Taking a personal day

I was all prepared for today to be a learning opportunity for A. She's got a cold, no fever, still up for lots of stuff, but somewhere between me asking her about her throat (still guarding against the strep throat I had last week), and M asking if she feels sick (no! don't give the answer you're hoping she doesn't say!), she asks to stay home because she's sick (in that universal, slightly pathetic kid voice....sniff sniff, cough, I'b sick, baba.).

And since it is summer and I mostly have errands and phone calls to make today, I decide it is a good time to show her what a sick day at home is like. The boredom, the not playing with me, the having to be calm, the opting out of going swimming in a cold pool later today. The watching every Baby Einstein video we have (that is still roughly the level of media she watches).

Turns out, she's pretty happy to have a day off of school, and mostly chill out. And, more surprisingly, turns out so am I.

I'm not able to procrastinate nearly as much as usual. I actually cleaned the whole kitchen during snack time, and have a list of calls I'm working on. It is nice to have the quiet, small company embodied by my kid. And she's doing pretty well with not needing me to play with her all the time.

Not so bad, actually. 

Saying sorry

My kid is crying. Not screaming. But crying pretty loud. It has been a few rounds of asking her to do things and her ignoring me, and continuing to play to stay in the bath, or, or, or. One of those evenings when nothing I say is listened to. When she screams my name from the bathroom instead of saying the "I'm sorry mama" I've asked for. I'm the only parent on duty tonight, and I get that she's tired and that I'm tired, but I'm not finding my way out of it right now.

I haven't gotten and "I'm sorry", a "please" or a "thank you" for most of the afternoon. There have been loud protestations of "I get all the dessert! Not you get any! Or I won't eat any!" There have been ice creams and trips to the park to play in the sun and special dinner pies from the English pie lady. There has been a lot. And not enough.

And how to teach a child, and only child (is this the problem? probably not all of it), to share instead of throwing a fit when she can't have all the dessert on the table? Or to say she's sorry? Or to say please or thank you? Does it come later than 3 1/2 years old? Does all of it come later?

Because it isn't coming tonight. I'm close to crying myself. As soon as I engage again, she starts playing or not listening. And I don't think this is all conscious on her part - or at least it isn't meant to piss me off more, it just does. But I have no idea to get an I'm sorry.

Even though I give them - if I've hurt her feelings, if I've yelled, if I've hurt her by accident while I'm stopping her from hitting me during a tantrum. I say "sorry." I want her to hear it, to know that it is important to say, to learn it, to remember being told her feelings matter.

And I guess that is what this is about at some level. My feelings not mattering.

Yes, I go to a dark little place where I'm the kid again, and again, my feelings don't matter enough for some adult in my life to say and actual "sorry" that ends there and not a "sorry, but...". Or someone who can't say "I love you." And although my husband is great with the "I love you"'s, he's still learning to say "sorry" as well.

It is now 8:15pm and A is asleep, and it took some 5 minutes after the one book we had time for, after she gave me a big hug and a kiss on the chin, after I told her that a big hug and a kiss on the chin could be our special secret code for "I'm sorry", after she told me she didn't say she was sorry because sometimes she is shy, after she told me she said "enschuldigung" to a baby the other day for squeezing her hand too tight, after we talked about if she says "sorry" to any of her friends ever, after I talked about how sorry can mean "I wish I could take it back" or "I didn't mean to hurt you" or "I want things to be ok between us again."

After we both calmed down and sat on the bed, after I raised my voice and told her that if she can't say she's sorry to friends she's not going to have any (yes, I know, I'm sort of dying a bit inside to see myself write that right now), after I raised my voice and said something like "Why can't you say I'm sorry? Why can't you just say it?!"

I'm going to have to apologize for that last part tomorrow morning.

(Before you unfriend me, or decide I am scum or some such thing, I did actually have the presence of mind to tell her that it is wonderful she is learning to apologize to her friends and other kids and she will have friends. I know that one was a mistake to say in the first place.)

When one person wins, you both lose

Just another usual Sunday. Waking up with all sorts of hope that some scrap of sitting iwth a coffee and reading the NYTimes might happen, only to end up with a kid in her room in time-out because she was kicking me after I took her away from the table after she shoved her cup and plate across it, after I told her she had to mix juice with water if she wanted any juice.

One of those golden moments in parenting that never seem to make it onto any mother's brag list the next week. Sheesh, how did we get here again?

Time out (two of them actually) over, in the living room now, and this time it is M coming up with 10 reasons I shouldn't start building the IKEA shoe cabinets until I know 100% for sure which ones have to be returned (two of the three I bought have a slightly - 2cm - different height listed on the box, probably due to some phasing in of a new design under the same barcode), after telling me earlier this week that the thing he hates most are the moving boxes we are currently using for shoe storage in the hallway. Now I'm on the receiving end of the lose, and it is clear to me why this tactic sucks. At least, being on the receiving end. And that is where A was this morning. I was winning and so we were both losing.

Winning an argument through logic often leads to alienating the person you "won" against, and that isn't the end of goal of most relationships. Not an easy lesson, especially for an academic (either me or M) who keeps seeing logic held in the highest esteem in daily life. Academics can really suck at cooperation and giving in. Turns out, we bring it all too easily home to the breakfast table, too. And then the living room, the bathroom and a handful of other places where it is the last thing we should be emphasizing.

Given how I felt after M won and I put the pieces of the dresser I'd chosen to build back in the box, no wonder A was kicking me earlier this morning.

Mama, I want a baby in our house

Out of the mouths of little ones.

Being a kid is so many things - confusing, emotional, frustrating, and also joyous and full of big dreams and ideas. And an ability to ask for what they want, at the moment they think about it. Without all that adult baggage we develop, of what it means to want, if it is okay, should we say it, should we even want it.

And so, at breakfast this rainy morning, towards the end of eating a kiwi, A said "Mama, I want a baby. In our house. Like you had when you had me when I was a baby." She has a best friend who is a big sister to a 1 year old baby, and babies are all the rage at daycare right now (more in an accessories, I want to be the one who holds her/him, kind of way).

By the time we had talked about which babies she was basing this on, and it was my turn to respond, I started choking up a bit. Saying "I want one, too" without breaking into tears was rough. But I managed it.

That we might all have moments again like that where we can just say so easily what we want at a certain moment.

I want one, too, little one. I want one, too.

"Oh no, only one, we aren't grown up enough to handle more"

It is 9:30am and I've just finished all the dishes. We're talking a full kitchen of dirty dishes from the last 4 days. Pots of crusted-on oatmeal, wooden spatulas that have to be scrapped, dishwasher emptied and restocked and running. And the last thing I knew, it was 8:30am.

Anger may be undesirable for most things but it sure does make for a clean kitchen. Good thing I had such big load, otherwise I'd be currently matching socks in the middle of the bedroom floor. And that doesn't really take enough physical activity to process anger.

And boy was I angry. Mixed with being sad, once the anger subsided.

We were trying to get dressed for school. And said little person needed to poo. And that took a while. And that was fine. But as soon as that was over, little A wanted to play at the sink, instead of wash her hands, and I said "no." And all hell broke loose.

One attempt by me to put underpants on a kicking, flailing screaming child. Two time outs from me. (And for me, let's be honest those things are for parents almost more than for kids). And then M had to step in, because A just wasn't going to calm for me at that point. Insert my first pang of "shit how do single parents do this because I'm scared of who I'd be if I didn't have back-up." And then the second pang, the one that turns all this in on me - that I can't handle even one kid. I can't get one kid dressed and out the door in the morning. She's screaming for her pacifier, and I'm so ready to take a blowtorch to the thing that keep getting lost in her bed and waking us up, and commented on by people across the world. Americans included...Hertz rental car van driver, you so did not help by commenting - after a 10 hour flight and jet lag and an extra bag scan for the apples that we ate on the plan, and exhaustion and worry about getting a bum luggage trolley to move as car seat kept falling off the pile - that your grandson gave up his pacifier at 2 years old. It may be a month and a half late, but, bite me.

And so I retreat to the kitchen. I'm in tears, sobbing, trying to keep the boogers at bay so I can just see a pan or pot. I feel deep down inside so unfit to handle this, wanting to just become an authoritarian and get rid of this kid's spirit, turn her into someone who listens when I say no. And there is no way I can see myself to justifying another child at this moment, I who have lost it. I who can't even think about tomorrow morning and how that is going to be, much less the next 18 years. I'm so disheartened by these moments, and the fact that I have all of this time, like with the first time we tried to get pregnant, to keep thinking about whether or not it is a good idea. I have time to reconsider constantly.


In the end, M and A were finally ready to go to school, 20 minutes late, with a pacifier in her mouth (that I said yes to, while dreaming of dropping it into liquid nitrogen and smashing it with a hammer), and I was still upset. And sad. And somewhat angry. About a lot of things. I managed to get it together enough to go give a little, quiet goodbye kiss on her cheek, and to M. I managed to not do it with a passive aggressive bent. I didn't manage - I let myself not manage - a bright cheery "bye, have fun, see you later!" I went back to the kitchen quickly because the tears were coming again, and for the moment, I'd decided she might get more upset about me crying.

From the hallway, just as the door was closing, she said "I'm sorry, Mama." I came out of the kitchen because I hadn't heard what the words were, and she said it again. "I'm sorry." I hadn't asked for that apology. I don't try to force her (after the first month we started time-outs) anymore to apologize. I let that one go a while ago in some moment of trust that it would eventually work out okay. And this morning, it did. She apologized because, I think, she felt there was something unresolved. And it allowed me to wish her a good day. And that kind of feels authentic, that I didn't force myself to be cheery when I really wasn't, and that it happened out of the blue, and that I wasn't trying to engineer it. And it really did make things better.

And yet, I was left sad. Still furiously scrubbing the pots, going to get another tissue, and feeling the weight of parenting on my shoulders this morning. Feeling so unfit for this job, so undone by this morning, and not sure how I will make it. Followed by the reminder that I've even been considering a second child and feeling so silly for that. I guess it is going to be a bit of a sad morning. And I'd like to be okay with that, and not let it take over the whole day.

Oh, hey, I should go email in my US presidential election ballot now.

Giving the pacifier back

My daughter loves her "nuggi" (the Swiss German name for a pacifier).

I don't love it. Sometimes I'm just embarrassed by it - that some other kids her age (and seemingly every last child in Istanbul) gave theirs up months ago. Granted, I feel embarrassed when I'm in that "my parenting is what makes her who she is" state of mind. Sometimes I just know we're getting close to 3 years old and both the pediatrician and dentist say that is the time to be done with it.

We've gone through so many cycles of my pushing to limit it. She doesn't use it anymore, even for naps, at daycare. And now that constitutes much of the work week. At some point when she was around 20 months old, after a long trip, we found ourselves in double-binky territory for sleeping, and I was beside myself with anguish about it. First world problems, indeed. Except that, if she awoke in the middle of the night, and couldn't find both pacifiers, I or M was called in, loudly, to help.

I imagined that by this time, close to 3 years old, she's be over them for naps. For a while, she was falling asleep in her stroller without them. But not for long.

Now the challenges of convincing her to go sit on the potty in the morning, and getting her cooperation to get dressed (generally and issue of mine, but vital when my back is acting up), have gotten greater. They are accompanied by a lot of whining (I'm not saying whose is louder), and me finding myself trying more time-outs for not putting on socks when I've asked. That isn't what I need time-outs for. And in general, I can always use some practice in negotiating and compromise.

So the nuggi is back in our life, no longer removed once she is out of bed (although for a month or two that helped her stay in bed a bit longer and me get that last 5 minutes of sleep I needed to not be a zombie). It stays with her as long as she is making progress on the taking off of the pajama, the diaper, the sitting on the potty, the getting dressed. And in the evening it calls her name, encouraging her to sit still a bit more while I finish brushing her teeth.

I get it, it is bad for her dental something or other. Looking at that last sentence, perhaps I don't get it. It is bad for something. But so is having a morning full of tears and cajoling and general unhappiness.

The pacifier has taken some ground back. For now. And if a second binky tries any campaigning, forget about it. No deal. But one nuggi, I've conceded that ground.

Don't tell your kids they are smart

When we were back in the US for Christmas break, I picked up a book co-written by an author I like, Nurture Shock . Po Bronson had written a book about changing careers, "What Should I Do With My Life?", full of stories about people who had made huge career changes. It came at just the right time for me, as I was getting up the nerve to quit astronomy. I remember only a few things about the book (as I do with most of what I read), that I liked it, and that almost all the people in the book were forced to change careers. No one calmly sat down and wrote a list of pros and cons of being a day trader and decided it was healthier to follow their dreams of running a diner. Everyone went through a crisis - a divorce, a death in the family, a stroke or heart attack, a paralyzing depression - and this pretty much catapulted them in a new career. They could no longer do what they had been doing before. It made me realize I didn't have to be ashamed that it "took me so long to quit." Unfortunately, my will was strong enough to get me through 5 unproductive, unhappy graduate school years before a major depression hit and I couldn't continue. But that book showed me that this is the natural order of how big career changes happen to a lot of people.

Anyway, apart from recommending that book, I wanted to talk about the more recent book, Nurture Shock. It is a collection of chapters on child development, and the first chapter lands right in the middle of some of the literature I was reading for my dissertation. On praise and intelligence. The first chapter talks mostly about Carol Dweck's research on the perils of praising kids (and I extended that to adults) for their success as an outcome of being smart. Saying "good job! you're so smart" actually seems to set kids up for trouble. They start to worry that they won't be smart enough for the next task they approach and being to avoid challenges. I think of it as hearing "Each person is some fixed amount of smart. If you were smarter than this math test, the next math test could be smarter than you, and people will know you were not smart enough to pass it. You should hide how smart you are and avoid challenges because it is good to be smarter than others and bad to be less smart."

I'm not even going to get into the concept of intelligence today, but the results of Dweck's research suggest we should praise achievement by attributing it to effort - "Good job! You must have tried hard on that test." This encouraged the children in her studies to see challenges (and trying hard) as a good, fun thing. They enjoyed harder tests, even when they didn't do that well on them. In contrast, the kids who had been praised for smarts tended to try hiding any effort they had to expend.

We say "good job!" a lot around the house these days. And whenever I can, I add in something about effort. I think there is a lot to be learned from this research that applies to the culture of academia, but I'll leave that for another day.

The plural of anecdote is data.

Well, it can be.

I both hate and love online parenting forums and discussions because they can make me feel totally horrible about myself, like a parenting super-failure, or they can make me feel normal again. The latter kind are the data of which I speak.

After a 5-7am mama-as-doorstop session, I was googling "fidgety kicking baby sleep" this morning and stumbled on a blog entry followed by a slew of comments by parents with kids like mine. Not the same age, not all girls, and definitely not all born in Switzerland. But these kids all seem to perform the same sleep gymnastics that Baby A does. I say she tries to bench-press me off the bed, they call it Kung Fu hour, and Olympic sports trials. They speak of trying to calm flailing little legs and arms that constantly wake the owner by....GASP....practically immobilizing their kids with wraps, parent legs and arms, you name it. Just like I've done.

And, just like for me, it works. About half of the time. The other half of the time, the mini-gymnast just gets pissed off and screams their head off. Yup, that sounds about right.

All of a sudden, as I'm chuckling about another parent's description of the same thing I've been though, I feel okay. I feel lighter. I even sign in and write a comment. Not only is the flailing happening to other babies, but so is the parental exhaustion and the being screamed at, loudly, when executing a move that just worked this morning. The pressure is off again. My kid is just a wiggly. Like all these other babies that parents are posting about. We've gone to doctors and read books, and we're all still no further in finding a solution to the wiggles. But boy is it nice to know there are others out there.

That transformation through mutual understanding is what makes it not only data, but very valuable data to me. When someone can describe many aspects of my kid's movement habits, even more accurately than I can, it is data. When the same 5 or 6 traits come up over and over again in these comments - fidgety, early development, sleeps in a swing, swaddling not working after about 4 months when the kids just get really good at escape, knocking binkies out of mouths, Kung Fu time, I consider that data.

Whether or not there is an explanation, there is a common experience, which is data.