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Posts Tagged ‘childhood’

You are 19 months old.

You have somehow learned that this symbol means “trash”:

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You have been collecting new words: nice, trash (which was “dash” and is now “tash”), Elmo (much to Mama’s chagrin), go, pop, boom, help, pee, beep, please, eat, on, in, baby. Not that these words sound exactly like they’re supposed to

You now eat bananas like a normal person (previously Mama fed them to you on a spoon because you either refused to touch them, or smushed them and then complained about your banana-covered hands).

You adore your Daddy more and more as time goes on, running to see if he’s home after every nap and sticking as close as possible to him when he’s home. If you see a picture with a man and a baby, you call the man Daddy.

You occasionally get into a temper, usually when you’re tired. And it’s not really a temper so much as a very pathetic display of tears and sadness over a profound disappointment such as the kitchen gate being closed when you’d prefer to roam the entire first floor.

You sometimes take Mama by the hand to lead her to an activity you’d Iike her to participate in. Usually it involves a book. With kittens. Because…

You love, love, love kittens. Love them. When you see a dog you make your kitten noise. So it’s really cool for you that Grammie bought you a book that actually meows.

You enjoy play dates for the most part, though you tend to hang back a bit and remain puzzled by the concept of sharing.

You have become adept at going though play tunnels.

You love to “help” Mama sweep.

You will sometimes stamp your foot if you’re not getting something you want. We have absolutely no idea where you learned this charming little behavior. Seriously. Mama hasn’t stamped her foot since she was enduring the third fitting for her wedding dress.

You eschew all vegetables except carrots, sweet potatoes and the stems of broccoli.

You know what toilets are for, and you ask Mama if she needs to “bee” every time you see one. If she does, you enjoy getting paper for her, and you try to flush it while she’s still doing her business.

You can go up and down the steps of the jungle gym all by yourself. You can also get into and out of your little chair by yourself. You tend to throw your arms in the air and squeal whenever you get out of the chair successfully. Mama may have taught you that part.

You love to put on one of Mama’s or Daddy’s shoes and clomp around in it.

You said “no!” when you saw the needle for your flu shot, but you didn’t even cry afterwards.

You are 19 months old, and you are edging gently into Toddlerville.

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When Baboo was about seven months old, or maybe a little older, I started teaching him baby sign language. Just the classics, really: more, all done, please, thank you. For a while, he used each new sign to mean what the previous one meant, plus the meaning for the new one. So when he signed “please” it actually meant “more” and “please,” and sometimes “I want it.”

Now that he’s 18 months, he has a good range of words to convey his desires and chat about his world. All the books and websites say this is when kids experience a “language explosion.” In Baboo’s case, this has mostly meant pointing out every trash can and excitedly proclaiming “dash!” He also now chants, “go, go, go” every time we pass the gate to the basement, which is our route to going to the store/playground/for a walk.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing on getting him to say “yes” in response to direct questions instead of signing “more” or “please.” I knew he could handle “yes” because three or four weeks ago, he began saying “house” and “ice” clearly (whereas before it was just “ow” and “eye”). The “yes” project went well enough that I was satisfied. My baby was On Target with this Major Developmental Milestone.

But then last week, he was in his high chair and he started doing the sign for “more” perfectly. He’d never done this, so it took me a minute to get what he was saying. I seriously thought he might just be playing with his fingers. So I asked him, just to be sure: “You want more?”

Again, the perfectly executed “more,” plus the word itself, reasonably clearly. Not the “muh” of the past few months. “Mow.”

I think he got tired of me sitting there with my mouth open, because then he signed, and said, “more, please.”

Both signs, perfectly, accompanied by words that were actually recognizable. He’s never done that. Hasn’t done it since. But apparently he put all the pieces together to do it last week, and decided to show Mama what he could do.

Astonishing, what goes on in that little head.

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“Good morning, Sweetheart!”

It’s 5:30, maybe 6 if I’m lucky.

“Uh-oh!”

His beloved Ned hits the floor. He’s been standing and dangling that poor little bear over the crib rail, waiting for the necessary audience for his daily performance. (I know this thanks to the video monitor, that double-edged sword of a device that sometimes entertains as well as reassures parents.)

“Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh!”

That’s the soundtrack as he works his blanket over the rail with both chubby hands because it’s too big to fling over in one go.

“Uh-oh!”

The elephant-head blankey lands on top of the small mountain of fluffy baby things. Ned is typically at the bottom unless Baboo performed with particular flair and flung him to one side.

“Ney-ney!”

“Yes, I’ll get Ned.”

I retrieve the toy and bend to pick the baby up, moving in ways that protect my mid-40s back. We sit down with Ned. I reach for the bottle I set down as I watched the show. He holds his bear and drinks while I rock us and nuzzle his noggin.

Another day has begun.

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I am lucky enough to belong to the kind of book club that is more concerned with food and wine and friendship than books and the intense discussion thereof. We’ve been meeting for long enough that we’ve developed our own traditions, one of which is the baby book shower.

When it was my turn, I was delighted to receive a small library’s worth of road-tested baby and children’s books. Many of them have become favorites (of both Baboo and mine), and Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton is currently in heavy rotation at nap times.

The concept is simple:

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The theme continues apace on the next spread:

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It goes on from there, the turkey reliably providing comic relief to the earnestness of the elephant, moose and bear. In the middle, the rhythm is broken so that the parent doing the reading doesn’t fall asleep. Conveniently, this switch-up also keeps the baby engaged. “What will come next?” the baby thinks. “Will we return to the 1-2-3 oops form, or move on to something even more exciting?”

Both, little reader. Both. After a spread discussing the various colors of shoes favored by plump animals, we get the big payoff:

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Baboo likes to hear about the bathing costumes of the animals watching from the side of the pool, so we discuss that before noting how silly that turkey is. And that’s what I really love about this book: Despite the simplicity of the idea, there’s quite a bit to discuss beyond colors and items of clothing. Also, it’s just funny — a definite parental bonus when you’re reading to an overtired toddler.

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You are 18 months old.

You can operate these toys all by yourself:

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You still insist upon inspecting Mama’s shoe after she farts. When you don’t find anything other than a shoe, you shrug.

You can locate your chin, cheeks, forehead and bottom.

You sometimes play with your blocks all by yourself.

You have mastered the art of climbing onto the couch and chairs.

Your morning nap is slowly evaporating and being absorbed by your afternoon nap. This makes you a little cranky, but the change makes Mama happy.

You decided to conquer the shape sorter last week — and you did.

You love to “walk” up the stairs as we hold your hands.

You know what “boo-boo” and “kiss it better” mean, and you bestow kisses on Mama’s boo-boos as well as your own. You have also begun to make contact with your kisses.

You know how to turn on the dishwasher. And now we know how to lock it.

You are almost able to thread shoelaces. Real ones, not baby practice ones. Well, they belong to the learn-to-dress monkey, but still, they’re tiny.

You know that if you’re happy and you know it, the only thing to do is clap your hands. Failing that, you can also pat your head or stomp your feet.

You are so obsessed with trash cans that Mama brought a little one into the kitchen for you. There’s a separate blog post coming about this because there’s just too much to tell for this format.

You went to the zoo for the first time with Grammie and Mama. You seemed to like the elephants quite a bit. You were also delighted to find they have trash cans there.

You know how to answer and end a Skype call on an iPad.

You regularly deploy the word “uh-oh” in the correct context. You are also an expert shrugger.

Your feet are five inches long.

You abruptly ended your long and ardent love affair with baby yogurt. Mama is fine with this because of the high sugar content, and trusts that you will eat enough of other stuff that you keep growing.

You are 18 months old, and we can’t quite believe it.

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One of Baboo’s clearest and most frequent words is No. This has sparked an ongoing debate in our house: Does he say it so much and so well because we say it to him so often, or is he merely learning to use language to assert his will?

I’m in the latter camp, because he uses it to get to “yes,” for example, telling me which book he wants to read by rejecting all the ones he doesn’t want. He does know the word “yes,” by the way. He just doesn’t always choose to use it. It’s baffling, and we’re saying “yes” to him more often now, but still, his default is “no.”

He also uses No to double-check that something he’s been told not to do is still off-limits. It’s really cute, actually: He’ll caress the trash can while pouring his soul out through his eyes and mournfully uttering a soft “No?”

Meanwhile, the aforementioned debate has created an awareness in my disciplinary language that I like, spawning a litany of phrases that mean No. These tend to be either strings of nonsense sounds like “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah,” or a positive casting of a negative request, like, “That’s Mama’s cup” instead of “Don’t touch that.” I have to admit to feeling a little funny about the latter approach because I have been known to mercilessly mock those who avoid saying No to their kids at all costs.

I’m not taking it that far, though — just reserving No for dangerous things like the oven and outlets (or when it just pops out of my mouth). Pretty much everything else I might use a No for falls into the category of limit-setting, and distraction tactics are often more effective for that. My favorite so far is “Where’s your baby?” closely followed by “Would you like this cup/spoon/yogurt tub?”

And then of course there are situations where neither a No nor distraction works. The best example is Baboo’s favorite new trick: Kicking like mad on the changing table. If I say No, he says it right back to me and goes back to kicking. My Stern Mama Face has zero effect. And he thinks it’s so fun that distracting him from it is nigh impossible. So now I’m trying a technique I used with my dogs: ignore the behavior you don’t want.

I’ll let you know how that works out.

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“Could be his molars coming in.”

With that simple sentence, I lost a bit of love for our pediatrician, which is okay because I have enough love for him that losing a bit is tolerable.

The baby had been waking up for a few nights running, and since he had an ear infection the last time that happened, we were there to rule out that possibility. With it ruled out, I was left with no simple answer to this maddening new trend in my baby’s behavior.

As the days went on, he did it over and over, waking between 2 and 4:30, upset but easily calmed, sometimes soaked through, sometimes dry. One night, for extra fun, he woke up an hour after the first time, just as I was drifting back to sleep.

Naturally I turned to the Internet and books for possible reasons. None of them seemed fun:

– Molars. Two-year molars coming in seven months early, could take a few months to fully erupt. Neato.

– Separation anxiety. Really? I’m with him ALL THE TIME.

– Overtiredness. The more tired you are, the worse you sleep. The worse you sleep, the more tired you are. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

– Night terrors. He’s a little young for this, but one of the hallmarks of this lovely phenomenon is a freaked-out kid who suddenly calms down and passes out again, which is pretty much what he was doing. He also paused during a crying jag to chirp, “hi!”

– 18-month sleep regression. This is where the kid starts waking up at night for no apparent reason, and you get to decide how to deal with it. Regardless of your course of action, you still end up with a tired baby and shredded sleep.

– Just a fun new limit-testing behavior. Because making Mommy get out of bed is fun!

– Full moon.

Go ahead and laugh at that last one. He stopped his wee-hours wakings the night after the full moon.

Apparently I’m raising a werewolf.

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Friends! Does your baby wake up wet and sad every morning? Are his formerly silky haunches covered in a nasty rash because of it? Are you at your wit’s end trying to think of ways to fix the problem after going up a diaper size, which has never failed to stop leaks in the past?

Well fear no more, because help is here in the form of an old friend:

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That’s right, your old pal the bulky, nasty maxi-pad is here to save the day! Just cut off the wings, slit the back so the pee can get through to the diaper, and voilà! The baby may wake up slightly damp, but your days of flooding will be over!

By the way, they’re also great if your dog has had knee surgery. Super-absorbent and much cheaper than bandaging supplies.

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“Enjoy every moment.”

“That’s kind of a lot of pressure.”

My response was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I may have offended her, or hurt her feelings, and I don’t feel great about that. I wasn’t trying to be mean or bitchy, but that nice lady I had just met unfortunately uttered my biggest motherhood advice pet peeve on a day when my speech filters were not fully operational.

She meant it nicely, of course. It’s one of the things people think they are supposed to say to people with babies. When you say it, the other person is supposed to smile and nod and maybe tilt their head to the side in a wistful manner. But there are a few reasons why it sets me off

First of all, as I said to her: I don’t need more pressure to do motherhood the right way. I put enough on myself, and the media takes care of the rest. Pick up an issue of “Parents” magazine and check out any article on Having Maximum Fun With Your Child to see what I mean. Perhaps I’m too much of a literalist, but the flip side of “enjoy every moment” is: If you’re not enjoying every moment, there’s something wrong with you, or your parenting skills, or both.

Secondly: What if you’re just having a bad day, or a string of them, because oh I don’t know… Insomnia, cramps, crushing headache, your sister/cousin/brother/dad/partner is being awful just then, you have no idea how you’re going to put the kid through Kindergarten. Granted, there are times when caring for a kid provides respite from bad days, but my experience is that being a parent on a day you just need a break from being a parent is the opposite of enjoyable. (Which is why I will never again have more than two glasses of wine on date night.)

Thirdly: Come on. Poopy diapers and teething and spitup and sleep deprivation suck, deeply, for a long time, and everyone knows it.

Finally: What if your kid is sick? I don’t mean like with a cold, I mean with cancer or some serious illness you can’t tell they have just by looking. My kid, for the record, is (knock wood) very healthy, but I do sometimes allow myself to think about what it would be like to deeply love a very sick child. There is no possible way parents of sick kids are enjoying every moment. They’re just enjoying the ones they can.

So maybe that’s the better statement: Enjoy as much as you can. It’s not as pretty, but it rings true to me.

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7:30, a perfect June morning. The baby happy in his chariot with a hunk of apple, me happy with a piece of gum and my thoughts.

Across the street, a Russian granny, the one who used to wear the Pujols ball cap. She is not wearing it today. She moves slowly. They all do.

We cross to greet her.

“So big!”

“Yes, and walking!” I trot my fingers in the air to make sure she understands.

She spreads her arms to hug me, I think. I smell urine. I lean in anyway. She kisses me on the cheek and takes my hand in hers. I look down and see my great-grandmother’s hands, plump as sausages, soft as the baby’s.

“Boy?”

“Yes.”

“Nice boy.”

“Yes.”

She takes his hand, squeezes it. Ruffles his hair, makes doting Russian Granny noises. Smiles at him, her gold teeth shiny in the morning light. He is a little unsure but smiles back. She shuffles off with a “thank you.”

I continue my walk with tears in my eyes, not really sure why I’m crying, not really caring.

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