SoCal

It's been almost a month since we moved to LA now. DH and I still both find it odd that we're in California, that we're on the west coast, that we're living on Pacific time. I think we're pretty settled by now, although there are still odds and ends that we run into that need fixing, buying, adjusting, or attention in some other way. We'll get there.

The strangest part about LA is how different the people are from NYC. First of all, NYC is heterogeneous socio-economically, but once you look within a socio-economic stratum, race/ethnicity becomes homogeneous. LA is the opposite: neighborhoods are socio-economically homogeneous, but race/ethnically quite heterogeneous. I prefer it this way, actually. I think it's healthier for the BoE to grow up with the idea that he can play with kids of all races and they all have the same manners and general lifestyle.

The second most strange part about LA is the plastic surgeried people. They're everywhere and it's creepy. There's nothing like a facelift and some collagen in the lips to make you look like you stepped out of a horror movie, imho. Plus, they all look the same, which makes it extra-creepy. I have to add, though, that those people are fewer than I expected (I guess I was expecting LA to be a hot mess of collagen), and that the other people on the street look fairly normal (whatever that means).

The BoE is gaining in speech, gaining in communication, and gaining in opinion and temper. He's a handful. I waver between thinking that he's incredibly smart and thinking that something's wrong with him. His verbal skills are way beyond his age, but he also has particular wants that are so specific that I worry about him. For example, he has a thing with lights at night: there can be *none*. We had to cover the green light on the smoke alarm with a piece of foil because he became hysterical at the thought that we couldn't turn the light off. There is a security light outside of his window; after much prodding last night, he finally explained to us that he wanted us to put cardboard or something behind his curtains so that *all* that light is kept out of his room, not just most of it. The communication aspects here are astonishing for his age. The specificity of his complaints and the level of hysteria he reached, worry me.

We tread lightly with the BoE. We let him choose as much as we possibly can; we use "no" as sparingly as possible to avoid conflict. I think this is the healthier way to do it, in order to not set ourselves up for a shut-off kid or fantastically awful teenage years (or both). This can be hard when he wants to only eat a meal while standing his chair, when he stands next to us and screams that he wants us to play with him during dinner time, when he wants to rummage through the fridge and touch every bottle in a particular order, when he wants to sleep with us at night and then proceeds to kick and punch us all night long in his sleep (ok, this happens every night), when he can't decide what he wants to eat but he's hungry, etc... If we decide to go with "no", and there's no clear explanation for it (e.g., "that's dangerous" - he understands things like that very well), we have to get ready for WWIII, and it'll last at least an hour. So we try to swallow the annoyances. I don't agree with parenting as a dictator, so this is my philosophy in action...it's trying as hell on my extremely limited patience, but we agree that it's definitely the best course for the BoE.

Other than DH, another person keeping me sane is my mom. She went through all of this before, with me. The BoE and I are very much alike. So much so that my mom has specific solutions to issues that come up, and we use the suggestions gladly. The most recent one has been to create a "pounding pillow" that he can use to punch and kick when he gets angry. I had one, too. It had my name embroidered on it. You know, because I'm a lady.

Beyond parenting the BoE and adjusting to life as a SoCal resident, not much has been happening. That was a necessary thing for me, taking some time to breathe, but I also hate it. I hate not working. It makes me feel unsettled and untethered and I don't like it. I recently started going back to the gym after a three-week hiatus, and I feel much better now, less panicky and neurotic in general. I know that the first few weeks of school will be insanely busy and frustrating at times, but I also know that I can't live without the workload. I need to be overloaded; I need to have endless to-do lists. I crave goals and meeting them and feeling like I'm getting somewhere even though deep down I know that they're superficial, arbitrary goals just like everything else.

I knew that being in between work and school would be the hardest part of this move for me. And now it's almost over; orientation starts on Thursday. I'll miss all the time with the BoE, but I'll love the time spent reading and writing. I just have to keep remembering during the busy times that they're always better than not-busy times. Hear that, future me?

Some thoughts on child-led parenting

DH and I were talking about how attitudes toward kids vary so much. We find that people of our parents’ generation (although interestingly, my parents excluded) and some of our contemporaries, even, see a huge divide between children and adults, not seeing them as individuals (for the record, there are plenty of adults whom I would classify as children and vice versa!) but as a group with each its own rules. They separate them physically (“this is the kids’ table, this is the adults’ table”*), and mentally, by having baseless rules ("you wouldn't understand because you are young") and silly boundaries ("you can do that when you're 7"). Having meaningless (and, more importantly, explanation-less) "no"s is fantastic preparation for losing their trust and starting disciplinary issues, imho.

I disagree fundamentally with the overall philosophy, too. I think that kids are ready for whatever they seem ready for. We find that we can explain quite a bit to the BoE, and he really understands. Things like "first we're going to do this, then this, then this": he internalizes the sequence and calms down. Or asking him what he'd like, letting him tell us. They see this as ridiculous, especially given his age. I, in turn, see them as not thinking about the BoE as the person he is, but thinking of a generic list of age-related skills and pushing those onto him.

I'm not sure if this is a cultural thing - it's definitely more American to separate kids from adults than it is European, check out dinner tables in Italy or France - or if it's generational. I'm also not sure if this is directly linked to the fact that most people seem to really suck at reading other people, so they are generally in the dark about what their kid's needs are and they just super-impose their own thoughts instead. Either way, I think that the end result can be a perfectly functional kid, but the relationship between the child and parent is what ultimately suffers when the parent chooses to exercise unnecessary control. Let me add to this that, as a parent, being in full control is certainly easier: forcing them to do something on your schedule, sleep when you need them to, etc makes life a lot more like...well, before you had kids! But to that all I can say is, if you want your life to be like that, why did you have kids?

*The separated tables thing is one of my big pet peeves and an issue I raise a lot, because as a child I always wanted to sit and talk with the adults. My parents, thankfully, never forced me to sit with kids, but other parents sometimes did and I always hated it. People who were forced to sit with other kids when they were younger will now say, “but I wanted to sit with the other kids and talk about kids’ stuff!” and this illustrates precisely my issue with this: it underscores the idea that kids and adults are so totally different that they cannot share discussions. When I was little, I found listening to adult discussions fascinating and didn’t want to babble about Bert and Ernie; my sense is that not all adults want to discuss the news, either, and wouldn’t mind chatting to some 7-year-old about Legos. Even if it's not the top of your list of activities, it is this kind of interaction that teaches kids how to behave in various situations, and that's valuable knowledge. It is not to say that there isn’t a time and place for adult conversation without children present, but it is to say that that time exists when children are in fact not present, and when you are somewhere with children present, they should be included, not cast aside as though their world is entirely separate from your own big adult world. That’s just immature.

I like my job, and this is one of the reasons why.

My boss and I were talking about going home after working all day when you have kids at home. I said, "It's like washing the dishes. [DH] and I argue over who gets to wash the dishes and who gets to play with [the BoE]. Because once you get to 8pm, washing dishes seems pretty attractive by comparison." To which he said, "Yeah, that's because washing dishes and cleaning your apartment is easy. Entertaining little kids is hard work!"

I can only hope that whoever is my boss at any point in the future holds the same views.

Sisters and temperament

Recently, my mom and I were talking about what kind of person the BoE will be as his little (ok, perhaps not so little) personality develops. She was relating the differences between me and my two younger sisters.
"You know, someone at the playground would tell you that you are stupid," my mom explained to me, "and you'd clock them over the head, declare them a waste of your time, and never speak to them again.
"Your sister [the middle one], on the other hand, would come home, completely shut down. After awhile she'd open up a little and tell us that she was stupid because someone told her that she was."
I would add to this that my youngest sister's reaction to being called stupid would be to keep them talking until she found a psychoanalytic excuse for their behavior.

Somehow, I can already see my genes shining through in the BoE, every time the ring doesn't go on to the pole precisely and he throws the ring across the room with all his little might, balls his fists, and screams, "AAAAAHHHHH!"

Before I was a mother...

On the forum, someone started a thread to finish that sentence. And so I did.

Before I was a mother...

...I didn't truly understand what sleep deprivation meant. I had been jetlagged...right? Bwahahaha!

...I had no idea what people were going on and on about when they complained about balancing work and kids. I also didn't understand when people with kids had to leave work at the end of the day. I blamed them for not organizing their lives better. I was one of those childless working bitches.

...I didn't realize how long it would take me to adjust to being a mother. I also didn't realize how long it would take DH to adjust to being a father.

...there was so much stuff that seemed incredibly important to me, every day, that seems laughable now. I had no idea that there would be so much stuff that would become so much more important than those things. I giggle now when I see people obsessing over, like, face wash, and any other detailed stuff that is purely their own. Now, I obsess over another person's little world, and my own world seems so secondary by comparison.

...I used to complain about the dumbest things, like thinking that my world was going to cave in because we didn't have milk in the fridge when I got up in the morning. Now, I'm glad there's food of any kind in the fridge, and I'll probably survive eating something else. I wasted a lot of time whining. (I still do, just about different things...)

...I used to really, really dislike days with nothing to do or days when everyone else just wanted to sit around and watch a movie. I was always ready to gogogogogo! Now, I long for an hour of peace and quiet on the couch.

...I used to shop for myself, a LOT, and now when I go into stores I'm immediately drawn to the kids' section instead.

...I didn't understand how hard it was to leave your kid with a babysitter, and how when you do, you just think about your baby the entire time you're gone from them.

...I had everything in my life "just so" and was constantly optimizing all those things. Now, I'm lucky if we manage to get the dishes washed by the end of each day, and that ring in the bathtub has been there forever...

...I didn't truly respect and admire what my mom did, raising three kids as a SAHM with not much help from my dad. My dad was a great father, and he pitched in a bit, but my parents had the working/caregiving roles completely separated. (For the record, I'm not judging their decision to do this - it worked really well for them.) I never understood why my mom was tired at the end of each day when I was still bouncing off the walls. I didn't understand that until the BoE was about 6 months old.

...I didn't realize how complicated it is to have a person with you or with your partner every single minute of every single day.

...I didn't truly understand how child-rearing and parenting have no handbooks, no rules. It's all made up as you go along, yet there are different "camps" of opinions for every area of dealing with your child, and they all hate each other.

...I never really had a reason to work hard to better myself, whereas now I strive every day to become more patient, more aware; a better wife, a better mother, and a better person, so that I can be the best support system for my husband and the best example for my baby. Bettering yourself in this way is really, really, really hard.

You're kidding me.

http://jezebel.com/5288651/mr-big-plays-housewife-how-bazaar/gallery/

Wow, that's offensive. No matter how you read it, it's bad: either they're saying that when it comes to babies and kids, men are useless, or that a working mom is a cold-hearted bitch. Way to enforce gender stereotypes and make it just a little harder again for WOHMs and SAHDs everywhere, Harper's Bazaar.

Spirited away?

The most recent email I received from Babycenter included this article about "spirited toddlers". I found this fascinating, because how they describe a "spirited child" is basically the BoE in a nutshell, though with some important differences. Despite the differences, it was nice to read an article that acknowledged that these high-energy, quick-tempered kids are a little tougher to deal with than others. I don't want to get compare-and-contrast-y, but I have to admit that it's can be hard to watch other kids. We tried to go to the Shake Shack last week, and the BoE couldn't sit still for the five minutes it would have taken us to scarf our burgers. He literally, no exaggeration, sat for 30 seconds and then had to leave. And by had to leave, I mean HAD TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. I get that kids are like this sometimes, but the BoE is this way ALL THE TIME. We can't go out for meals unless he can run around the entire time. And we all know that's not appropriate in the vast majority of restaurants, so no dinners out for us. (No matter how desperate I am, I refuse to be that parent who drives everyone crazy by wandering their toddler around a restaurant when they won't sit. Partially because I hate those people when I'm out for a childless meal, and partially because the BoE would have to be walked around from the moment we arrive at the restaurant until the moment we leave, which leaves me wondering why I'm spending the extra money to eat at a restaurant when I can't actually sit down to eat.) We went to a kids festival today, and once we realized that it was mostly a stage with storytelling and singing performances on it, we had to leave. We tried for an hour, but we both knew that the BoE wouldn't stand in one general area long enough to make it worthwhile for any of us to stick around. It was just annoying to have to constantly catch him as he ran in front of everyone else, picked up every single item on the ground to throw into the trash can, and touched everything he's not supposed to touch (like the tires on the hot dog/pretzel carts, chewing gum on the ground, etc).

Anyway, the main difference between the BoE and the "spirited kids" in the article is that the BoE doesn't react wildly to any stimuli, he craves stimuli. His reactions are so strong to other things. People don't scare him too much, although I agree with the author that plopping him on a stranger's lap is definitely not happening any time soon. Interestingly, animals don't scare him at all (which makes me really happy since I'm such an animal-lover). New things fascinate him. I guess, more specifically, I could relate to the descriptions of the reactions, not the causes of the reactions. He needs lots of interesting stuff in his little life: being surrounded by lots of people doesn't bother them, it makes him happy; lots of noise around doesn't unnerve him.

Some of the advice was great, though. I loved the idea of using sensory stimuli. When the fountain was on at the playground yesterday, the BoE got to play in a little "river" of water. As I watched him run his fingers through the water, I realized that I had rarely seen him so calm and focused. We already use lots of positive reinforcement, and we talk him through as much as we can, regardless of what he can and can't truly understand.

The part that hit home, for me, was that the author mentions that, as a parent, you have to careful how you discuss your child. And yes, I do. She cautions against describing him as exhausting and difficult to everyone I meet - and she's right. I have to get better about that. It's hard when I'm so...well, exhausted. I'm working on it, because at the end of the day, I'm proud of the BoE. He loves seeing and learning new things, and that really is a great way to be. As the author says, all those things that are tough and that I complain about are really being "persistent, energetic, and sensitive - all traits that are admired in adults." Good point. This morning at 6:45am, I woke up and opened my eyes to see his little face about four inches from mine. He smiled at me, said "hi mama," and gave me a kiss. He rarely sleeps and wants to master everything rightnowthisminute. I can relate to that.

My mom often said that once you have kids, it becomes increasingly difficult to find friends who share the same values with you both personally and when it comes to raising your kids. As fate would have it, she's right. It would be easier if I could just subscribe to a particular group of values - crunchy mama, modern mama, housewife mama - and leave it at that. But, as usual, I don't find myself agreeing vehemently with any particular group.

Now that the BoE is a bit older and very mobile, we meet more people while out and about. It's hard to avoid others when the BoE is constantly running over and stealing their toys playing with their cellphones joining in the fun they're clearly having with their own children. Inevitably, this leads to some chit-chat about the kids. And also inevitably, you hit places that for me are a red flag. It used to be the ubiquitous "oh, my supply wasn't so great so we had to supplement with formula" which I have to admit, at this point I'm firmly in the camp of mamas who translate this to "I wasn't willing to put in the work and energy it takes to exclusively breastfeed." (As I said previously, some women do have supply problems. I know one of them, and it's been awful for her. It's not anywhere near as many as claim to, though, just like allergies.) Now, the response that shuts me down is the "oh, yeah, she's a great sleeper, we just had to sleep-train her." I didn't agree with squirting my cats with a watergun to get them off the counters, and I don't agree with abandoning my child in his crib to force him to sleep. (Then again, this could be purely a result of watching him bang his head against the crib slats within 2 minutes - yup, 2 - of putting him in his crib during bed time to give me a minute to cool down when getting too fed up with him fighting off much-needed sleep.) There is also the tough situation of a misbehaving kid "on the cusp of misbehaving age": you can't tell if the kid is really too old to be acting that way. Especially when the kid does something totally inappropriate, like shoving your kid (or you!) out of the way, taking toys, etc. The parent should be there supervising this regardless of age but of course the responses should vary by age.

More importantly, though, is that the stronger my own parenting voice becomes, the harder it is to silence it when it's not appropriate to speak up. I'm so used to having a monologue to the BoE about what's appropriate and what isn't, how do I shut it off when someone else's kid (or worse, some other adult) chews with his mouth open, eats before everyone is served, takes stuff without asking, doesn't say "excuse me" or "sorry"? Do I shut it off at all, or is my voice better than none for that kid (or that adult) to finally learn something?

Parenting isn't an exact science, so disagreements happen most of the time often. I also tend to ride the line more on big issues, so I rarely fall squarely into the camp of one particular opinion. But you know what? As the BoE gets older, my opinions are getting stronger, and it happens quite a bit that I pick sides. Now I'm curious how many friends I'll have left once they learn of opinions on breastfeeding, sleep training, feeding solids, etc. I hope that once we are outside of New York City, filled with neurotic allergy-med-addicted, Harvard-hopeful, private school interview prepping, way too rich parents, it'll be better. Or they'll just be replaced by a bunch of overly-tanned and Botoxed babes. Yay.