Children – Page 2 – My Truant Pen

A cheerful day

Yesterday I spent 2.5 hours in the dentist’s chair telling them they didn’t have enough novocaine in place and being drilled. In the last month, I’ve replaced every single metal filling in my mouth — and I had a lot of them. I think altogether I had maybe 12 fillings replaced?

Not even novocaine can dampen my Christmas pleasure.

I had dinner with a friend (where I ATTEMPTED not to drool too much — I didn’t get feeling back in my jaw until the dessert course), was back in time to put Grey to bed, and spent the evening consulting with Santa on plans for the most fantastic Christmas morning EVER.

Grey went out to buy my present last night, and he was nearly vibrating with gift-giving excitement and the world’s worst sneakiness “Mom, there aren’t any secrets so you don’t need to think about what Christmas present I’m giving you.”.

My husband and I snuggled under the glow of our Christmas tree and made goofy jokes.

Thane crinkles his nose at me in the world’s most goofy grin and said “Car” this morning.

I’ll pick the boys up in an hour or two and we’ll go home and make cookies and wrap presents and wait with our whole bodies.

Tonight we’ll go to our church’s annual Christmas pageant. Grey will understand it, I think, for maybe the first time. The magic and mystery and solemnity will touch him.

How wonderful life is!

Brownsmith

The summer we lived in Bonner’s Ferry, I was five, or maybe six. I remember that summer fondly — the first of the golden buzzing summers in the Northwest. I remember one of my favorite things to play: Brownstone. I would walk out of the house – on the side with the big tall trees toward town, not towards the deep forests – holding a full cup of water and a spoon. Then I would creep under the porch. There was dappled light down there; more than enough to see by, but not enough to nourish plants. It was just plain dirt. Not dirt with construction waste mixed in, or dirt with old roots, or rocky dirt. Just, well, dirt.

And with the consummate care of an artist, I would spend hours under there transforming that dirt into mud. There’s a particular delightful state of mud when it’s nearly solid, but the surface gleams with smooth moisture. I can see it a lifetime later in my mind’s eye. My goal was to create patties of this delightful stuff. I named myself a brownsmith. A blacksmith works with iron, but a brownsmith’s stuff is mud.

From the eyes of a parent, I have to suspect that what this looked like was an hour of silence followed by the need for a bath. Funnily enough, I don’t remember the baths at all. Just the way the mud looked.

Yesterday I had a reprieve from my usual schedule. A friend was coming, and she was bringing dinner. So instead of tying my children to my apron strings as I cooked a proper meal for them, we all sat in the front yard together. Thane sampled the tasty bubble rods. I drew an outline of Grey on the sidewalk and added antennae and a spaceship, having way more fun with it than he did. But finally he noticed the flowerbeds. I had mulched them, but they need loving care again. Apparently you have to deal with your lawn more than once or twice a summer — who knew? Anyway, he asked if he could dig in them. My first reaction was: no! You’ll mess up the flower beds.

Then I thought, “Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play in the dirt?” and I said yes.

Then he wanted to use some bricks to plant brick seeds that would grow into brick plants. And I thought, “What a mess this will make!?” and then I wondered. Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play with blocks in the dirt? So I said yes.

For 20 minutes my son happily built a brick hovel and piled intermixed dirt and mulch on top, while Thane sampled the fine vintage of grass clippings on the lawn. I played Bingo with him for the 30000th time. The sun shone dappled through the trees, and I remembered the dim recesses of Brownsmith.

Maybe tonight I’ll give Grey a spoon and a cup of water, too.

Thane at three months

Thane on tummy time

I’m spending this week getting ready to go back to work. That’s involved a lot of cooking, shopping, laundry and doctors appointments. (There’s nothing wrong, I’m just cramming a year’s worth of appointments into the last week or so.) You always wonder how you are going to handle things when life is about to change. How will I deal with a baby? How will I deal with a second child? Will I go nuts at home? Will I get any sleep? How will I deal with work? Will I ever have any time to myself ever again?

I’ve learned that in general, you do manage and you do cope. But I’ve really enjoyed this time at home with my children. For the most part. Poo excepted. Still, the time is coming for me to return to work, and that’s also a good thing. I’m just making two of my most time-consuming recipes this week as a farewell (tonight: turkey).

It will be particularly difficult to leave Thane. For a quarter of a year, I have rarely gone anywhere without him. For three quarters of a year prior to that, I went nowhere without him. You would think experience would provide consolation… he’s a month older than Grey was when Grey went to daycare. He’s going to a woman I’ve known now for three years. His big brother will be there, and Grey is quite capable of watching over Thane and letting me know what goes on. Heck, I’ll still be there nursing at lunch. But oh, he’s such a joy.

I’m still struggling to decide whether Thane is a more mellow child than Grey was, or whether I am a more mellow and experienced mother. I think a little of both. Thane spends a lot of time quietly watching the tumultuous world into which he was born. He has this amazingly clear, patient gaze.

Thane is starting to gain control over his body. His hands reach out and grasp what they encounter — particularly endearing when what they encounter is your finger. He has started playing with toys. There was a remarkable day when that simply BEGAN. He reached out his hand and grabbed the beak of this colorful bird that was his Christmas present. For maybe even 20 minutes he reached his hand out to where his attention was riveted. He’s also much more active when he does move. We find him perpendicular to where he was placed in his crib. He managed to turn on the bubbler by kicking it. He rolled over again (front to back) after a month hiatus or so. He scootches across the floor.

He smiles all the time. He grows unhappy if he can’t see people, but will contentedly sit for quite a while if I remain in view. His smile is radiant, transcendent, glorious. The gummy toothless smile of a child who loves you best in the world is hard to top.

He’s a big kid. He’s well into 3 – 6 month outfits. They fit perfectly, boding ill for how long they’ll continue to fit. He’s pretty strong — he holds himself up sitting (although he lacks balance to sit by himself). His neck is very stable, and his grip impressive.

He has the auburn hair of his great-grandfather. I’ve seen pictures of my grandfather as a young man, and Thane has the exact same hair color (for what hair he has).

We are still doing very well nursing, and I have oodles of milk frozen for his journey to daycare.

Grey is an amazing big brother. I keep waiting for the resentment or impatience. Grey and I have our conflicts (over pretty much everything else), but he never ever turns his ire or impatience against his brother. (Yet.) Yesterday, the boys and I were in Thane’s room. Grey decided to spread a blanket on the floor and asked if he and Thane could have a sleepover. How delightfully imaginative! I was so impressed that he figured out a way to play with Thane that he could do! (Thane’s few skill indeed include lying on one’s back on a blanket.) Grey is incredibly careful and gentle with him, and it was wonderful to see my two boys ‘playing’ together.

It is time for me to go back to work and flex those disused muscles. I think it is a right and necessary thing. But oh. I will miss my boys.

You know your child is ready for potty training when…

This morning at about 6:15, I started hearing sounds. The nightlight was beeped on. A drawer nearby opened and closed. There was a strange sound. A small hand reached up to the handle of a humidity-swollen door and turned. Thump thump thump.

The handle turned on our door and it opened to admit a small, completely naked person holding a clean diaper.

My six-days-shy-of-three son:

1) Diagnosed himself with a full diaper issue

2) Removed his diaper

3) Placed it correctly in the diaper pail (one of the fancy ones with like a foot pedal)

4) Opened the dresser drawer where his fresh diapers are stored (the TOP drawer, may I add)

5) Obtained a clean diaper

6) Brought it to me to put on

When your kid is capable of making snide comments on your diaper changing technique, it’s time for this era to pass. I was planning on waiting another month or two (you know, so slightly after his little brother comes and I’m home full time and my grasp on sanity is already tenuous). But it’s really not possible for a child to signal that they are READY to potty train more than this.

Now comes the hard part. He’s been ready for quite some time. He pees on command, understands the poop mechanism, etc. Willing. The problem is willing. That and I need non-traumatic motivations for him to not have accidents. A liberal application of lollypops has proven at least somewhat effective in getting him to SIT on the potty when I want him to. But where is his motivation for not peeing in his pants (or on the floor) in the mean time?

The completely-ready-to-be-potty-trained child and his father monkey around

Depends on what your definition of “ready” is

So the question has been raised: am I ready? It’s possible this is the appropriate next thing to ask a woman who whines incessantly about how long she’s been pregnant. Are you ready to not be pregnant anymore, along with what that hopefully means?

Well, define ready. There are a lot of different ways one may or may not be ready:

Emotionally

Physically

In terms of practical arrangements, like child care

In terms of stuff purchased

The room may be ready

You might actually have the hospital bag packed

Or you know, birth announcements prepped and a month’s worth of healthy dinners frozen in the freezer. (AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Tell another one!)

So am I ready?

When I was pregnant with Grey, I did more emotional and physical preparation. I got this book on hypnobirthing and read it and listened to the accompanying CD and imagined myself floating on a strawberry-colored bed of mist. I took childbirth classes and infant CPR classes. I read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” religiously.

This time? Well, not so much. I think the hypnobirthing would be a good idea to freshen up on — I have a suspicion that it honestly did help me have a relatively easy labor. But on the other hand, I have one easy labor under my belt and USUALLY second children are easier yet!

I have done an epic fail on any and all classes. I’ve called like 8 times, but the woman’s never in and, uh, then I forget for another week. And “What to Expect” makes me roll my eyes half the time.

And then there’s all those practical things. I finally have my “emergency call” list set up for childcare — a great relief let me assure you. But I don’t have my “Feeding and Care of A Grey” document ready to go (which only seems fair — after all, folks should know where we’ve stashed the super-cool “You’re a big brother now” bribes in order for them to be effective.)

I moved Grey to his “big boy carseat” and washed the baby carseat… but it’s still in mystifying pieces on the laundry room floor. And I have yet to unearth the bases for it, or install them in the car. If I discover that WHOOPS! Babytime! I suspect that my husband will be rather frustrated at the need to assemble the fiddly bits before heading off to the hospital. In completely and utterly unrelated news, I read today that one in three hundred women has given birth in the car.

Then there’s the stuff element. I mean, I remember a vast amount of getting ready for Grey taking place at Babies-R-Us with steam rising off my credit-card from yet another quick-draw. With this baby? I, um, did some laundry (I am such a second-time parent. Did I buy special hypoallergenic laundry detergent. Nooo…..). And I bought some eensy weensy newborn diapers. I washed off the teethers this baby won’t need for a few months anyway. I located the truly incredible stock of Lanolin and nursing pads I accumulated last time. I keep feeling like I’m missing something, but the truth of the matter is I have pretty much everything I might need from the previous go-round. Babies don’t use much in the way of disposable goods, other than diapers. (If they’re breastfed — when bottle time comes I’ll need to buy all new bottles because the ones I have aren’t BPA-free because we didn’t worry about things like that back then.) The only thing I think I might even like is a new, “all his own” coming home outfit for this baby (which task of obtaining I have assigned to my mother-in-law). But holy shamoly do I have a lot of 0 – 3 month outfits.

And then the hospital bag. Last time I had it ready to go like 2 months ahead of time. I had “focus” pictures in it, massage lotion, speakers for my iPod, a few favorite CDs for the various moods I might be in, a hand-stamped sign informing all and sundry that Grey was going to be nourished by me alone, an overly optimistic going-home outfit for me, a carefully selected nightgown for the hospital and several thousand calories worth of granola bars. Even the bag itself was hand-painted with Grey’s theme of dragonflies.

This time? Well, I’ve gotten a bag out of the closet. It’s the Cozumel bag. It’s currently on the floor in my room. Last time, I wasn’t in the hospital long before giving birth, didn’t want music, didn’t want to look at anything and didn’t want my husband to touch me. After the birth, well, the hospital had GREAT chocolate cake. And I was pretty busy with this baby-thing that kept needing me for stuff.

So I do need to pack a hospital bag. It should include:
*Hairbrush and hair ties
*Camera (last minute addition)
*Cell phone
*Less optimistic going home for me outfit
*Outfit for baby
*Several thousand calories worth of granola bars (what if they aren’t serving chocolate cake?)
*Lots of space for the loot I’ll be bringing home with me from the hospital

I really should be able to pull most of this stuff together in a few hour’s focused attention.

As far as the hand-stamped sign, birth announcements and preprepped dinners go? Yeah… right. I’ll let you know about that.

Look at that ginormous belly -- and that little boy standing next to me fit in it at one point. Please do not look at my chin/s. — Look at that ginormous belly -- and that little boy standing next to me fit in it at one point. Please do not look at my chin.

What we learn from children’s books

Every night Grey has not been direly disobedient, we read him three books. His favorite books are the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer and this terrible ’70s era book of nursery rhymes that neither Skarps nor I can stand. Lately, though, he’s been branching out.

Last night, he asked me to read “Chrysanthemum” by Kevin Henkes to him. The eponymous young mouse in question is doted upon and adored by her parents, who think her name is absolutely perfect, just like her. Then she goes to school where Rita and Jo and Victoria make fun of her because her name is soooo long and flowers live in the dirt! And Chrysanthemum “wilts”. Every night she comes home depressed to her mom and dad and they give her her favorite foods and play parcheesi and apply hugs and reinforcement and tell her they love her (while reading child psychology books in the background).

This is not actually a story for the kids. This is a story for the parents doing the reading. This is about sending your child to school, and having other kids be mean to your child. This is about the limits of what parental love can make all better.

Man, is that a hard lesson to hear. You want to think that your child will never want for love or affection because you have SO MUCH love for them that it will clearly meet all the needs they might ever have for love or affection. But no. Starting about now, Grey wants friends to like him too. Someday, he will care very very much for friends. And then it will be lovers. Some day he will want someone to love him in a way his parents cannot. And some very distant day he will take a partner and their bond will be greater than our bond.

Ouch. All this from a book about a mouse named Chrysanthemum.

This morning the time came to go to daycare. This used to be a very un-fraught transaction, but lately he hasn’t wanted to go to daycare. I worried that it was about the particular daycare. But the latter part of this week he’s going to his backup daycare, and has had the same reaction. This morning he was weeping BITTER TEARS about having to go to daycare (well, and because I turned off the tv). I asked him why he didn’t want to go to daycare.

“No friends.”

That sound you just heard? That was my heart breaking. Because you know what? There’s nothing I can do about it when Grey is the outsider, and other kids don’t want to play with him. He’s so friendly and outgoing. But he’s 2 still, and his social skills still involve pretending to be a kitty cat. And sometimes other kids don’t want to play with him. And that is life.

I moved a lot when I was a girl. I was in 6 different schools by the time I was 9. I spent a lot of time not having friends, even though I was also pretty outgoing and friendly. I was weird. I was an outsider. I read too much and used big words. They already had friends. I think I am a happy adult, but there were some very bitter moments of loneliness in my childhood. And my parents loved me with all the love it was possible to give, and supported me. I think that’s how I got to happy adult anyway. But oh! My son. How sad it is to realize that so very soon, the vast depths of my love for you will not be able to make everything ok.

This is what happens every night while dinner is being made