Parenting

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The Five Words that Saved My Sanity: “They have a Different Mommy”

We are going through an adjustment in our family.  E. has recently noticed that other children act differently than she does.  So she’s been exploring integrating any random behavior she sees into our lives.  This is lovely when she asks to sit on the toilet or says, “Mom, what I can clean?”

But…

It’s harder to know how to react when she, for example, tries screaming at me to get her way.  Or because she saw some other people at a meeting screaming at babies and running and jumping on chairs at the library, she wants to know if that’s okay so she tries it at home.  She mostly tries these behaviors out only on us and not in front of other people (it’s a safe space).

I have to admit, I have not responded the way I wanted to  these past couple of months.  My patience was very, very thin with her and I think that took its toll on our relationship.  When I realized how much I was frustrated at her, I apologized and tried to repair the damage caused by my ungracious reactions.

As I have felt better in the past couple of weeks,  I have tried to get my head around what to do with this newfound belligerent streak.  Through talking with some trusted advisors from my community of friends, I finally realized that the way I parent is weird.  In American culture, there aren’t really that many people who don’t spank their kids as their go-to form of punishment and yet expect (and better yet, actually consistently receive!) respect from them.  I know some other people who parent this way.  I hope they won’t mind if I say they are weird too.  At least in the eyes of our culture.

I find it a relief, in a way, to just realize it is a bit of an upstream swim to raise children who don’t get whatever they want but aren’t under my thumb.  Acknowledging that I am fighting more than just the strong (ahem….very strong) will of my daughter and my own pregnancy-heightened emotional reactions is really helpful to me.

Talking with dear, wise friends M. and C. from Columbus really helped me to clarify some thoughts.

Other families function however is appropriate for them, and other parents know what their limits are.  Other parents have much different limits than mine.  This is a good and healthy thing, although it is a lot for a 2 year old to process.  My two year old is amazingly smarter than I gave her credit for.  I forgot for a couple of months how verbal she is and how much she can understand.  Once I remembered that, everything got better.

As she tries out new behaviors, we talk about how the ‘desirable’ ones make her life, our life, or someone else’s life easier or better.  When she tries out a behavior that I don’t accept, it seems to play out as follows:

“MOOOMMMMYYY!!!  I SAID I WANT A COOKIE!  GIVE IT TOOOOOO ME!!!”

“Um, excuse me?!” (pause a second to adjust the screaming-interrupt tone of voice back down to regular volume).   “Do you know someone who is allowed to scream at their parents to get what they want?”

“Yeah!”

“Did you see that work for them?  Or did you see their parents get really frustrated and have a game with them about it?” (either of these outcomes seem to be a win for the child in some way)

“Mmm-hmm!”

“Well, are you allowed to scream at me?”

“No.”

“Does that get you what you want?”

“No, I have a different mommy”

“Has it ever gotten you what you want?”

“No!  I sorry Mommy.  Screaming the wrong thing.  I gonna stop it.”

 

So, I have been really impressed with my kid the past few days.  Being able to grasp the idea that something which comes naturally to you is unacceptable and won’t work is really hard.  Learning to adjust your actions on the fly is a very difficult skill.  I’m not sure I can do it as consistently as my kid can at this point.

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Ramblings About My Kiddo: Weaning and Other (Mis)adventures

Well, the last vestiges of baby-hood seem to have fallen away from my girl one by one over the past couple of months.  I think of her just three months ago and it’s like she’s a different kid.  There have been a lot of factors pushing her to change.

We have been nannying for a baby (that mother, thankfully, will be quitting her job in order to stay home with her baby.  I am so excited to welcome J.J. to the ranks of full-time parents in January even though our house will be much different without baby N.).

J. had surgery. It was a minor procedure but he was out of work for a week and a half; then his wound didn’t heal properly and he had to go back in for a repair.  Ick.

We are going to have another child! E. is going to be a big sister.  Incidentally, I started nannying just around the time the morning sickness really kicked in.  I’ve decided it’s much nicer to have crippling nausea and a newborn at separate times since they can be sort of stressful when taken both at once.

With such a sick, exhausted mommy, E. had to learn to do a lot of things for herself.  Some of her new tricks include putting her own pants on, putting on and buttoning her coat, entertaining herself with books, puzzles and other toys for an extended period of time, recognizing almost all of her letters (even though she still won’t sing the ABC song for some reason only she knows…such is the nature of the stubbornness that runs in our family…)

But probably the most significant change is that the girl is no longer nursing.  When I started breastfeeding her 2 1/2 years ago, I had no idea how important it would become to me.  I did not push her out or even get to be awake when she was born (an emergency cesarean under general anesthesia due to fetal distress but that’s another post) and so when I met her I was…a mess.  I didn’t know what to do or how to proceed.  Is that really my baby?  Who are you and why are you here?  I signed a waiver saying I don’t have gonorrhea, so why does she have that goop in her eyes?  Are you sure that’s my baby?

Then I started to nurse her.  And things started to make sense again.  Yes, she really is mine.  She began to feel like mine.  I really think the comfort of breastfeeding is what got both of us through those early months.

But now we are two and a half years in, and our nursing relationship has been steadily winding down.  She was nursing to sleep every night, then every other night, then every third night…she was sick the Monday before Thanksgiving and nursed 5 or 6 times that day and then…nothing.  She hasn’t nursed since then.  She asked me for “mommy milk” once last week but was fairly easily assuaged with some extra cuddle time.

I am so amazed by my girl and not a little daunted at the task of keeping up with her as she grows.  I hope to expand my parenting as she needs more space to be herself.  Lately she’s been a bit squished as she pushes at the boundaries.  The trick seems to be to find a way to let her grow into who God is making her without doing her the disservice of allowing her two-year-old emotional whims to determine how all of us will be with each other (I think getting overly frustrated and reacting to a child from that place shows them they are in charge just as much as caving completely and giving them whatever they want).  And then with that completely figured out, I hope to bring about world peace…my only chance at not going crazy in the next few years is that one of these two goals is slightly more attainable than the other.    😉

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Trusting my Instincts for the Long Haul

Everyone who makes the choice not to let their child cry until they fall asleep is likely to hear lots of ‘helpful’ (read: well-meaning and honestly given but not actually helpful) advice on the subject.  I know I did.

“You’re spoiling her.  She’s manipulating you!”

“Babies cry.  It’s what they do!  Leave her alone.  She’ll figure it out.”

“If you don’t teach her to fall asleep on her own, she’s not going to learn.”

There are many other variations on this theme, but you get the idea.  Someone I respect very much says often, “Young children don’t manipulate.  That part of their brain is not even formed yet.  They learn cause and effect.”  I believe this is true.  Many parents hold that children cry, especially around bedtime, and that if you pick them up, they will learn that crying makes you pick them up.  This is a respectable point of view.  I think there is another cause and effect behind that, though, which I have chosen to value first.  I mean that I want my daughter to understand that I will be with her, that I will respond to her compassionately, that she can trust me.  Because someday I will hope for all of those things from her and it makes sense to me to model them consistently.  Babies do cry.  The average newborn cries something like 2-3 hours per day.  I get that.  But if I am going to teach my child to be compassionate and to care when other people are crying, I want her to learn that I will care when she cries.  So we have a rule in our house:  no-one cries alone if they don’t want to (the ‘if they don’t want to part’ is mostly for my introverted husband).

The main thing that I want to address here is that last piece of advice, though, because I’ve been hearing it for two and a half years.  And in the back of my mind I have doubted myself and thought, Maybe all these people are right.  Maybe I am just getting caught up in some hippie crap and causing my daughter emotional dependence issues.  But I had some very good support that encouraged me to listen to my baby and myself.  So I pressed on.

And the other night, the strangest thing happened…

E. was not going to sleep in any of the normal ways.  She was just…restless.  Finally, in a fit of frustration, I said, “Am I keeping you awake?  Maybe you should just go to bed!”

And then she did.

Just kidding!  She went in her room and had a screaming hysterical fit.  J. stepped in and calmed her for a few minutes while I calmed myself.  After a few minutes I went and relieved him and said, “Okay, I’m here.  I’m sorry I got frustrated but you weren’t listening to my words.  Listen, here’s the deal.  I’m going to stay for a few minutes.  I’m going to pray for you, and we will cuddle for a bit, then I’m going to go in the office and you should go to sleep in here.”

“M–mm—Mommy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Will you check on me?”

I prayed for her, tucked her in with a stuffy or two, hugged and kissed her several times, and promised to come back in 2 minutes to check on her.

Two minutes later, I crept back in, and peeked…”Mommy?”  “Yeah.  I’m here.  Are you okay?”  “Mommy I okay.”  “Okay, I’ll be back in 5 minutes.”

So I went back in 5 minutes.  Then 5 minutes again.  Then 10.  After the 10 minute interval I found her snoring.

The next night, I suggested we do the same thing again.  I had to check on her twice.  The third time she was out.  The next night she was out by the second check.  Last night I found her sleeping after five minutes and pulled her door mostly shut so the tv wouldn’t wake her.

This morning, after baby N. was dropped off, I told E. that I needed to help her go down for a nap.  She said, “Because she’s a baby, she can’t go to sleep by herself!  I big, and I can go to sleep.”

There has been no obligatory “cry-it-out” that so many people have insisted to me is completely necessary for children to learn to sleep.  We tried to try it out of respect for people we love who seemed insistent, but it never felt right to us.  And I’m so glad that I was able to trust the wisdom that was given to me regarding my child.

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Respect the Tantrum

My friend Kate came to visit.  Yes, another Kate.  She’s actually one of the first Kates I ever met.  One of the ones who made me want to be a Kate instead of a Katie.  That’s how cool she is.  She lives in Africa, so she came home at Christmas-time, and was here again for six weeks and we got 3 whole days as a visit!  E. has seen her only 3 times since she was born, with this being by far the longest time spent together.  We went to the playground, we used our swingset, we went to “Whole Toods” and “Teenix Tottee”  (Phoenix Coffee).  We watched movies and drank tea together.  E. was over the moon.  So was I, to be with one of my closest friends.

In an incident of spectacularly bad timing, about 5 minutes before Kate was supposed to leave, E. got Very Upset about something or other and started to have a temper tantrum.  I don’t really remember what she was originally crying about, but a couple of minutes in, I said, “Okay, honey, Miss Kate has to leave.  It would be better if you could be in charge of your body and calm down so you can say bye to her.”

Then things went from bad to worse.  She looked at Kate and screamed twice as loud.  Real tears began to fall.  She literally could not stop crying and I could tell that her emotions had gotten much too big for her to even begin to process, let alone control.  So I picked her up and said, “Your feelings are too big for you right now.  I am going to hold you and keep your body safe until you are ready to be in charge of it again.”  She alternately thrashed and clung to me for about 4 or 5 minutes which seemed like hours.  I asked her, “are you sad because Kate’s leaving?”  “Uh—-uh-huh!”  Me too!  Kate said, “Me too.”  We all started crying.  But she had to go.  So as all of us cried, she got in the car and began to back down the driveway.  The whole time, E. was saying (and signing), “Love you!  love you.  love you.  love you.  love you,”  so that Kate would know.  As her car pulled away, E. sighed a huge sigh, looked at me and said, “She gone!  I not say love you.  I talk her on the computer.  I sad.  I want yogurt!”

Would it have been better and easier if E. had sweetly kissed her on the cheek and smiled and said “check you later!?”  Of course.  But I do not regret allowing her space to feel what she was feeling.

I think too many times we as a culture want to act in appropriate ways and so we don’t acknowledge our feelings.  Emotions are not right or wrong.  They are what they are.  They certainly can be based on false thoughts or beliefs and those must be confronted and fought with everything we can muster, but to stuff our feelings down without challenging the lies underneath them can have disastrous consequences for our selves and our relationships.

A very wise friend (okay, it was Kate.  I really do have other friends, but this post is apparently dedicated to her) said once that emotions are like a very persistent door-to-door salesman.  They knock and when you open the door they approach you with whatever they bring.  If it is something you don’t want, you have a choice to make. You can slam the door in their face.  If you do this, they will come back over and over again at the worst times, until you don’t have the energy to turn them away anymore.

The other option is to say, “Alright, you can come in and sit on my couch.  You can talk to me about your Acme brand windows that I don’t want.  But I have things to do.  I have to make dinner and pack for a trip.  I also have to update my blog.  I will not allow you to keep me from doing the thing that lies next to me undone.”

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Only Words

Familiar scene:

G. and L. are having a playdate.  L. has a toy, and G. wants it so he hits L. over the head and takes it.  Parent G runs over, grabs the toy from G. and says sternly, “Say you’re sorry!”

“Srryyy…” mumbles G.

Parent G hands the toy to Parent L who hands it to L. and says, “Say it’s okay.”

“It’s okay?” says L, a bit bewildered.  The children return to playing, and the parents return to chatting on the couch.  It’s okay.  But is it?

We have made a slightly controversial decision not to make our daughter say “I’m sorry.”  When she does something to hurts someone else or make them feel bad, I make sure she understands that her action is unacceptable (“E., is it okay to throw a toy at your friend? Do you think it could make her say ouch?” “Yes, Mommy.”)  After she understands this, we ask her if she should do it anymore.  If she says no, then we say, “If you know it was the wrong thing, and you want to stop doing it, you can say you are sorry.”

We also don’t make her say, “It’s okay,” if someone else does something to her.  Because you know what?  It isn’t okay to be hit over the head.  It actually stinks.  Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that you just say that it’s fine and move on (even if you really, really want it to be fine–there are usually steps to be taken between being hurt and being fine).  It means that you recognize you have been hurt but that you want to move forward.  We are in the process of teaching her to say, “I forgive you,” in a similar way to how we taught her about being sorry.  Sorry was like this:

1.  E., is M. okay?  you threw the ball and it hit her in the face?

2.  E., you can tell M. is saying ouch!  can you check and see if you can do anything?

3.  E., M said ouch!  Should you throw the ball close to her?

4.  E., M. said ouch!  Should you throw the ball close to her?  Are you going to do that anymore?

I think “I forgive you,” will go something like this:

1.  E., did you like that she hit you?

2.  E., do you feel angry?  Do you wish she would stop it?

3.  E., do you think there will be other good things after right now?  Do you want to stop feeling angry?

That is the process of arriving at forgiveness…recognizing you have been hurt, acknowledging bad feelings you have (whether you want to keep them or not), and affirming that in spite of bad feelings, you are choosing to release the other person from vengeance (or any jail where you’d like to keep them in your head).  After all, if it was really as okay as we insist, what would be the point of apologizing?

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My Dad…

…is very intelligent.
…is “funny” in almost exactly the same way as my husband. I must enjoy this on some level to have sought out someone else’s jokes to pretend not to laugh at.
…is considerate. He would never intentionally do or say anything to hurt anyone’s feelings.
…is a very hard worker.
…is huge. I mean 6′ 6″ and strong. I didn’t date much in high school.
…could talk for hours with a random person at Home Depot.
…is openminded. We have started to have some great discussions in the past few years.
…is capable. If something in my house or my car breaks I usually call him first to find out what to do (so do some of my friends, and lots of other people).
…comes up with great nicknames. He called me ‘Halfling’ for the first half of my life.
…loves Lord of the Rings (obviously).
…is very caring and has always been so supportive of and patient with me.
…is loved!

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Balance of Power

Discipline. Love. Respect. Boundaries. Flexibility. Discipline. Relationship. Authority. Attachment.   There are so many different words to describe the way we relate to our children.

I feel strongly that it is important for E. to grow up understanding how to relate to other people in appropriate ways.  For that to happen, she needs to know now that I am the parent and she is the child.  This first experience with authority will shape the way she reacts when she is in school, the work force, friendships…it will color the way she views the world.  Experiencing consistent, loving and reasonable authority early on could give her some tools to form healthy relationships for her whole life.  The way we think and feel about God is also informed by the way our parents relate to us.  The way I was parented led me to think of God as patient, loving and gentle.  Not because my parents said that God was those things (they probably did at some point but I don’t remember that), but because in those formative years they modeled those traits for me.  If there is a God who created me, he is in some sense a Father and it made sense to me that he would be like my dad who was so kind or my mom who was so thoughtful.   I want that for my children.

We have been adjusting to a new level of communicativeness with E.  It is especially hard for J. who was on ‘Daddy duty’  most of the weekend while I finished up a painting project (okay, I primed the upstairs trim almost 2 years ago and finally decided to put the color on).

When someone is a baby, they need everything done for them.  They also don’t argue so much about being put somewhere else.  As that person gets more and more aware, however, they start to have opinions about things.  It has become our pattern to tell her what needs to happen and then ask her if she wants to do it, or if we should do it for her.  This is working well for shoes, getting into the carseat, going inside, etc. etc.  Hmm….correction…was working.

E. seems to have hit a new cognitive stage.  She is pushing back in ways that she never has before.  It is easiest to just start with the ultimatum.  “Are you going to put your shoes on, or am I going to do it?” “Can you hold my hand to cross the street, or should I carry you?”  But that leaves very little room for exploration,or for internal moral motivation.   I want her to be able to arrive at the right decision because she knows it is the right thing, not just because “Mommy said so.”  Some things are more innate than others.  I don’t have to tell her to eat lunch.  She gets hungry, so she eats.  But some things do require some intentionality to set up and eventually become second nature.  Without even thinking about it, when we go to cross a street her little hand reaches out for mine and she holds on tight. “I be safe!”

The tension that we sometimes deal with right now is between when to give her space to explore her world and when to put our foot down.  It’s true that we should not have to tell her 16 times to please come back to the back yard because we are not able to watch her in the front at a given moment.  Maybe instead we could abandon our back-yard project for 2 minutes to smell the lavender, or maybe not.  We have to make each decision in the moment and we do it imperfectly.  I think in the end it comes down to being as flexible as possible, and not giving a direct order unless we are prepared to insist that it be followed.

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Being a Fairy Princess can make everything more manageable

E. is having a difficult week. If I didn’t know better, and if she wasn’t 2, I would think she was about to start her period. She cries over big things. She cries over things that seem small to me, but must be huge to her. She gets inconsolably angry if I give her juice but don’t give it to her in a big-girl glass.
She is so bright and fun almost all of the time, and I love interacting with her because she is such a people person. This is a tough bit, but it will pass and she won’t always get so frustrated about her glass of juice. My role right now is to try to help her to move through it with as much grace as possible.
This afternoon when I got her home, we began the trial and error. Eventually sitting at the table she wanted, in the chair she wanted, with the right juice (diluted with the right amount of water), in the right glass, E. was still very distressed. So I said to her, “Would this moment be better if you could dress up like a fairy princess?” She thought about it for a minute, and said very quietly, “Yes, Mommy. I wear that.” And you know what? It was better. We sat for a while and chatted while she drank orange juice and enjoyed feeling different. Sometimes (though certainly not always), I think that the key to moving forward through overwhelming bad feelings in a given situation can be simply having the imagination to think about yourself behaving differently.