Zzzzzz

The problem with caring for children is that it completely interferes with dealing with how they may be. I remember reading in some Tracy-what's-her-name? book about looking at your newborn months after I had missed the chance. Inspect their lovely minute forms she urged. I wish I had done so. Would mean a lot more than the scribblings I saved. 13 feeds, 3 poops, 6 diapers, total sleep 13.5 hours for that day.

Babies are very demanding and all that care takes over too often and blocks out the introduction of an astounding new person. I won't get on my normal soap box about how child-care is a industrial consumer complex conspiracy, not this time. But it is the care that's the rub.

My son has stayed up very late for the last few weeks. It is annoying. This week p-man suggested we might cut the N-A-P as a test to get better bedtimes. Now we of course would never do that because we respect and value the amount of sleep our kids are evidenced to need in a variety of parenting books we are nap addicts.

To lose the nap would cue the first time in nearly 5 years we were not spending part of our day punctuated by a child at rest. A child asleep. A child away. I realize the nuances and degrees of identity I put into nap. I register only today so fully what lay behind my inumerable nap/no-nap anxieties.

It is about the care. The beauty of the nap is that it signals to me the moment when I need do no more. The moment the infant is done feeding, the toddler turns over from storytime, the intermission between hours of carrying and encouragement, negotiation, displine.... etc etc. A penultimate coffee break. The windows I carry with me from the time before; the aloneness of pre-child self. Aloneness, in the day where for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes I need not care for them.

It frightens me to no longer have the naps. To have them awake ALL DAY. Mostly I think it frightens me to not have the buffer. For nothing to remind me of that degree of aloneness or my separation from the awesome responsibility of being their mother forever. Night and day, day and night year upon year. My motherhood stretching out to infinity, no 6 month checkups to assess, no milestones writ large.. know what I mean?

But when I put it that way I feel a full measure of liberation. A new phase into this being where my relationship with them, while still caring, is not defined by care. Something with much more room for them to be... and me too.

Sleeping Beauty, or Flee the Puma

Our daughter is well known as a good sleeper. There was an odd side-effect to this. I never really enjoyed her sleeping form enough. I always had an odd sense that once she was asleep she was NOT to be disturbed. To do so would somehow irk the sleep gods who had delivered to us this sleep-luck. For the sleep-luck was profound, no real sleep-work in there. Many much finer parents surrounded us who made it quite clear we were defecating equine footwear and we better not screw it up for the sake of parent sanity everywhere.

So once asleep ne'er a check would be.

Then we had our son and I didn't conclude bedtimes anymore. I was paralysed with sleep-wonk not knowing how to end my day without that nearest sleep good night kissy-kiss-kiss with the daughter daddy put to bed. Then I discovered something... I could actually walk into my girl's room when she was sleeping and kiss her. It was ok. She did not wake and demand Blue's Clues videos and Sunchip snacks for hours. No it was just zzz zzz zzz.

My mother had always told me how she would 'check her'... I was mystified. What? Isn't that what the monitor is for? (NB: I used a monitor on volume 4 when my daughter was less than 9 feet from my bed... I wanted to catch any sleep apneas and I guess I thought technology would be my guide in early parenthood. hahahahahahaha.) So I started trying some of this checking stuff. I found that I could even pick her up. Part of me wanted to dance her outside and see just how far this sleeping would go.

But really what is so remarkable about it? I guess what I like about it is that feeling of being back in the cave. I adore that baboon sense of picking up my offspring in the night as the leopards approach and providing safety. That millisecond where I lift her and she curls around me as if we might take flight for hours and she need not wake for it. That she might only hold on tight and fuel me with her trust and her promise. Is this crazy? Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I often think 1. this feels so nice and 2. I should post this on the blog and see if I am crazy?

In other news... Our son has not always been such a good sleeper. I have not often had moments like this with him that were not accompanied by the odd jerky wrestle of a gas-bubble-troubled belly, or the stiff spine of a dirty early hour poop diaper, or the wails of teething, fevers, etc. etc. Due to a conspiracy of housing and temperament he has lead us through our incarnation as accidental co-sleepers and more learned parents generally. He sleeps fine.. I shouldn't mislead just not as freakishly hard as his sister not with the same easy will to do it unaided. I believe this week he has started to point directly to my bed when it comes time to sleep. Of course, being the stalwart and uncompromising sort of parents we are we laugh at this assertion and redraw the boundaries with consistency and verve unless we are really ill with a cold or otherwise driven to wishy-washiness.

I'll add that soon he will wean from any bedtime breasttime. Tonight he distanced himself with a plop in the crib so awake as to supply as wide a range of complaints as one might discern in a 15 month old. I gave him the pillow we usually cuddle with, I also worked it for 55 minutes. I lay on the floor and urged, Nigh-night. I sang and smiled and let him poke at my eyeballs through the crib slats. Ultimately, to end a long day I told him he had to shut it. With this he laid down, and I hung my head. With this he serenely found his focus in the nightlight and drifted off to dreamland? Serves me right. My tears beat against the mattress hard. He'd given me a pretty righteous f' you, Ma. If you say I have to do it myself I'll leave you right out, then.

So many nights lately I have hoped for him to find his independent sleep. Right now I am happy to hear that little waning cold's cough suggesting that maybe, just maybe, I should go check him. Someday I'll have to carry two through the forest to flee the puma? Do you really think I could do that?

Good Things

So it is the weekend. In Canada a long weekend, in fact. A time to feel good. My last post hinted at me feeling like a bad parent. Here are two things that I had happen recently that made me know I am a good parent, like you say (thanks for that you dear commenters!).

#1 My smiling daughter exclaims in a breathy voice, "Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you." At the sight of 5 smarties as a reward. The thrill of this sugar recompense being thus measured is gratifying. It was as if she had just been given a marvel of such rare quality as something rare and marvelous might be that I was so proud. Demonstrable of my persistence over several days to distance myself from bribery.

#2 My son having two peaceful naps in a day where he did not have to go shopping or unpack my fridge for amusement. Thanks to my parents taking E. yesterday I was able to spoil my son in a way I like. Extra minutes for play with me instead of just near me is so often an unattainable goal. But whoa did we laugh our asses off yesterday.. good times.

I can add to this review of Mo-Wo good things that I experienced a simulatenous nap period for more than 90 minutes this afternoon. 90 minutes! In that time I called an out of town friend I owed a callback to for hmmmm.... 3 years? That was very nice. It was even better that she told me 'you know I think of you whenever I see Maggie Gyllenhaal. you must get that a lot." Well, no. I think in fact she was merely recognizing that I looked something like Ms. Gyllenhaal for 25 minutes back in 1990 when my friend and I were both young gypsy ladies all backpacking like and illegally overnighting on some Welsh Beach in August. Interesting what memory holds and how an image can be so distorted towards beauty by good feeling. Memory and the Internet... so I will now command you all to think that I do actually look like this, even today.



Here's wishing everyone a very good weekend and some goods things coming your way, too.

Bad Parenting Confessional: Authority Figures!

I have a two year old. Discipline is an issue. I often feel like.. authority figure? Who? Me?

Yep, me. When she bumps or whacks the baby, I gotta deal with it. When she mocks nap time. When she throws sand at the playground. Mo-Wo. She's the heavy.

It sucks. Or more appropriately, I suck at it. I will effortless invoke the inheritance tax. I blame my mom for the suckage. For the fact that I hate fulfilling this role as virulently as I do.

My Mum was a real 'she's dead to me' parent. When I moved out at 18 she ripped numerous items, clothing and the like mostly, from my possession announcing the person that they were for wasn't real anymore. Sometimes I still get a bit fucked up about.. well... exisiting really. Thanks Mom!

Knowing what it's like to go from thoughtful to thoughtless human in 30 minutes or less, I wanted to be a more sensitive parent. I caught myself early and always avoid scolding my daughter for not being the 'nice girl she can be'... I always try to focus on the behaviour that is unacceptable.

But it's not working.. She gets a message around here that she is bad. She says so. I wish I had never used the idea of good girl AT ALL. She picks up on everything. If I say be a good girl and do X I'm sunk. She makes mistakes. Last night I tried a fresh bit of redemption. When she said she was a bad girl because she makes mistakes I said No!.
Then I said, "Well honey listen, I make mistakes, don't I?"
"Yes, you do!" she said.
"And, am I a bad mommy?"
"No. No you're not."
"So there you go!"
I could see the wheels turning.. but still.....this is a big hill.

This afternoon as nap strike continued and I abandoned her to an 'enforced period of rest' in her room I was so sad. I thought about it all in such detail. I really felt all those rotten memories of my mother being completely galled by my behavior; my existence. How she did, and still does, make me feel quite small. How I live in a life filled with dissappointment for her. I know my daughter feels my dissappointment about her nonconformity. I also know she feels it alongside a desire for some power. I cannot fault her to want some control of her life even at 2, let alone at 18. But what is right if I don't want her to be spoiled? Ah, back to the Burton White I guess and a little of the Bonny Doon.

Just goes to show that though I fought authority it does always win. Fuckers.

Tyranny of Rest

Another day. Another hard fought battle with the sandman.

Today, admittedly was not the worst. Little boy had a spectacular nap, now that I have finally figured out "naptime" is 11 am. But little girl came home from my in-laws in that semi-sleepwalker state that makes her really hard to put to bed. And grandpeople2 were here at the time.. so naptime with her took a freakin' hour to accomplish.

"We really wore her out!" they always declare. I smile a weak smile. "Yeah thanks."

Overtired is my favorite. Though there are the others. The poop break fake-out. The belch plugged infant. The shifting sleep schedules of sibling rivalry. Oh, please don't learn to say Mama right now! Your sister is trying to go down for her nap.

I am not the first, and I certainly won't be the last to note that all this sleep chasing is pretty tiring. Now in a few weeks my son (you know the 25lb 7 month old?) will finally have his own room and my battles will extend into the night. It is seriously a fear of mine. Seems so silly to be afraid of the childrens' sleep but I can't shield myself from this the most oft judged parenting challenge. The tyranny of it all. So many days I think it is the kids that wish I would not move about at the precise moment of dropping off; or that he get 3 minutes more suckle before droppage to the mattress or that we lay together, even. I think they are the ones driving me crazy. But no, they are not the tyrants at all. Instead it is the gaggle of know-it-alls live and in print that frighten me.

The kids could take it or leave it. Maybe I should too.

Mean Feets

Tonight I put e. to bed by myself. Someone nearly passed out in anger or distress. We are lucky that the p-man employ is pretty routine (not easy to come by in lawyer-land) so I can count on him to be home for bedtimes. At least, ever since I got smart and told him that his evenings are no longer for Da Band, or racquet sport du jour, etc, etc! What did that take me like 6 mos. of parenthood to figure out or something?

Butidigress, sort of....

So, anyway, he was away tonight and yet I did do it myself. This is no mean feat for the following reasons:
1. My mean feet. Yep, in week 36 of the pregnancy I turned my ankle and I am not entirely up to the strength requirements of toddler wrastling.
2. I am now 37 weeks + and nearly useless at many things like, general baby hauling, extended periods of patience, uhm, sustained persuasive rationalization of any kind -- of either the internal or external kind. SHIT!
3. With only one month to sibling arrivalry we decided to take the world's best sleeper and shake it up with a new bed complete with newish papa-man routine. (Insert something worse that SHIT here please.)

Stooooooopiiiddd!

While we have shaved the negotiation on sleep expectations by at least 45 minutes in the last week or so... and are now coming in at the more ideal 8:15/8:30 knockout I am not happy. The very intrusion of negotiation into what used to be non-negotiable is really pissing me off.

Also, I ask you to consider this; the disdain and disobedience of the child went as follows:
When trying to lay her in bed... Child response, 'No pushing' -- well you can't really argue with that can you?
When saying, nigh-night Mama will be outside, you go to bed... Child response. 'No. No please. Please do not go out there. Close the door please.' Be sure to roll this one in multicoloured sprinkles and sanding sugar in you mind to replicate the tone of this plea.
When asking for a hug and kiss bye-bye.. Child response.. all manner of renewed energy coming out of left field.

AAARRRGHHHHHH!

Intersperse all the sucking up with a few huge crying jags well seasoned with 'Leave me alone' and baby Garbo is too much for me? Well, maybe not. I don't know. We have spent sometime in the kinder gentler sleep training mode, or at least p-man has. That system involves laying on the floor and setting a good sleep example. Has its attractions for sure. But I don't entirely buy into this sort of 'system' too high maintenance for me. A month ago you put e. in her bed said bye-bye, night-night, see you in the morning light and left. That is my goal. I really can't buy in that the girl who could do that is as washed up as Jenilee Harrison!

Tonight I tried it a bit different and am a bit more comfortable. But I am still trolling for information/ideas people. Really, the first week was great but something went of the rails. Help! Help! What I tried tonight was to keep focussed on this being bedtime. After bath, zippo toys kiddo! Uno story thanks. Diaper and pajamas in the lovely friendly bed. Child, physically relaxed, might stay in bed? Well, no way. After about 5 minutes she is out. I put her back. She's out. Angry, going to lie on the floor. I put her back. Getting angrier and angrier. Going for the books to get me where it hurts. I put her back maybe a half dozen times. She is flipping out. We step out of the bedroom and do a relaxing circuit of good night to the cats, chairs, rooms, etc. She leads back to her room... near but not in the bed. Looks promising but noooooo, you are hooped motherwoman! A couple more distractions and bed putting exericises. Really only 15 minutes have elapsed.. so I don't think it will be too freaky if I play my trump card. Bye-bye. I step out.

This is what we used to do. We used to leave. For the first week the door might open on us 1 or 2 or 3 or maybe 5 times but whatever. This is what I want to get back to, right? The hard crying subsided pretty quick and within 5 minutes she was calmish. The door opened. I asked, 'May I come in?'. 'Yes' she says nicely and then she does agree with me it is time for bed. I escort her bedside but don't put her in. She flops her head and shoulders on her bed and looks sleepy. I briefly rub her back and wish her a good night. Then I retreat to the door. I am trying to depart. But relent. I lurk near the door, tell myself 10 minutes should do it. She is inching up into her bed one inch per minute it seems. In the ten she is up in bed, obviously comfortable and mostly in the seven mile stare.

My massive 37/4 preggo frame is bearing down on my crappy foot. It more than stings. I am dying to get out of there. I shift my weight. She shoots me a look. I smile and nod. I ain't afraid of you baby girl, I tell myself. I am a selfish mother! I step toward the door bang on minute 10. Another look. I step out. She sleeps still.

Yay! ...... I think???

What do you think people? How long might it take doing this before we can just walk out again? I am still havin' her be the boss a'me with this sort of plan? Any tricks, tips? Should I put her in her bed or it better for her to get in herself?

I'll share one tip myself. If you are going to take your kids crib away for another kid do it well outside of the last four weeks of your pregnancy. Better for everyone, of this I am sure. -- It probably isn't even the bed is it?

Not a method mommy

I feel like some sort of bandit. Each night now we can step out of e.'s room to her very natural and comfortable "Bye-bye."

Last night even came with some sweet waving before she will turned her head to one side to go over her day with bunny, bear, baby-bear, lion, and the rest of the sleepy committee.

She is a good sleeper but what niggles me about this ease to sleep is that we did everything wrong. You know, they say don't rock your kid excessively or overhandle them as newborns/infants... We did that. Don't pick them up when they pull up and cry out in the night when they are teething... we did that. Don't nurse your child to sleep... I SO did that! So we are simply shittin' horseshoes over here getting away with this post-weaning "See you, Mommy! Bye-bye, Daddy. Nigh-night."???

You know, I don't entirely think so. I really bought into every bit of advice that took as its centre one fact: your child is growing. I believed in things like maturation and cues from day one. I think the kid enjoyed all we did, each stage, and she is enjoying this independence now. It makes sense to her.

We did a lot of things that were not advised by the books but seemed to make sense for our girl. We avoided a lot of our family and peers around critical events with the kid (e.g. weaning) and that is regrettable, but we also avoided a lot of 'you should' advice and that was great! For example, we had really no bedtime babysitting past 13 months, because I didn't want to hear about how I shouldn't be nursing her anymore.

I don't want to suggest I have the answers here in any way. I just wanted to put out there to anyone who is simply 'goin' with their gut' and feeling at all weird about not adopting some method: I'm with you. The best advice I ever got as an expectant parent was as follows:

"No one can really give you advice. They might have ideas but when it comes down to it you are the one who really knows your kid."

ps... I am well aware I'm playin' with fire here on two counts. Count 1: I might jinx our Girl Friday by posting this. Count 2: I have #2 en route and all the rules say this little nuthatch will likely break this mould out all over just to make me eat these words. Right?