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There She Grows

Lil is not a kid who likes to be forced to do anything, even if its by her own body. If she doesn’t want to go to the bathroom right now, who is her body to tell her she has to. She will downright refuse. Dancing around? Uncomfortable? She’ll hold her ground. She has not had a single accident though, she just waits until she is absolutely desperate, then runs.

Less silly and more just downright frustrating is her refusal to sleep. Yeah, Lil knows she’s tired, but she didn’t ask for that and she doesn’t like it one bit. She’ll do anything to keep herself awake. The more tired she is, the more she wants to fight relinquishing control of it. All toddlers give us a hard time at bedtime right? I hear that a lot. But I think the extent to which this kid fights sleep might be extreme. Its slightly disconcerting when I start telling parents about her daily sleep antics and I am met with a combination of amazement and pity. I have not heard a single parent, of grandma’s generation or mine tell me their kids are the same way.

Her most lifelong go-to method is flailing her legs and arms for as long as she can. As a baby, Lil angrily flailed when she needed to sleep, and fell almost instantly asleep once she was tightly swaddled. She had a very hard time falling asleep without the swaddle for a pretty long time, like 6 months. A part of her hasn’t outgrown that. She even purposely flails her hands into things, even into her face, to slightly stun herself into awakeness. She does this in other ways also.. like tugging her own hair when her arms have become too tired to do much else. After that, she’ll resort to holding her eyes open with both hands… and then holding one eye open by the eyelashes.

Lil has a list of strategic deterrents to employ long before all that. Getting ready for bed is dragged out as long as possible. Putting one arm into a nightgown could be an ordeal that takes 10 minutes. She enjoys brushing her teeth but will run around as long as she can before doing it. Then she is eager to snuggle into her bed for some books, a part of bedtime Lil truly enjoys. She gets very relaxed during books but when its time for me to leave, she uses her distress over that to revive herself. She sits up, making deals for how much longer I’ll stay. (one more song?) Then suddenly she has to go pee (she’ll hold it until now, so its one more time to leave bed). Under the covers again, she needs a drink of water.

Lil can get more comfortable with a nice soft toy, so she sometimes refuses one. Throwing her teddy bears and dolls off her bed, and instead surrounding herself with harder toys like large books, trucks, potato head, etc. We don’t mind if she plays with toys alone in her room once we’re gone, in order to wind herself down. I am glad to leave her with books and a small light on, since she loves looking though them. But, sometimes we can hear her active in her room, reading and singing and banging her toys all over the place for up to an hour. This is getting into 9:30, 10, before she finally drifts off.

She often emerges once or twice during that time, needing to be tucked in again. When we bring her back to bed, we find evidence of her activities around the room. Instead of resting she was buildling a castle of blocks, stuffing things into purses and easter eggs, giving medical treatment to dolls. Her entire bed is covered end to end with books, so there’s absolutely no place for her to collapse and lay down. Finally she’ll allow me to give her a soft toy or ask for one herself, as if succumbing to her body’s need to just get comfy and sleep already. She really is too much.

And, more nights than not, she appears in our bedroom circa 2am. She’ll get in on my side instead of Mike’s, knowing I’m a heavier sleeper. If she can do it without waking me, she’ll stay until I wake up and realize we are totally squished. She’s getting a lot bigger (so am I), and we only have a queen size. I tell her its too early for her to be in our bed, and she’s fine with going back to her own. But I have to get up and carry her or lead her back in there.

During the day, Lil still takes naps at her pre-school and her daycare. Days when she’s home with me, she makes a huge production out of it. She knows that her dynamic with my emotions is different. She always pushes things with me as far as she can before I get angry and lay down the law. But I know that kids transition out of needing a nap, and some days we just do our thing without naptime. Still, there are days Lil is really over-tired to the point of crankiness: a kid who needs a nap. I read books with her in our bedroom, sometimes 6 or 7 of them, until her eyes are closed. If she manages to make it past that and stay awake (eyelash method etc) then its all over. Just not gonna happen. By then I am close to falling asleep in bed next to her instead of getting anything done.

We’ve all heard of time-outs as one of those standard issue parenting techniques that have stood the test of time throughout generations. Now that I’m a parent myself I’ve learned that time-outs don’t mean the same thing to all parents or all kids. When, how and why parents resort to time-outs and the ‘ground rules’ that surround them are surely as varied as parents and kids are varied.

Lately I’ve heard some talk from the attachment-parenting set (something I’ve considered myself a part of in many ways, go figure) that time-outs are in fact a detrimental no-no. An article on rootparenting.com was recently brought to my attention. It lists 5 reasons why time-outs are harmful to kids.

The whole write-up evokes the image of a dismissive parent angrily shaming their child off to their room at the first sign of ‘bad’ behavior. Paragraph after paragraph describes how time-outs lead to low self esteem, lack of trust, rebellion in the teen years, a kid’s inability to think for themselves, and just the general deterioration of your relationship. Finally, the author allows himself to admit the following:

Sure, you will need to let them simmer down from a tantrum or tears before discussing the issues they are having.

Um, bingo! Read the rest of this entry »

Here Lilah takes a bow after going peepee and poopoo on the potty. Thank you, thank you very much folks.

Yes, this has been one of the greatest developments of recent times.

The potty isn’t new in our lives, at all. She’s been using it on occasion for a whole year now. But full-on potty training has been a very gradual process for us, obviously. Partly because of my lack of insistence and consistency on the matter for far too long, and in huge part due to her flat-out stubbornness. For quite some time L had a full understanding of using the potty but because she likes to be in control of things, she would go when SHE wanted to, and strongly fight the idea when others (particularly myself) suggested it. It was often a frustrating struggle.

Here’s more detail about the long road leading to this wonderful achievement, if anyone is interested. Read the rest of this entry »

Lil always speaks positively about her pre-school teachers and friends; she absolutely loves it. So I don’t believe she is actively involved yet in too much exclusionary play while interacting with the other kids there. However, its apparently common and expected behavior for the 4-5 yr old set, in general as well as at her school. Lil is already keen on watching and learning from everything the older girls do, so its something to think about.

This article on BecomingtheParent.com, sent out by her pre-school, is a good quick read on the subject. It highlights a few different causes of this behavior and ways to handle it from each of those perspectives.

Its noon on Sunday and she just fell asleep. That means, after this procrastination post, work time for me until she wakes up. Much like… every other day.

I do sometimes fantasize about working on location somewhere, having a set schedule and some structure. It doesn’t have to be full time, just out of this house. So that whenever I have the rare moment of freedom at home I wouldn’t feel like I have to be working. I’d love to be using this naptime to do art projects in the garage, or watch a movie, although I’d first need to use it to finish up our xmas thank yous or tackling mount laundry… the kind of things I never seem able to finish during her waking hours. And then maybe once in awhile I could just go the eff back to bed. Which is at times my ultimate fantasy, lol. 2 and a half years into this parenting thing, waking up at 6:30 is still a huge struggle for me. Dont’ worry I’ll save that for my next self-pity post.

Yeah this is one of those moments I am feeling rather bleh about my current routine. Why should I, when things are so great I thank my lucky stars its worked out the way it has. But when I’m feeling particularly sleep deprived and ineffective, my darker pessimistic side comes out easily. I think this year is going to see some changes. Could go in one of two directions. I’m going to have to figure some stuff out.

oh wait, she’s not even asleep yet. Still just playing in her room. I can hear her reading to herself in there. Heh.

Living up to the reputation of two-year-olds, Lilah has suddenly started to have all-out tantrums. That is what I call the episodes where she’s so upset she is beyond all logic. That may sound silly to say about a toddler; what logic do they ever have, right? But Lil really is capable of understanding and communicating quite well. That’s how her strong personality is somewhat manageable. Certainly less so in the past few weeks, when a new level of tantrum has been winning out over hopes of discussion and compromise.

When that happens, when she is completely inconsolable, I see that the only person who can calm Lil down is herself. She needs alone-time to get over it, without an audience in me. That’s the main thing. So I sometimes sit her on the green chair, making sure to differentiate it from a time out by inviting her to come find me when she’s calm and read to talk and listen. Then I just walk out of the room. She does not calm down instantly by any means, in fact she takes it up a notch. But she miraculously stays in that chair while she continues to freak out. Within a minute or two, Lil composes herself and finds me, or sometimes sits quietly and looks at books before emerging. When she comes out after calming down, I am way happy and welcoming.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two things.

1. My digital camera broke, many weeks ago. It just straight-up stopped working.  This doesn’t stop me from taking photos constantly, it just stops me from taking decent ones.  I’ve been shooting iPhone pics pretty much exclusively since then.  The iPhone is significantly better than no camera at all.

2. August was a really busy month for us and A LOT HAS HAPPENED.

I’ve considered writing one long post about everything but at this point that’s not gonna work.   So, expect some backdating here, because I have to talk about the fact that my sister Sarah Rose and Osman visited us, which was wonderful.  And the very next weekend we went up to Portland and had an awesome 5 days with Traci & Jim, and the very next weekend after that, I left the fam behind and went back to Chicago for some girlfriend party time in anticipation of Witte’s wedding.  With Mike’s birthday ending the month it seemed like every weekend was a major event.  But, there were a few other things I wanted to mention too.  Like our playgroups’ shifting dynamic, new chapters in my freelancing adventures, and visits to Descanso Gardens and Travel Town. Not to mention, all of Lil’s new tricks.   I’ll try to get to everything!

Yes, we were idiots! Ha. We waited til after dinner to let Lil enjoy a tiny piece of a birthday cupcake. Afterwards she was clearly exhausted and it was close to bedtime. She went down very easily at first, but it did not last. That small snippet of cupcake was packed with so much sugar that she ended up having one of the worst nights of sleep since her infancy! Right around 1pm she woke up and it was pretty much all downhill from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lil is 21 months old tomorrow… and guess who is still all pica-y?

By now I have told her many times that we don’t eat dirt. or sand, crayons, soap, paper, rocks, etc. To clarify, she doesn’t necessarily eat these items (although she certainly used to!) but she  puts them in her mouth.  And if I didn’t stop her, who knows, she probably would still eat them. In some cases its merely annoying but in other cases its possibly dangerous. She has always been an extremely oral baby, doctors have noted it at many appointments. But it seems like she should have outgrown this by now.

Read the rest of this entry »

I mean, really.  How does such an arrangement even make evolutionary sense.   With already vulnerable infants and toddlers crying inconsolably from teething pain, how did we not all get picked off by saber toothed tigers until our species trailed off at a dead end?

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So, our garage-office leaks.  Still!     Now that i’m working more hours from home again, i’m desperately in need of revisiting our office set-up.       There’s a lot of room and potential out there, but its currently a chaotic mess  and certainly not toddler-friendly.  I have grandiose plans  to achieve what is both a viable work environment for me and a baby-safe play area for Lilah.

All psyched up to make major progress a few weeks ago, I moved a bookshelf away from the wall only to discover there was a mold problem there.    We knew the room had leaked once or twice; its why our computers are standing on the floor inside big waterproof ikea bags.    We’d go in there after heavy rains and sop up small amounts of water from the concrete floor.   But, I had no idea mold was growing behind the furniture. great!   I tossed out the shelves and  scrubbed and sprayed and got medieval on the ass of that mold until it was taken care of.   Mike got up on the roof and sealed every conceivable nook and cranny to nip this problem in the bud, once and for all.

Well los angeles has this way of being dry all the time except for when its raining torrential-downpour style for days on end, about 3-4 times each year.   We hoped the leak was gone but had no way of knowing until the next monsoon happened, which is now. Its been raining hard for the last 2 days, and guess what I just discovered.  Water. On the floor in there.  Surrounding a pile of books that happened to be on the floor only because I am moving them elsewhere.  These ‘books’ are mostly photo albums. Including our wedding pics (and the negatives).  My Bali pics (and the negatives).   Waterlogged, all.

So we spent our evening gingerly removing negatives from sleeves and laying them out to dry – I hope hope hope they can be salvaged.  If not, I will cry. Either way, what a pisser this whole thing is!  I spent all afternoon driving around LA county in a downpour with an annoyed baby to pick up furniture and other items for Project Workspace Reboot, only to discover that yes, leaking is still an issue and no, i will not be able to transform this workspace any time soon, and possibly never.   And that is SO annoying.

warning: this is about to be the longest and possibly whiniest blog post ever, but i need an outlet to chronicle  the hellishness that has been this past month.  so here goes.

Read the rest of this entry »

ugh, something has changed and i am not loving it. for ages now (lol), lilah has slept until at least 6:30-7. and could almost always relax with me for a while and often fall back asleep for some time after that. this was a good system!

well that’s all over now. these days lilah is wide awake as early as 5:15. and back to sleep after a bottle? forget about it. she is awake and ready to go, make no mistake. no longer will she lay quietly with me in bed, so i’ve moved my desperate attempts into the den. along with a bottle, puppy and wally (both of whom she asks for by name immediately which is so cute), we cuddle on the couch. i turn on her shows quietly (pbs kids) in hopes she will chill while i dose a bit, to no avail. i’m in semi-denial though because i keep trying.

quite simply, this is way too early for yours truly. some reading this are surely rolling their eyes by now, but believe me. never a morning person by any stretch, i was proud of myself for adapting to the 7ish routine. but the difference between 7 and 6 is a massive one… and anything with a 5 in front of it is just not going to work! something has got to be done about this, but what?!

its 10:30 and guess who is still screaming her lungs out in the next room. and she has been brought to a complete sleep already several times by both me and mike separately. its just that the moment we put her down, she turns herself over and sits up. sometimes i even hold her down for a few seconds and she’ll sleep, but as soon as i remove my hand (slowly slowly slowly) and start inching away, she turns over and sits up.

i tried an earlier bedtime. didn’t help. i tried to let her stay up even later. didn’t matter.

its not exactly my idea of fun, spending our entire evening trying to put the baby to sleep. by the time its over it seems like our night is pretty much over as well. are we really going to watch our netflix after all this? we’ll never stay up for the whole thing.

and not only that, but she is still waking up around 4ish lately, sometimes even earlier.

blah

it took a while to get it down, but once we did, it worked. for months and months and months. i thought the nighttime routtine was one thing we no longer had to worry about, finally. lilah was in her pj’s by 8:00 each night, and around 8:30 i took her into her room, read her some books and then nursed her. afterwards she was usually asleep, or almost there. i would lay her down in her crib and that was that. on the off-chance that she would not be ready to go to sleep, she would cry a bit and we let her. before too long she’d be out.

well, this all changed in the last week or so. suddenly, our bedtime routine is completely inconsequential. every single night its a stressful ordeal; we start at 8:30 as always, but she’s usually not sleeping soundly until 9:30 or even 10 these days.

the poor thing is teething and it seems to hit her the hardest at night. even after all our familiar nighttime steps, even if she is fast asleep in my arms in the rocker, satiated by books, songs and milk, she will  sit herself up and scream the moment i try to place her down in her crib. and once she has herself sitting up this way, she is seemingly unable to lay herself back down.   which is kind of funny… if it wasn’t so distressing.   so trying to let her ‘cry it out’ a short while as we once did, no longer works. instead she will sit there helplessly for what seems like hours, crying and crying and crying until one of us goes back in to her and it starts all over again. gah its killing me, i don’t know what to do about this. its quarter to ten and the poor exhausted baby is still sitting up in her crib screaming. its depressing to be back to this same story.