When is enough enough? Parenting version

I believe I asked this question when first ttc - when is enough enough? Now way on the other side of trying to conceive, with two kids, I ask, when it comes to being patient with your kid when they're freaking out, when is enough enough?

Last night I checked out the Peaceful Parenting book on Amazon. I am interested to read it, but I will say based on the reviews I kind of know what my reaction will be - mainly that I pretty much already do the things in the book, and that in some extreme circumstances nothing in the book will work. Honestly, there's only so much laughing and playing a game you can do when your kid is having a massive irrational meltdown. As I discovered today.

Had an exhausting, maddening trip to the playground. School must have been out for Jewish New Year because the park was lousy with big kids. I spent much of the day trying to keep B away from the big kids' scooters, bikes, toys, balls, and water guns. Which sucked. My friend and I opted to take the kids to lunch, which also went poorly. It was gratifying to me to see that my friend, who I consider a terrific, energetic mom, was equally fed up with our kids' craziness. When we got home, B was ok for a while...I planned on spending some special time with him reading books and making sun tea while the baby practiced sitting up in his crib. This was ok until it wasn't. The ear-splitting screaming started. Then the irrational "take this - why did you take it?!?!?" bullshit started. I tried to get him to eat something for dinner - no dice. Thought I might try to put on his pj's thinking maybe he was just too tired to eat and needed sleep (even though he'd had an hour nap a few hours before). He started throwing things and screaming. I felt that rage rising. I wanted to hurt him. Thankfully I just calmly placed him in his room while mumbling "I'm done". He screamed in his room while the baby screamed in his room.

And I wasn't shaking and upset like last time I had to put him in there due to non- stop tantrums (his 2nd birthday six months ago). I just knew he had to be away from me for everyone's best interests. And I remembered the times when my mother shut me in my room when I was non-stop tantrumming and wouldn't listen to reason at this age, and how much I hated it. But honestly...what the hell else do you do when it gets to that point? I wonder if the book has an answer for that, other than calmly placing your child somewhere where they can calm down? 

So I listened to both of my children screaming while thinking idontcareidontcareidontcare.

When B seemed to have settled down I asked him through the door if he was ready for dinner. He said, "dinner". Then I asked if he could say "I'm sorry, mommy." And his little voice said, "I'm sorry, mommy." So I opened the door and gave hugs and I love yous and we proceeded to have a lovely evening of dinner, tooth brushing, pajamas and nighttime songs. Like nothing happened. Shortly after the baby finally settled down, too.

Maybe I need to adjust my expectations. So far B had been pretty easy but the last month has been fucking brutal. A friend told me every six months kids go through a major leap and consequently have a hard time; it would make sense as B is 2 1/2 and T at six months is wracked with compulsive sitting/crawling/rolling and has also been having a hard go of it. If we're going to have more days/nights like this, I think staying calm and not letting it eat my soul away while also not letting B walk all over me is probably a good tactic. 

Well, tomorrow is preschool. So, there's that.

Better days

So today was the kind of day that you dream of when you think of having kids. Sweet, well-behaved toddler and charming baby, lots of laughs and book reading and making funny faces. Is it because we had school yesterday and there will be school tomorrow so I feel relaxed and happy? Why can't every day be like this??? Anyway, I'm not going to ask why. Let's just keep this going, shall we?

Tonight I have to get in my car, drive two feet forward so I can open the hatchback, haul out the giant jogging stroller and bring it up the stairs, then bring about five loads of baby stuff down the stairs and try to cram it into the trunk for donation to a children's hospital tomorrow. I feel good about purging the 1-6 month clothes and stuff. We all know this isn't happening again, so no regrets. And unlike with Bobby I'm actually digging this six month switch (remember the massive freak out at this point with Bobby? The donut and the shame spiral? Not this time, baby!). Theo is all but sitting up, does his baby plank daily, and is seconds away from crawling. And I'm loving it. The glass-half-full version of Theo growing up is we're that much closer to the boys being able to entertain each other. 

In business news, my old floor guy finally called, and we're on for next year. Ironically I went out dancing last night and saw and danced with this year's floor guy. We were perfectly friendly and acted like nothing happened. Which means I'd better re-write the somewhat angry Dear John letter I drafted to him. I really need to keep things friendly if I'm going to see this guy all over town.

My finances are in the toilet. I freaked out about it an hour ago but have decided there is nothing I can do about it so I'd better not let it get to me. Life is expensive with two little kids, period, a lot more than I thought. I may need to go into debt to stretch my money but that's ok - I did it last year and got by, this year I'll actually have less debt. And hopefully after Feb 1 I won't have to play this game anymore. 

Feelings, wo wo wo feeeeelings...

When I was growing up, my mother, a jazz pianist, had a New Yorker cartoon on display that depicted a cocktail pianist with a sign on his piano that said "requests - $1. "Feelings" - $500". This dates me a bit as I'm sure anyone born after 1975 probably doesn't remember the saccharine dirge that was the hit song "Feelings". But as the toddler emotions, and my own, ramp up around here, I feel a kinship with this musician - I wish I could get paid $500 every time I have to deal with my son's intense emotions.

Every day I ask myself and anyone who will listen, is this normal? Is it just a two-year-old thing? Is it finally, six months later, a reaction to the baby? Or is there something "wrong" with him (anything from hyperactive to just especially sensitive). So far I've gotten 100% normal - and my observations of kids around me tells me this is true. But still - wow.

I told myself I'd never be the kind of mother that dismissed her child's feelings as my mother did mine - and I think I do a pretty damned good job of indulging his toddler conceits (I don't want that shirt, I want the other tooth brush, etc etc) within reason. And yet everyone has their breaking point, especially when the slightest transgression on your part - moving a sippy cup a half inch to the left, touching a toy when he held it out to you to take - results in a tsunami of ear-splitting screaming and tears that can go on and on. We had a very unpleasant incident here a couple of days ago. Bumpus wasn't hit or anything but the intensity of my own rage scared the crap out of me. I'm still shaken by it. I promised myself I would do better, I would not lose control with him like that again...but I've said that before, and here we are. It's just that perfect cocktail of sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, disappointment and resentment that gets you there, and that can happen at any point in these kids' lives. I want to be always patient and gentle and rational, but I'm human, too. If he can throw a fit every two minutes over the stupidest bullshit imaginable and after days (or weeks, or months) of just putting up with it, redirecting, ignoring, hugging, discussing, whatever the fuck, I finally snap - well, I guess that makes us both human, doesn't it?

He's taken on a slew of new habits that drive me nuts. Now he constantly goes into the refrigerator and drags all the food out wanting to direct what he can eat - yogurt, applesauce and ice cream, of course - and freaks out when I put things away and try to direct him back to real food. He absolutely refuses to brush his teeth. For a while I got him to sit on my lap and let me do it, but now he won't even do that. Getting in and out of the car is absolute torture - up or down the three treacherous flights of slanting cement stairs takes a million years as he has to stop on every step and pick things up or try to go in the wrong direction; now he has the maddening habit of running around and around the car, which scares the shit out of me because we live on a very busy, dangerous street and it would take a millisecond for him to step into the street and get killed while I'm trapped between the car door and garage wall trying to grab him so he'll stop running. Once in the car he now screams his head off until he can pull his shoulders free of the top harness of his car seat (no matter how high or tight I put it he still wrestles his way out), then flails around throwing books and blankets all over (he was putting down the window and trying to open the door on the freeway until I figured out the child safety door and window locks). No amount of pulling over or threatening stops this. 

And yet when we get together with other kids his age, I hear stories of far worse. And my main babysitter insists he is so much better than the other kids his age she sits for. So...what the hell is going on in other houses, I wonder??? And how on earth does anyone survive this???

Believe it or not we actually had a nice time at a friend's kid's birthday party today - no pushing, no fights over toys - other than my OCD freak out when he ate a chocolate cup cake over their carpet (the other parents were unperturbed; I was mortified). He started the day at home just as emotional and irrational as on the day of the incident but I did do better this time - administered hugs instead. But it's only a matter of minutes before the next freak out. I gave him the wrong colored spoon. I put his shoes on the correct feet and he wanted them on the wrong feet. It goes on and on.

I appreciate those who tell me how this time, with a two-year-old and baby, is the hardest, and it gets easier. But I disagree. I think it's going to get a lot harder before it gets easier, years and years from now. Right now Theo is so easy, but I know from experience that this will all come to a crashing halt once he's mobile and enters that dreaded one to two year phase. When I can no longer confine him to a carrier when we go places is when I feel like the shit is really going to hit the fan - when B is still so little at only three and T is one and whatever - oh, it's going to be so frigging hard. When they can fight over things, over me, when they both want different things or want to run off in different directions at the same time...just thinking about it, I want to cry.

I wish I could get help - and I don't mean help with Bobby, but psychological help for myself. But as you know I have no money, and wouldn't even know where to begin to find someone who would be willing to hear me whine about how much I hate the toddler age, which is kind of a given for a lot of (most?) parents. But I think I can safely admit at this point that yes, I am depressed. And all my old methods of training my brain to be happy simply aren't working when so much of the basic mechanics of every day are so awful, and when I am so tired I simply don't have the energy to try to cheer the fuck up. I find myself looking at the childless people on Facebook and all the awesome stuff they're doing - vacations, dinners, hobbies - and yes, I envy them. There, I said it. A single friend of mine recently came back from Hawaii and went on and on about how relaxing it was and how much she just loved swimming in the ocean...and I wanted to punch her in the face. Compare that with my nightmare trip, plus the fact that I will probably be well into my sixties before I have anything resembling a relaxing vacation again, and I feel myself tumbling into a pit of despair that I don't know if I'll find my way out of. 

Well, relief may come in the form of three day preschool which starts tomorrow. So many times today I would have a flash of trying to line up things to occupy him tomorrow, only to remember with glee that he has school! Will not having that miserable slog of Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday all alone together start to break this ugly pattern we've fallen into? Will this be the thing that makes things bearable? Can I recover from this and get some enjoyment out of life again? Is it really as simple as just a few more hours' preschool a week? 

I don't know, but fingers crossed!!!

Just hang on, man!

Being an avid podcast listener, one of my favorite ones involves an interview with Marc Maron in which he describes a bad acid trip at a concert, from which he is talked down by a fellow tripper who tells him to "just hang on, man!" He said this had become somewhat of a life mantra for him. It has become for me, too (when I'm not chanting ihatethisihatethisihatethis...hare Rama).

A couple of pleasant days and all of a sudden the world looks brighter. Had a nice beach day with a friend (everything is so much easier with another set of hands...and I fucking hate admitting that). Bobby starts Monday- Wednesday-Friday preschool next week. I finally made a dent in my post-event boxes and gathered up a room full of baby stuff to donate to a children's hospital next week. So things are looking up.

Thanks for all your helpful potty training comments. I ordered a couple of potties, training underwear, and some accident cleanup stuff on amazon. I'm not sure what kind of tactic I'm going to take, but I'm leaning towards slow and chill - hey, let's sit on the potty! No? Ok, later then. I'm in no hurry. But I do feel I should at least try.

Bobby is talking more and more and reading together, singing songs and sharing jokes have become a daily high point for us. Theo is grabbing and pushing off and is minutes from sitting up and crawling. I want to squeeze them both until they morph back into my body.

Here's another rare shot of the three of us:

Beware the potty

Sooooo...the elephant in the room is, now that the baby has been around for six months and my event is over...the next step is potty training. I am terrified. And I know that people say being terrified is probably going to doom you to failure, just like being stressed out is supposed to make it so you don't get pregnant. But the whole concept scares me.

I think I screwed myself by reading this article on Facebook last night that I kind of agreed with on a philosophical level - it was a woman talking about the very popular boot camp-y, go for it, potty trained in days method. She feels like modern parents are just plain lazy and not willing to endure the mess/inconvenience of staying at home with naked toddlers while they piss and shit all over your house for days until they "get it". And just reading this I felt profoundly ashamed. Yes, I am too lazy to stay a prisoner at home for days and weeks while my son turns our carpeted house into his personal toilet. So now what?

The idea alone of not leaving the house for even one day, much less days on end, makes me want to drive off a cliff. Is that necessary? You can be honest.

B has not shown any "signs" of interest in the potty - but his language is good enough now, and he is 2 1/2, so I'm thinking any old time now may be a good time to start. I feel like I should at least try even if now is a failure. I know I don't want to give the poor kid a complex. He must never know how anxious I am. But I feel like I should start. 

Any good methods? Books we can read together? Potties good for boys? And how can I make this fun for both of us and not torturous?

Let's try this new thing

Today was another in a series of "let's try this new thing" only to have it be a total miserable screaming disaster. One of the pay indoor play places was offering a waterslide to beat the blistering 107 degree heat, so I took us over there. Of course like everything right now it was too advanced for B but he wanted to do it anyway - but he couldn't climb it by himself and kept falling, and I couldn't help him because I was holding the baby because it was unbearably hot with him in the carrier. So after a lot of crying and kids clambering over him I finally had to drag him away kicking and screaming, figuring we could at least use the nice cool indoor area. After getting everyone changed it looked like things were going to be okay - he had a blast playing on scooters and I got to feed the baby and cool down. But then of course he had to get in a screaming, pushing fight with some kid over some toy, and again I had to drag him away kicking and screaming along with my giant diaper bag, the big bag full of wet clothes, and a baby on my chest, then get all of our shoes on, then drag his tantrumming mess three blocks in the triple degree heat to our scary hot car, all the while thinking my mantra of ihatethisihatethisihatethis.

When does this get better? I'm positively drowning right now. Every day is utterly emotionally draining, exhausting, and kind of awful. And we have four more days of temperatures nearing 110. 

I want to scoop out my eyeballs with a grapefruit spoon.

Six months and a glimpse of the future

Today I went to a craft fair at my sons' future elementary school in hopes of getting a little preview of the place, which I've hiked by a million times but never actually entered. It was bizarre to be at this place that will one day factor hugely into all of our lives - if things go the way I want, we'll still be in this neighborhood in ten-fifteen years and both boys will attend this highly rated public school. With all my free time (and afore-mentioned predilection towards getting involved in things and taking over) it's highly likely that I'll get involved in the PTA and whatever else needs volunteers. So to say that today was the first of many times I will enter that school's grounds is an understatement.

Typical of my hipster east LA enclave, there were many booths set up selling things that involved the words "sourced", "local", "organic", "urban", etc, which always makes me chuckle. Yet at the same time whenever I start to think things like that are so pretentious and stupid, I have to ask myself - where would you rather go eat, one of these hipster places with organic, locally sourced awesome clean food, or frickin' TGI Friday's? I'll take the hipster place. So who's pretentious now?

I saw lots of glowy new parents with their ironic mustaches and jump suits and ankle boots and knit caps on this blistering triple degree day doing the same thing I was doing - checking the place out and sussing out the other parents of similar-aged kids. Yes, strangers, our fates may soon entwine. It's true.

I joined some kind of booster society for the school and also a neighborhood organization that I really should have joined ages ago. I'm hoping all of these things will a) give me more to do in my lengthy down time and b) help me get more involved in my neighborhood. I bet there's tons of cool stuff out there I know nothing about. So, bring it on!

Went to the 10th anniversary party of the Pasadena Smc group. It was great to see people from my group with their new babies and pregnancies. Our little thinker/trier group is moving on to being a mommy group. Kind of cool.