A big boy bed

We transferred Mr. B into a big boy bed 10 days ago.

He is doing amazing! I’m so surprised.

I guess I shouldn’t say that. I know he’s amazing. He always surprises me. So really, nothing should surprise me.

We had planned to start the transfer to solo sleeping sometime in April after we had redone the kiddos rooms and they each had a separate sleeping space (so they don’t wake each other, they’re both terribly light sleepers).

But sleep deprivation and the extremely selfish mental need to night wean finally got the best of me.

I 100% refused to let things be as traumatic as they were with H. There were lots of tears involved with her, even though I was always there, etc., etc., and I just told J straight up I wanted to give it a go, but if it was a traumatic event (for either of us!) I wasn’t going to do it (like said 1,245,234 night weaning attempts before this).

Well, B is all about the bed.

We set up H’s crib into the converted toddler bed. I was apprehensive since it doesn’t have a side rail and he’s a flailing bean, but we put down a rug with a huge comforter on the floor below him, and the few times he fell the first three nights, he was mostly unphased.

The first night he fell asleep ridiculously easy without nursing. I nursed him right before I laid him down, he was armed with a sippy cup and dream lite. He tossed back and forth a bit, and finally fell asleep with me kind of leaning over the bed and holding him in the crook of my arm. But I was easily able to escape. He woke up at 9pm, and 11pm, when I brought him back to bed with me.

The next night he fell asleep without me holding or touching him, just sitting beside his bed. He didn’t wake up until 11pm, and then again at 1pm, at which point he came to bed with Momma.

Of course, his 11pm wake up was a bit funny. I heard a thunk! and ran into his room, to find him on the floor. He stood up, looked at me, said, “Ow,” and then crawled into his bed all on his own and went right back to sleep.

This continued on for the next few days (minus the falling out of bed) until the night before we got Duckie. That night he slept straight through until 3am! If only I’d gone to bed before midnight. Agh!

And since Duckie’s arrival he’s slept straight through until 1am.

If you can’t tell, I’m not complaining.

All of this and he has 100% on his own given up night nursing until between 4 and 5am. At which point he nurses until we wake up, but this is far easier than the every 1-2 hours for 1-2 hours at a time he was doing previously (no joke).

And I certainly don’t expect him to sleep a solid 12 hours with no wakings or to make it in his own bed all night. His sister rarely does that at a month shy of 3. And that’s okay. I’m more than happy to be there when they need me. But I’d like them to sleep a bit on their own, too. That’d be cool.

Of course, now I’m getting him used to a bed he doesn’t get to keep past April since it will turn into his sister’s full sized bed. And I don’t think he’s quite ready for the twin sized bed as he’s still a roly poly, and it is significantly higher off the ground. I go round and round on whether we should buy him a proper bed now or just buy him a toddler bed to use for a year or two. I’m leaning toward toddler bed, but not too sure.

Anyway, I’m totally ready to have their bedrooms done so that everyone is stowed away in their own space and things seem a bit more complete around here. (A bit!)

But I am floored. Absolutely floored by how easy this transition has been thus far. I’m waiting for the huge hiccup or the something that goes wrong. Because it seems it’s been too easy to last.

Oh, and the very best part! He’s taking naps in that bed that are for longer than the 30-45minutes he’s dwindled down to since Christmas! He’s now sleeping 1.5-2 hours!

Okay, mostly this was just a “hoorah post.”

And I may very well have hoorahed too soon.

Oh, well.

We’ll always have Paris.

Duckie was the last straw of our sanity

Let's just say having Duckie is a lot of fun.

J is getting a very eye-opening experience on what having kids could have been like for him.

Currently, he's the one feeding Duckie every 3 hours between 12-6 (so yes, that's only two times he literally has to get up and feed him). He's understanding legitimate broken sleep.

He lucked out and never really had to get up with our babes. For the first few weeks when H was born I'd have him change diapers when she first woke up, but then realized that was dumb because I was - at the time - all ready up with her as we hadn't yet mastered breastfeeding laying down. Then with B I made him master the sideways nurse from day one. And since he wasn't a pooper like his sister, I admit, I did not change his diaper every single time he nursed at night, it was more like every other time.

So really, J's sleep was only interrupted by rustling or possibly the brief cry when a bare bum was exposed to cold air. And the week we night-weaned H he took over tending to her for a few nights.

That's it.

He's never really had to do anything major.

If we'd been bottle-feeding the nighttime responsibilities would have for sure been 50/50, simply because that's the type of relationship J and I have (okay, if we're being truthful, it probably would have been more like 75/25, with him on the higher end because I need my sleep whereas J is like, "Give me 4 [solid] hours and I'm good" and I'm like, "That's insanity, I need a solid 8, but 10 would be nice.")

But alas, the poor guy is dying with these nightly feedings. It throws off his four solid hours of sleep. Duckie is a bit of pickle, so we have to do this awesomely fun thing where we make him suck our finger and then squirt the milk into the back of his mouth.

And we've tried all kinds of bottles and nipples and syringes and eye droppers. Duckie's just not impressed. He can drink some milk out of a bowl on his own, but not enough where we don't need to continue to bottle-feed him. But we're working on it all.

At least he's super smart in the potty-arena. He's all ready pretty much puppy pad trained. When it's warmer out, we'll teach him to go outside.

I have just laughed at my poor sleep deprived husband when I appear downstairs at 6am with our bright eyed and bushy tailed toddlers (I can call H a toddler for another month yet!). He tells me, after giving Duckie his last feeding, that he's going up to nap for a few hours and off he goes.

He has no idea what it's been like, obviously, for the past three years, getting up every 45minutes - 2.5 hours with small children. Yes, he's certainly helped out a lot with H in the middle of the night when I've been physically attached to B, and I appreciate that I've never had to "ask for help" because he realizes he's an equal parent, even if the kids don't always want us equally, so it's not like I've been, "Can you get H?" He just does it. Because that's normal. And he almost always gets up with them in the mornings and lets me sleep until at least 630 if they're up before that, and I typically get to sleep until 730-8 on the weekends. But it's still funny to see him act like the past three nights have been rougher than his college years.

Of course, despite it all he's crazy in love with Duckie. He calls him his third child. And when he said it was apparent at this point, if it had been at all questionable before, that we have lost our minds.

He then went on to say, shortly after this, after seeing a picture of a friends baby French Mastiffs, which is the type of dog he'd like to get, that we might as well just get a dog now.

I knew it.

I knew it was coming.

I said sure. Who cares at this point? We're mental.

We're sleep deprived.

And to think four years ago our life was nothing but drinking, sleeping, travelling, and unmentionables. Damn, how things change.

And you know we're both mental, because we both said we wouldn't trade in that life for the one we have now on even the worst of days.

Yep, completely insane.

A pig named Duckie

I married an animal lover. I gave birth to two animal lovers.

I am not an animal lover.

Soulless, I know.

Puppies don't make me melt. Kittens don't make me coo.

I like the idea of practical animals. Goats that give milk. Chickens for eggs. You know, animals for food, not as pets.

Unfortunately, mi familia does not not agree.

At all.

J has been wanting a dog since before we got married.

"No way," I declared. "Too much work."

Two kids later, it still seems like too much work. Now I tell him, along with my sweet H that a dog is not a possibility due my allergies. Once everyone is willingly weaned, maybe we'll talk (I refuse to take non-life or death meds while breastfeeding).

I also argue that my desire to clean up poop after anything I haven't given birth to is zero. Non-existent.

But H is persistent. To the max. "I need a puppy, Mommy," I hear nearly every day. "I need a kitty of my very own." On and on and on she goes.

So I relented. I said fine. Let's do this animal thing.

And then she saw some piggies.

I knew enough about pet pigs to know that they are hypoallergenic, ridiculously clean, and smarter and easier to train than dogs.

And because I am sick of saying no (though I was sooooo close to her just settling for a lizard), I said yes.

And now we have a Duckie.

Formally, his name is Waldo Titus Mallard G. Because we do everything long and complicated around here. I suggested all literary names (of course!). When I suggested Emerson, J asked who that came from. I informed him it was from Ralph Waldo Emerson. He liked Waldo. H couldn't pronounce it well. J piped in with Titus. H was happy with Duckie. So we made Duckie his all-around name, threw in Mallard because we're cool like that if Duckie is to be his nickname (NCIS anyone?).

So now I currently have a 5 day old teacup piglet cuddled on my lap because it seems all infants I come into contact with find it necessary to be held and snuggled 24/7. Duckie is no different.

Go figure.

At this rate, we're going to have a whole damn zoo. J is planning chickens this spring, which I'm all for. But he happily reminded me that if he puts in a fence for Duckie than that opens up the reality of a dog (because obviously now that we have a pig this is more feasible - to him - allergies or no). What's next, a cat? A goat? A freaking cow?

I wouldn't put it past these animal lovers.

So while I'm bottle feeding a pig every 2-3 hours (who is admittedly freaking sweet and adorable and cuddly and a decent substitute for another baby), they're planning their next grand animal to add to our family.

And here I was completely content with none.

But par the course of our family, we can't do anything normal. Nope. We don't start out with a lizard or a stand-offish cat that is low maintenance. We go straight to a sliding, squealing, need-love-and-attention-at-every-moment pig.

Because, you know, everyone needs a pig.

Or at least my kids think so.

A reflection on the (not so) "terrible" 2s.

As Miss H grows closer to 3 each day, I’ve been reflecting on the wonder of the 2s. Everyone prepares you that it’s “terrible.” And then during those moments of terrible, they taunt you that 3 is “treacherous” and so much worse, which just makes you want to cry and drink a bottle (or three) of wine.

But really, 2 is pretty awesome.

Don’t get me wrong, some of it was hard. Like to the max.

July, August, and September made me question all of my parenting. And that was a good thing. It made me change oh-so much, and the result was a much happier Momma, and more importantly, a much happier H. But it was hard.

But mostly 2 has just been awesome. The little H that turned 2 nearly a year ago, and the almost-3 year old H now has changed and grown and developed so much into her own person that sometimes all I can do is just stare in awe at what an amazing, well-spoken, empathetic, terribly compassionate, sweet, loving girl she is. She’s this whole person with lovely (and sometimes not so lovely) thoughts and feelings and she can communicate them all quite effectively.

 

She feels everything big. Her feelings and emotions are big. This, of course, means that her sad and angry emotions are big. And sometimes that’s challenging.

Challenging because it breaks my heart to see her sad no matter the reason. In November while visiting friends I very gently reprimanded her for crawling into a dog crate. Immediately she cried and ran to me, burying her face into my shoulder while I rocked her and she fell asleep. She was sad I reprimanded her, because by that point it was a very rare occurrence, and a bit embarrassed I had done it front of others. I wouldn’t change any of it, I didn’t yell and I was very kind about the whole thing, but it still broke my heart to see her sad and embarrassed.

And it’s even more challenging because even though her sad feelings are big and heart breaking, her angry feelings are big and loud and sometimes difficult for me to help her deal with properly. And oftentimes they are the result of something that, to me, is so minor. She wanted a red apple, but didn’t specify, and I handed her a green apple. End. Of. The. World. She’s stuck in imaginary mud on the library steps but Momma is failing to be a mind-reader and thus doesn’t realize H needs saving. End. Of. The. World. Someone looked cross-eyed at her toy and she was thinking she might want to play with it tomorrow. End. Of. The. World.

So I get it. Why it’s called “terrible.” I do. I also realize it doesn’t magically stop when they turn 3. (It gets worse, I’ve been assured!).

But just as she expresses her sad and mad emotions in such big ways, she shows her happy and lovey and excited and compassionate and empathetic emotions in big ways. She’s constantly showering me in hugs and kisses, as well as J and B. Every other sentence out of her mouth seems to be, “I just love you so much, Momma.” She’s so in tune with me and has been the tiny person wrapping her arms around me when I’ve been out of sorts dealing with this lead business. She’s reassuring me that everything is going to be okay.

She gets so excited about everything. She squeals in delight when she receives mail. She was so genuinely thrilled when she opened a stack of books for Christmas. We’re going to the library today? Hooray! Everything is fun and exciting and worth jumping for joy over.

She’s (typically) gentle with her baby brother. When he goes to touch the TV and she knows that we’ve stopped her from that, she says in the sweetest voice, “Oh, lovey, you mustn’t touch that. It could fall on you and hurt you.” Or when he is being aggressive and hits her, she’ll say, “Ow, that hurts me. Hitting isn’t nice, B. We don’t hit. Would you like to give me a high 5 instead?” And this affirms that gentle and non-punitive parenting was the right change for us.

She’s the tiny little girl with a mighty voice who wasn’t afraid to call out a bellowing dad in front of Old Navy for yelling at his upset toddler by informing him that “yelling isn’t nice” and he was making the boy sad. I’d never been so damn proud of her lack of filter.

Which gets me to the 2 year old lack of filter. For the first time since she was born I have this amazing, beautiful, unfiltered view straight into her soul. She says anything and everything on her mind. She knows nothing about political correctness. She has no desire or capability to be malicious or hurtful. Just honest. She’s purely honest.

Once, as she toted her colored baby doll around, a friend asked her if the baby was hungry. She looked at said friend, blankly, and replied, “No, he’s just black.” I laughed so hard I cried.

One fantastic grocery trip I got to listen to her tell me, “Oh, look, Mommy. That’s a boy. He has a penis. Oh, there’s a girl. She has a vulva!” And it was in that overly loud toddler voice, so everyone heard. Everything. Fantastic. And despite trying to tell her that is wasn’t wholly appropriate for us to talk about genitalia in public, especially other people's, she didn’t stop. She only replied with, “We’re just talking, Momma. We’re not touching any penises!”

She has no problem calling me out when I’m being less than kind. I’ve heard, “You’re not being nice, Mommy,” more than once. And, “Do you just need a hug?” which is what I ask her when she’s getting cranky.

I love that she can communicate all of her wants and needs and thoughts without that infant cry and babble. She spoke quite well much earlier than the norm, but age 2 seemed to perfect her language.

She used the word “synonymous” once and I nearly peed my pants.

It’s been amazing to be a part of and witness the drastic transformation that one short year can do to a 2 year old (and her parents! A good friend so kindly told me I went from looking like I was 15 to over 30…so I aged 15 years in less than one!).

The most humbling of all was learning that I can’t control her. Or anyone. As human beings, even as parents, we do not have the ability to control any one, not even our children. Sure, you can yell, threaten, smack, whatever. But there is no guarantee that your child would change and give you control. And honestly, would you want them to? You’d just be setting them up to learn to give up control to anyone who bullies them in life (because, if we’re being honest, yelling, threatening, and spanking are nothing more than bullying). And no one wants that.

2 year olds are learning to push and test boundaries. It’s how they function as human beings. But they also easily and happily teach you that exerting control on the world, on people, is something that simply cannot, and should not be done.

You just have to learn to let go. Roll with the punches. You will never win an argument with your 2 year old, at least not in a manner that is truly successful and beneficial for their mental and emotional (and possibly physical) health, as well as your own. So laugh instead.

If you embrace it, 2 is awesome. 2 is phenomenal and fun. 2 is insightful.

Turns out, 2 isn’t quite as terrible as some would have lead me to believe. But I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. Glass half full kind of thing.

My house might look like a frat party has been thrown the night before – toilet paper everywhere, a baby doll swimming in a toilet of yellow water, sippy cups strewn everywhere, dirty clothes in every nook and cranny possible, crushed up crackers and smashed blueberries every other step you take, curtains literally pulled out of the wall, crayon drawings covering the walls.

But if you’re willing to just take a deep breath, smile, cherish this brief time in the grand scheme of things when you get to parents an amazing 2 year old, then it’s all okay.

Because 2 year olds are amazing.

Let the mommy guilt go

A friend of mine and I were commiserating over mommy guilt the other day. She has two boys, ages 5 and 2. She'd recently had "the circumcision talk" as she put it, with her oldest, explaining, upon his questioning, why he (C) is circumcised and little P is not. She said it kills her everytime she sees what she allowed happen to C.

I, of course, told her my favorite motto, "When you know better, you do better." She wasn't educated  about circumcision with her first. She was with her second and thus she did better. We all make mistakes. We all learn things as time goes by. But we can't dwell on the woulda shoulda couldas.

Who has time for that?

But, par the course of my life, I wasn't looking at things this way prior to this conversation.

I confessed to her that I'm often riddled with guilt because I pierced H's ears (her body, her choice). I feel terrible when I think of how I night weaned her so young per some terrible advice or how I was constantly trying to get her to sleep through the night or sleep on her own. When she was B's age I was far less flexible and much more rigid. I actually thought obedience was a good expectation.

I've obviously done none of these things to B. He was born perfect (like H), no penile mutilation or holes in his body to stick little boppits simply because I find it to be aesthetically pleasing necessary. He's never slept in a crib, has only recently started sleeping part of the night on his own. He nurses through out the night. I've never smacked his hand and will neve battle a time-out war with him.

I have dealt with a lot of guilt over how differently my children have spent the first 18 months of their lives. Guilty because H deserved better.

But you know what, I was doing the best I knew how. Was it right? Hell no. But I was constantly learning. Willing to learn. As was J. I was willing to accept that I didn't know it all, or know it best, and was/am open to constantly learning new and sometimes better ways and information.

So I will never claim to have done things "right" with H (or B for that matter). I will never defend my mistakes.

I know I will someday have to explain to H that Momma made a choice to aesthetically alter her body, and that it wasn't my right to do so. And even if she ( like me) doesn't seem to mind at all, I will still ask her forgiveness. It's the least I can do when I didn't bother to ask her consent.

I've done a lot of things wrong. And no guilt weighs heavier or pulls tighter on your heart strings like mommy guilt. And mommy guilt seems to be rampid amongst this era of moms who are on information over load. But I don't have the time or energy to hold onto it. I will make my amends when it's appropriate, I will ask my children's forgiveness.

But I will forgive myself.

Always.

I deserve it.

And so do you.

"Mommy, go away."

For the most part, when J is home, I'm like chopped liver to H. She only wants me if she's looking for a boob or chocolate (at least she knows who gives her candy).

Today, every time I'd try to get her out of the car, she'd yell, "No! I want Papa to do it!"

So I'd walk away, trying not to feel defeated. Trying not to take it personally, because I know it's not.

When we finally returned home and I opened her car door she said, "Mommy, go away!"

I looked at her, annoyed, a bit hurt, and said, "I don't like it when you speak to me that way. It makes me sad."

Her face softened a bit and she replied, "Mommy, please go away. And please don't be sad. I just need my Papa today."

There is something simply profound when a two year old can put her needs into words. And when she's able to make you understand she really has nothing against you.

Sometimes a girl just needs her Papa.

And that's okay.

Acidophilus: Probiotics or acid?

Yesterday J got up with the kids so I could sleep in (you know you’re a parent when “sleeping in” is until 730am). After I got out of the shower H came running up the stairs crying about her probiotics and how she needed a new one. I told her very calmly that she needed to go downstairs and tell Papa she would like a probiotic. It was okay if she’d all ready had one, Momma said it was fine. But I emphasized that she needed to use nice words and a nice tone of voice, because if she was whining to Papa the way she was to me, he’d never understand her.

So off she went and I didn’t think about the incident again until that night after the kids were in bed and J and I were hanging out in the kitchen while I baked cookies for our Valentine’s play date today.

“Oh, the probiotics are on the counter. You should put them in the fridge,” J told me while I was putting cookies into the oven.

“What are they doing on the counter? They shouldn’t be left out.” I quickly returned them to their cold home.

J shook his head, that sad look of defeat on his face. “You have to give the kids their probiotics from now on. I can’t do it,” he told me.

I looked at him, my eyebrows highs. “What’s so hard about it?”

“Well,” he began. “Your daughter asked me for some probiotics. I told her she’d have to get them since I wasn’t entirely sure where they were located at in the fridge. She gets them out and of course B wants one too. I hand it to him and try to break the capsule open, but he wants the whole thing, so I just let him have it. [Note: I typically pull the capsule apart and pour the probiotic powder into B’s mouth for him] Then H asked me to open hers, so I proceeded to do so, but the second it touched her tongue she started screaming and spitting and trying to wipe it out of her mouth. She’s running around the house in circles freaking out, I’m certain I’ve just put acid in her mouth because I didn’t even check the bottle, I just assumed she knew what it was, and I’m also trying to fish the unopened capsule out of B’s mouth before he bites it open and releases the same acid into his mouth.”

At this point, between the story, understanding what was going on, and his elaborate animation, I was laughing so hard there were tears.

“You can only open the capsule for her. You can’t pour it into her mouth. She likes to do that herself. You clearly don’t understand what it’s like to be almost 3.”

“Yeah,” he told me flatly. “I know that now. But I’m not risking the chance of giving our kids acid ever again. Especially when the bottle just says ‘acidophilus’ so it’s clearly telling me it’s acid.”

Uh huh. That’s what it says…