Experience, But Not Expertise

As we both struggled to get our little ones bundled and out the door at the end of preschool this morning, I commiserated with another mother. All the other kids has already gone, but our two were sitting in their cubbies, ignoring our pleas.

"Louisa's been expressing her non-compliance lately," I said. Which is true. For example, earlier this morning, she insisted that she wanted to ride her bee to school. Here's a visual:

Needless to say, it's not our chosen mode of transportation, except between her bedroom and the living room. I had to literally pry her off the thing, screaming, so that I could then wrestle her into her puffy jacket, to get her out the door. Life is so unfair.

So, anyway, the mom of Louisa's co-conspirator in non-compliance says to me: "but at least you know what to do. I mean, you are experienced."

Ah, yes. That. The assumption that because she's not my first (or second) toddler, that I somehow know how to mind-meld my two-and-a-half-year-old into doing what I say. Ha.

So here's a story to prove that experience does not always equal expertise.

Louisa wore undies to school today for the first time. Hurrah! She's been using the potty since the summer at home, to varying degrees of success. But until now, I didn't have the confidence to send her to school in a pull-up. I was worried she'd pee all over the place. In fact, just last week she peed in the stroller while I was collecting the big girls from school.

This is only interesting because I did a better job toilet training my two older kids. They were both trained within a few days. We took away the diapers, they graduated to big girl underpants (except at night), praised them for their successes, and we never looked back. Done. I knew how to toilet train so well that I'd practically given seminars on the subject, to eager, newer parents who wanted to know how it's done.

And then, along comes child number three, and I do everything wrong. I started too early, because she had a bad rash and, let's face it, I was just so sick of diapers. Then, since she didn't really seem ready, I kept the potty around as an option, instead of an obligation. I put her in pull-ups whenever there was a chance of a possible accident, rather than just letting her get the hang of holding it in, and discovering the consequences. I even (shame) yelled at her, once, for peeing on the rug. And once for peeing on my bed. Major no-no. The potty training stressed me out this time, which for sure was the root of my trouble.

How could I have made all these mistakes, knowing what I know? No answer there, except that each kid is different, I suppose, and so is the parent, by the time the next developmental milestone arises. I keep thinking about that next approaching milestone for Louisa, which, unlike potty training, was actually very stressful the first time(s) we went through it with our older kids: the move from the crib to the bed. Once they can get out of bed, all bets are off. Parents lose.

So I've been wondering, is there any way we can maybe we can just skip straight from sleeping in the crib to sleep-away camp? Advice accepted. After all, you're all experts.

On Toddler Routines and Mommy-Amulets

One time, I bought Louisa a whole-wheat roll at the farmers' market. Thereafter, I couldn't walk by the Bread Alone stand without her demanding, "I want a roll!" The same thing happened at Whole Foods. Don't every buy this girl a roll! It became a real problem, until I realized I could use it to my advantage. While I sometimes say no, just so you don't think she always gets what she wants, I also sometimes take her to the market at meal or snack time, get her the roll, and then can peacefully do my shopping while she munches. Strategies.

Louisa has me thinking about routines. She is something of a stickler, and all it takes is doing things a certain way, twice, for it to become a routine in her mind.

Mealtime: She wakes up every day begging for "waffle and milk". Before nap, she asks for yogurt and "gra-o-la". A sandwich must be sunflower butter and jelly: this last one only started two weeks ago when I sent her this type of sandwich to school. I also sent her sliced apples. She now expects both of these things to be in her school lunch every day. 

Sleep: Before I leave the room I must cover her with a particular blanket, identify the location of the prized puppy, "hug-kiss", turn on the fan, and sing her a song. 

These are steadfast rules. Do not mess with them.

Josh comes home from a bike ride. Louisa says, "go take a shower!" We all laugh, thinking she is accusing him of being stinky. But really, she's just telling him what comes next. 

Similarly, when I come home from an outing, she enthusiastically says to her babysitter, "Goodbye!", expecting the sitter to leave on the spot.

It's amazing to watch her now as she's trying so ardently to understand the world. She will stop in her tracks to listen to a sound that she can't identify. She wants to make sure, most of all, that she is safe. 

I think the  routines are her way of ordering the chaos. The category "breakfast" is simply too wide. "Waffle and milk" is something she can manage, hold onto, and expect. 

I worry about me being an essential part of her routine. Obviously, I am inextricably so. But do I want to be her amulet? "No, Mommy do it," is inevitable, and as a mother, it can be exhausting (the implication being: not Daddy, or not the babysitter).

 I feel for those parents who can't get a break because their kids so adamantly demand them. I've known parents with nightly hour-long bedtime routines (which quite frankly, would send me over the edge). A friend recently told me her kids, both school age, won't go to sleep until she (not their dad) puts them to bed, so she hasn't travelled on her own in years. That's hard. But we each make the choices that work for us, and everyone has a different level of tolerance for their child being upset, which is what tends to happen when routines are disrupted.

I try to remember that this mommy-need, like most else about taking care of kids, is fleeting.  I was the nursing mom who didn't separate overnight from my babes until they were nearly weaned. To me, this was more about more than having an upset baby, or needing freedom. I had to feed and comfort the baby, and the artificial means of doing so, so I could go away, were more trouble than just sticking together. As I've always said in my defense: this time isn't long. It's only, say, two years out of the hopefully 80 or 90 that I will have on the planet. And it's two years of closeness to my baby that I can't ever get back. 

As Louisa screams from her bed every morning, "Mommy! Mama! Mommy!" the sounds of which her father can't seem to hear at all (and no wonder), I only have to look to my older kids, begging us to let them navigate the city on their own, to know that this, too, won't last.

A Gun: The Perfect Gift For Any 5-Year-Old

Did you see the story about the five-year-old who accidentally killed his two-year-old sister with his "My First Rifle," which the family "kept in a corner" of their home? The boy's gun was had been given to him as a gift--a common practice, apparently, in many communities in the US. The manufacturer of the child's gun, a "Crickett rifle", has a "kids' corner" on its website.

Or maybe you heard the story--also this past week--about the Florida 2-1/2-year-old who shot and killed his mother? The boy's father was right there when it happened--he just couldn't get to the child quick enough to prevent the gun from shooting.

I can see, in a way, exactly how this happened. Last week my two-year-old asked me to fill her water cup. In the two seconds it took me to do that, she grabbed my laptop off the table. I turned around, still screwing the lid on the cup, as she smiled and said, "No Loulou!" while dropping the computer hard on the floor. So hard that the computer's screen is completely and utterly broken. ("Oh no. Bow-ken," she said. Cute.) I was right there. I'm usually careful with keeping things out of her reach. But I couldn't prevent her from this random and irrational little outburst of toddleritis. It's a good thing it wasn't a gun.

The bottom line is that I don't get guns for kids, or near kids. I just don't get it. I know I'm full of coastal-urban-intellectual bias. That is to say, I fully recognize that I have trouble understanding the need for guns in people's homes at all. I'm on the far side of a cultural divide that sometimes seems unbridgeable. But being that I live in the same country in which these awful events are continuing to occur, it makes me think about our nation's child safety standards. Shouldn't it be obvious that it's dangerous to have guns near kids?

It need not be said that many more firearm deaths are happening on a daily basis in the hands of older children--i.e. teens. [To get a sense of the incredible danger that guns pose to adolescents with ready access to them, listen to This American Life's two-part series on Chicago's Harper High School. It is eye-opening, and terrifying.] But when it comes to young children, we have expectations and laws about keeping their environments safe.

Among items that have had major recalls for safety concerns in this country are: fleece drawstring hoodies, toys with magnets that a child could swallow, and drop-side cribs. None of these items are designed to kill children, mind you. They are all usually safe if used correctly and under supervision of an adult. But this is exactly the same argument that gun-rights advocates make about guns for and near children.

We know that children are fallible--they don't yet have fully developed brains. The fact of the matter is, no adult is perfect either, or perfectly attached to their child at all times of day. It doesn't make sense to buy a gift for a child that can kill. And it doesn't make sense to keep deadly weapons in any home where a child lives.

Why this is even up for debate in our safety-concious nation remains a mystery to me.

Goodbye, So Long, Farewell to Music Together

"Hello everybody, we're so glad to see you..."

Yesterday I graduated from Music Together. It took me a long time--my first class was about 9 years ago. Louisa and I took it together three times. I would guess that I probably took it three times each with Bella and Ruby, too...although they were close enough in age that their classes overlapped (we went all three together), so maybe it was less. In any case, that's a LOT of singing the Hello Song.

Other than this one class, I was never big on baby and toddler classes. Ruby was full of energy and not into sitting in a circle, so after Bella started preschool, we stopped going to music and did a movement 'class' (indoor playground) at the Y once a week, when she was about 18 months. For New Yorkers, it's hard to know what to do with energetic toddlers in the winter. It's not uncommon for toddlers here to be enrolled in such classes as: soccer, cooking, art, gymnastics, yoga, ballet, etc. Some kids go to a class every day, or even more than one a day. But not mine.

So what kept me going back to Music Together?

• Routine: It's nice to have a place to go with a toddler, for routine, for a change of scenery, and for socialization. Especially for Louisa, the poor third child (see: Different Child, Different Parent.)
• Friends: Bella and I first went to MT with Missy and Anna, our original mom/ daughter friends. Back then, when Missy and I each only had one kid, it was great to have a scheduled weekly place to bond with another mom.
• Teacher: Erin Lee Kelly taught all three of my girls (even though there was a 6.5-year break). She can rock out with the toddlers, I'm telling you. She also has a lovely voice and a talent for getting nannies to sing rounds. We tried another MT teacher once--and then we went back to Erin. She's the best.
• Songs: Yes, the songs are hokey, but they're also catchy and have a real nice hippy vibe. (Josh jokes that Uncle Jerry is Jerry Garcia.) Louisa is so attached to the music that we are often held hostage to her musical tastes in the car: if that MT cd that we've all heard a thousand and a half times isn't playing, she will cry until we put it on. On the bright side, we know how to make her stop crying in the car.
• Music Enrichment: All three of my kids love music. Granted, their dad, grandma, and uncles are musicians, so it's an important part of our family culture. But they each love music in their own way. Bella likes to sing, Ruby likes to pick out songs on the piano and on the guitar, and Louisa hums all day long--often imitating strings of notes that she hears, just as she was taught to do at MT. The early experimentation with instruments, rhythms, and voice reminds me of the way that my kids experimented with art-making using a variety of materials in their Reggio Emilia preschool. It encourages kids to take in music viscerally, and to take ownership of the experience of music-making. Okay, maybe that sounds like a load of BS. But it's actually engaging and fun.

Despite all this, I must confess that lately I was finding it harder and harder to get myself to MT. The class is full of nannies, who seem lovely but who don't provide me with companionship. It's a long walk, and I'm often rushing to get there because of whatever meshugas is happening at home early on a Thursday morning. And it's getting to be nice outside, finally, so we can go to the playground for physical exercise instead. 

We're not done with music: we've just started six weeks of Bim Bom Baby, led by Cantor Shayna Postman, at our shul. The first one was this week, and Louisa loved it. Next fall, she'll start preschool. But Music Together is finally a part of my past. 

"Goodbye, so long, farewell, my friends...."

2 Planes, 2 Buses, 3 Airports, 3 Kids

Thoughts on bringing a gaggle of children (okay, two relatively mature elementary school kids and one energetic 23-month-old a month shy of needing to have her own airplane seat) on a vacation that involved two airplanes, two buses, three airports, and the better part of two travel days:

First, no matter what happens on said journey, you did this to yourself. You decided that taking this gaggle of children on vacation was worth your while, your money, your time, and your headaches. So harness your patience, and breathe.

Second, in any given public place, such as the transfer bus from the airport parking to the terminal, fifty percent of the strangers sitting beside you will find your toddler cute, and fifty percent will wish she doesn't exist, at least not in the same bus at the same time (especially if she's nap-deprived and crying: check). Smile, if you feel like it, at the pro-child contingent. Pretend the other half doesn't exist.

Third, a know-it-all flight attendant, on seeing your toddler cough-choking on apple slices that she is so ravenous for, she forgets to chew, will feel obliged to swoop in, push a handful a tissues in your face, and offer a stern recrimination: "Cover her mouth or you will get the entire plane sick." When you tell the attendant that the child is not sick, just a normal ravenous choking toddler, she will roll her eyes at the horrible offending passenger: you. 

Fourth, toddlers who are used to sleeping in cribs don't like to sleep on laps in planes. Not one wink. All day long. "No nap, Mommy." Mommy may feel pangs of jealousy that Daddy is reading a book, while she is wrestling with overtired Toddler. But whenever Toddler is passed to Daddy, she says, "I want Mommy." See point number one, and breathe.

Fifth, children over the age of six are remarkably able to entertain themselves on planes. Anyone who has children approaching that age should think long and hard about having another one, which would revert said parents back into the darkness of having to use airplane lavatory changing tables. And having to keep active toddlers from touching anything in said lavatory while washing hands post diaper-change. Just sayin'.

Sixth, people who paid for an expensive shared airport transfer don't appreciate having a toddler on their bus. Or having to wait while the toddler's parents wrangle with a carseat that is not designed to be attached to a bus seat that has no seatbelts. Or having to wait even longer while those same parents complain to the bus company for promising a carseat and then providing one that is borderline unsafe. 

Seventh, and this may be the most important point: being away from home with your gaggle of kids is a hoot. Frustrating and exhausting at times, for sure. But out in the world, showing your kids what you like to do for fun, and without the ringing phone or demanding schedule or homework, you might just remember the joy of being human. And of being a parent. Feeling gratitude for our good fortune to know such joy.