and living the challenges and joys of parenthood. So how do I achieve this? Some days it’s just about survival. I’ve swapped lawyering for home life, etsy, & blogging. Here’s a little sample day in our lives. 6am: AA up & out the door. Nursing SweetPea in our bed. Morning: SuperBoy up and at ’em. Attempt to nurse SweetPea back down in bed, and hoping she doesn’t awaken just yet. Try to convince him to sleep more. Try to convince him to go potty on the toilet. Change out of PJs. Try to convince him to come downstairs. Probably snuggle in bed with him for another half hour, reading books, saying morning prayers, and counting all his buddies. Make him oatmeal, yogurt, & fruit dish {Toddler Breakfast Delight}. Convince him to eat while sitting in his chair. Listen periodically for SweetPea on the monitor, and checking her actual little face. Start laundry. Read books. Listen to music. Have a dance party. SweetPea awakens at some point. Nurse her, change her, put her in her chair so she can watch her brother and maybe have a little banana & rice cereal. Clean up after everyone. Try to eat breakfast myself. SuperBoy goes for quiet time on his bed reading while SweetPea is nursed & rocked…
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My little six month old is teething. Yup, it’s here. The snarfling nights. The little razors under her gum line. The shrill shrieks. A good girlfriend’s little son about the same age is going through this too. He was a great sleeper, but it sounds like his sleep is disrupted now. SweetPea is not a great sleeper, let’s be honest, so there’s no real change in our disrupted nights. Is your little one teething? I’ve written about teething here {Teething Pain in Young Children}, here {Toddler Night Sleep Trouble}, and here {Teething Gel: To Gel or Not to Gel}. What are the best teething toys, how do you even know it’s the teeth, and what the heck will make your baby happy again? 1) Teethers. Your breast. (Whoa! What about the don’t-be-a-human-pacifier rebuke you get from lots of fellow mamas? I disregard it.) Nurse and offer nursing as much as you are willing and able to. Baby will appreciate it, and it will keep your milk supply up, especially if you’re starting solids around now. Other favs around here: rubber, latex, wooden, fabric. Avoid BPA plastics. Defined here by Wiki. Why avoid it? Because they can leach out chemicals into your baby’s mouth. Yeech! I also try to avoid made-in-china. Why? Because I want to support made in the USA. Consider it my local solution to our economic woes. Except for Sophie, the French giraffe. I love her and almost all things French. SweetPea likes different things at different times. I do not put…
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SuperBoy playing farmer-in-the-dell. It was another magical weekend around here. The Twin Cities Birth & Baby Expo was great fun and my little craft table had lots of visits and sales. I’m going retail with my Bandit Bibs and Contour Cloths so look for more on that later. He also started teaching his little friends how to properly burp a baby (doll). “Burp, pat, pat, pat her on the back like THIS <smack the doll> keep going!” His little sweet gal pal V was over on Friday night for homemade pizza {Friday Night Pizzas!}. She brought her parents along for good measure. It was so fun! Especially to watch the two kiddos play. He also taught her baseball with a hockey stick. No surprise. Did I ever tell you that when my brother got married, SuperBoy was the ringbearer and best friends with our sister-in-law’s littlest brother who’s about 18 months old? SuperBoy gave D his favorite baseball card: Justin Morneau. D ate it. In front of SuperBoy. SuperBoy almost died. Total sidenote, there. It’s a Monday, and that’s all I got, folks.
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