Oh the things we do to pacify our toddlers in public. Yes, I'm barely into my second trimester, but yes, I am buying maternity clothes. I went to Sears for the president's day sale. I'm appalled to admit we left Sears looking like Hansel and Gretel had gotten a corporate sponsorship from Pepperidge farms based on the trail of goldfish left behind. (I could just picture little lederhosen looking like Nascar knock-offs with the PF Logos.) Why do they choose to throw all their tantrums in public, or is it just then that we notice how mortifying they are? It just doesn't feel very mature to be yanking back and forth on a zippy full of goldfish with a screaming toddler. Of course it's a lot LESS mature to just cave. "Okay, Angelina, you can have the zippy." Uh huh, really dignified to be on my hands and knees in the middle of Sears scooping up goldfish by the handful while AJ still had the zippy and it was raining goldfish on my head. This would by why I decided to let the Sears Janitorial service earn their keep with the Hansel and Gretel trail.
So my new mantra is "Don't cave, don't cave!" And here I am, dilligently speaking only German to her, studying German again myself (a very difficult language) and yet I'm not above resorting to English when I'm in public and have Angelina thrown over a shoulder after a chase where she careened through people like a pinball. "Sweetie, if you can't stay near mommy you aren't allowed out of the cart. Please stop screaming, sweetie." Not for her benefit, of course, but for all those people that I, the larger pinball, careened against in my attempts to catch her. And a giggling toddler has a level of charm that the chasing chubby 40 year old just can't match, so people are looking at ME as being the villan who intruded into their personal space ... and of course I AM. Needless to say my tone of voice to Angelina is saying "Do you really want to live to reach two?"
The day was not made better by a leaking Avent bottle. By the time I got home and up the stairs I realized that my chic black diaper back pack was leaking a trail of milk down my ass. Ev got a little grumpy. And then I imprudently went to Costco on a weekend. Doug and I had boycotted Costco there for several years after I'd been pinned at one end of the cart and Doug at the other by the eighth passing family of 10 or more in a crowded aisle. Doug left everything in the cart and got me out of there after I hollered to him "NOW I KNOW WHY RATS EAT EACH OTHER WHEN THERE ARE TOO MANY IN A CAGE!" So this time I was back, but I was definitely the aggressor rat. Ever have a day when you're just hoping someone messes with you? That last little gal who bumped my butt with the cart narrowly escaped with her life, at least in my imagination. At this point it's cathartic just to give someone a really dirty look. So is this finally a sign of maturity? That I'm not taking out my aggressor rat tendencies on perfect strangers? That I have some restraint and don't rip someone's liver out through their nostril just 'cause they bumped my butt?
God, I remember the days when I felt like a grown up. When I had a job and a life and boobs I could call my own. Talk about share ware. I was all nostalgic about weaning and missing nursing. I don't mind cuddling topless at her insistance, but does she HAVE to twiddle the nipples? Some days I really understand the women who think they'd go nuts if they were stay at home moms. I guess here's the secret. We SAHMs DO go nuts. It's just that working outside the home would have made us nutser.
I told Doug I'd been asked to write a column for the PMC newsletter. His reaction was a tepid "That's great honey, just leave me out of it." Now how can I do that? Particularly when he tells me that while I was at the PMC meeting he was getting ready to give Angelina a bath. We've never used the baby bath for her, Doug's always stripped down and gotten in with her. She could bathe by herself now (with supervision, of course) but it's their quality time. They splash and play together and it's just a delight to see. On the other hand, due to Angelina's penchant for eating cat food, we have all the cats' supplies in there. Every bath requires cleaning out the cat food and water, sweeping up the crumbs, etc. So Doug had Angelina prepared for the bath (i.e. running around naked) and was ready to get in himself (naked too) when he was bent over sweeping up kitty crumbs. Thems that dangle will jangle of course. Angelina must have seen the interesting view from the back, came up and poked the dangling pair with her little fingers. Doug popped up as if on a spring and turned around to see Angelina smiling and pointing, saying "Pee pee!" He got a little wiggy about it. It doesn't matter how innocent, NO man wants to see any female pointing and giggling. I was raised part of the time in Europe where nudity is normal, so I'd prefer to have her just think parts is parts rather than make a value judgement about them. He got under the suds as quickly as he could and they had a wonderful time.
I had a dentist appointment. I was worried about it because I tend to gag these days while brushing my teeth. Doug and I were supposed to switch roles. I was getting ready to leave the house while he was to be watching Angelina. Uh huh. I was in the shower, all shampooed up when I heard AJ come in to the bathroom. A little pink shadow passed by the frosted glass shower door and then I heard a gleeful "Pee Pee!" I looked out, dripping shampoo everywhere to discover that she was stirring the water in the open toilet with her pacifier. Horrified I snatched it out of her hand and soaped it up with some of the shampoo from my hair. I needn't doubt who taught her that snatching behavior that will probably show up at a playgroup near you. Where was Doug? Watching Fox News to see if we'd caught Osama yet.
We had another blissfully uneventful day. I was doing laundry and AJ was "helping." She found a pair of Doug's underwear and put them on. Both feet were through one leg and she had them bunched up around her waist. 30 seconds later they were off. I would put the wash on the dryer door and she'd "help" by pushing it into the dryer. Later I was on "the throne." (At what point in our mommyhood do we ever get privacy back?) Angelina was having so much fun hiding behind the towel on the towel bar and having me "find" her with tickles and giggles. I thought that these were the silly little moments I'd be missing if I were working. And I don't care if I still can't call my boobs my own. I don't care if I never have manicured acrylic nails again. I don't care if I look schleppy and have an oatmeal handprint on my sweatshirt all day. I don't care that I don't pull down a hefty paycheck anymore. I know other women don't have the choice or prefer to work. Bravo for the choices you make. I DO go nuts, but for me it's bliss to hear her say "Nackt, boobies HUG!"
Doug had oral surgery on Wednesday morning. He was pretty loopy from the drugs and hanging around with an ice pack on his face. Even so, he wanted to be a little productive and since I'm claiming preggo priviledge, he decided to clean the cat box. This is usually a two person job since it takes 100% of someone's energy to keep Angelina out of the cat box. Even TV isn't more fascinating than that. Doug finished and vacuumed and our house was blessedly free of that horrible odor again. I was fixing dinner. Doug decided to check e-mail. We've been trying to get Angelina to play independantly and as such, when she's occupied we usually just peek from around a corner and let her keep going. Since it's silence that makes us the most nervous, we weren't too worried as we could hear her pitter patter up and down the hallway. We failed to notice that our little Angel had found the large scoop we use for the cats' food and was industriously running back and forth between the cat box and the living room coffee table. I noticed when I poked my head out of the kitchen to tell Doug dinner was ready. There were about seven large piles of cat litter on the coffee table, which she must have figured was enough as she started pretending she had a little zen sand garden and was running her hands through the litter like a rake. To get seven piles, she had to pass the open doorways to the kitchen and the office 14 times. She appeared to be very proud of herself! I ran for the video camera while Doug ran for the vacuum. We thereby forgot one of the cardinal rules of parenting which is PREVENT FURTHER DAMAGE FIRST. Cleanup should be second. At least one pile wound up in the carpet. This was, of course, a lovely accent to the trail she'd left from one end of the house to the other schlepping the litter to the coffee table in the first place. We got Angelina corralled and everything cleaned up. I immediately called Doug's mom, just in case she still had some memories of days like this at his hands when she cursed him to have a child just like him. Doug swears it was the drugs that made him forget the doorstop.
Doug and I had a little spat. Nothing unusual. He gave up the ice bags last night. Concerned about the swelling, he came up to me and asked "Do I have any swelling?" Still peved I said "No, but I could fix that for you."
I caught myself calling an insulated coffee commuter mug a "sippy cup."
Doug and I took the Valentine's day sex tour at the zoo this year. Was sposta get us all interested and excited and we were supposed to go home and implement some of the tips we'd learned from the animal kingdom. Yeah right. I'm pregnant. What is it? Is it some sort of propoganda that human females are always receptive to sex? Who the hell leaked that particular item of disinformation. Dateline should do an expose to debunk the myth. Sometimes I feel like despite my intellectual interest in sex, all the hormones in my body are saying "BULLSHIT! he already scored and the bun is baking, NO SEX FOR YOU!"
To the serious side.
So I have a question here. Am I nuts or is it possible to give up "control" without giving up "authority?" Can I create a loving environment where the kids can relax because they get to have fun and I handle the grown-up stuff? I can't believe kids actually WANT to have complete control, despite their tantrums to the contrary. Are we speaking the same language as our children? I've noticed that for some kids asking politely means they utterly ignore what is being asked of them. Can one bark orders in a cheerful tone? Kids don't always understand adult language such as "You're hurting Mommy's feelings when you're not polite to grandma." Some kids couldn't give a rat's patootie about Mommy's feelings. What I'm getting through my various studies is that they're concrete thinkers and creatures of creatable habits. About 10,000 repetitions of "Say please" and "Say thank-you" can eventually be replaced by "what do we say?" and will eventually generate a moderately polite child.
Isn't it to our children's advantage to teach them how to function in society with social nicities amongst which are pleases and thank-yous? I know one child who never says a spontaneous please or thank-you and I am utterly uninspired to give this kid anything, ever. Can they be taught to be grateful without ever showing gratitude? I don't see how. I know that kid wants more goodies, but his behavior is not going to make it happen. There's a philosophy that these social lubricants are contrived and kids shouldn't be required to say things they don't really feel.
Is it our goal to have our children never feel bad, or is it on occasion an available parenting tool? Since when is "remorse" considered bad? It seems to me as though kids SHOULD feel badly when they've done a bad thing -- not that THEY ARE bad, but simple remorse. How else will they develop an aversion to the behavior we don't want repeated? How can they ever MEAN "I'm sorry" if they never actually FEEL sorry?
I used to be "Officer Friendly" and give lectures to kids. I had to study how the brain functions. Most of the pleasant feelings illegal drugs induce we can cause for ourselves if we choose to do so. If you're angry you can choose to take a bubble bath, or a long walk, or attack the stairmaster. If you're sad you can pet your cat, do something nice for someone else, or watch a comedy. You must consciously CHOOSE the behavior and engage in it before your brain will give you the happy neurotransmitter payoff.
So if we teach kids the behavior (Say "thank you" to Grandma) even though they may not FEEL like engaging in that behavior, they will get the payoff (Grandma smiles with pure love on her face, hugs them and brings more presents at her next visit.) Often times behavior comes before the payoff, and only then is the behavior is cemented. If we don't insist on the behavior they'll never get the payoff and never wind up internally motivated to engage in the desired behavior.
It may be "contrived" but at 21 months with minimal prompting, Angelina says Peas (please) Bitte (please in German) Genkoo (thank you) and Danke (thank you in German). I usually respond with "You're so very welcome, I love to do things for you."
Nothing is so polarizing as parenting philosophies. There are many roads to Rome as a friend of mine said, I just wonder if we're assuming that ALL roads lead to Rome, and they don't. If my thoughts offend anyone, sorry. Don't worry, I'm not raising your child, just mine. At least we all see eye to eye that we want the best for our kids. And I don't want mine clobbering yours.
I guess their therapists will determine how well we did.
p.s. I love hearing feedback. Let me know what you think, or tell me a mommy moment of your own. All rights reserved
