We have a little board book called First Rhymes. Most of the rhymes are the old favorites everyone knows (Little Bo Peep, Little Jack Horner, etc.) but there is one that uhm… who decided that this was a good idea (for a book published in 2005)?
I Love Little Pussy
I love little pussy,
Her coat is so warm,
And if I don’t hur her
She’ll do me no harm.
*cough* Totally innocent, I’m sure.
I haven’t seriously babbled about my kids in a while! Such a tragedy. *cough*
Calli is awesome! But she’s awesome in that way that babies are awesome so it’s pretty generic. I think she’s an easy sleeper (certainly compared to Shanna) so that makes things easier. She is trying really hard to get more clingy and I am resisting with every fiber of my being. I was astounded throughout Shanna’s infancy that I didn’t really hit ‘touched out’. I now live in Touched Out. I would kind of like to have an asbestos suit so that no one gets too close to my skin. I do carry Calli around but when she has the days where she starts fussing the minute I lay her down for a nap I end up having a stern conversation with her then holding her hand while she fusses for a while. I’m still opposed to “Cry it Out” but I am much more ok with fuss-it-out-while-I’m-holding-your-hand. I just cannot do the 24/7 in contact with the newborn thing this time. I will lose my mind. But she eats a lot and she’s vigorous and very interested in the world around her. Since the most recent pediatrician visit (dear god do we need a new one) I am aware that she is a full pound less than Shanna was at this age and almost an inch shorter. This child will not be larger than average. Apparently she is right on the 50% line for height and weight. So in fact she is… dead average. 
Despite the ped telling me to get ready to start her on iron fortified rice cereal, I don’t get the impression she is going to be the most food-ready kid at 6 months. It’s kind of weird how different she is from Shanna. She’s rolling over, but only on soft surfaces. The floor is still too hard. The couch or the bed is super easy. Sitting up this morning was surprising. I set her down and expected her to immediately collapse but she didn’t. Yay! She sat up for quite a while as I tended to Shanna.
Shanna continues to develop at an amazing (to me) pace. I don’t have much experience with other kids so it’s kind of weird to have an intellectual understanding about child development and them come against an actual kid who isn’t following all the normal curves perfectly. I was looking at the milestone chart this morning (someone asked me when sitting up was normal… I don’t know…) and I looked at the bits for Shanna. Holy Milestones she is asynchronous. The average kid her age is mastering their second adjective?! Oh. She’s speaking in 10+ word sentences using several $2 words at a go. Her favorite right now is ‘diatomaceous earth’ because we have been using it to deal with our ant problem. If you have ever heard the word before you can understand her. If you’ve never heard of the stuff she sounds kind of muddled. I’m pretty impressed though. She is also being increasingly helpful in the kitchen. Like this morning she helped with a large portion of breakfast. She scooped out the granola, helped cut up the apples (her little kid knife did a better job than I expected), and she helped pour out the yogurt. Yay! Simple, but she’s trying so hard. She can also almost entirely make a pbj by herself. By 3 she will be able to make herself simple meals. I’m thrilled. But her physical development is… spotty. She’s a total klutz. And she also shows very little inclinations towards artistic stuff. I’m trying pretty hard to provide access to such things, but it’s not my thing… so I kind of suck at helping her. I’ll keep trying and she’ll keep doing her thing. I don’t actually mind that she would rather spend 30 minutes cutting up a piece of paper than color. Oh! And she’s making more progress towards potty training. At this point my approach is to just leave her alone. When she makes comments complaining about diaper changes I tell her that she can avoid them by using the potty and she often asks for panties instead of a diaper. We aren’t having many accidents in panties because when she isn’t in the mood for the potty she asks for a diaper. Although I do give her candy for using the potty. 
I am trying to be mellow though.
Balancing the two of them is… interesting. Luckily they are both easy going and mellow so they wait their turn extremely well. It helps if I keep on a constant stream of, “I can see that you really need me to ‘x’ but right now I am doing ‘y’ for your sister. I know it is hard to wait, but please try to be patient for another ‘z’ minutes.” If I can keep that up in a patient, kind voice waiting up to 15 minutes is not a big stretch. 30 minutes can be very hard for both of them. Which uhm… is ok. They’re kind of young.
I feel like we have hit the ‘terrible twos’ and yet… if this is the worst I see we’re doing GREAT! Shanna doesn’t ‘tantrum’ much at all but she does cry a lot. She has a lot of really intense feelings and it’s hard for her to figure out what to do with them. I feel like as long as she is well rested and not hungry she does better than a lot of adults with her strong feelings. It’s kind of hard to console her if she is hungry or tired though. It gets hard. The crying sound makes me feel homicidal.
Because I’m exactly this kind of full disclosure person… I’ve lost it a couple of times. 
When we were driving to Disneyland and she was really really sick of the car she started kicking the drivers seat on purpose pretty hard. I reached back and hit her feet. I know it wasn’t the right decision and we’ve talked about it. She’s pretty happy to lecture me for a long time about how hitting is wrong and I shouldn’t do it so she enjoyed the hell out of that conversation. (so my daughter) I’ve smacked her hands a couple of times purely as a reflex when she is doing something that makes me twitch. Every time I do she begins her lecture again about how hitting is wrong. She tells me to apologize and I do. She cries and we cuddle and kiss and then feel ok again. I am trying really hard to increase my patience level but it’s hard. This is part of that ‘there are no perfect parents’ thing. I try to not spend much time feeling bad but instead put my energy towards doing better next time. It’s hard to not get into negative self-talk. Given how much stress these kids add to my life (it’s incredible in a kind of scary way) I’m aware that I am actually doing phenomenally well. It helps that I now self-medicate. The next step is to increase my exercise because that will help a lot. I informed Noah that I was going to the gym today. Period. He’s supportive.
Guess I’m willing to leave this kid before 6 months. Ha.
I need to tell Shanna no when she asks to watch birth videos. Every so often I kind of freak out and sob because I feel so much grief over the fact that I will never have a son. Every birth video I see where they have a son I sob and feel so envious I can barely see straight. In no way shape or form do I wish either of my girls away. I’m actually enjoying having a girl a little bit more this time because I feel less self-imposed-inhibition about enjoying the more ‘girly’ clothes.
But I have dreamed of my son for so long. It hurts so much that I will never get to see what that person would be like.
Yesterday I had my worst outing ever as a parent. I tried to take both girls to Dickens Fair. Not a big deal, I take them all kinds of places by myself. It was a total nightmare. Something there bothered Calli. She screamed almost nonstop from when we entered the building. The few times I managed to get her to calm down were followed by crying fits from Shanna. She rode the carousel and the guy who runs it helped her off her animal and she lost it. She started crying hysterically that she didn’t want him to touch her. I can’t tell for sure but I suspect that he was slightly rough when he picked her up. She was really freaking out though so I didn’t question it too much I just comforted her. She was then not ok with walking and wanted to be carried. You see how this is going?
It was awful. We were there for maybe an hour and I spend most of that time ravenously eating or trying to get one (or both) kid(s) to stop crying. So I left pretty quickly. Just not worth it this year.
Sometimes I don’t know what to make of Calli’s self-sufficiency already. She freakin loves the swing. We could leave her in it for hours until she has a dirty diaper or needs food. She laughs, smiles, plays with the mirror baby, and thinks the mobile is awesome. Shanna sorta tolerated it when she was tired. She likes just hanging out on her blanket (when I can keep Shanna from injuring her).
I’m not complaining! It’s just… weird. Frankly I’m delighted and grateful. It allows me to get stuff done. I have probably already accomplished more in Calli’s lifespan than I did in the first six months of Shanna’s life.
And she’s so cuddly and sweet. She has a very serious face most of the time but then she smiles and she lights up like a roman candle. I feel so blessed in my children.
One of my awesome former students came to visit me today. I took her to lunch and we chatted and moved closer towards being friends instead of teacher/student. She told me all about her excitement about joining the Navy. I sent her home with The Gift of Fear and told her that she should sign up for an Impact class before she heads to basic training. I am completely supportive of her joining the military but I also think she needs to learn to take care of herself. She was extremely enthusiastic and supportive. I’m glad we got to spend the day together.
Before people jump down my throat I AM NOT POSTING THIS BECAUSE I AGREE WITH EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF INFORMATION IN THIS POST. Did I say that clearly enough? Please don’t start lecturing me because I am stupid enough to believe something like this, thanks.
But anyway! With that lead up! Here is an article that says we should be grateful to the Duggars because their kids will be paying for our Social Security: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574413792994350108.html
Shanna was talking about her vulva this morning and acting questioning (this is where her language skills get a bit muddy) and I said, “Yup all girls have vulvas.” And then I stopped. Actually, no. All girls don’t have vulvas. But most girls do. And very few boys have vulvas. Man. I think things are going to be complicated to explain to her.
I found this chick through mothering.com. As much as MDC is kind of wearing through my patience I have learned some neat stuff there. So here is a really interesting post about how toddlers are/can be triggering to abuse victimes. It gave me a lot to think about: Raising My Boychick
I semi-regularly post controversial things without stating my overall opinions on the topic. I like saying things like, “This is interesting” without specifying exactly what I find interesting or why. It is interesting that people often leap to conclusions about my positions on things. Last night as I was falling asleep I thought about the fact that I probably keep my mouth shut on some of my more extreme positions because I hate the fact that I already get snotty comments about the fact that I have strong opinions without fully expressing most of my strong opinions. That would be, in fact, why I believe that people are trying to shame someone into silence with the phrase “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel” and its close cousins.
So ok, you want to know some of my strong opinions? Fine. I’ll state some of them. If you flame me, act like an asshole, or just in generally are rude I will delete your comment without response. If you want to engage me in spirited debate that is fine, keeping in mind that I am leaving the country tomorrow. Alright, here we go…
Here is a fascinating article on the differences and similarities between FGM and circumcision. http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/files/darby_mgm_fgm_maq_0907.pdf
It’s 23 pages long but absolutely worth the read.
During one grading session we kept track of the best lines. I want to throw away the physical paper they were written on, so here they are preserved for posterity:
“It barley pierced me armor.”
“A tree is shedding it’s leaves above me like golden raindrops.”
“The warm sunrays relax me and they make me want to lay there and look at the beautiful colored sky as if I’m not going to see the sky for a long time.”
“Why he had to kill her is anybodies guess.”
“My wings are white and feathery and feel nothing like a bird’s wings.”
“All the excitement and the loss of blood would make any teenage girl nauseous.”
“My uncle is a chairman of one of the California Water Foul Association fund raisers and he knows all about the outdoors and hunting and fishing so…”
“The blackest black, like standing outside in the middle of the night and looking out in the open when there are absolutely no lights around.”
“You know the best thing to do when you want the time to just slow things down, is to watch the humans walk by.”
“Their dead bodies were conjoined by their hands.”
“Upon entering, I was greeted by dirty slums bugging for money. After fending them off and breaking the jaw of a more rowdy slum, I…”
“It’s like I just sat on a syringe loaded with some kind of venom. Well it’s not just any venom it’s a boring venom.”
“I eat the look on your face with great joy.”
“‘You know…,’ the man said as Mrs. Jones began to hide in the guest room downstairs. ‘You can run as much as you want–but you’ll run away from me.'”
“When she opened the door a young man with short brown hair, and blue/green/gray/brown eyes stood in front of her.”
I forgot to say anything here:
Come meet other freak breeders at the Children’s Discovery Museum on Saturday January 17th. I will be arriving at 11:00 am. I will hang out outside eating a picnic lunch until 12. You can get more information about the museum at: http://www.cdm.org/index.asp?f=0
I’m not going to keep spamming my journal, instead you can come join the google group: http://groups.google.com/group/freak-breaders-in-the-bay
Come meet people!
What are your favorite names for boys and girls? I’m not pregnant, I’m just curious. Feel free to state several for either gender.
Well, you’d better do it quick: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift2-2009jan02,0,2083247.story
The law is very hard to understand. I’ve tried to read it:http://www.cpsc.gov/ABOUT/Cpsia/legislation.html but it’s not clearly written.
It is sounding an awful lot like all small businesses that produce *anything* for children will be in trouble if not sent out of business entirely. I can’t find a super clear explanation for how this law will be applied anywhere.
(Quick and dirty summary: all products that are sold intended for children must go through rigorous testing to ensure safety, they are mostly worried about lead. This means all toys/clothes/household items/whatever marketed for use by children. The cost of this could be anywhere from $150/item to $4000/item no one is sure.)
Everyone who has been contacting their representative has been ignored. This really sucks.
I am very seriously considering going on a buying spree for all handmade stuff I want to buy for the next many many years. If you like shopping for handmade stuff for kids you should consider it as well.
More info at: http://nationalbankruptcyday.com/
So I’m looking up information about international travel with babes. I found a really neat site so I thought I would share: http://flyingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2008/11/as-flight-attendant-for-thirteen-years.html
I post links here so that I don’t have to bookmark. I’m kinda dorky like that.
http://clothing.cafepress.com/item/super-kid-bib/66873912
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/13625898
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/9751228
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/18629146
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/24486358
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/16210113
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/kids-and-baby-clothing/design/14052005
I think that relationships are complicated. When you think about what makes someone “right” for someone else you are looking at a whole elaborate string of interrelated points and it’s hard to figure out what is the clincher or deal breaker. Yeah, Noah is awesome in general and attentive and a good communicator (very unusual) and hot and good at sex and… He’s just a really bitchin package.
But I think I know what the clincher is. See–I have a really clear picture of what I want in my life. Of what the most important non-negotiable thing was in a life partner. I believe with all my heart and soul that Noah will be a good father. He balances me in all the most ideal ways. We’ve already spent a lot of time talking about how we think parenting should look. Yeah, there are going to be surprises and course corrections and there will be things that Don’t Go As Planned–but our overall attitudes and how they work towards dealing with kids is unlikely to drastically change.
I am not the most stable person on the planet. I work really hard at being consistent, but I can only do the best I can do. Noah is incredibly stable and cheerful and good natured. I’m really happy that I can give that to my kids even if I can’t be that. Noah also believes in letting kids do things for themselves and letting them learn how to accomplish things; they can ask for help if they need it, but I think “doing it for them” is a good way to stifle kids learning. My opinion is backed up by a lot of studies. There are areas where I am probably inclined to be far more strict than necessary and Noah is good at telling me that I’m being lame and over reacting. (It’s a delicate line let me tell you.) He likes to play and is physically comfortable with touching far more than me which is going to be awesome for our kids. He can make up the best stories. I really suck at making up stories. He’s so willing to try things even if he might suck at them–I spend too much time worrying about looking stupid. Noah will be awesome at reminding me that just because he doesn’t need privacy and it’s ok for me to snoop in his stuff it’s not ok to do that with our kids.
Noah is everything I wish my father had been and wasn’t. I’m so glad I get to bring kids into the world and have them grow up with him.