Me Need Sleep

Last night was the third night in a row that our younger daughter has chosen to have an issue at two in the morning.

The first night she came into our room in a fury stating that her sister had taken her blanket from her while she was sleeping.

If I'm not mistaken this was also the night that her older sister had already woken us up at midnight, crying while in the bathroom. Lately she has had these "episodes" that come out of nowhere after she gets up to go to the bathroom. It's like she's not even really awake, but she'll be crying and then she'll argue with you if you try to help her or see if she's okay. And there's not a whole lot of room for rationalizing. You have to just get her back to her bed and rub her back, and she'll drop off back to sleep almost instantly. Strange.

So now here we were at two in the morning dealing with another issue. And if I fast forward this story it would include being awoken a third time about an hour later by my mom's dog, whom we were dogsitting. Twas a lovely night.

So my husband checked out the blanket situation and settled things. Of course that was just before I came into her room saying "Just give the blanket back to her!" which really wasn't necessary at that point, but somehow I was in a sleep-deprived fit myself and I needed to chime in.

There are many reasons why I love my husband, but this one ranks right up there toward the top. He's completely taken on the role of middle-of-the-night-issue-handler. He will get up and deal with the kids, in a calm manner no less, and let me stay in bed. I think mostly he does this because he knows what a bee-ach I can be if I don't get my beauty rest. And many times when I have to get up and deal with a completely inane reason for being awake, I get a wee bit ticked off and come back into the room fuming and unable to fall back asleep. Over the years he's figured out that he's better off handling the situation himself instead of being cursed at upon my return to bed. He's a smart one, that husband.

Plus he can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Almost every time he gets up, he deals with whatever is going on, then gets back into bed and falls asleep within seconds. Usually before I've even gone back to sleep, even when I wasn't the one getting up to deal with the issue.

So the next night that our little girlie woke up, she came into our room saying that it was too dark. Never mind the fact that it was the same as it has been every single night for the last, say, two years. This time my husband went and turned on the bathroom light, even though the night light was already on, and then put her back to bed.

Then last night she came into our room and said she needed her back rubbed.

Now, come on.

Really? A back rub? Gee, I'd love one too. BUT NOT AT TWO IN THE MORNING!

I have a feeling she has now reset the little clock in her adorable little head and it is going off at the same time every night. And the result is an inability to get back to sleep, so she comes to us looking for a little help.

I know the feeling.

Now it's clock resetting time. I'm not sure what bribery I'll come up with this time, but whatever it is it better damn well work.

Me need sleep.

Practice Makes Perfect

Last week my oldest and I were talking about what activities she might want to participate in for the winter. Her weekly tennis lessons are over soon, and since she thinks they are "boring" I figured we better start lining up something new and a little more up her alley.

We didn't sign up for soccer this fall because she said she wasn't interested. I revisited the idea when we were talking about different sports. Not that she could do it until next year, but I asked about it anyway. Her reply was that she liked the soccer camp she did last summer, but it was "boring".

There it was again. That word.

When I poked around a little I found out that she thought it was so "boring" because you didn't actually play any other teams. She wanted some game time action and all they did were drills.

I explained that practice is where you learn what to do in a game. I tried to emphasize that you won't know when and where to take the ball during the game if you don't practice first. She still didn't seem sold but at least she bought the idea a little.

Then she asked about playing softball. I liked this idea since I played it a little when I was growing up, and I think it's a great team sport. So I looked into it the next day and explained to her what I knew about the season. Practices start in February, games start in March and are every Saturday through April.

"So if we start practice in February, how long do I have to wait until we play a game?" she asks.

Here we go again.

This time I started asking her about the sport and how it's played. She had some answers but it was clear that her main idea of the sport revolved around hitting the ball, which she loves to do. I explained quite a bit of the game and she seemed to catch on pretty quick.

But she still wanted to know how much they have to practice.

"If you don't practice, how are you going to know how to catch the ball with a mitt? How are you going to know where to throw the ball when it is hit to you during a game? And will you know where to run?" I asked her.

She conceeded and said she'd still like to play, even with all that practice time. Apparently she's never heard the phrase "practice makes perfect". She thinks you go out there and automatically know what to do, or else figure it out along the way. Which means she's in for a big surprise.

And a surprise is exactly what she got a few days later.

This past weekend we had her friends over for a sleepover, and they all wanted to ride their bikes around outside. This gets a little tricky since her friends have been riding a lot and are now proficient without the training wheels. On the other hand, my daughter learned to ride the bike without training wheels in late August, but is still hesitant to practice and we haven't really pushed her. The result is that she can pretty much ride fine in a straight line, but when it comes to turning, and sometimes stopping, she gets nervous and tends to fall or need help.

Now you see where this is going.

After a few minutes outside with her friends, and my husband helping her, I hear her run inside crying. I go find her and she is already a pint of tears and a few shrills into a major tantrum. I try talking to her, but she escalates so fast that within seconds she is saying that she hates herself and she hates that she can't ride her bike. And she wants nothing to do with me.

Now I have to fight through my own pain of hearing her in such despair and try to rebuild this crumbling bit of foundation in front of me. I explain that we haven't helped her practice and it's our fault too that she's not as far along as she wants to be. But I also note that it's okay if you aren't as good at something as someone else and it's all still fun as long as we keep trying. She of course wants none of this reasoning and continues right along with her tantrum.

"I want to be able to ride my bike like them RIGHT NOW!" she yells with fury. "I want it all to magically happen NOW!"

Yes, she did actually use the word "magically". Which means she knows in her heart that it's not an instant thing and that it does take practice.

Now it's all making sense why she doesn't want to practice anything. She doesn't like not knowing how to do something and all the frustration that comes with it. In her magical thinking, you don't have to deal with that frustration if you just throw yourself into the game.

But alas, you do. In my experience you feel that much more like an incapable nincompoop if you are in the middle of a pressure situation and can't perform. Which is exactly what was happening at that moment.

I finally got her calmed down, but it took a while. This one was a doozie. And in the meantime we had to convince her friends that this sleepover would still be fun, even though their host was in the midst of a meltdown.

Eventually everyone was happy again, watching a movie and eating popcorn. And the rest of the sleepover was a great success.

Case closed, right? Not so.

Now we have to keep moving forward. It's really tempting to just sit in this middle space of not knowing how to do something, like help her through this phase of life, and just ignore it and let time pass and things happen as they may.

But now I realize we we have work to do together. And it starts with me and my husband. We have to teach her that being on the beginning side of the learning curve is okay. She has to learn that there is no getting to the other side without going through the middle.

And I need to get over my own feelings of being a nincompoop because I have not been able to instill in her the sense that it is okay not to be perfect. You see the trick here, right? I have to accept and learn from my own limitations while teaching her to recognize and accept hers.

Once again my children teach me that as hard as we try, there is always more to learn.

Instead of "practice makes perfect" I think we better concentrate on "there is always room for improvement".

Girl Talk

Last night after dinner my daughters both decided it was time for one of their specialties. Chatting.

My older daughter had a cell phone that used to be my husband's. It's no longer charged or connected, so a long time ago it went into the toy box and has been one of the so very many little phones that we have around the house.

As it happens, my younger daughter was at that time playing with her new princess cell phone. Since my oldest wanted that pink phone, she asked to trade. When she was met with a curt "no" from her younger sister, she upped the ante.

"This one has like 8900 movies on it! Don't you want it?!" she said with excitement, holding up the old silver phone with no flashing lights or noises. And yes, she really said eight thousand nine hundred.

First off, I have to marvel at the fact that our kids these days are playing with toy cell phones. Back in our day I'm pretty sure we played with pretend rotary phones, and we were damn excited about them. And if they made sounds or had lights that was a serious upgrade, a phone with which to be reckoned. I mean they weren't even cordless for crying out loud.

Fast forward to today. Nowadays our phones are so savvy that they even play movies. And that's just a normal thing in the world of today's children. Movie-playing, music-rocking, weather-checking, text-sending, google-ready, multi-colored cell phones.

Where is this world headed in our lifetime? How about in theirs?

Okay, back to the story. So my oldest apparently made an offer that couldn't be refused and her younger sister snapped that old boring cell phone out of her hands and gave up the pretty pink phone in exchange.

Then each of them proceeded to chat on their phones for a while. My younger one had a mostly mish-mash conversation with lots of correct phrases in incorrect places. And a few incorrect phrases too. But she looked so cute chattering away on the phone and rolling her eyes around, it didn't really matter.

My older daughter had a conversation with her imaginary friend in which she was so excited because her friend was at graduate school and she was telling her all about it. She's chatting along and then suddenly she says "Hold on a second, I have a call on the other line."

Then she clicks a button and answers the other "call". After a couple of "uh-huh"s and "really?"s she clicks back over to her friend and exclaims that she is going to go to graduate school too, and she starts squealing for joy.

Thatta girl; gotta love the imaginary play that revolves around higher education.

I just watched in amazement as all this panned out. And I thought about how this scene, of the two of them chatting away on their cell phones, was exactly what I was going to be seeing in 8 or 9 years, but with actual people on the other end of the line. And actual cell phones that are going to cost us some moolah.

Of course we are already getting a taste of this girl talk in our house. My almost 7 year old's friends have started calling up the house from time to time to say hi, or to ask for a playdate or a sleepover. Never mind that it's usually completely the wrong time for their requests, as in right before dinner time or bed time.

A lot of the time their parents aren't even aware that they are calling my child. And these kids, including my own, aren't very well versed in conversation etiquette either. There's a lot of long pauses and unanswered questions. I know this because my daughter likes to talk on the speaker phone. It drives me a little crazy sometimes and I have to move the conversation along or make sure that my daughter is at least being polite and paying attention to the person on the other end of the phone.

It's actually gotten to the point in our house that my daughter now jumps for the phone when it rings. She really jumps.

Seriously? Are we here already?

She only answers it when she sees that it's someone she knows, usually my husband or one of a couple of friends that call. But I'm not liking it when I go for the phone and realize she is on the other end, not saying anything, just listening in as I chat with her friends' parents.

Since when do I have to fight for the phone around here?

Since when is everything all about her?

Call me later and we can chat about it.

But be prepared to be screened by a precocious 6 year old that may or may not actually say "hello" when she answers the phone.

Breaking the Bank

Somehow lately we seem to be spending as much money on band-aids as we do, say, on milk. You know, something vital that my children need to grow strong and healthy. And yes, I am referring to the band-aids here, not the milk.

The culprit in this breaking of the bank is my middle child. She is almost four, and apparently she's at the height of her accident-prone days. Which seems to be timed perfectly with her bandage loving days.

Although we also went through this budget-buster phase about three years ago with my oldest. I remember them well, those constant requests for a band-aid, even for the littlest of scrapes that were all but invisible to the naked eye. It seems like every day I would find loose band-aid wrappers and those little waxy strips all over her bathroom. Or every time I picked up a doll I would find a matching set on her knees, or across her face. Sometimes even the stuffed animals got wounded - and those tattoo bandages don't come off of fur too easily, just take my word for it. Back then the boo-boos were abundant, no matter if they were fact or fiction.

Now, here I am again, three years later. Following the trail of wrappers all over again.

Indeed my younger daughter does manage to take some diggers. Her biggest bleeders are the knees, at least one of which has had a band-aid on it since late 2006. So there is a definite need for keeping the medicine cabinet stocked (as much as I'd like to just say "sorry honey, we're all out of band-aids").

Of course she is also magnetically drawn toward getting paper cuts these days too. And I use that term loosely, since any tiny piece of skin that might be dangling a bit is considered a paper cut and is in immediate need of a bandage.

She'll even put a band-aid on a wound that is already healed. If it has the fresh pink skin showing it's still in need of first-aid in her book.

What really kills me is that she CANNOT STAND to take them off. She winces and whines and seems to be in way more pain than she ever was when she first got the injury. Or didn't get it, whichever the case may be.

The result of this fear of taking the band-aid off is that she insists on not interrupting the process. It must happen organically. Which can take a long time with those seriously sticky tattoo type band-aids. A loooong time.

Inevitably, she will have one dangling half off her knee for days, and she will not let me get anywhere near it. It floats off her skin in the water during bathtime and catches on every pair of pants at every potty break. It is practically begging me to pull it off. I mean if the band-aid could talk, I really do think it would ask for a little mercy.

And yet, she will protect it with her life.

I'm hesitant to admit that many a time I have just ripped them off her when she wasn't paying attention. She'll be happily singing along in the tub and - RIP! - I'll take that sucker off. And I always have a good excuse. "It got caught on the washcloth sweetie, I'm so sorry!"

Needless to say she can't stand it, and she is likely to blame my torturous ways for many a lost achievement in life as she grows up.

The other night she had one hanging off when she went to bed. I asked yet again if she wanted me to take it off; I even offered to sing a special song or tell a joke so that she might agree. But no,she wouldn't hear of it.

It had been working towards freedom for at least 2 days already and I still wasn't allowed to touch it. It was barely even hanging on anymore, and I just couldn't take looking at the thing one more day.

So I did the most natural maternal thing I could muster and I waited until she fell asleep.

I went in for my usual bedtime check-in, and she was happily slumbering. I found her knee and eyed up my victim. I wasn't sure if I should go fast or slow, given that she was probably going to stir a bit and I didn't want to miss my chance.

So I went with the fast approach. RIP!

And much to my surprise, she even exclaimed a bit and popped her eyes wide open.

Yikes! I hadn't expected that.

But then thankfully she just rolled over and drifted back off to sleep.

The next morning she found me when she was getting dressed and said "Mommy, my band-aid came off!". I told her it must have come off in her bed while she was sleeping. And sure enough, she went and found it, right where I left it under her sheets.

Then she showed up a minute later and said "Look mommy! I put another one on - it has Tigger on it!"

Fabulous.

Pooh and Tigger tattoo band-aids, Barbie band-aids, neon colored band-aids.

If you've got a boo-boo, come on over. We've got all kinds.

But not for long.

That Kid

I’ve come to realize that my son is that kid.

You know the one. The kind that doesn’t listen to their mothers. That don’t take “no” for an answer. Or like to eat paste and stick things up their noses. Or the ones that like to run into the street with no sense of common fear. Or scream for everything they want.

Yes, I think we all know them well. Whether they are yours (let’s pray together), or the ones you see in the grocery store, or at school, or even at your friend’s house.

Now I get to see one up close and personal. Every day. Because he lives in my house. And he likes to think he’s my son, although I’m not seeing a lot of genetically driven personality similarities.

My girls always had a healthy sense of fear when it came to times where it was appropriate. And they never tried to eat non-edible substances, other than the usual toys and random objects. And they certainly always seemed to know who was in charge around here.

Not so much with my son. In his world he lives large and in charge.

I do everything I can think of so as not to encourage unwanted behaviors. And I have a lot of ideas since I’ve been thinking them for so many years as I watch other parents struggle with those kids.

The lesson here is do not scoff at others lest ye be done reproducing be scoffed at. My most humble apologies go out to all those mothers and fathers that have been in this seat and at whom I have scoffed, smugly thinking all along “my girls don’t do that”.

Now I see the other side. And it’s not pretty.

No matter how many times I tell him “NO!” when he goes running for the street, he still goes full force. So much so that he usually falls down in the street on all fours before I can catch him. He’ll do it over and over again. It wears me out. So I just end up putting him in the back yard, which is closed in. Avoidance is all I have the energy for at this point.

He also fights the changing table. I try to be patient and have fun with him so he’ll lie down and give in. But sometimes I just don’t have it in me, so he gets the left elbow pin-down and I just work as fast as I can, which can be quite tricky when dealing with dirty diapers. Thank goodness I have extra changing pad covers.

He’s become quite physical with other kids his age too. He likes to bear hug kids and tumble over with them, lying on top of them for a good snuggle. But the other kids don’t seem to think of it in those terms for some reason.

Then there’s the oral fixations. He loves to grab the body wash or shampoo containers from the bath tub and suck on the tops of them. If they aren’t open he’ll use his teeth to open them first, then start sucking out the soap or shampoo. Same thing goes for any toothpaste that he can get his hands on. Yummy in his tummy.

He also enjoys the fine delicacy of moisturizing cream. It’s an open container, not the kinds that squirts out, so he usually tries to plunge his whole hand in while I have the top off. His persistence always pays off and he’ll get a bunch on his fingers, which he then proceeds to lick off. And occasionally spit out. I’m teaching him to rub it on his arms and legs, which is working, but he usually likes to taste-test it first.

And there is also this thing he has for string and hair. For some reason he loves to put little strings in his mouth. You know the kind that you’ll find on the floor that fell off some garment you were wearing? Those are the ones he likes best; nice and little so they fit right in. Or any type of confetti or tinsel will do as well. I had no idea how much of that crap we have around the house, and apparently he knows where it all is. He doesn’t ingest any of these things. It’s just his attempt at some rare form of unpatented chewing gum. He chomps away on them and eventually spits them out or gives them to me, all covered in slobber.

Lately he’s showing a preference for hair. Yes, hair. Human hair. The type that he pulls off his sister’s head by the handful, just so he can try to put some in his mouth.

Enough said.

But there is hope. He’s getting much better in other areas.

As I’ve mentioned before he has been quite a screamer. But now, in the mornings, he just babbles to himself in his crib until we come in to get him. Of course we don’t let it go for more than 10 or 15 minutes just in case it escalates. No sense in rocking the boat now that we’ve finally got it docked.

And he’s much better at breakfast time too. He’ll more readily eat in his chair or go play when he’s done. Almost no screaming involved whatsoever.

He now has more words, which he will use most of the time, even if at an elevated noise level or pitch.

Plus he still has his whole snuggly thing working in his favor as well.

Luckily for us all, his constant giveaway of hugs and kisses and his increasingly amazing intellect shed light on the boy living on the other side of the tunnel.

Which is a good thing. We need a little light around here.

Because sometimes this tunnel feels reeeeeaaaaalllly long.