MUBAR

Dispatches from the Spirit World

Baby Girl is an archtypical Spirited Child. And I cannot say enough good things about Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's Raising Your Spirited Child* as a helpful guide for parents. She is helping me see Baby Girl's intesity and persistence as good things which is no small feat since I have always seen them as character flaws in myself.

Last last evening when she was fussing on the way home from swimming, I tried to listen to her objectively rather than bristling at the whining tone. I did not have a tape recorded but the conversation went along these lines.

"Mama, in this place called Dubai, they are building a building that is going to be twice as tall as the CN tower."

"I know. That's nice, isn't it"

"But mama, then the CN Tower won't be the tallest tower."

"But we can still enjoy the CN tower, right? It will still be tall enough to see."

Tears ensue.

"I want the CN Tower to be the tallest tower mama. Not the Dubai tower. NOT THE DUBAI TOWER!"

Really, she is funny as all get out. She has similar rants against rain, wind, the fact that some clothing labels are larger than other clothing labels.

I think she's gonna be a blogger one day.

* If you buy this from the click, supposedly I get 4%.

Apparently, kids take things quite literally.

All weekend we spent telling Baby Girl that she mustn't go too close to the cottage fireplace because fire is hot and could give her a painful burn.

During our recent renovations, Baby Girl came to show a deep respect for power tools -- particularly drills -- after being warned about their potential dangers.

So it really ought not to come as a surprise that this morning, when her teachers announced "class, in 20 minutes we are going to have a Fire Drill,"  she had a complete nervous breakdown before they could get to the explanation of what a fire drill entailed.  Apparently she imagined some sort of flame throwing power tool that was going to "burn them all". (I'm so buying Arthur's Fire Drill book since they do these things monthly.) 

The haircut blues

Well, we had our first un-undoable calamity here yesterday (still Baby Girl's favourite word even though with school back in session we no longer are able to watch Pinky Dinky Doo).  There are always little calamities happening around the house. Ketchup gets spilled and we need to get out the mop. The Dude grabs a favourite toy and we need to do a "tradesy" to get it back. The dog steals a waffle off the breakfast table and mommy makes a new one. Baby Girl has trouble reining in her temper and we do the Poko prescribed "breathe in, touch your nose, breathe out, touch your toes" thing together (on that, is it just me or is the new season of Poko a little bit more manic? I liked the old soothing Poko without the crazy cartoons.). Up to this point, I have helped Baby Girl find a solution for almost every problem that has come her way and in doing so I think that I have inadvertently taught her that life has an undo button (something I've always wanted to exist -- if only I could save to draft and then do an edit on my life). 

But on Monday, I picked up some offbrand little pony-type dolls (I refer to them as My Little Phony) while I was doing errands because she got some pony stickers from someone and was quite captivated by them. I'm also trying to get her to agree to having her hair brushed and styled since she is the only child in school who regularly shows up looking like a brush broom in a fit. This 4 pack of ponies came with two bonus brushes (all for $7.99!) and I thought that if she came to enjoy brushing her ponies' hair, she might agree to have me brush her hair at the same time. Well, she adored them and carries the quartet around with her everywhere but, being that they are Phony Ponies, their hair is not strongly rooted and when you give it a good brush, most of the hair comes out in your hand (now I refer to them as My Little Three Months Postpartum Ponies). Baby Girl was getting frustrated by it all and yesterday afternoon requested that I give her ponies a hair cut.

So I explained that pony hair does not grow back like people hair and that once I cut it, it would be short for good and we chatted about it for a while and she repeated back everything I said. (She is doing this a lot now. On the positive side she so took to heart what my husband told her about why the trees at the cottage were red and gold that when in school her teachers said that in the fall trees lose their leaves, she piped up "only the deciduous ones." On the negative side, she occassionally calls the dog by yelling "your kibble's here, dumbass!") So, I really thought that she understood that once I cut the pony's hair, that was that.

So I made my first cut, giving the pony a medium length shag and a swingy tail.

"No no mummy shorter. All off, all off!"

So I cut a little shorter yet, asking "are you sure?" She liked the mane but was not sold on the tail.

"No mummy shorter shorter. All off, All the tail off. I don't want the long tail."

So little by little I made the pony's tail shorter and shorter.

"All off, all off," she was jumping and clapping excitedly.

Once again I double checked and then cut the pony's tail so there was just a little stub of fine purple hair.

"Here we go!" I said chirpily, handing her the pony.

"Noooooooo" she wailed. "Put his tail baaaaaack!"

She threw herself on the floor and wept.

"But he looks so nice. We'll call him shorty tail!" I said brightly. By now The Dude was screaming too.

"Nooooooo. Nooooooo!" she wailed and threw herself around the room. She tried pulling on the tail to make it longer.

"I want the tail long. Make it long!" she roared at me.

"Honey, we talked abou this. You know that I can't make it longer. This is the pony's new tail length and he is special and we will love him because he has a nice short tail."

"Go to the store and get me a new pony!" she roared, stomping her feet.

I must admit that up to this point, that is exactly what I was thinking too. Get a new pony, tell her the hair grew back in the night, end of story. But then I thought that this might be a way to teach her about permanent consequences before, say, she tried to test the theory by cutting up ourt living room furniture or some such thing. I also wanted to teach her that life's problems cannot be solved by going shopping (althought, I must say, this is not one of life's lessons I've come to terms with yet).

So, I rode out the storm and last night, she went to bed with shorty tail who she loves because his tail is bristly like "daddy's weekend face" and his mane is soft like mummy's hair (awwww!).

March Madness

OK, can I just put it out there that not all Canadians are like that Brent guy on The Apprentice? He took Mime and Clowning in high school. What high school was that? Geez, this and Stephen H's Bush-like photo op in Afganistan are really not doing our global image any good. (For the record, however, if you are going to send troops places, you'd damn well better visit them and thank them often.)

Ya, I'm a little grumpy.

It's week one of Baby Girl's two week March break. And it seems like we are the only people not flying off to sunnier climes (well, to be fair, Andrea Gordon is also staying put). And the weather. It sucks. I mean what is the point of it being 17 degrees celsius in March if it's gonna rain all friggin' day?

Now, I really thought that this week might be great. Last week was awesome. Truly awesome. With the unseasonably warm spring-like weather, Baby Girl and I got out for long stroller-rides. We joined the museum and Baby Girl is just in love with their kiddie area (ok, we kind of, sort of did get semi-escorted out of the Lalique exhibit as screaming, stroller pushing, rubber boot throwing tantrums aren't really welcomed among the Art Nouveau/Deco glass pieces but generally it was good). We had a few days where I remembered why I love living right in the city and what a rich experience it can be for kids and their beleagered mamas. After a long winter of "I can't believe we live here, I hate it, I hate it, I want to move to Leaside," it was a welcome feeling.

And the weekend -- gorgeous. It was warm enough for Baby Girl to play in her sandbox in the yard (one of the advantages of no lawn is no spring mud). She set up her little Elmo chair and table set. We took the double stroller out for a spin and Baby Girl loved sitting next to The Dude ("He's holding my hand!" she squealed). And there were 700 dogs being walked, which always puts Baby Girl in a happy mood.

In my mind, this week would be spent doing crafts (I loaded up on playdough and other art supplies), and wandering up to the ROM, and going for long, leisurely walks. I had visions of sharing an ice cream cone with my sweet toddler on that giant rock in Yorkville.

Right.

To be fair, the first half hour of March break was great. We kicked off the morning making playdough Elmo and playdough dogs and playdough care bears and even made little jackets and hats for them (I am quite a decent little sculptor, as it turns out). But then it all sort of went pear-shaped. On the trip to the grocery store (grandma rode shotgun), there was a lot of whining coming from the peanut gallery. She wanted cheddar gators, no no water, no no milk, a cloth, a cloth! She screamed when I would not allow her to open up her umbrella in the car. She screamed when I insisted that we hold hands in the parking lot. She screamed when I would not let her have more than one bag of throat lozenges to play with. She screamed when I picked up the size 3T Dora Feel and Learns because she wanted the other size 3T Dora Feel and Learns. She didn't want to eat, didn't want to nap, didn't want to cooperate. She insisted on playing outside in the puddles wearing her pajamas and no shoes (I thought she'd chicken out, but she called my bluff when I opened the door and scooted right on out). She hit me with a pillow, hit me with a toy train and tried to run over the dog with her ride 'em BMW car.

And then there was the afternoon...

I'm already running low on ideas. We have one playdate booked and there is some sort of travelling reptile and rodent show on at the local (slightly dodgy) shopping mall that looks sort of appealing (god, things are grim). I'm really looking forward to my 2 hour pulmonary test at the hospital now because all I have to do is sit there and breath into a tube. It's the mothered up version of a month in St. Barts.

It's gonna be a long two weeks.

 

Why We Don't Entrust The Household Budget to Two Year Olds

We are at the stage where Baby Girl has learned that the bright, shiny and fun things she sees at the shopping mall potentially can come home with us. As I push my cart through the aisles with her riding shotgun, she directs my attention to things that catch her fancy: "Mummy, we neeeed one of those. Mummy, mummy, stop the cart mummy, over there, the cookies, we neeeed those cookies." It's very helpful.

So today we went to Zellers (for the Yankees in the room, it's Target without the Mizrahi or Liz Lange; more importantly, it's not Wal-Mart -- aren't you just so proud of me -- and since Grey's Anatomy is most definitely NOT crap tv (go George!) I'm doing pretty well on that front too) and as soon as we got through the doors, Baby Girl marched right on up to the stack of shopping baskets and grabbed one.

"Alright, we're gonna need a lot of stuff," she muttered in this odd growly, Larry King-esque voice she's adopted. I had rather expected her to just start swinging the basket around or throwing things in at random. But clearly, this was a woman on a mission.

"We're gonna need a lot of batteries," she growled, tossing several 9 volts into her basket. She swung through the toy section and, with the exception of trying to stuff a 2 foot in diameter ball into the basket ("get in there, you," she shouted in frustration), was remarkably thoughtful in her selection. Joining the batteries were a small nerf football, and three Barrels of Monkeys. Then she swung through the Easter aisle and -- how do these kids come up with these things -- said "Oh boy, we're gonna need a lot of this candy. This is gonna get real heavy now" and started to load armfuls of smarties-filled eggs into her basket.

Now I had no intention of purchasing any of these items. I'm on Oprah's debt diet. Really. Stop laughing. I had taken Baby Girl to the mall simply because it was cold out this morning and I needed to have her burn off some energy that just can't be expended within the confines of our urban dwelling (friends call it 'running the herd'). So I asked her: "What do you intend to do with these items in your basket?"

She looked at me and said with absolute seriousness: "I'm gonna pay the lady and she's gonna put them in the bag." I asked her if she had any money. "I have 14 bucks plus tax in my pockets," she claimed. I wondered what my strategy should be at this point. If I were at a place like Whole Foods, I could actually engage the checkout staff in a cute little "where is your money, oh it's pretend money, you don't have any real money, so let's put back the stuff because we don't need it, and we can take home pretend stuff with our pretend money" sweet teachable moment. But the Zellers staff always strikes me as overworked and fatigued from dealings with too many cranky customers (and too few Clive Owens) and they don't strike me as needing one more annoying thing added to their plates. I certainly was not going to buy a football and batteries and non-fair trade chocolate and three barrels of monkeys (although, at another time I would buy one barrel as I have fond, fond memories of that game). So I prepared myself for a tantrum.

Well luckily, Baby Girl threw a preemptive tantrum while I was trying to decide my approach (something about her wanting to have another ride in the elevator). And so while she was busy screaming and tossing herself on the floor, I discreetly placed the basket with all of the other abandoned baskets deposited, I imagine, by other frazzled mothers doing precisely the same thing.

Toddler Rage

Yep, I'm still in the country. I've been editing and re-editing a book review in my spare time. And I've discovered why I so love blogging -- you don't have to edit. As with all projects, I'm always really excited about the first 90%. It's the last 10% that I'm not so keen on. I love knocking out a first draft of something. And even revising it to tighten, shorten, be more careful with my choice of words. But then there is more editing required. The hard stuff. Paring away those sentences you have fallen in love with along the way but don't really support your thesis. Doing those last bits of research to find more examples in support of your argument. Orginally I started blogging as a writing exercise, a way of experimenting with new topics, trying out material, finding my voice, to come up with what Anne Lamott calls "shitty first drafts." But every once in a while I mistake blogging with Writing and all that entails - rereading, editing, editing, and, perhaps most difficult thing, deciding when the piece is finished, ready for submission, past that point where you can say "I'm still working on it so if it gets rejected I won't take it personally".

I'm also a little low on psychic energy. Baby Girl is going through one of those ultra-demanding phases right now. It is easily explained: she is mildly under the weather with a drippy nose/mild cough that, now that she is in school, seems to be a permanent fixture; she seems to be cutting molars; her baby brother is now eating solids and she must now share our attention during dinner whereas before she pretty much had mommy and daddy all to herself; and she is going through one of those rapid mental development periods that always seems to screw them up.

90% of the time she is an absolute delight. Her newfound langauge skills excite her to no end and she chats non-stop through her every waking moment. She is a golf commentator -- no detail too minute to skip over -- with the enthusiasm of a South American soccer commentator -- lots of excited yells and times where she is trying to say so much that her words all run into one another -- a conversational 40 car pile-up. She is also beginning to experiment with fantasy and reality. Yesterday she was shouting "Riley is a tiger! I'm catching her" while running in circles around our hapless beagle. Post our trip to Atlantis, she is quite concerned about sharks in the bathtub and during bathtime nervously scans the water and mutters "Sharks don't go in the bathtub, no, they're too big and they are scared of stinky bums. No sharks here. No sharks here."  And everyone has been given new names. She is Puppy, The Dude is Snizzle McSnozzle, the guy waiting for the bus is Herky McDoody.

But her frustrations have also multiplied. Now that she can articulate exactly what she wants, she expects to be given it. She has learned that saying please is a good thing but has not yet learned why her request to "please have all of those chocolates" before bedtime will be refused. Her little body cannot contain all of her anger and she just has to get it outside of herself somehow. She has grabbed the fur on the dog's back with both hands and then attempted to kick the dog in the belly; she has thrown hard plastic toys on The Dude's head and then smirked while he cried; she has thrown Riley's giant plastic kibble ball into The Dude's crib in an attempt to squash him flat.

We have long chats about why this is wrong and what she can do when she feels jealous or thwarted. We tell her to ask us for a hug or tell us what she needs. And you can see her trying. Sometimes she punches at the air in frustration and then runs over and hugs my legs.

It's exhausting. It leaves little energy for anything else. So instead of writing and editing and doing the 1000 things on my 'to do 'list, I slump in front of decorating shows on tv and surf mls.ca to look at homes filled with beautiful furniture, wonderful art and calm children who hug each other and never, ever hit. 

Overheard Post Dental Visit

"Schumacher, sit in your Ferrari car and open your teeth."

"Oh nice.  I brush with the duck teethbrush, Schumacher."

"Good for you.  Clean teeth.  Now you get sticker and MacNonald fries."

And all was right with the world...

Well after last week's debacle, this week Baby Girl took to preschool like a duck to water.  The teachers said she did "beautifully" and was well behaved and listened and followed direction.  Today she even received a sticker for Excellent Tidying and was very proud of her achievement. 

It is such a relief. 

We had been having some real discipline issues which, luckily we seem to have nipped in the bud (and yes, I realize that the fun is only beginning -- but at least we cleared the first hurdle).

And to have two glorious hours without anyone clinging to my sides.  Gosh.  The sun is brighter, the air is crisper, the birds -- well, no, the birds are pretty much the same, sort of diseased-looking, just like the balding squirrels that hang around our area.  But I can finally see some light at the end of what was a dark and scary tunnel.

Because at times when no-one would sleep, when everyone was sick, when everyone was yelling -- it felt like it would never change.  That things would never get better.  That in this carnival called life, other people were getting to ride the ferris wheel and somehow I got stuck mopping up the regurgitated candy floss beneath it...

But now, even when Baby Girl runs around during the family Christmas photo session and The Dude won't sleep and the dog vomits in her crate and it rains, I somehow know that it is temporary. 

And I can sort of see why parents of children just slightly older than mine talk about enjoying the whole experience.  And that it's not just some form of delusion.

And why there is, on average, a gap of 2-3 years between kids. 

I see now that I was not some sort of deviant, or misanthrope.  It's just that I had not had enough sleep, enough space, or enough time to begin to forget the horror.

Yippee Ki Yay Part 2

And add to that -- the distinction of being the mother of the only child in a crowded shopping mall to take advantage of the Remembrance Day two-minutes of silence to see how loudly she could make herself scream.

Yippee Ki Yay

Today I earned the distinction of being the mommy of the only child who refused to have her picture taken on Picture Day.  And yes, I was there again for the entire time.  My playdough skills are really improving. 

Isn't school fun...