Baby Haters?

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

Actual Facebook status of a college (clearly childless) friend:

Note to all you parents out there: if you can’t get your baby to stop crying for more than 30 seconds at a time throughout a 2 1/2 hour flight, maybe you should hold off on flying because people like me hate people like you. On an unrelated note, I think it’s about time for a vasectomy.

After a mix of comments, none of which were a hand reaching out of his screen and smacking him, he followed up with:

Listen, I’m not anti child, I am anti shitty parent. If you can’t shut your kid up for more than 30 seconds on a 3 hour flight, I guarantee you that all 20 people sitting within earshot from you think you aren’t trying hard enough.

Am I naive to be shocked by this? Am I so far gone into parenthood that I’ve forgotten how people without kids think and feel? Did I feel this way? Is it normal?

My question to him was, “How exactly should these shitty parents make their baby shut up?” I haven’t gotten an answer yet.

Do childless people really think parents can make our kids and babies do anything? Or is it just a matter of not thinking it through? Obviously we can’t make them do anything. If we could, parenting would be easy. We could make them eat what they’re served, make them go on the potty, make them behave in public places, make them go to sleep and make them stop crying. If only!

Then again, that would mean that our children had no wills of their own, that they were not their own people, that they were not capable of exerting themselves or having independent thought. I’m the first to raise my hand to tell you that my kids’ will and independent thought are often entirely frustrating to me, but I’m still happy that they have them!

As for the crying baby on the plane, I hope that before I had kids I was smart enough to know that despite how entirely annoying to me a crying baby might be, there’s nothing that the parents could do about it. Those poor parents were surely trying all they could think of, and certainly felt the judgement of all the people around them. I’m positive that the parents were more stressed and unhappy about the whole ordeal than anyone else, baby included.

As for my college friend, not sure if I want him to get that vasectomy immediately, or to have a baby of his own!

Thank You

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

I want you all to know that I read every comment I get here and on my FB page and every single email. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the feedback, support, advice and points of view. There are too many awesome points for me to respond to each one, so I’m writing this as a general response:

Yes, I am still going to go forward with having L evaluated by someone who is not that douche-bag doctor we saw the other day. My objective is to find out what makes L tick, so I can help him tick in a way that ~~will not piss me off~~ is more socially acceptable.
You’re right, all kids behave worse at home. I should be happy and proud that L can behave so well at school. It does mean, at the very least, that he’s not a psychopath, sociopath, or any other kind of terrible-path. And it also shows that he trusts me enough to never really sell him on eBay.
I will try to look at L’s ransacking the baking/junkfood cabinet and the freezer at dawn today as a step towards his becoming an independent, self-reliant man. (Damn, some of you are very glass-half-full people!)
I had an aha moment today when I read this comment:

Dean | Life Coach

….I’ve found my kids doing the exact same things. They ignore rules they’ve known for years, make messes just for the sake of being messy, and misbehave for me while acting the angel for everyone else. I’ve also come to realize that every time they act this way, it’s because they know they can get away with it. I realize I’ve fallen into the parent trap of frustrated speech, not following through, and trying to plead with them to do what I told them. When I follow through with discipline and kind words, all goes back to normal…

Dean is totally right on. Things were bad with L a year ago, I got really strict and mean, things got better. Things were so good that I thought I was out of the woods. I let my guard down. I let small things slide. Small things snowballed into an avalanche of bad, and now I’m here. Time to bring back mean mommy. This will not be fun, but will probably provide blog-fodder.

So, watch out, L! Mean-Mommy is back. And Daddy’s going to bring back Hammer-T. I will try very, very, very hard not to react emotionally. I will suppress my inner combustible self. I will be nonplussed, calm, and mean.

Epic Brilliance, or Possible Idiot

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

I may be a genius. Or maybe I’m just emerging from the rock I’ve been under. Either I just figured out a great little trick, or I’ve been unaware that every other parent out there already knows this, and how could I not?

Some background:

L is happy to have a bucket of water dumped on his head pretty much anytime, anywhere. The upside to this penchant is that he’s been happy in the bath since he was a baby. (Although he was decidedly unhappy in his first bath, if memory serves.) Washing his face and hair was never a problem. Then came S, who is quite delighted to be in the water. Is happy as anything playing with the toys and bubbles and washcloths. But woe be to the person who tries to touch her! And may the person who pours water over her head be forever damned!

I’m the meaner parent, so pouring water over S’s head is my job. My wanting-to-complete-the-task impulse is stronger than my feel-bad-for-miserable-toddler impulse. (This is not a surprise.) Luckily, S has had barely any hair until pretty recently. Not sure if you remember or not, but not long ago I made the comparison between S’s hair and that of a certain celebrity:

I'm not kidding. S was a dead-ringer for the Captain.

Good thing for S, her hair has since grown out a bit, into a toddler-chic shag do. Suddenly she needs conditioner. This involves so many more cups of water poured over S’s head. So much more misery. My Efficient v. Empathetic scale started to move.

Here comes the stroke of genius (or my personal discovery that the sky is blue):

I use leave in conditioner in my hair, why not use it in S’s?

This has changed my life. Well, my evenings. Well, the evenings in which I bathe my children. If you don’t do it already, try it!

Let’s Have a Revolution

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

You know what is absolutely not necessary in the world? Moms who tell you that their children never have had a tantrum. Especially when this comment comes as part of a conversation with another mom about how our almost 2-year-olds are suddenly willful, crying lunatics. Kids who have never thrown a fit? Puh-leeze! What utter bullshit!

This scenario happened to me at a party recently. The other mom has one child, almost 2 years old. She just experienced a mortifying public tantrum and we were discussing disciplining and consequences in public. A tricky topic for any mom, right? Something we can all empathize with and understand, right? Who hasn’t been totally mortified in the supermarket? I’ll tell you who. The little-miss-perfect mom standing to my left. Allegedly.

This mom, and other sancti-mommies like her, claims that none of her three children, ranging in age from 8-14, has ever had a tantrum or embarrassing public episode. Trying hard not to kick her in the knees or say something really, really snarky, I told her that she has some “special kids.”

Special, as in we should all be concerned for these poor catatonic children. Are they malnourished or in need of medical intervention? Is that the explanation for their apparent lack of a will? Or should I be concerned because they are being raised by a mother who is so desperate to appear “perfect” that she needs to tell strangers (who are openly admitting to their own kids’ horribleness) that her kids are beyond reproach to the point of being scarcely human?

Meanwhile, the other mom’s face held a crestfallen expression of parental failure. Why isn’t her kid behaving as well as this other person’s? Incredibly, she actually asked this crazy bitch for tricks and advice. The only thing more obnoxious than saying that your three kids have never thrown a fit, is taking credit for that nonsense. This mom was only too happy to share her perfect parenting secrets.

I then completely scandalized her by telling a fairly benign story of how I was once so mad at L while we were driving that I not only pulled the car over and stopped, but got out and walked far away. You should have seen the look on perfect-mom’s face at that one. You’d think by her reaction that I told her I had filled a sack with babies and kittens, tied some bricks to it and threw it into the river.

Can’t we all admit to our own struggles already? Why is it a secret that kids (and all people, really) can suck sometimes? And it’s not just parenting. Have you ever told someone something you’re struggling with only to be met with total righteousness?

“I’m really having a hard time watching what I eat and getting to the gym.”

“Oh really? My body is a temple and I couldn’t possibly eat one (organic, vegan, and sprouted) bite more than what I need to keep it working perfectly. And I’m just naturally energetic and disciplined. I’m up at 4AM for my daily 7 mile jog. I also do yoga 5 times per week, spin class twice and swim 8 miles on Sundays. Why don’t you just do that?”

“Fuck you.”

Can we have a national coming out day for average people? We can all proudly announce that we are good at some things sometimes. People could hold up signs that say “My kids watch TV!” and “I ate a pint of ice cream yesterday!” and “My kids are not gifted but I like them most of the time anyway!” I might need to pioneer a movement.

Tired Kids = A Good Weekend

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

I love me some Memorial Day Weekend! Coming out of what felt like weeks of cold and rain to a hot weekend at a house full of kids with an in-ground pool is the only way to go. The big kids, my 6-year-old nieces and 4-year-old L (yup, he’s one of the big kids!) got to run free in the huge backyard without adult supervision. Completely unaccustomed to any kind of freedom like this, they stayed outside, out of the way and out of trouble just about every minute. Unless they were eating, which they did with abandon, or swimming.

Ahhh, swimming. There is nothing like a pool to knock noisy, hyper kids out. Dinners were blissfully quiet as the children worked to keep their heads off the table. Not a single second of resistance as we packed them off for bed before 7PM both nights. This is what kids must have been like in the old days when they were busy tilling the fields all day. None of the usual sass, noisiness, constant motion and non-stop talking that plague us poor parents of modern children.

As beautiful as the sleepiness and quiet are, the best part of the pool is actually playing with the kids in it. Nieces 1&2 excitedly showing off their very best handstands which are really just spastic feet splashing about while the feet’s owner tries desperately to keep her top half under water. And L, nothing is better than L in a pool! He was the only kid brave enough to jump off the diving board, which he must have done 12,856 times. He couldn’t possibly love swimming any more. His face just glows with joy.

We still have to work on S, who refuses to be outside without shoes on and therefore was in the pool with shoes on. She also does not like getting splashed – not a great combo with all those other kids splashing about. Luckily, there were enough adults who preferred to not be in the pool, so T and I were able to pawn S off on them and we got to play all day in the pool too.

Even the speeding ticket T got on our trip home hasn’t dampened my weekend. (Although he is very grumpy about it.) We stopped for roadside burgers, dogs and ice cream before getting back home where we were able to get both kids into bed within 15 minutes of our arrival.

Life is good.

Playground Gangs

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

I think it’s hard to appreciate kids who are older than your oldest. Just like the mom who is expecting her first really has no idea what’s coming, I have no idea what comes after 4. When I see a group of 10-year-old boys running around on the playground I feel like I’m witnessing a gang of bad kids. Chances are these kids are anything but. I’m sure they’re well-loved, totally normal 10-year-olds and not a group of thugs at all. But they think it’s funny to get L to repeat things like “fart-butt” and therefore I see hardened criminal kids. I’m certain they have tattoos and carry weapons.

This under-appreciation starts well before having kids. It’s the same feeling that causes non-parents to think things like “my kids would never do that,” or “my car will never look like that,” or “those people are doing it all wrong and I will be a better mom than that, easily!” I thought I outgrew this ridiculous sentiment when I had a baby of my own and he did those things, my car looked like that, and I was clearly doing it all wrong. But I didn’t. My no-clue-ness just shifted, and continues to shift to children just slightly older than my own.

When L was born we lived downstairs from a family who had a 1.5-year-old boy. He was an adorable blur of a thing, always on the run, wearing mischievous dimples and leaving a wake of destruction behind him. He was the most wild thing I had ever known. His parents came down to meet our new baby, with him in tow. Did I mind if he came in? YES! I totally minded the germy wild thing in my house with my precious new baby, but I said no, of course not.

This was before our house was taken over and redecorated care of Playschool and Mattel. The bookcase in the living room still had our books on it, even on the bottom shelves. The coffee table was still a safe place to put a cup of coffee. We had no idea what a 1.5-year-old boy was capable of in such a setting. They were in the house for maybe 3 minutes. He ran past our legs at the door and Tasmanian-deviled the place.

This “terrible child” went straight into the nursery, still perfect and new, and ripped every brand new board book off the shelves, threw every brand new toy out of the toy box. His “negligent parents” didn’t even bat an eyelash. They didn’t apologize profusely and catch him and leave immediately. Of course they didn’t, I realize now. They were happy he was ~~ripping apart~~ playing with actual kid’s toys and not destroying our living room. Not yet anyway. When they left, I remember thinking how out of control he was. I seriously under-appreciated that toddler. 10 months later, when L started walking, running actually, I realized how wrong I was.

Now that I really understand this older-than-my-oldest under-appreciation phenomenon, I try to avoid putting L and myself into that situation. S doesn’t have any friends, unless she’s lucky enough that some other kid has a younger sibling. I can’t really bring L around moms who just have a toddler. I see their thoughts written all over their faces. They see L as wild, out of control, a little hoodlum. And even though I might think the same things sometimes, it’s not OK for other people to think it.

One day when L is 10 and he’s actually playing with a 4-year-old on the playground, I’m sure I’ll think that he’s being sweet and inclusive. I probably won’t notice that he’s laughing at this little kid repeating bad words. And I certainly won’t notice the dirty looks I’m getting from the young mom hovering nearby, thinking I’m negligent because I’m sitting and chatting to another grown-up rather than intervening and parenting my little thug. But for now, even though my car looks like that, I still foster the delusion that my sweet little L will never run with a gang like those boys.

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Not All Things are Equal

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

I have two children and I’m supposed to love them equally. (Isn’t that what good moms do?) While I do love them both, I certainly don’t love them equally. There is almost nothing similar at all in my feelings for them, except that visceral attachment that keeps me up at night with worries about rare childhood diseases, teenage driving, freak accidents and abductions.

S is easy to love and I love her with abandon. I can hardly look her way without smiling, beaming. It’s all I can do to let her play or color and not scoop her up and smother her in kisses and squeezes. There is no challenge, no risk to loving her as much as I do (except the horrible and unlikely things mentioned above). I am smitten. This is epic stuff.

My love for L is different. It’s wrought with worry and riddled with frustration. He breaks my heart, little pieces of it all the time. As soon as I lay my heart out on the ground for him, he steps on it. I simply can’t have the same reckless abandon with my love for L as I do for S.

So what am I going to say when they ask me who is my favorite? Certainly S is easier. Her disposition is pure sunshine while L’s has some more complicated storm fronts. I sometimes can’t help but find myself wishing for two S-like kids. How easy it would be! We could have all the family harmony and good times I imagined having with my kids. When L is a dark storm cloud, I can’t help but wish he was just easier. Why can’t he be more like S? Some families get two S-like kids. Seems unfair.

Then I feel awful for thinking that. Would I really wish L away? Of course not. His exuberance and intensity are amazing, but that same intensity is also the wall I bang my head against daily. It’s the worry that I’m not a good enough parent for him. It’s the worry that he’s going to struggle. Why can’t he just be more like S? Why can’t he be more like the other kids I know? Why can’t he ever just acquiesce, just get along, just sit still?

And then I feel more awful for thinking that. Here I am, mom to two wonderful, healthy kids. Some moms have real problems. I need to somehow put away my image of what our family life could be, and accept and appreciate what it is. I am grateful for my healthy kids. But wouldn’t it be nice to have the kids come into our bed on a weekend morning to hang out, read stories? We could easily do that with S, but never with L. Wouldn’t it be nice to walk somewhere with both kids and feel confident that L isn’t going to suddenly dart away and disappear in a crowd? Wouldn’t it be nice to play a fun game and then let the game come to an end without the inevitable tantrum that follows? Wouldn’t it be nice for me to ever be able to relax in front of other people and not worry that L will hit their children, hit me, throw a fit, swear, break stuff or go ballistic in some other embarrassing way?

As much as I might wish for it, I feel like if L were the easy kid I long for he’d lose some of his awesomeness. The very same traits that give me the most difficulty, also bring the most joy. When he points his energy and intensity towards good rather than evil, the awesomeness that follows is unmatched.

So what am I going to say when they ask me who is my favorite? I’ll probably tell them that I love them both the same.

Can’t Fool Me

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

L is learning some tricks from his Dad. After years of successfully telling L to “look over there!” while stealing a french fry off his plate, T has finally passed on his superior sense of tomfoolery.

Yesterday, during a rousing game of Monkey in the Middle, L used the line “Look! A moose!” several times in his attempts to outplay us. This was cute, but made awesome by the fact that about 20 minutes after coming back inside, T said “Look! A moose!” at an actual moose that was crossing our lawn. (Next time we’re outside and L tells me to look for a moose, I might just look for a moose. That thing was HUGE and I’d have to somehow rescue my babies.)

This morning for some reason L wants to trick me into thinking there’s a mouse running around the house. I’m hoping that he isn’t having another animal premonition. The funny thing this time is that he’s impersonating the mouse. He still drops his S’s off the beginning of words so his mouse imitation isn’t exactly convincing:

‘Queak, ‘queak! Mommy, there’s a mouse!

Romance

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

Yesterday was our 8 year wedding anniversary. I told L in the morning that we were going to cook something special for Daddy and explained it was our anniversary.

Throughout the day we had some interesting conversations. Here are a few snippets:

L: Are you going to wear your married clothes for dinner?

me: You mean my wedding dress? No.

L: Why? It’s our 8 year married day!

me: Well, it’s a very fancy dress. And it doesn’t fit me anymore.

L: Oh, you got too tall?

_________________________________________________________________

In the car:

L: Are you done looking in the mirror?

me: Why? What is it you want to do back there that you don’t want me to see?

L: Am I allowed to sleep in the car, or are you going to make me stay awake?

me: You can rest if you want.

L: I’m just so tired. I need to rest so I can stay awake for the dancing part after dinner.

(I have no idea where he got the idea that there would be a dancing part.)

____________________________________________________________________

L: Are we going to sing “Happy Birthday?”

me: No. It’s not anyone’s birthday.

L: But it’s our 8 year married day! What will we sing?

me: I don’t know. What would you like to sing?

L: “Happy Birthday.”

me: To who?

L: Me, I guess. It’s not your birthday.

_____________________________________________________________________

L: I think Daddy would like Batman on his cake. And a big huge heart cookie. With frosting. And Batman on it. He told me to tell you that.

_____________________________________________________________________

In the end life got in the way of our special dinner. I ended up getting home after T; knowing I’d have two hungry kids in tow, he had made a big batch of scrambled eggs for everyone. I paired the eggs with Pinot Noir. L informed us when it was time for dancing. We danced. And sang.

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Babies Everywhere. My Ovaries are Talking to me. (Shut up, Ovaries!)

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Allison @ Motherhood, WTF?

Recently I was asked in a comment about how I made the decision to have a second baby. This is a seriously good question, especially considering the trouble I had with L over the last year. The simple answer is that having only one child was never really a consideration for me. So it wasn’t a question of if but a question of when.

Luckily we decided to try for #2 before L was 2 years old. Had I still not been pregnant by the time L morphed from sweet but challenging toddler to complete evil monster villain (somewhere around 2.5), I don’t know if I would have gone through with #2. The year from almost 3 to almost 4 was so so so hard. L was not easy to be around, to put it mildly, (way mildly – he was extremely, impossibly, unfathomably unpleasant,) but thankfully S was already here by then.

So now I have my sweet but challenging 4-year-old and my sweet 1.5-year-old and I’m done. Right? Totally. I’m completely 100% mostly almost sure of it. What more could I want? I had 2 healthy pregnancies, have two healthy kids, have one of each sex – why push my luck? Also, I can sort of see the end of the tunnel. Baby days are close(ish) to behind me. Soon I’ll have a family that can go places and do things and not be encumbered by naps, diapers, and other babyish stuff.

But babies are just so cute. Can’t argue with that logic.

Unlike normal people, I liked being pregnant and I liked the newborn phase. I love that warm little floppy helpless bundle, even if it means colic, no sleep, sore nipples and diaper blow-outs. I recognize that this feeling I have is not remotely coming from my rational brain. It’s coming from some evolutionary, biological, clock-ticking, animal place and I should know better. And I do. Mostly. Luckily, T totally knows better and has not even the slightest inclination towards having another baby.

So, back to the question of how one arrives at the decision to have or not to have another child? I don’t really have an answer for that. For having a second, we didn’t really ever consider the alternative so there was no decision process beyond timing. As far as having any more, I feel like the partner who is done has veto power over the partner who may want one more. So we’re done. Well, at least we’re shelving the topic. For now. No, really, we’re done. Almost certainly absolutely probably so.

Motherhood, WTF?

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