Do you guys remember that scene in Titanic after the ship sinks, when Kate is on that door in the ocean and Leo is all dead already, and help has finally arrived and you hear one of the rescuers call out over the silence "IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE?"? That's how I feel right now. I mean, I guess it's not so dramatic as "I left you here without me to freeze and die", exactly, but shit, it's been a while. I wouldn't exactly blame you if you weren't still checking for new posts.
Anyway. It's in my best interests to not get too much into detail about my absence, but suffice it to say that when you curse a lot and make jokes about beating your kids on your blog, anyone who wants to use it against you to make you look like a bad parent absolutely has a window to do so. Or they can try, at least. You can't actually prove someone is a bad parent when they aren't one. Some people just don't have a sense of humor (or shame), I guess.
I seriously considered blogging anonymously, but quite frankly, fuck that. I am a parent, and sure, I am flawed. But I love the shit out of my kids and I know I'm a good mom to them. My little fartknockers are happy and growing and seriously two of the most hilarious people I've ever met in my entire life. Caitlyn will be 7 soon. That little pants-crapper from my earliest posts is a sassy, opinionated First grader now. Alex is the most empathetic kid I've ever met. Oh, do I have so much to tell you about Alex! She was just a little baby when I stopped posting about my kids, and I have a mountain of hilarious stories for you guys.
I will be posting regularly again, and I promise to jump into the funny shit you've missed in my next post. But I had to start somewhere. And for now, that's these 4 little bullshit paragraphs, checking to see if there are still any signs of life out here.
Showing posts with label this kid is fucking awesome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this kid is fucking awesome. Show all posts
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Friday, June 5, 2015
Mom Skills
My best friend and fellow blogger, Nadine, had her first baby a few days ago. She ended up having a rather unexpected c-section, so she's been in the hospital since her adorable new daughter's birth. I've made an effort to go see her as often as I can, and on Wednesday night, that meant dragging my own kids along.
The juxtaposition of being a veteran mom crowded in a small space with my own two children and a tiny newborn baby and her newly minted mommy cued me in to a few things I hadn't realized before.
Let's call them mom superpowers. It sounds better than "shit I can do without really thinking about it now that I've been chasing around rugrats for 5 years straight". Here are some skills I didn't realize I had until that day, in that room, with that sweet new baby:
Split-Second Decision Making: I guess I should be more specific. I have in no way mastered the art of making MOST decisions in any sort of highly effective manner. It's really just ONE extremely specific decision that moms with multiple children learn to master. The decision of who to drop (spoiler alert: it's always the bigger one!).
You see, there comes a point when your toddler is in the "reachy, grabby, HOLD ME ALL THE TIME OMG NOW" phase, and it always coincides exactly with your older kid's "who does that bitch think she is, I WAS THE BABY FIRST- HOLD ME" phase. And sure, you try to be fair. You try to hold them both (because obviously this is not an issue of fairly split time. It's about wanting to be held at the exact second your sibling is being held). But there will come a point, dragging your two kids around the house, where one of them starts to slip and you gotta make that decision. Who do you let slide out of your grip and ever-so-gently ... you know, drop on the fucking ground? Anyway, that day with my kids, holding a much tinier baby than my own, Alex got the drop for probably one of the first times in her life. Sorry kid. Maybe you should talk to your sister about your obvious feelings of betrayal.
Mind Reading: There are certain instincts as a parent that you develop about your kids. You become really familiar with their temperments, their personalities, and what you can expect of them in almost any given situation. For example, I fully expected it when Caitlyn started loudly sobbing into the microphone in the KFC drive-thru because her mean, mean mommy was getting chicken for dinner instead of the McDonald's she so desperately wanted and definitely deserved. I might as well have fed her the tears of her baby sister, for the way she reacted to that great injustice.
Anyway, I realized how fine-tuned this skill had become while we visited baby Elizabeth. Everyone knows you have to be really careful when you introduce a toddler to literally anything and everything even slightly more fragile than they are. Toddlers are gods of destruction and they are not to be trusted. That said, to call Alex a bit precocious would be a huge understatement. Alex is well advanced for her age and she can and does understand and follow direction most of the time. So while I was certainly cautious about letting her touch a newborn baby, I also knew I could explain to her that she had to be gentle with her new cousin. And she was. But as it goes with toddlers and impulse control, that did not stop her from getting momentarily distracted and forgetting the rules. It was a split second decision she made, to try to rip the baby's face off, but I saw it coming. My mom Spidey sense perked up and her little hand and inexplicably constantly razor sharp nails hadn't even made it halfway to the baby's delicate face by the time I stopped her.
And I've saved the most important skill for last, of course...
Ability to Tune Out a Screaming Child: In my loud, frantic world, I didn't even realize this was a skill I possessed. I suppose it's one thing to tune out an individual loud noise without it so much as interrupting your conversation. It's a little harder when you're getting it in stereo from two kids, while simultaneously being asked to resolve whatever the fuck is making them screech at each other in the first place. The little one snatches the big one's toy. The big one starts whining and snatches it back. The little one starts crying while the big one gloats at her obvious size advantage in the toy snatching game. The little one starts pawing and grunting at you because she's upset. The big one starts justifying- "but she took it from me first!"... and eventually you tell everyone to shut up and threaten to take all the toys away if they don't both knock it off.
But that's not really my point. In the relative quiet of a hospital room, where the big one was quietly playing with my phone and letting me coo at the new baby and chat with my friend, it was easy to ignore the little one, who was clearly jealous that I was holding another baby and screeching and whining and grabbing at my legs because she wanted me to pick her up instead. I barely even noticed it, until the new baby also started crying and Nadine- who was clearly exhausted, stressed, and trying to get to know her own baby's cues and needs, not to mention recovering from a c-section- gave me her best "please make it stop or I'm kicking your entire family out of my room" look. I picked up Alex and did manage to calm her down. But I couldn't help but think it was a little funny how I barely noticed it, while Nadine had clearly been pushed to the brink of insanity by the two babies crying in stereo. It's an acquired skill, I guess. You spend so much of the first few months of your kids' lives trying to figure out why/stop them from crying that it doesn't even occur to you that sometimes you can just pretend like you don't hear it.
I suppose I'll end on that spectacular piece of parenting advise- "if your kid is screaming, just pretend like you don't hear them".
The juxtaposition of being a veteran mom crowded in a small space with my own two children and a tiny newborn baby and her newly minted mommy cued me in to a few things I hadn't realized before.
Let's call them mom superpowers. It sounds better than "shit I can do without really thinking about it now that I've been chasing around rugrats for 5 years straight". Here are some skills I didn't realize I had until that day, in that room, with that sweet new baby:
Split-Second Decision Making: I guess I should be more specific. I have in no way mastered the art of making MOST decisions in any sort of highly effective manner. It's really just ONE extremely specific decision that moms with multiple children learn to master. The decision of who to drop (spoiler alert: it's always the bigger one!).
You see, there comes a point when your toddler is in the "reachy, grabby, HOLD ME ALL THE TIME OMG NOW" phase, and it always coincides exactly with your older kid's "who does that bitch think she is, I WAS THE BABY FIRST- HOLD ME" phase. And sure, you try to be fair. You try to hold them both (because obviously this is not an issue of fairly split time. It's about wanting to be held at the exact second your sibling is being held). But there will come a point, dragging your two kids around the house, where one of them starts to slip and you gotta make that decision. Who do you let slide out of your grip and ever-so-gently ... you know, drop on the fucking ground? Anyway, that day with my kids, holding a much tinier baby than my own, Alex got the drop for probably one of the first times in her life. Sorry kid. Maybe you should talk to your sister about your obvious feelings of betrayal.
Mind Reading: There are certain instincts as a parent that you develop about your kids. You become really familiar with their temperments, their personalities, and what you can expect of them in almost any given situation. For example, I fully expected it when Caitlyn started loudly sobbing into the microphone in the KFC drive-thru because her mean, mean mommy was getting chicken for dinner instead of the McDonald's she so desperately wanted and definitely deserved. I might as well have fed her the tears of her baby sister, for the way she reacted to that great injustice.
Anyway, I realized how fine-tuned this skill had become while we visited baby Elizabeth. Everyone knows you have to be really careful when you introduce a toddler to literally anything and everything even slightly more fragile than they are. Toddlers are gods of destruction and they are not to be trusted. That said, to call Alex a bit precocious would be a huge understatement. Alex is well advanced for her age and she can and does understand and follow direction most of the time. So while I was certainly cautious about letting her touch a newborn baby, I also knew I could explain to her that she had to be gentle with her new cousin. And she was. But as it goes with toddlers and impulse control, that did not stop her from getting momentarily distracted and forgetting the rules. It was a split second decision she made, to try to rip the baby's face off, but I saw it coming. My mom Spidey sense perked up and her little hand and inexplicably constantly razor sharp nails hadn't even made it halfway to the baby's delicate face by the time I stopped her.
And I've saved the most important skill for last, of course...
Ability to Tune Out a Screaming Child: In my loud, frantic world, I didn't even realize this was a skill I possessed. I suppose it's one thing to tune out an individual loud noise without it so much as interrupting your conversation. It's a little harder when you're getting it in stereo from two kids, while simultaneously being asked to resolve whatever the fuck is making them screech at each other in the first place. The little one snatches the big one's toy. The big one starts whining and snatches it back. The little one starts crying while the big one gloats at her obvious size advantage in the toy snatching game. The little one starts pawing and grunting at you because she's upset. The big one starts justifying- "but she took it from me first!"... and eventually you tell everyone to shut up and threaten to take all the toys away if they don't both knock it off.
But that's not really my point. In the relative quiet of a hospital room, where the big one was quietly playing with my phone and letting me coo at the new baby and chat with my friend, it was easy to ignore the little one, who was clearly jealous that I was holding another baby and screeching and whining and grabbing at my legs because she wanted me to pick her up instead. I barely even noticed it, until the new baby also started crying and Nadine- who was clearly exhausted, stressed, and trying to get to know her own baby's cues and needs, not to mention recovering from a c-section- gave me her best "please make it stop or I'm kicking your entire family out of my room" look. I picked up Alex and did manage to calm her down. But I couldn't help but think it was a little funny how I barely noticed it, while Nadine had clearly been pushed to the brink of insanity by the two babies crying in stereo. It's an acquired skill, I guess. You spend so much of the first few months of your kids' lives trying to figure out why/stop them from crying that it doesn't even occur to you that sometimes you can just pretend like you don't hear it.
I suppose I'll end on that spectacular piece of parenting advise- "if your kid is screaming, just pretend like you don't hear them".
Monday, October 20, 2014
Alive and Mostly Well
A while back I received an anonymous comment. This person simply mentioned that I hadn't blogged in a while and hoped that all was well. It meant a lot, to know that some lovely stranger on the internet was worrying about me, hoping that I was well, hoping that all the shit that's been weighing me down has somehow been resolved.
So, anonymous, I wanted to take a moment to reply. I'm ok. Alive. More convinced than ever that I have a superhuman ability to carry on through the absolute worst of times. Man, that sounds depressing.
Right now I'm still in a state of limbo. Still awaiting some sort of satisfactory resolution. But I will say that I've begun to find some sense of equilibrium again. I've managed to take the bad things and hold them out, on their own, away from the good. To not let those things taint the very amazing parts of my life. Because there are plenty of those too.
My girls are happy, they are growing. Caitlyn started preschool this year and she's doing amazingly well. She loves it. Alexandra, at just 10 and a half months old, took her first steps a week ago. She's smart and smiley and the nosiest child I've ever seen in my entire life. When they are together, interacting and in their own private sister world, I can't help but smile ear-to-ear. I could not ask for a better big sister for Alex than Caitlyn. They adore each other and watching that unfold on a day to day basis fills my heart to the point that I think it might burst and shoot out fucking rainbows and unicorns and shit. When I think about the mistakes I've made and the regrets I have, it's easy to get caught up in the could have and would have's. But then I'll look at my girls playing together, or Caitlyn feeding Alex a little bite of her snack or a little drink of her juice and I can't help but think it's worth every second of disaster I've invited into my life.
I'm hoping to have more resolution soon, but I'm finally starting to be able to put aside everything the moment I'm not actively dealing with it and just be myself again. I'm mending my relationship with Rodolfo. Our family feels good, happy, normal- at least most of the time.
I'm hoping that once I'm done being endlessly in limbo that I'll be back to posting regularly again. I have so much to tell. I won't make any promises for now, except for one: We will be ok no matter what happens.
Thank you all so much for being here, despite that fact that I have not.
So, anonymous, I wanted to take a moment to reply. I'm ok. Alive. More convinced than ever that I have a superhuman ability to carry on through the absolute worst of times. Man, that sounds depressing.
Right now I'm still in a state of limbo. Still awaiting some sort of satisfactory resolution. But I will say that I've begun to find some sense of equilibrium again. I've managed to take the bad things and hold them out, on their own, away from the good. To not let those things taint the very amazing parts of my life. Because there are plenty of those too.
My girls are happy, they are growing. Caitlyn started preschool this year and she's doing amazingly well. She loves it. Alexandra, at just 10 and a half months old, took her first steps a week ago. She's smart and smiley and the nosiest child I've ever seen in my entire life. When they are together, interacting and in their own private sister world, I can't help but smile ear-to-ear. I could not ask for a better big sister for Alex than Caitlyn. They adore each other and watching that unfold on a day to day basis fills my heart to the point that I think it might burst and shoot out fucking rainbows and unicorns and shit. When I think about the mistakes I've made and the regrets I have, it's easy to get caught up in the could have and would have's. But then I'll look at my girls playing together, or Caitlyn feeding Alex a little bite of her snack or a little drink of her juice and I can't help but think it's worth every second of disaster I've invited into my life.
I'm hoping to have more resolution soon, but I'm finally starting to be able to put aside everything the moment I'm not actively dealing with it and just be myself again. I'm mending my relationship with Rodolfo. Our family feels good, happy, normal- at least most of the time.
I'm hoping that once I'm done being endlessly in limbo that I'll be back to posting regularly again. I have so much to tell. I won't make any promises for now, except for one: We will be ok no matter what happens.
Thank you all so much for being here, despite that fact that I have not.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Baby Bunny: The Many Ways My Second Child Has Made Me Realize I Was Crazy When I Had My First
Baby Alexandra was born on December 3rd.
I have to admit, I wasn't really looking forward to having a newborn again. I know that sounds terrible, but it's true. In part, I blame my sister, whose new baby boy was born at the end of October and whose Facebook feed after his birth was a train wreck of miserable-sounding updates about how whiny and difficult her new baby was.
It got me thinking about Caitlyn's first few months on this Earth. I would never say she was a bad baby, but I do remember feeling overwhelmed by her needs. She seemed to always need something- a bottle, a diaper change, a burp, non-specific comfort. Add to that sleep deprivation and the fact that she wouldn't latch so I was pumping my breastmilk every 2 hours, and it felt like a never-ending cycle where I didn't even have time to take a shower. And I had help back then. Rodolfo and I were living together, and he brought his parents to stay with us for the first month after Caitlyn was born.
So I was thinking of all of this. Of the neediness. Of not having someone always around to help. Of having to do all that newborn baby, needy meatloaf shit while simultaneously taking care of my 3 year old. And I was a little freaked out.
And then my new baby came and I realized all that freaking out was for nothing. She's totally sweet and easy and mellow. Also? I realized that I was kind of a paranoid fucking crazy person when I had my first daughter. Here are some other lessons I learned:
1. Taking a shower isn't negligent parenting. No newborn baby ever died/was ruined for life because they woke up during mommy's 10 minute shower and cried for a few minutes while she was busy washing crusted breastmilk off her nipples and making sure her c-section incision didn't end up infected because she hadn't showered in a week. Also? That hilarious nonsense where I'd put Caitlyn in her bouncy seat and bring it into the bathroom with me just to be sure she didn't smother herself in her crib while I showered? No thanks. She couldn't even fucking move. What did I really expect was going to happen? And another thing about that- if the baby starts crying while I shampoo my hair, I'm not going to stop shampooing my hair out of guilt (and you can only really hear them crying if you bring them in the bathroom with you anyway). Wait 5 minutes kid, I promise you'll survive.
2. Everyone thinks you are a moron when you have a newborn. And I'm not just talking about well-meaning old grannies on the street who want to tell you all the ways in which your baby isn't warm enough. I'm talking about the very first people you encounter after having the baby- the hospital staff. Man, do they ever think you're an idiot. And the first time, they are sorta right. As a first-time mom, I remember listening so intently to every ridiculously obvious piece of advice they gave me at the hospital. Sure, a lot of it seemed like common sense, but in the same way, a lot of it was stuff that never even occurred to me to think about. This time? Did I really need to attend the "mandatory" class the hospital expects you to take before you leave? Thanks, but I already knew that I shouldn't leave my newborn on a counter and walk away. I already knew that I should burp her halfway through a feeding. And, presumably everyone attending this class has been tending to a vagina on a regular basis for a minimum of 15-20 years, right? What grown ass woman needs it explained to her that she should be "wiping front to back" when changing diapers? Because really, that's just a delicate way of saying "you know you shouldn't smear shit into your infant daughter's vagina, right?". WE SHOULD ALL KNOW THIS ALREADY!
3. Neediness of the baby variety is significantly less impressive to me this time around. As I said, with Caitlyn, it was a big transition going from doing whatever the fuck I wanted to constantly putting the needs of another person ahead of my own. It was overwhelming. Now? Well, I have to say, the needs of my 3 year old greatly outnumber the needs of my newborn. The baby? Food, sleep, fresh diapers. That is literally it. Sometimes she wants to be held and sometimes she's got a fart stuck in her belly that she's trying to get out, but other than that, she needs very little from me. Caitlyn, on the other hand, needs more than just basic life necessities. So in addition to having to make sure she is fed, clothed, and bathed, there are about a million other needs she has: Every single toy she sees on a commercial, for example (or Bulova watch on a billboard, for that matter. She's in an I-want-literally-everything-I-see phase). A glass of water the exact moment my head hits the pillow to go to sleep. Chocolate milk in her Happy Meal, even though I explicitly asked her multiple times and she insisted she wanted apple juice. And those are just some physical needs. Her emotional needs are endless and I'm expected to solve every existential crisis of her 3 year old life- why is the sky blue, what is that dog doing to that other dog, why can't I have a lollipop before dinner, why do I even have to eat dinner, why can't I look at my vagina in a public place, why does his mommy let him do stuff that my mommy doesn't let me do- WHY ARE YOU SUCH A MEAN MOMMY?? In the end, I'll do anything for my girls. That's what I signed up for when I signed up for being a mom. It's just funny in retrospect to think about how overwhelmed I was by providing only the most basic of needs for a cute, smooshy little meatball that couldn't even move (let alone throw a temper tantrum, or actively disobey me) when I put her down somewhere.
4. Sleep deprivation is another thing that was utterly jarring the first time around. Now? Well kid, I haven't had an uninterrupted night of sleep in 4 years, and you're out cold 20 hours a day. Come at me. I can handle it just fine.
5. They aren't as breakable as you think they are at first. Caitlyn's first few months were smooth sailing. At worst, I think she had a bad rash once or twice. I remember when she was about 6 or 7 months old. I had been clipping her fingernails, but I couldn't find the baby nail clipper, and so I made the poor choice to use a grown up one. You know where this is going. I clipped the tip of one of her fingers. Not like I clipped it off, but I cut it enough that it was bleeding pretty steadily for a solid 10 minutes. I spent those 10 minutes in absolute hysterics, begging Rodolfo to take us to the emergency room. And because I was clutching onto her, sobbing like a lunatic and cursing myself for being the cause of the first real pain she had ever felt- the "worst thing that had ever happened to her" by my own assessment- she was hysterical too. When I called my mom and asked her to please convey the seriousness of the situation to Rodolfo, she told me "maybe you need to calm down and listen to your husband. Because based on what you are telling me, I really doubt that you have to worry about her bleeding to death from the tip of her finger.".
I think back to that, to how laughable her "injury" was and how terrified I was that she wouldn't survive it without medical intervention, and I realize how far I've come. I was never really the hysterical type, and once Caitlyn started walking and injuring herself every 12 seconds or so, I really developed a "shake it off" mentality. In fact, Caitlyn will tell me she's shaking it off now if she gets a little bump or bruise.
I bring this last one up because of what we are going through right now. I don't think I could have handled it if it had happened to Caitlyn. I would have been writing checks to Jesus that my base faith level simply couldn't cash. Baby Alexandra, at 26 days old, got admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. She had some nasal congestion and was sneezing for a couple of days leading up to it, and I had brought her to the pediatrician, who gave me a nebulizer and saline solution to try to break up her congestion. And then a day or so later she spiked a fever and came down with a horrible cough. I followed up with a second visit 2 days after I took her initially, and got sent immediately to the ER. After a chest x-ray, some bloodwork, and a lumbar puncture, it was determined that Alex has RSV- a common respiratory infection that still would have sucked had she been a little older when she got it, but it probably wouldn't have ended up turning into pneumonia over the course of a day or two. So we've been in the hospital, and she was admitted to the pediatric ICU a few days ago, when her breathing got considerably worse and she wasn't able to breathe well enough to even eat. But we've made a lot of progress since then and we hope to be going home in a day or two. She's a tough little cookie, just like her sister, and she's fighting this with everything she's got.
So that's my update. I had that baby I was telling you guys about. What's that? Pictures you say? Why, of course there are pictures.
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I think back to that, to how laughable her "injury" was and how terrified I was that she wouldn't survive it without medical intervention, and I realize how far I've come. I was never really the hysterical type, and once Caitlyn started walking and injuring herself every 12 seconds or so, I really developed a "shake it off" mentality. In fact, Caitlyn will tell me she's shaking it off now if she gets a little bump or bruise.
I bring this last one up because of what we are going through right now. I don't think I could have handled it if it had happened to Caitlyn. I would have been writing checks to Jesus that my base faith level simply couldn't cash. Baby Alexandra, at 26 days old, got admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. She had some nasal congestion and was sneezing for a couple of days leading up to it, and I had brought her to the pediatrician, who gave me a nebulizer and saline solution to try to break up her congestion. And then a day or so later she spiked a fever and came down with a horrible cough. I followed up with a second visit 2 days after I took her initially, and got sent immediately to the ER. After a chest x-ray, some bloodwork, and a lumbar puncture, it was determined that Alex has RSV- a common respiratory infection that still would have sucked had she been a little older when she got it, but it probably wouldn't have ended up turning into pneumonia over the course of a day or two. So we've been in the hospital, and she was admitted to the pediatric ICU a few days ago, when her breathing got considerably worse and she wasn't able to breathe well enough to even eat. But we've made a lot of progress since then and we hope to be going home in a day or two. She's a tough little cookie, just like her sister, and she's fighting this with everything she's got.
So that's my update. I had that baby I was telling you guys about. What's that? Pictures you say? Why, of course there are pictures.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Divorce Court...
Actually, that title is a lie. Of course it didn't really happen on the way to divorce court. That would be just plain tacky. And I like to be enormously tacky.
So here is the thing. Remember how I started dating that guy? Yeah. That guy got me pregnant. And so, while it technically did not happen on the way to divorce court, I was absolutely a proper hoodrat about it and showed up to divorce court pregnant with another man's baby. Not that anyone knew. But I knew, and I felt the ghettoness of my roots in that moment. You can take the girl out of the projects, I suppose...
Anyway. Obviously you have some questions. Questions such as "are you really that stupid?" and "so, I guess you aren't having an abortion then?". Let's get in to that, as I'm going to find a way to blame this all on my ex husband.
As for the question of my intelligence, well, let me assure you, you aren't the first to ask. And rightfully so. I won't get into the messy details, but let's just say I had a lapse in judgment. Let's just say that I was so cocky about my knowledge of my cycles and fertility signs after multiple rounds of IVF and years of tracking and trying to get pregnant, that I simply got cavalier about the whole thing. I simply thought I knew too much to have an accidental pregnancy. So yeah, ok, I guess I'm kind of fucking stupid.
As for the abortion question. I looked to my past, to my struggles to conceive and my loss of a much loved and terribly wanted baby and I could not bring myself to do it. Even if it was the most logical choice. And I assure you, I do realize it was the most logical choice. Even now I sometimes find myself thinking "wow... I wish I could have been a bit more logical when I made this decision". It's not that I regret it, exactly. I just didn't really take as much time as I should have to think it through. Truthfully, I knew I'd never go through with it anyway, no matter how much I may have been able to convince myself that it was the best option.
And so, for the official record, today I am nearly 16 weeks pregnant. The future is murky and scary, but in the end I know I will love this baby no matter what else happens. I know I will find equal parts joy and challenge in being a single mother (and no, that doesn't mean the guy just dropped off the face of the Earth, but my reality is what it is and I have to be prepared for that). I know that when Caitlyn hugs my belly and tells me she wants a baby brother, who shall be named Pocoyo and who she shall paint blue, she will get an immense amount of joy from having a sibling to love. I know that we will be a family, in whatever version works best for us. I know we will carry on and love each other and support each other and be happy. As for everything else? Well, fuck if I know.
So here is the thing. Remember how I started dating that guy? Yeah. That guy got me pregnant. And so, while it technically did not happen on the way to divorce court, I was absolutely a proper hoodrat about it and showed up to divorce court pregnant with another man's baby. Not that anyone knew. But I knew, and I felt the ghettoness of my roots in that moment. You can take the girl out of the projects, I suppose...
Anyway. Obviously you have some questions. Questions such as "are you really that stupid?" and "so, I guess you aren't having an abortion then?". Let's get in to that, as I'm going to find a way to blame this all on my ex husband.
As for the question of my intelligence, well, let me assure you, you aren't the first to ask. And rightfully so. I won't get into the messy details, but let's just say I had a lapse in judgment. Let's just say that I was so cocky about my knowledge of my cycles and fertility signs after multiple rounds of IVF and years of tracking and trying to get pregnant, that I simply got cavalier about the whole thing. I simply thought I knew too much to have an accidental pregnancy. So yeah, ok, I guess I'm kind of fucking stupid.
As for the abortion question. I looked to my past, to my struggles to conceive and my loss of a much loved and terribly wanted baby and I could not bring myself to do it. Even if it was the most logical choice. And I assure you, I do realize it was the most logical choice. Even now I sometimes find myself thinking "wow... I wish I could have been a bit more logical when I made this decision". It's not that I regret it, exactly. I just didn't really take as much time as I should have to think it through. Truthfully, I knew I'd never go through with it anyway, no matter how much I may have been able to convince myself that it was the best option.
And so, for the official record, today I am nearly 16 weeks pregnant. The future is murky and scary, but in the end I know I will love this baby no matter what else happens. I know I will find equal parts joy and challenge in being a single mother (and no, that doesn't mean the guy just dropped off the face of the Earth, but my reality is what it is and I have to be prepared for that). I know that when Caitlyn hugs my belly and tells me she wants a baby brother, who shall be named Pocoyo and who she shall paint blue, she will get an immense amount of joy from having a sibling to love. I know that we will be a family, in whatever version works best for us. I know we will carry on and love each other and support each other and be happy. As for everything else? Well, fuck if I know.
Friday, March 15, 2013
The Indignities of Being a Toddler
I think one of the really interesting things about having a kid is that sometimes I find myself having mini-flashbacks to my own childhood. It's always something small that does it. Caitlyn will do something ridiculous and I'll find myself remembering when I would do that as a child. And wondering why children are so utterly fucking spastic.
There are a few things I've noticed recently that cause Caitlyn great pain. These are things that I do as an adult too, simple, everyday things. Things that I do not fear. That are not even remotely painful. And yet, somehow, my toddler finds them absolutely traumatic to the point of running away when I even suggest that they may happen.
At first I couldn't understand it, but when I really thought about it, I can remember these exact things being horrible as a kid. Daily things I had to survive, despite the pain and indignity of the tasks. And when I think of them now, I can't help but realize that maybe my childhood wasn't quite as hard as I imagined it to be.
Are you ready for this? The list of the things Caitlyn finds to be physically and emotionally torturous? Let's get into it then:
Pooping: Do you remember when pooping was difficult? When it hurt to push out your poops? I guess as an adult my butthole is regulation sized now, so I can't understand it anymore. But for Caitlyn? She hates to poop. She whines and complains that her butt hurts. I regularly find her hiding in a corner, crapping her pants, because pooping on the toilet is simply an indignity she refuses to suffer.
Shampoo Eyes: You guys? Why the fuck won't she just close her eyes when I rinse shampoo out of her hair? I've tried to explain it to her so many times- your eyes WON'T FUCKING HURT IF YOU JUST CLOSE THEM, but she seems rather convinced that if she does close her eyes, I'm just going to splash her face with acid or something. I mean, that's basically the equivalent of rinsing shampoo out of her hair anyway, right?
Getting Stuck in Shirts: Every time I put a shirt on Caitlyn, she freaks out for 10 seconds while I try to thread her giant lightbulb head through the neck hole. I can't help but remember the panic I would go into as a kid when my head would get stuck in a shirt. I was always pretty sure I was about to suffocate at any moment, even though I was never stuck for more than 5 seconds. Also, it occurs to me that this many not be a thing that normal people deal with. The giant head thing runs in my family.
Hair Brushing: There is no indignity Caitlyn is less inclined to suffer through than having her hair brushed. There is running away, and crying, and repeated declarations that she doesn't want to brush her hair. And that's just when she SEES the brush. Once I actually sit her down and try to do it? Sobbing, squirming, and begging me to stop. So fucking dramatic about the hair brushing. Just as I was as a kid.
In summation, kids are fucking weirdos, and extremely dramatic. God, that is a shitty closing sentence.
There are a few things I've noticed recently that cause Caitlyn great pain. These are things that I do as an adult too, simple, everyday things. Things that I do not fear. That are not even remotely painful. And yet, somehow, my toddler finds them absolutely traumatic to the point of running away when I even suggest that they may happen.
At first I couldn't understand it, but when I really thought about it, I can remember these exact things being horrible as a kid. Daily things I had to survive, despite the pain and indignity of the tasks. And when I think of them now, I can't help but realize that maybe my childhood wasn't quite as hard as I imagined it to be.
Are you ready for this? The list of the things Caitlyn finds to be physically and emotionally torturous? Let's get into it then:
Pooping: Do you remember when pooping was difficult? When it hurt to push out your poops? I guess as an adult my butthole is regulation sized now, so I can't understand it anymore. But for Caitlyn? She hates to poop. She whines and complains that her butt hurts. I regularly find her hiding in a corner, crapping her pants, because pooping on the toilet is simply an indignity she refuses to suffer.
Shampoo Eyes: You guys? Why the fuck won't she just close her eyes when I rinse shampoo out of her hair? I've tried to explain it to her so many times- your eyes WON'T FUCKING HURT IF YOU JUST CLOSE THEM, but she seems rather convinced that if she does close her eyes, I'm just going to splash her face with acid or something. I mean, that's basically the equivalent of rinsing shampoo out of her hair anyway, right?
Getting Stuck in Shirts: Every time I put a shirt on Caitlyn, she freaks out for 10 seconds while I try to thread her giant lightbulb head through the neck hole. I can't help but remember the panic I would go into as a kid when my head would get stuck in a shirt. I was always pretty sure I was about to suffocate at any moment, even though I was never stuck for more than 5 seconds. Also, it occurs to me that this many not be a thing that normal people deal with. The giant head thing runs in my family.
Hair Brushing: There is no indignity Caitlyn is less inclined to suffer through than having her hair brushed. There is running away, and crying, and repeated declarations that she doesn't want to brush her hair. And that's just when she SEES the brush. Once I actually sit her down and try to do it? Sobbing, squirming, and begging me to stop. So fucking dramatic about the hair brushing. Just as I was as a kid.
In summation, kids are fucking weirdos, and extremely dramatic. God, that is a shitty closing sentence.
Monday, February 4, 2013
To Be A "Kid Person"
There are two kinds of people in this world: Kid People and Normal People.
You see, I kind of object to the idea that anyone would say that they just across-the-board LOVE kids. The self-identifiers. The people who say things like "every child is a precious miracle from God". I mean, really, you like every kid? Have you never met an asshole kid? Because I have. And I definitely don't like them at all.
I mean, some people are more naturally inclined to caring for children. My mom is one of those people. If you asked her, I think she would absolutely say she's a kid person. And she's the one exception that I will make here. Because as much as my mom has a fantastic nature towards kids and the fact that every single child she encounters loves her immediately, I've also heard her express her distaste for certain children. She won't hesitate to call out an ugly baby (I mean, not to the parents, obviously) or an asshole toddler, or a rude 8 year old. She's not absolutely indiscriminate. And she sure as shit doesn't call every little troll-kid a "miracle". My mom understands that some kids are just not going to mesh with her personality, even if MOST of them do.
I guess the thing that bothers me most about the self-identifiers though, is the pressure it puts on people who don't feel the need to try to superbond with every single kid who crosses their path. When you find yourself in the company of that person who tries so hard to be every kid's favorite, proclaiming their love indiscriminately to every slimy, slobbering little stink beast, I suppose you can't help but wonder if there is some fundamental flaw in your genes, some lack of maternal instinct on your part that is stopping you from wanting to hold every child in your arms and tell them they're special.
Here's the thing about maternal instinct though: it's meant for YOUR kid, not someone else's. Not giving any fucks about other people's kids does not mean you don't have it in you to love your own.
Sometimes though, as a non-self-identifier, you will find that you do bond with someone else's kid. You will find that despite all your notions that you probably don't even like kids that much, you actually enjoy spending time with one of them. And it's not just that you like them. Inexplicably, they like you too! They ask to go to your house. They play play-doh with you and laugh at your jokes and think the sun shines out your ass. They think you are awesome even if you can't seem to figure out why.
My point is that sometimes you need the unfiltered view of a two year old to make you see how awesome you are and that you are more than capable of being a good mom some day.
You see, I kind of object to the idea that anyone would say that they just across-the-board LOVE kids. The self-identifiers. The people who say things like "every child is a precious miracle from God". I mean, really, you like every kid? Have you never met an asshole kid? Because I have. And I definitely don't like them at all.
I mean, some people are more naturally inclined to caring for children. My mom is one of those people. If you asked her, I think she would absolutely say she's a kid person. And she's the one exception that I will make here. Because as much as my mom has a fantastic nature towards kids and the fact that every single child she encounters loves her immediately, I've also heard her express her distaste for certain children. She won't hesitate to call out an ugly baby (I mean, not to the parents, obviously) or an asshole toddler, or a rude 8 year old. She's not absolutely indiscriminate. And she sure as shit doesn't call every little troll-kid a "miracle". My mom understands that some kids are just not going to mesh with her personality, even if MOST of them do.
I guess the thing that bothers me most about the self-identifiers though, is the pressure it puts on people who don't feel the need to try to superbond with every single kid who crosses their path. When you find yourself in the company of that person who tries so hard to be every kid's favorite, proclaiming their love indiscriminately to every slimy, slobbering little stink beast, I suppose you can't help but wonder if there is some fundamental flaw in your genes, some lack of maternal instinct on your part that is stopping you from wanting to hold every child in your arms and tell them they're special.
Here's the thing about maternal instinct though: it's meant for YOUR kid, not someone else's. Not giving any fucks about other people's kids does not mean you don't have it in you to love your own.
Sometimes though, as a non-self-identifier, you will find that you do bond with someone else's kid. You will find that despite all your notions that you probably don't even like kids that much, you actually enjoy spending time with one of them. And it's not just that you like them. Inexplicably, they like you too! They ask to go to your house. They play play-doh with you and laugh at your jokes and think the sun shines out your ass. They think you are awesome even if you can't seem to figure out why.
My point is that sometimes you need the unfiltered view of a two year old to make you see how awesome you are and that you are more than capable of being a good mom some day.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Hop on Pop
Caitlyn has a bit of a reputation for having the attention span of a marble (or maybe I just have the patience of a bad mom?). She also has a tendency to tune me out. Or it's probably more accurate to say she actively ignores me. I can say her name 15 times and get no response, but if I say the word "cookie" she's suddenly completely aware that she is being spoken to.
It made it hard to teach her things, but I was never particularly concerned. I spent a little time obsessing about it a few months before she turned one, but that was mostly because my niece, who is the same age, was so far advanced and so focused on absorbing absolutely everything around her, that it made me a little paranoid that Caitlyn was behind. She wasn't. Mostly I like to remind myself that every kid is different, and that my kid excels at physical things more so than a lot of kids her age because that is the kind of shit she wants to do, and when she wants to do something, she is absolutely capable of it.
Anyway, now that she has mastered the skills that are really important to her- you know, things like hanging on monkey bars and climbing rock walls at the playground and jumping off the coffee table and doing the Fresh Beat Band dances- she is much more inclined to sit still and pay attention when I'm trying to teach her something. Not that I need to teach her much. My babysitter is like the asshole-toddler whisperer and is fantastic at engaging her in ways I would never even think of. Still, I like to occasionally, you know, teach her shit.
Caitlyn has never had the patience for books. Where as my niece and nephew could quietly sit while being read to (even if not for a whole book- at least a few pages!) at a year or 18 months, Caitlyn decided at an early age that the purpose of books was to cut her teeth on the bindings. And you sort of expect that at a certain age. You expect that, at a year or so old, they may find a book on the floor or in their toy box and their immediate response is to put it in their mouth. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about every binding of every book she owns (and our babysitter owns!) being ripped out with her teeth. I'm talking about finding her chewing on cardboard at least once a day. I'm talking about hiding books from her because I knew she would only destroy them.
Finally, though, Caitlyn is interested in the story. She will bring me a book and ask me to read it to her. Whenever I tried to read a book to her in the past, it was met with screeching, squirming and ripping. It's so nice to be able to tell her the story inside the book. I love reading Dr. Seuss to her. I love that she follows along and throws out lines from the book when I prompt her. I love that, when I turn a page, she inevitably turns it back so she can enjoy her favorites parts of the story just a little longer.
Caitlyn's go-to bedtime story right now is Hop on Pop. Reading it with her is awesome and hilarious, because she ad-libs throughout the book. There's an orange dog that is on a lot of pages. He isn't necessarily part of the story on that page, but he's there. Absolutely every time she sees him, she points to him and says "ornage puppy" (and no, that wasn't a typo. She calls it ornage). It doesn't matter what else is happening on that page, she loves that damn ornage puppy. When we get to the page where Mr. Brown and Mr. Black are having a snack, she tells me they are eating sandwiches and drinking milk. She counts the apples and bananas. When we get to the actual "hop on pop" page, she notes that "Daddy is mad", because the pop looks pretty pissed at those two kids jumping on him (I'd venture a guess here and say they fucked his back up. I'm fairly sure of this because my own dad blames me for his back problems. From that time I jumped on his back. When I was 5).
My favorite part though, is the "father, mother, sister, brother" page. That is on the left page. On the right page shows another boy, a baby, with the words "that one is my other brother". For some reason, Caitlyn hates the other brother. She covers him up with her hand and tells me "I don't like another brother" and "no baby!". He's on the following page too, and she covers him then too. I asked her why she doesn't like the baby and she simply tells me "I like THIS one" and points to the other little boy. It's so arbitrary and hilarious. It makes me giggle every night. It also makes me feel a little less guilty about this whole I probably won't be able to give her a sibling thing.
Just in general, I'm finding Caitlyn is more structured and receptive to discipline, too. I think a big part of it is that we are falling into our own routines and not having anyone (coughherdumbdadcough) throw a monkey wrench into it by wanting to do things another way.
Also, seriously, she is fucking hilarious. Her comic timing is genius. Last night, she asked me to put something on TV for her. When I didn't immediately respond, she looked at me, completely straight-faced and said "come on, son". I was sure I misheard her, so I asked her what she had said and she said it again. She also cheerily told me that she had poop in her 'gina last night.
This kid. She is too much.
It made it hard to teach her things, but I was never particularly concerned. I spent a little time obsessing about it a few months before she turned one, but that was mostly because my niece, who is the same age, was so far advanced and so focused on absorbing absolutely everything around her, that it made me a little paranoid that Caitlyn was behind. She wasn't. Mostly I like to remind myself that every kid is different, and that my kid excels at physical things more so than a lot of kids her age because that is the kind of shit she wants to do, and when she wants to do something, she is absolutely capable of it.
Anyway, now that she has mastered the skills that are really important to her- you know, things like hanging on monkey bars and climbing rock walls at the playground and jumping off the coffee table and doing the Fresh Beat Band dances- she is much more inclined to sit still and pay attention when I'm trying to teach her something. Not that I need to teach her much. My babysitter is like the asshole-toddler whisperer and is fantastic at engaging her in ways I would never even think of. Still, I like to occasionally, you know, teach her shit.
Caitlyn has never had the patience for books. Where as my niece and nephew could quietly sit while being read to (even if not for a whole book- at least a few pages!) at a year or 18 months, Caitlyn decided at an early age that the purpose of books was to cut her teeth on the bindings. And you sort of expect that at a certain age. You expect that, at a year or so old, they may find a book on the floor or in their toy box and their immediate response is to put it in their mouth. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about every binding of every book she owns (and our babysitter owns!) being ripped out with her teeth. I'm talking about finding her chewing on cardboard at least once a day. I'm talking about hiding books from her because I knew she would only destroy them.
Finally, though, Caitlyn is interested in the story. She will bring me a book and ask me to read it to her. Whenever I tried to read a book to her in the past, it was met with screeching, squirming and ripping. It's so nice to be able to tell her the story inside the book. I love reading Dr. Seuss to her. I love that she follows along and throws out lines from the book when I prompt her. I love that, when I turn a page, she inevitably turns it back so she can enjoy her favorites parts of the story just a little longer.
Caitlyn's go-to bedtime story right now is Hop on Pop. Reading it with her is awesome and hilarious, because she ad-libs throughout the book. There's an orange dog that is on a lot of pages. He isn't necessarily part of the story on that page, but he's there. Absolutely every time she sees him, she points to him and says "ornage puppy" (and no, that wasn't a typo. She calls it ornage). It doesn't matter what else is happening on that page, she loves that damn ornage puppy. When we get to the page where Mr. Brown and Mr. Black are having a snack, she tells me they are eating sandwiches and drinking milk. She counts the apples and bananas. When we get to the actual "hop on pop" page, she notes that "Daddy is mad", because the pop looks pretty pissed at those two kids jumping on him (I'd venture a guess here and say they fucked his back up. I'm fairly sure of this because my own dad blames me for his back problems. From that time I jumped on his back. When I was 5).
My favorite part though, is the "father, mother, sister, brother" page. That is on the left page. On the right page shows another boy, a baby, with the words "that one is my other brother". For some reason, Caitlyn hates the other brother. She covers him up with her hand and tells me "I don't like another brother" and "no baby!". He's on the following page too, and she covers him then too. I asked her why she doesn't like the baby and she simply tells me "I like THIS one" and points to the other little boy. It's so arbitrary and hilarious. It makes me giggle every night. It also makes me feel a little less guilty about this whole I probably won't be able to give her a sibling thing.
Just in general, I'm finding Caitlyn is more structured and receptive to discipline, too. I think a big part of it is that we are falling into our own routines and not having anyone (coughherdumbdadcough) throw a monkey wrench into it by wanting to do things another way.
Also, seriously, she is fucking hilarious. Her comic timing is genius. Last night, she asked me to put something on TV for her. When I didn't immediately respond, she looked at me, completely straight-faced and said "come on, son". I was sure I misheard her, so I asked her what she had said and she said it again. She also cheerily told me that she had poop in her 'gina last night.
This kid. She is too much.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Asshole, Dick, Fuck. In That Order.
Sometimes I get a little off-track with this blog. Half my posts of late have just been rants and ramblings that have absolutely nothing to do with parenting, and it seems like it's been a while since I actually wrote a post about the shit my kid is doing now. And there is so much shit she is doing now, I can hardly keep up. In fact, I wrote out a checklist of shit-she-is-doing points to hit in this post, so I don't forget anything.
Overall, I'd say the biggest change I've seen in Caitlyn over the past few months (besides, you know, the fact that she never shuts up, ever ever) is how she wants to do everything I do. I mean, obviously this isn't brand new or anything... pretty much everything babies and toddlers do is mocking on some level. The difference now is that she's not just mirroring me when I prompt her to anymore. She's started doing these things of her own accord.
The mirroring thing had hit a high point a few months ago, when she would try to do things like shave her legs in the shower when I did. That kind of mirroring is fucking adorable (you know, except for the part where she thinks she can play with my razor). Recently though, her attempts at being just like mommy have been slightly less adorable. For example, while we were on vacation, I was vacation-eating and it gave me the shits because my body had gotten used to me being pretty healthy of late. One afternoon I spent a solid 30 minutes in the bathroom with diarrhea (I know how you love these kinds of stories- you're welcome!). And in those 30 minutes, Caitlyn walked into the bathroom, oh, I don't know, let's go with 700 times. Shortly after the entire contents of my digestive tract had been forcibly removed, Caitlyn decided she wanted to use the potty.
This has actually also been a big milestone for us of late. It's certainly not consistent yet, but she pees on the potty at least once a day now. Which isn't my point at all. My point is that when Caitlyn says she needs to go potty, I immediately and enthusiastically encourage her. So was the case on the day I got the shits.
She finds it pretty novel, using the big girl toilet, so I never quite know what to expect when she says she has to go. Sometimes she pees almost immediately. Sometimes she insists on getting on and off the toilet 10 times. Sometimes she sits there for 2 seconds, declares she's "all done", then flushes the toilet 4 times. Sometimes she mostly just unravels the toilet paper. Her newest thing is the take the toilet cleaner brush out of the holder and dunk it into the toilet the moment she gets up. On that day though, her mission was clear. She was going to make fun of me. She climbed up onto the toilet (because GOD FORBID I help her up) and immediately scrunched up her face and made some fake straining noises. She then hopped right back down and said "mommy's turn!". Uncool, kid.
Since we are on the subject, though, I should say that during our vacation, and in the week since we've come home, there has been a great increase in using the potty. Two nights ago, Caitlyn peed on the potty 3 separate times. Then she pooped on there too. I've never been so excited about another person's bowel movements in my life. I'm hoping we can move on to underwear in a couple more months.
There is another area where Caitlyn is starting to hit her stride though, no longer just taking cues from mommy, but really owning it as her own. Cursing.
As you may remember, Caitlyn's first bad word was asshole. She was mistakenly under the impression that this was the dog's name, though, so I couldn't really hold it against her. After that she started saying dick. I will take 100% responsibility on that one, because it's not just that I said it to her once and she repeated it, it's the fact that after she repeated it I started laughing hysterically. And really, who wouldn't? When you are mad at your tiny 18 month old for some random act of attitude and she responds by beaming her best smile at you and confidentally, comically declaring "DICK!", well, just, how DON'T you laugh at that? You can't. It's physically impossible. I mean, you know, until the 30th time or so. Now I can actually hold a straight face long enough to tell her it isn't a nice word and that she shouldn't say it. And mostly she doesn't anymore, save for a rare occasion when she knows she's in a lot of trouble and she thinks her comic relief will save her from time outs (or beatings. I mean, probably beatings. I try to use a 70/30 beating to time out ratio).
The problem now, though, is that she isn't just using these words because she knows they will make me laugh. She's using them in context. Actually, "them" is inaccurate. "It" is more appropriate. Because there is only one bad word she regularly uses now. She doesn't use it in anger. This is not a tantrum kind of thing. She's absolutely not trying to get a reaction out of me.
The first time she said it, I hardly noticed. I sort of just glanced at Rodolfo, eyebrows raised, as if to say "did you hear that too?". He wasn't sure either, so we assumed it was some sort of toddler jibberish word that just sounded like the word we, as adults, would automatically hear. After that I started to notice a pattern though. She would always say it after some mild inconvenience. She would drop something on the floor or the dog would steal her last goldfish cracker, something like that. Nothing she would actually be that upset about. And it was always muttered under her breath. Not because she thought she might get in trouble, but because when I say it in the context she was using for it, I'd mutter it under MY breath. Then, at some point (that point being when she started lovingly embracing Swiper the Fox's catchphrase "oh, man!"), she started adding "man!" to the mix.
It went something like this: mild inconvenience, then exasperated sigh, followed by "man... fuck".
We are going to have to get that shit cleared up before she goes to Kindergarten.
I think I'll split this into two posts. More Caitlyn updates tomorrow-ish.
Overall, I'd say the biggest change I've seen in Caitlyn over the past few months (besides, you know, the fact that she never shuts up, ever ever) is how she wants to do everything I do. I mean, obviously this isn't brand new or anything... pretty much everything babies and toddlers do is mocking on some level. The difference now is that she's not just mirroring me when I prompt her to anymore. She's started doing these things of her own accord.
The mirroring thing had hit a high point a few months ago, when she would try to do things like shave her legs in the shower when I did. That kind of mirroring is fucking adorable (you know, except for the part where she thinks she can play with my razor). Recently though, her attempts at being just like mommy have been slightly less adorable. For example, while we were on vacation, I was vacation-eating and it gave me the shits because my body had gotten used to me being pretty healthy of late. One afternoon I spent a solid 30 minutes in the bathroom with diarrhea (I know how you love these kinds of stories- you're welcome!). And in those 30 minutes, Caitlyn walked into the bathroom, oh, I don't know, let's go with 700 times. Shortly after the entire contents of my digestive tract had been forcibly removed, Caitlyn decided she wanted to use the potty.
This has actually also been a big milestone for us of late. It's certainly not consistent yet, but she pees on the potty at least once a day now. Which isn't my point at all. My point is that when Caitlyn says she needs to go potty, I immediately and enthusiastically encourage her. So was the case on the day I got the shits.
She finds it pretty novel, using the big girl toilet, so I never quite know what to expect when she says she has to go. Sometimes she pees almost immediately. Sometimes she insists on getting on and off the toilet 10 times. Sometimes she sits there for 2 seconds, declares she's "all done", then flushes the toilet 4 times. Sometimes she mostly just unravels the toilet paper. Her newest thing is the take the toilet cleaner brush out of the holder and dunk it into the toilet the moment she gets up. On that day though, her mission was clear. She was going to make fun of me. She climbed up onto the toilet (because GOD FORBID I help her up) and immediately scrunched up her face and made some fake straining noises. She then hopped right back down and said "mommy's turn!". Uncool, kid.
Since we are on the subject, though, I should say that during our vacation, and in the week since we've come home, there has been a great increase in using the potty. Two nights ago, Caitlyn peed on the potty 3 separate times. Then she pooped on there too. I've never been so excited about another person's bowel movements in my life. I'm hoping we can move on to underwear in a couple more months.
There is another area where Caitlyn is starting to hit her stride though, no longer just taking cues from mommy, but really owning it as her own. Cursing.
As you may remember, Caitlyn's first bad word was asshole. She was mistakenly under the impression that this was the dog's name, though, so I couldn't really hold it against her. After that she started saying dick. I will take 100% responsibility on that one, because it's not just that I said it to her once and she repeated it, it's the fact that after she repeated it I started laughing hysterically. And really, who wouldn't? When you are mad at your tiny 18 month old for some random act of attitude and she responds by beaming her best smile at you and confidentally, comically declaring "DICK!", well, just, how DON'T you laugh at that? You can't. It's physically impossible. I mean, you know, until the 30th time or so. Now I can actually hold a straight face long enough to tell her it isn't a nice word and that she shouldn't say it. And mostly she doesn't anymore, save for a rare occasion when she knows she's in a lot of trouble and she thinks her comic relief will save her from time outs (or beatings. I mean, probably beatings. I try to use a 70/30 beating to time out ratio).
The problem now, though, is that she isn't just using these words because she knows they will make me laugh. She's using them in context. Actually, "them" is inaccurate. "It" is more appropriate. Because there is only one bad word she regularly uses now. She doesn't use it in anger. This is not a tantrum kind of thing. She's absolutely not trying to get a reaction out of me.
The first time she said it, I hardly noticed. I sort of just glanced at Rodolfo, eyebrows raised, as if to say "did you hear that too?". He wasn't sure either, so we assumed it was some sort of toddler jibberish word that just sounded like the word we, as adults, would automatically hear. After that I started to notice a pattern though. She would always say it after some mild inconvenience. She would drop something on the floor or the dog would steal her last goldfish cracker, something like that. Nothing she would actually be that upset about. And it was always muttered under her breath. Not because she thought she might get in trouble, but because when I say it in the context she was using for it, I'd mutter it under MY breath. Then, at some point (that point being when she started lovingly embracing Swiper the Fox's catchphrase "oh, man!"), she started adding "man!" to the mix.
It went something like this: mild inconvenience, then exasperated sigh, followed by "man... fuck".
We are going to have to get that shit cleared up before she goes to Kindergarten.
I think I'll split this into two posts. More Caitlyn updates tomorrow-ish.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Badassery
There's so much going on right now. Where to start? I should probably start with the important stuff, but fuck that. Let's start with some fun shit:
Caitlyn is a bad ass. This is a known fact. Still, sometimes she surprises me with the level of badassery she exhibits. Saturday was one such day.
Rodolfo and I, in the spirit of keeping Caitlyn's life as normal as possible, have been continuing to do family outings with her. Saturday we took her to The Land of Make Believe. It was supposed to be 100 degrees out and LOMB has a water park and a regular park. Also, it's not at the fucking Jersey Shore, which means we wouldn't have to spend 4 hours sitting in traffic on the way there.
We started at the water park, and I've got to say, it was perfect for young kids. In general, it seemed like the entire park was created by someone with a gaggle of toddlers. The park was on the small side, in a good way. There was no dragging of a toddler half a mile to the next thing. There was no burning of toddler feet as we walked from the lockers where we left out flip-flops to the water. You know why? Because the water's edge was roughly 8 steps away from the lockers.
It was fantastic. There was a huge pool area that was, at its deepest, only 18 inches, so Caitlyn could walk around in it without ever being deeper than waist high. There was a pirate ship with slides coming out of every side, and a half dozen other slides spread around the kiddie pool. And at the bottom of those slides? Fucking PADDED landing platforms. Because, awesome, that's why. Then there was a bridge to cross to get to the side for bigger kids, that had a lazy river and what was essentially a huge jungle gym with water squirting out of it from every angle. We spent the majority of the day hopping back and forth between the two sections of the water park area, but eventually we moved on to the dry park.
The dry park had about a dozen or so rides, a little farm and a train ride around the park. The park is clearly meant for smaller kids, so the rides were carnival-type rides. They were smaller, so they could also be closer together, which made it easy to hop from ride to ride without anyone getting tired or cranky. And because a lot of people were still at the water park, we never waited more than 2 minutes to get on a ride. Caitlyn, naturally, wanted to ride all the rides.
We started at the carousel. She enjoyed that, as she always does. Then we went to a mini-version of the swinging pirate ship ride. You know the one I'm talking about? Anyway, this was a smaller version and the ship swung around in a circle instead of just going back and forth. I was not anticipating this ride to be scary or fast at all. That's the thing about rides though- they always feel much faster than they look! Caitlyn was sandwiched between us, but not even remotely held in by the bar across our lap- the one that was a solid 8 inches above her lap. A few seconds into this ride and I began to panic. This was not what I expected and Caitlyn was going to freak out. She was absolutely going to cry. Except she didn't. She smiled and laughed and LOVED it.
After that we jumped on a bunch of other rides. Spinning dinosaurs, flying hot-air balloons, and a tilt-a-whirl. There was even a canoe ride that she would need to ride alone. I was tentative. I wondered if she would try to stand up mid-ride and fall out. I explained to her, sort of hoping she would decide to skip it, that mommy and daddy could not ride with her. There would be no skipping of rides that day. Caitlyn went it alone. She did fantastically well and my fear of an emergency stop while she tumbled out did not even come close to happening.
Then we saw the roller coaster. Surely she was too small for it. Roller coasters ALWAYS feel faster than they look. Still, she ran into the line and we waited our turn. With every other ride, there was a minimum height for kids to ride alone, but this was the first we came across where there was an actual minimum for kids to ride at all. It was 33 inches. I quietly hoped that she was too small. A roller coaster? Really kid? This was going to end in tears, I was sure of it.
Apparently Caitlyn has had a growth spurt since her 2 year check-up. She cleared that 33 inch mark by at least an inch or two. I sat on the inside seat, since that was the side that curved in when the roller coaster went around the first sharp turn, and prepared to spend half the ride convincing my toddler that I wouldn't let her fall out. I was fully prepared for sobbing and terror. Really. Especially around that first turn. The ride started.
Caitlyn did not respond to that first turn with the fear I'd anticipated. She responded with squeals of joy. She loved it. In fact, she loved it so much that when she filed out in front of me after the ride was over, she tried to get back in to the car directly behind ours. There was a man waiting in line with his kids, his mouth agape as she tried to get back on the ride. Apparently, he couldn't believe how much my tiny little toddler obviously enjoyed herself. I don't blame him. What two year old likes fucking roller coasters?
We rode one more ride after the roller coaster, one that was right next to it, and when we finished, Caitlyn ran back over and got right back in line for the roller coaster again. Yes. She made us ride it twice.
In summation, jeez my kid is a fucking bad ass.
Also? A bad ass who has peed on the potty 3 times this week. It makes sense, I guess. Who wears a diaper on a roller coaster anyway?
This is getting a bit long, so I'll save the marital drama for another day. You're welcome.
Caitlyn is a bad ass. This is a known fact. Still, sometimes she surprises me with the level of badassery she exhibits. Saturday was one such day.
Rodolfo and I, in the spirit of keeping Caitlyn's life as normal as possible, have been continuing to do family outings with her. Saturday we took her to The Land of Make Believe. It was supposed to be 100 degrees out and LOMB has a water park and a regular park. Also, it's not at the fucking Jersey Shore, which means we wouldn't have to spend 4 hours sitting in traffic on the way there.
We started at the water park, and I've got to say, it was perfect for young kids. In general, it seemed like the entire park was created by someone with a gaggle of toddlers. The park was on the small side, in a good way. There was no dragging of a toddler half a mile to the next thing. There was no burning of toddler feet as we walked from the lockers where we left out flip-flops to the water. You know why? Because the water's edge was roughly 8 steps away from the lockers.
It was fantastic. There was a huge pool area that was, at its deepest, only 18 inches, so Caitlyn could walk around in it without ever being deeper than waist high. There was a pirate ship with slides coming out of every side, and a half dozen other slides spread around the kiddie pool. And at the bottom of those slides? Fucking PADDED landing platforms. Because, awesome, that's why. Then there was a bridge to cross to get to the side for bigger kids, that had a lazy river and what was essentially a huge jungle gym with water squirting out of it from every angle. We spent the majority of the day hopping back and forth between the two sections of the water park area, but eventually we moved on to the dry park.
The dry park had about a dozen or so rides, a little farm and a train ride around the park. The park is clearly meant for smaller kids, so the rides were carnival-type rides. They were smaller, so they could also be closer together, which made it easy to hop from ride to ride without anyone getting tired or cranky. And because a lot of people were still at the water park, we never waited more than 2 minutes to get on a ride. Caitlyn, naturally, wanted to ride all the rides.
We started at the carousel. She enjoyed that, as she always does. Then we went to a mini-version of the swinging pirate ship ride. You know the one I'm talking about? Anyway, this was a smaller version and the ship swung around in a circle instead of just going back and forth. I was not anticipating this ride to be scary or fast at all. That's the thing about rides though- they always feel much faster than they look! Caitlyn was sandwiched between us, but not even remotely held in by the bar across our lap- the one that was a solid 8 inches above her lap. A few seconds into this ride and I began to panic. This was not what I expected and Caitlyn was going to freak out. She was absolutely going to cry. Except she didn't. She smiled and laughed and LOVED it.
After that we jumped on a bunch of other rides. Spinning dinosaurs, flying hot-air balloons, and a tilt-a-whirl. There was even a canoe ride that she would need to ride alone. I was tentative. I wondered if she would try to stand up mid-ride and fall out. I explained to her, sort of hoping she would decide to skip it, that mommy and daddy could not ride with her. There would be no skipping of rides that day. Caitlyn went it alone. She did fantastically well and my fear of an emergency stop while she tumbled out did not even come close to happening.
Then we saw the roller coaster. Surely she was too small for it. Roller coasters ALWAYS feel faster than they look. Still, she ran into the line and we waited our turn. With every other ride, there was a minimum height for kids to ride alone, but this was the first we came across where there was an actual minimum for kids to ride at all. It was 33 inches. I quietly hoped that she was too small. A roller coaster? Really kid? This was going to end in tears, I was sure of it.
Apparently Caitlyn has had a growth spurt since her 2 year check-up. She cleared that 33 inch mark by at least an inch or two. I sat on the inside seat, since that was the side that curved in when the roller coaster went around the first sharp turn, and prepared to spend half the ride convincing my toddler that I wouldn't let her fall out. I was fully prepared for sobbing and terror. Really. Especially around that first turn. The ride started.
Caitlyn did not respond to that first turn with the fear I'd anticipated. She responded with squeals of joy. She loved it. In fact, she loved it so much that when she filed out in front of me after the ride was over, she tried to get back in to the car directly behind ours. There was a man waiting in line with his kids, his mouth agape as she tried to get back on the ride. Apparently, he couldn't believe how much my tiny little toddler obviously enjoyed herself. I don't blame him. What two year old likes fucking roller coasters?
We rode one more ride after the roller coaster, one that was right next to it, and when we finished, Caitlyn ran back over and got right back in line for the roller coaster again. Yes. She made us ride it twice.
In summation, jeez my kid is a fucking bad ass.
Also? A bad ass who has peed on the potty 3 times this week. It makes sense, I guess. Who wears a diaper on a roller coaster anyway?
This is getting a bit long, so I'll save the marital drama for another day. You're welcome.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Two
So I've been really busy whining and bitching about my problems and I forgot to mention something extremely important.
Yesterday was Caitlyn's second birthday.
The mood in my house has been... quietly tolerant, I guess? We haven't been fighting really, but we haven't been talking either. Still, it was Caitlyn's birthday and we were going to have to spend some time together.
I sort of got irrationally angry. By the time he showed up, I bitched him out a little about being late and didn't even mention the flowers I was holding. Then we went to Toys R Us.
After that we went to dinner and Caitlyn ate surprisingly well, which was nice. Then we went home and had cake. We sang "Happy Birthday" and she sang along with us. She blew out her candles. She had a great time and loved the shit out of her cake. She was the champion of birthdays.
So. Happy Birthday to my baby girl! Also, I promise next year I won't throw your party together at the very last minute.
Yesterday was Caitlyn's second birthday.
The mood in my house has been... quietly tolerant, I guess? We haven't been fighting really, but we haven't been talking either. Still, it was Caitlyn's birthday and we were going to have to spend some time together.
To make matters as awkward as humanly possible, Rodolfo sent flowers to my job yesterday. There was a card that simply said "I miss you. I'm sorry". I didn't quite know how to handle it. It made me emotional and sad, but not because I was questioning my decision to leave. I was mostly upset because of all days that I wanted nothing more than to pretend things were even slightly normal, it would have been yesterday. I did not want to have THAT conversation, the one where he thinks throwing me a bone once every 2 years and doing something nice makes up for everything else.
I was also worried about addressing it with anyone at work. Everyone is pretty friendly at my job, and inevitably someone would ask who sent them and why. Was it my birthday? Our anniversary? No. My husband doesn't send me gifts to be nice. He sends them when I tell him I'm leaving him! I guess I could lie, but I'm actually a pretty terrible liar, plus I was upset about the whole thing, so I was worried someone would ask and I'd start crying like an asshole. Luckily, it was late in the afternoon when the flowers arrived and no one passed my desk before I went home.
I mentioned that my car died and it's currently at my mechanic being fixed. Which means Rodolfo had to pick me up from the train station. He was 15 minutes late. There I was, standing in the rain, vase full of flowers in one hand, cake box in the other, waiting around for him to show up and missing even more of Caitlyn's birthday.
I sort of got irrationally angry. By the time he showed up, I bitched him out a little about being late and didn't even mention the flowers I was holding. Then we went to Toys R Us.
Toys R Us was the highlight of the night. Caitlyn spent the first 15 minutes or so wandering through the aisles, playing with anything that caught her interest until we found the place she really wanted to be: The car aisle.
Umm.. you guys? Shouldn't I have approximately 14 more years until she starts hounding me for a fucking CAR?
Anyway. She spent a solid 30 minutes climbing in and out of every car she could reach, trying to decide which $500 toy that I definitely can't afford/don't have the room for was her favorite. All of the electric cars were obviously not going to move, but once she got into that Cozy Coupe, I could not get her out of it. She spent another 15 pushing it around the store, or having Rodolfo push her around the store in it. Unfortunately, they actually only had the display available or I definitely would have bought it for her. I had to bribe her with an ice pop while Rodolfo ran away with it so she wouldn't start to cry.
So. Happy Birthday to my baby girl! Also, I promise next year I won't throw your party together at the very last minute.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Sharing is Caring
As previously mentioned, sometimes my kid is an asshole. I'm doing my best to combat that by teaching her the basic principles of being a human being that the other human beings want to be around.
In particular, I've been trying hard to convey the fact that the world does not revolve around her. She is not happy about this most of the time. Because, really, she wants an ice pop NOW. She wants to watch Dora NOW. She wants to play with my phone NOW. Caitlyn is struggling with the idea that sometimes, maybe, something besides her whims are my priority.
That being said, she is a socialized kid. Despite being an only child, she has cousins very close to her age and she's been with a babysitter since she was 8 weeks old. She's always been around other kids and she mostly does well with not being the center of the universe when they are around.
This brings us to sharing. Or, more specifically, that despite her blatant narcissism, Caitlyn is getting pretty good at it.
The problem with sharing, though, is that once a kid starts to really understand the concept, you have to accept all of their attempts at sharing, even when they are fucking disgusting.
The other night, Caitlyn was eating an ice pop. She has a little game she plays with the dog, where he chases her around trying to snatch her food and she runs away squealing and giggling, holding it over her head. Caitlyn is in the lowest percentile for height and weight. The dog is a fat cocker spaniel. Guess who usually wins that game.
Anyway, she's never upset when the dog takes her food. In fact, if he doesn't chase after her, she will stick her food in his face until she has his complete attention. This is what happened with the ice pop. She was sitting on my lap, alternating licks with Joey (yes, it is disgusting, but it's not going to hurt her so I don't give a shit), a virtual master at sharing (because, you guys, she fucking LOVES ice pops).
And then she realized that it wasn't enough. She realized she needed to take it one step further. She realized that it simply wasn't fair to only share with the dog. And she shoved her dog/toddler covered slime pop into my mouth. Shoved. Like the male lead in a 70s porno. After multiple attempts at dodging it, telling her "thank you, baby, but mommy doesn't want any", I became the dog in her mind. She was going to get me to play her game. She spent 10 minutes going back and forth between cramming it in my mouth, despite my many (MANY) protests and attempts to dodge it, then letting the dog lick it a few times. Then licking it herself a few times. My god, this sounds more and more like I'm describing a three-way scene in a porn the more I explain it.
Anyway, so sharing. It is infinitely more disgusting with toddlers, much like, well, absolutely everything else. But hey, my kid is slightly less of an asshole now!
Finally, I should note that there are some things that Caitlyn refuses to share. Apparently my less-than-2 year old nearly got into a smack-down at the playground yesterday. Why, you ask? Because some 4 year old was following around her man (our babysitter's son). I can't even get mad at her for that. Bitches be crazy if they think they can just roll up on her boyfriend like that.
In particular, I've been trying hard to convey the fact that the world does not revolve around her. She is not happy about this most of the time. Because, really, she wants an ice pop NOW. She wants to watch Dora NOW. She wants to play with my phone NOW. Caitlyn is struggling with the idea that sometimes, maybe, something besides her whims are my priority.
That being said, she is a socialized kid. Despite being an only child, she has cousins very close to her age and she's been with a babysitter since she was 8 weeks old. She's always been around other kids and she mostly does well with not being the center of the universe when they are around.
This brings us to sharing. Or, more specifically, that despite her blatant narcissism, Caitlyn is getting pretty good at it.
The problem with sharing, though, is that once a kid starts to really understand the concept, you have to accept all of their attempts at sharing, even when they are fucking disgusting.
The other night, Caitlyn was eating an ice pop. She has a little game she plays with the dog, where he chases her around trying to snatch her food and she runs away squealing and giggling, holding it over her head. Caitlyn is in the lowest percentile for height and weight. The dog is a fat cocker spaniel. Guess who usually wins that game.
Anyway, she's never upset when the dog takes her food. In fact, if he doesn't chase after her, she will stick her food in his face until she has his complete attention. This is what happened with the ice pop. She was sitting on my lap, alternating licks with Joey (yes, it is disgusting, but it's not going to hurt her so I don't give a shit), a virtual master at sharing (because, you guys, she fucking LOVES ice pops).
And then she realized that it wasn't enough. She realized she needed to take it one step further. She realized that it simply wasn't fair to only share with the dog. And she shoved her dog/toddler covered slime pop into my mouth. Shoved. Like the male lead in a 70s porno. After multiple attempts at dodging it, telling her "thank you, baby, but mommy doesn't want any", I became the dog in her mind. She was going to get me to play her game. She spent 10 minutes going back and forth between cramming it in my mouth, despite my many (MANY) protests and attempts to dodge it, then letting the dog lick it a few times. Then licking it herself a few times. My god, this sounds more and more like I'm describing a three-way scene in a porn the more I explain it.
Anyway, so sharing. It is infinitely more disgusting with toddlers, much like, well, absolutely everything else. But hey, my kid is slightly less of an asshole now!
Finally, I should note that there are some things that Caitlyn refuses to share. Apparently my less-than-2 year old nearly got into a smack-down at the playground yesterday. Why, you ask? Because some 4 year old was following around her man (our babysitter's son). I can't even get mad at her for that. Bitches be crazy if they think they can just roll up on her boyfriend like that.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Busted Knees and Broken Faces
You know how policemen beat their wives with a sack of oranges because it doesn't leave any bruises? Huh? You mean that isn't common knowledge?
Anyway, despite having no plans to start beating Caitlyn, I realized that if I wanted to, I could totally get away with it. Uppercuts to the lip. I'm just saying. Toddlers man. No one questions it when she busts her face open.
I probably sound like the worst parent ever, but I just find it incredible how often this kid hurts herself. I regularly find bruises, cuts and scrapes and have no idea how they got there.
She's going through a cute little phase though. With all the rain we had last week, plus my natural clumsiness, it was inevitable that I would bust my ass. I'm kind of notorious for falling down all the time. My mom mocks me relentlessly about it. She was keeping a running tally of all the places I'd fallen back when I was a teenager. And she was pretty convinced that I had never been somewhere and not fallen there at least once.
So it was slippery. And I was in a rush. And I'm a fucking klutz and you should maybe just be 2 minutes late to a meeting as opposed to rushing when you are a klutz and it's raining outside. So I fell. Hard. And scraped up my knee pretty badly and fucked up my ankle.
Anyway. I got home and took a shower and was walking out of the bathroom in my towel when Caitlyn spotted my knee. She came over and pointed to it and I confirmed that "yes, oww, mommy got hurt". And then she did the cutest thing I've ever seen. She bent down and kissed my knee. Because she is the most adorable. The most adorable ever.
I'm still pretty scraped up and Caitlyn still comes over and gives my knee a kiss any time she sees it. It's the cute dysentary. She is oozing cute from all her orifices. I love it.
Then the other day she walked over to me. She was in her diaper, because clothes are for fucking suckers. I was cooking dinner or some shit and she was trying to get my attention (did I mention she says Mommy now? Finally. She seemed really committed to calling my Mom for a while, but the minute I got out of the hospital she started calling me Mommy). When I looked over I saw she was holding one leg up, looking at me expectantly. That's when I saw it. She had the tiniest little scab forming on her knee. Maybe a quarter of an inch. I wouldn't have even seen it if she didn't point it out to me. And then I knew just what she wanted. I was supposed to kiss her knee.
And I did. And then I asked if her knee felt better, if mommy's kiss had helped. To which she responded with a pained "Owwww". And then I kissed it many more times.
This isn't something I've ever shown her. I give her kisses if she gets hurt, but the idea that she should reciprocate the gesture was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen, and something she decided all on her own. My girl. She has a natural tendency to be nurturing and sweet, to care about other people.
I think as parents, we always question our choices. We always wonder if we are making the right decisions. We fear that we are raising brats or assholes (especially when they are just hitting their stride in terrible-twos type behavior). And so it's really nice to have a moment like that, where you realize that your kid really is as awesome as you think she is.
Anyway, despite having no plans to start beating Caitlyn, I realized that if I wanted to, I could totally get away with it. Uppercuts to the lip. I'm just saying. Toddlers man. No one questions it when she busts her face open.
I probably sound like the worst parent ever, but I just find it incredible how often this kid hurts herself. I regularly find bruises, cuts and scrapes and have no idea how they got there.
She's going through a cute little phase though. With all the rain we had last week, plus my natural clumsiness, it was inevitable that I would bust my ass. I'm kind of notorious for falling down all the time. My mom mocks me relentlessly about it. She was keeping a running tally of all the places I'd fallen back when I was a teenager. And she was pretty convinced that I had never been somewhere and not fallen there at least once.
So it was slippery. And I was in a rush. And I'm a fucking klutz and you should maybe just be 2 minutes late to a meeting as opposed to rushing when you are a klutz and it's raining outside. So I fell. Hard. And scraped up my knee pretty badly and fucked up my ankle.
Anyway. I got home and took a shower and was walking out of the bathroom in my towel when Caitlyn spotted my knee. She came over and pointed to it and I confirmed that "yes, oww, mommy got hurt". And then she did the cutest thing I've ever seen. She bent down and kissed my knee. Because she is the most adorable. The most adorable ever.
I'm still pretty scraped up and Caitlyn still comes over and gives my knee a kiss any time she sees it. It's the cute dysentary. She is oozing cute from all her orifices. I love it.
Then the other day she walked over to me. She was in her diaper, because clothes are for fucking suckers. I was cooking dinner or some shit and she was trying to get my attention (did I mention she says Mommy now? Finally. She seemed really committed to calling my Mom for a while, but the minute I got out of the hospital she started calling me Mommy). When I looked over I saw she was holding one leg up, looking at me expectantly. That's when I saw it. She had the tiniest little scab forming on her knee. Maybe a quarter of an inch. I wouldn't have even seen it if she didn't point it out to me. And then I knew just what she wanted. I was supposed to kiss her knee.
And I did. And then I asked if her knee felt better, if mommy's kiss had helped. To which she responded with a pained "Owwww". And then I kissed it many more times.
This isn't something I've ever shown her. I give her kisses if she gets hurt, but the idea that she should reciprocate the gesture was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen, and something she decided all on her own. My girl. She has a natural tendency to be nurturing and sweet, to care about other people.
I think as parents, we always question our choices. We always wonder if we are making the right decisions. We fear that we are raising brats or assholes (especially when they are just hitting their stride in terrible-twos type behavior). And so it's really nice to have a moment like that, where you realize that your kid really is as awesome as you think she is.
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