My friend left her son at my house today for 8 hours. I have two kids under the age of 3 in my house.
I have a knot of stress in my stomach. I now know the meaning of fear. This will be a mock-live blog experience. I will update with my experiences as they happen. 7:40am Jessica drops off Shai. 7:40am Sadie starts screaming and fake crying from the bedroom to get my attention. 7:45am Jessica is trying to explain things to me. Sadie continues to yell. 7:46am I look at Jessica with fear and tell her to go, I will take care of Sadie. 7:48am I am changing Sadie's diaper. Shai is playing quietly by himself. 8:00am I am giving Shai and Sadie yogurt. So far everything is manageable. 8:10am I offer grapes to Shai and Sadie. I originally wash grapes and put them in two bowls. Then I re-evaluate and put them into one bowl. Sadie is trying to grab a grape from the bowl Shai has conveniently placed out of reach of Sadie's grasp. Shai decides he's done with grapes and brings me the bowl. I tell him we will leave it on the table but he thinks it's a terrible idea. I let him know that there are more grapes and not to worry. 8:13am Shai is yelling. Sadie has grabbed Shai's special moose. This looks like a disaster in the making. We put Mr. Moose (I couldn't understand what his actual name is) on the bar and everyone relaxes. 8:15am Shai is picking up toys, Sadie is trying to take those toys/offer him new ones. No one is happy. 8:25am Shai starts telling Sadie not to touch things. He is very particular about how my things should be handled. 8:30am Sadie gets frustrated at Shai, walks up to him and yells. And then yells again. And then again. Shai then yells back at her. I just walk away slowly and sit down at my computer. 8:40am All is quiet at the Altman residence. 8:42am Sadie starts fake crying. She wants to nurse. She's upset. Traumatized. Okay, I let her nurse. 8:50am Shai and Sadie are bored. BORED. BOOOOOORED. 8:55am They are sitting quietly pretending to eat a fake challah. 8:58am Shai starts telling Sadie "no bubbles!" Sadie brings me the bubbles. They are both boooored. 9:00am I gave up. They are now watching How to Train Your Dragon. And eating snacks. Shai is sharing his Bamba snacks. Sadie is sharing her grapes. 9:15am Shai brings me the empty bag of Bamba. He also has Toy Story in his right hand. He lets me know the movie was scary and he'd rather watch Toy Story. 9:20am They are both watching Toy Story. It's quiet in the house. 9:22am Sadie is bored and playing with her toys. Two minutes of Toy Story was enough. Shai is blissed out. 9:26am Shai is bored of the movie and now playing with popup toy. 9:35am Toy Story stops working. 9:40am Shai picks Thomas the Engine on Netflix. I realize Shai has a poopy diaper. Logan is leaving for work, I ask him to change Shai's diaper. I realize I haven't changed a boy's diaper since I was 13. I was petrified. A poopy diaper. A boy's poopy diaper. I think of who I can call to help me. Logan runs away as fast as possible. I consider asking my neighbor to come over and help me. 9:47am I decide to grow up and go change Shai's diaper. It wasn't at all as bad as I thought it would be. Before starting I requested for Shai not to pee on me. He didn't. He helped. He continued to watch his show and everything went well. 9:59am Neither Shai nor Sadie are watching the show. Sadie is sitting at her table and Shai found a binkie in her toys and is now sucking on the binkie. I also realize my house needs to be cleaned badly. BADLY 10:03am Sadie starts to scream for no reason. Shai decides to mimic her. Thomas the Engine plays in the background, ignored by both children. 10:04am Shai asks me for water. I walk to the couch to grab Shai's cup and i see a big stain on the couch. I immediately panic thinking I didn't put Shai's diaper on correctly and check his pants for pee. His pants are dry. Now i'm confused. I ask Shai repeatedly how the couch gets wet and he tells me waa-waa and I have no idea where the waa-waa came from. A mystery for another day. 10:07am Shai gets grape juice in his sippy cup. I can't find a sippy cup for Sadie. She demands grape juice. I give her grape juice in a cup. I hope I won't regret the decision. 10:18am Sadie is eating fries and ketchup. Shai won't go near it. Shai wants more grape juice. 10:20 I call Verizon to deal with some cellphone issues. My best friend calls me on the home line. Verizon is on speakerphone, best friend is on the cellphone and my brain is about to explode from listening to four different sources of sound. 10:48am Sadie ate 1/2 an avocado, so did the couch. 10:54am Finally off the phone with Verizon. My phone won't work. Both kids are going antsy. Sadie has a poopy diaper. I contact my neighbor and setup a playdate. 10:55am I am looking for Sadie's shoes. I am putting shoes on Sadie. Then Shai. We go off to Melissa's house to play with Josh and Kadee. 10:55am - noon We play on the swingset. We dig in the dirt. We pet a bunch of chickens. Sadie dunked her hands into Sherman's water bowl. Kadee waded through the water bowl afterwards. Joshie got put into timeout. Shai went butt first down the hill. He also refused to walk down the stairs and wanted to go butt down the entire set of outdoor steps. Shai is covered in a layer of dirt dust. Noon Sadie fell at the gate. She almost hit her head on some concrete. We walk to the house, find some grapes on a table, picnic has begun. I bring out the fries, cut up some watermelon, bring out drinks and everyone is happy. 12:16pm Shai is bored. I bring him toy soldiers to play with outside. Annie comes outside to play with us. Sadie decides to eat my lunch. 12:19pm Sadie drank Shai's water after filling the cup with grapes. I give Shai new water and Annie proceeds to drink it. Annie starts to eat the fries out of the bowl. Sadie throws her treat into it for good measure. 12:22pm Sadie fell, she's crying. I bring treats that Shai and Sadie proceed to stuff Annie with. Then they both start to eat animal cookies. 12:27pm Shai is done being outside. He goes in to play with a puzzle. 12:33pm Sadie and Annie are inside. Annie starts to eat food off the floor. 12:41pm Sadie nurses. Everyone is quiet and happy. 12:42pm Sadie is underneath the table and repeatedly hitting the top of her head on the table. 1pm Sadie proceeds to meltdown. Annie continues to look for food on the floor. Shai starts to get upset about his elbow and needs me to kiss him to make him feel better. 1:15pm Shai digs his nails into Sadie's arm. I have to talk to Shai about not hurting Sadie again. I'm starting to wilt. This is hard work. Very, hard work. 1:54pm Annie went home. Shai and Sadie are bored. I turned on some fairytale show on netflix. I think both kids are going to pass out. I know I am ready to sleep. 3:00pm Sadie has been freaking out for the past ten minutes. She is on our bed and refuses to actually nap. She had fallen asleep on me and Shai needed me to get him something so I transferred her on the bed, she woke up and started to flip out. Shai wanted a snack. He finished his apple sauce and then asked for another snack. I offered him cheese but he didn't want it. Then I offered him some fries and he was all about it. Oh and Shai says snack like nap. So I kept on trying to turn off the cartoon and he kept on saying "no SNAP" which I figured out meant snack. I'm a genius. Not really. I have a hard time figuring out what kids are saying. And Sadie is making gagging noises while crying and demanding my attention. One more hour to go and then Jessica is taking her son and new daughter home with her. I need a vacation from this mommy business. 3:32pm Sadie refuses to fall asleep again. Shai is demanding another cartoon. I am falling asleep. I am planning on napping when Jessica picks up Shai. 3:47pm Sadie is sweeping the floor. Shai is drinking grape juice. We're in the home stretch. 4:32pm Shai is with his mommy. The last hour was when everything started to fizzle and meltdown. Shai started to cry, big tears running down his cheeks that only stopped when I sat him on my lap and read him a story. Sadie, of course, had to join Shai on my lap and then proceeded to pet him - something he didn't care for. So they got into a fight while I am trying to read them a story. These type of things continued until Shai's mommy came over which is when Shai decided to really have a meltdown. Having two kids around the same age in your house at the same time is insane. Shai is a good kid, quiet and calm; however, mixing him with Sadie resulted in tempers flaring and egos coming out. Thankfully my house isn't worse than when Shai came over and the only real lasting effects of having two kids in my house is a horrible headache that is threatening to become a migraine. I hope you enjoyed this live blog experience.
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All I can remember about the book is the cover art, it was written be Lee Harper and there's a lawyer with some children involved.
All I know is after being serenaded by a mockingbird for several months now, I am ready to kill a mockingbird. At first the erratic song of the mockingbird amused us as we fell asleep. At 11:30pm we knew the birds were going to start chirping and singing away. Yes, that was not a typo, we thought we were hosting a bird party every evening. We even joked that they were macaws who got lost on their way to the Caribbean. As the evenings became warmer we started to open our windows in the bedroom and that was when the real torture began. The macaws were merciless. They sang their battle songs and drank beers all hours of the night. The three of us couldn't sleep. It became a game to go to bed before the macaws started their nightly binge. Falling asleep after they started was impossible. Never did we imagine it was one bird making all that ruckus. My neighbor and dear friend was at my house a few weeks ago and I began to complain about the nightly frat party in my backyard. In her quiet wise way she looked at me and smiled and explained that it was a mockingbird. A mockingbird? You mean that bird in the lullaby? Hush little baby Don't you cry Hush little baby don't say a word Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird Why would you ever want to buy a baby a mockingbird? That's the worst idea possible. They are loud and obnoxious. Did I mention loud? Three nights ago Sadie couldn't sleep. The macaws (okay, just one mockingbird) yelled festively through the night keeping Sadie in a constant state of awareness. Every sound was an excuse for Sadie to open her eyes, sit up and demand milk from me. That was the night I declared war. The next night Logan and I went outside and used a flashlight to instill the fear of g-d into the bird. Using terror tactics of a light in the eyes we told him he needed to stop this business, if he wanted to sing he needed to do it during the day with all the other birds on the property. I threatened to kill him even though realistically I will never do it. I even shook my fist at him several times to let him know I was serious. As we walked away he started to mimic the sound of the alarm on our front door. Now we sleep with the windows in our bedroom closed. Altmans: O; Mockingbird: 1 When I started this site I wanted a place for women to share their birth stories, their pregnancy stories, their nursing stories and even their miscarriage stories. These stories are today's version of women in the village sitting together and talking. The internet has become our campfire. The keyboard is our tool, our fingers working at the keys creating relationships instead of food.
I blog to share my story in-depth and to liberate myself from any illusions of being the perfect mother. Any reader of this blog can tell you I am not a perfect mother. I lose my temper, I get frustrated, I question motherhood on a frequent basis. I can only work at being a wonderful mother. There are no perfect mothers. It is an impossible task. I never expected for this site to find me a job. I won't tell you what it is quite yet but I am thrilled at the opportunity. A reader (and friend) has asked me to help her company grow in social media through blogging and creating a space for their company online. I will be able to work from home and create my own hours. And the best part is I've used this company and was very happy with the results. It's a company I believe in and want to help develop into a powerhouse. I was and continue to be nervous about this opportunity. I have always felt my first job is raising Sadie. I must love and nurture my little girl. And thank G-d we are financially secure enough that I don't need to work. Yes, if I worked we'd have more cool stuff and be able to go on more vacations but Logan and I feel that it is more valuable to raise our daughter than to have the latest gadgets. (Well, Logan isn't into gadgets like I am. So I just drool at the latest stuff from a distance.) I wonder, will this job work with my job as a mother? Can I balance the two? Will Sadie suffer if I am at the computer working instead of tending to her needs? I am not sure. But it's all part of the journey of motherhood. If anything, I'm sure it will create plenty of topics for me to blog about. Have a wonderful shabboes. I realize I'm a little late on this topic but I want to share a short little something-something about father's day.
Growing up father's day was about my father. It was a day to celebrate my favorite person in the whole world. I admit it, I was a daddy's girl. My daddy was always there for me. Even though he traveled for many years and was in D.C., Vancouver, Birmingham and far away from home, he spent his evenings with me on the phone listening to me talk about my life. My father cared. He wanted to know about my first kiss, about my fights with friends, my relationship with teachers, my dreams, my fears, my hopes - he wanted to know everything there was to know about me. My father had an interesting role in my life. He had to be mother and father. My mother is not the emotional type. She doesn't want to hear about my feelings. She wants a clean room, good grades and a disciplined daughter that listened to her. I wasn't very good at any of those things. So my father picked up the slack. He played the role of mother as best he could. Now father's day has a different meaning to me. The word father is attached to my husband's face. The father in my life is my daughter's father. The man that comes home every night excited to be with his family. I watch my daughter run to the door and yell "hi" and jump into my husband's arms. He is a father - a father to my child. Logan is an amazing father. He loves Sadie. He kisses her. Sings to her. Puts her to bed. Gives her baths. He's there for her. He emotionally connects to her. She adores Logan. The joy it brings me to see my two favorite people connect and love one another is indescribable. Sometimes when Logan is at work and it's just Sadie and I at home, I tell her how lucky she is I didn't marry one of my other boyfriends. None of them would have been the father that Logan has become. He never loses his temper, he allows Sadie to sleep in bed with us and climb all over him at night, kick him in the face while he sleeps, kisses her when she gets an owie and he loves her. He really loves her. You can see it in every touch, every smile - she has a father most girls wished they had. And I know who to thank for being such a wonderful example and role model, my own father, a mensch and a shining example of what fatherhood should look like. Is this generation of mothers more neurotic than the previous ones?
I feel like we live in an age of fear that is resulting in mothers going nuts trying to protect their children from the world. I know, I am one of them. I am a neurotic mother. I don't question that all mothers are neurotic to some extent, I just wonder if we are more so than our predecessors. I was talking to my mother in law, Deena, a few days ago about vaccines and the insane amount of information that is out there. As I was shoveling dirt into pots I was complaining to Deena that the internet has created an impossible situation for parents. Anyone can get online (myself included!), make a professional looking website, write something down and all of a sudden they are legit. Reputable. Someone to source on facebook and scare all your mother friends. Can there be such a thing as too much information? I think so. There's too much. Too many stories. Too many people with too many opinions. Now even online newspapers have comment sections after each article and it appears that all the crazies crawl out of their dark holes and write their opinions. It could be an article about shaving your legs or about shots for your children. Everyone has a perspective and wants to be heard. But for a mother who is already terrified due to the autism scare, which was proven false last year, trying to protect your baby becomes a war on all fronts. All of a sudden the bad guy isn't just some person appearing out of nowhere trying to snatch your child - now it's the medical industry. How can you fight the medical industry? At what point are you fighting ghosts instead of reality? Yes, it is important to be aware. Yes, it is important to question everything. Yes, it is important to be an informed patient and parent. But where do you draw the line? Did you know childhood illnesses that were long eradicated are coming back because people are refusing to vaccinate their children? I don't have the answers, I can only offer questions that need to be examined and thoughtfully processed. After several months of fear regarding the MMR vaccine I finally decided to ask my facebook mommy friends their perspectives on the shot. I've heard lots of negative perspectives from people who knew someone who knew someone that had a child who had a negative response, I needed to know if any of my friends' children experienced a bad reaction to the shot. Every single mother that wrote a response said their child got the shot and survived the experience. Only one child out of the thirty responses I received had a reaction to the shot (she had a fever and was fine). Everyone else had the shot and it was soon forgotten. At 14 months I took Sadie in and got her the MMR vaccine. I was extremely afraid and asked the nurse if she ever had a patient die from the shot. She looked at me with sadness in her eyes and said in 20 years she never had a patient with a severe reaction and she was worried that the autism scare was keeping parents from protecting their kids. Okay, that was the MMR vaccine. There are plenty other scary vaccines out there and I will deal with each one in its time. Let's address baby proofing. Today you can buy thingies to prevent doors from closing, things being stuck into electrical sockets, drawers from being opened, bath tub knobs from being turned, toilet lids from being lifted and pretty much anything in your house can be prevented from functioning the way it should. Who knew children should grow up in completely closed down homes? Maybe we should nail chairs to the ground to keep them from moving and potentially falling on our children? Where do we draw the line? We are towing a line of safety and falling into insanity. The news likes to mention how the following things can either kill us or give us cancer, which can kill us too: 1. plastic 2. cell phones 3. sitting for more than 6 hours a day 4. cars 5. smoking, drinking, anything fun really 6. food - it's dangerous and will kill you, if you eat too much of it or not enough of it, food is the enemy 7. antibacterial soap - a new danger in our lives 8. money - like food, if you have it or if you don't it is horribly stressful and heart attack inducing I really could go on and on about the list of things that are dangerous and out to get us. Life is out to get us. We are almost forced to be neurotic in this age of fear. Everything is f*ing dangerous. Now there are links between the chemicals pregnant women are surrounded with in this society and autism/adverse health consequences. (link) (another link) Are pregnant women better off living in a bubble? Can we really avoid everything? When I was pregnant, except for a few special instances, I didn't wear makeup, take medicine, wear nail polish, use lotion, wear deodorant or color my hair. I was extremely afraid of chemicals and their potential danger to my growing child. I avoided as much as I could and it wasn't easy. It's not for everybody. I'm also a crazy health nut - my way of controlling my fate. Reality is, I have no real control over when I will get sick or die. I also have no real control over that regarding Sadie. Unfortunately I don't get to decide how long she gets to live. I can only pray she outlives me and dies at a very old and ripe age surrounded by her great great grandchildren and loved ones. But that's in G-d's court, not mine. Perhaps this is the age of neurotic mothers because we know so much more than we ever did. And we are much more in control of our family's health. But we are also prisoners to the truth. By knowing we are guilty if we don't act on our knowledge. If we don't protect ourselves and our children we are at fault for anything that goes wrong. We are to blame. I'd like to find a better balance between managing the health and well being of my family versus surrendering to G-d's plan. I don't think G-d wants me to passively mother my daughter; however, a little more faith in his plan could go a long way towards calming fears regarding hazards I cannot possibly be aware of or control. I'm ashamed to admit this, but I've started yelling at Sadie.
Nothing sadistic or mean, however the occasional "STOP SCREAMING" erupts from within me as hours of frustration look for a place to go. Sort of ironic to yell stop screaming to someone who is screaming. I didn't realize how much I was falling into the habit until Logan pointed out to me tonight that I'm yelling a lot more than I used to. I went from never yelling to yelling occasionally. It's hard not to when my toddler screams, yells, throws temper tantrums whenever she doesn't get her way. I just want her to stop. Yelling shocks her and gets her to stop. But it's probably not the best way to deal with the situation. I could get her to calm down by doing what she wants, but then I'm continuing to ignore my own needs. Maybe I want to continue what I'm doing and not stop everything to pick Sadie up and nurse her for the tenth time that hour. Perhaps she should let me finish typing on the computer and she should go play with her toys instead of demanding to sit on my lap and then beat at the keyboard with whatever she is holding. It's difficult finding the balance between Sadie's needs and my own. I want to be there for her. I want to love her and kiss her and give her all the support she needs. From the day she was born it has been my philosophy to hold her and cuddle her whenever she cried. I have maintained constant physical contact to keep her happy. After 15 months I'm finding it challenging to continue this trend. I need my personal space. Sadie needs to figure out how to find comfort in other ways. I think the truth is I'm feeling worn out as a mother. I knew being a parent was a selfless act of giving but I never realized how much of my life I was giving. Sadie needs me to nurse her every 40 minutes while she naps. So I can't really finish anything while she naps. Also, most of the time I have to either hold her or lay down next to her while she naps. My whole life revolves around Sadie. I have also been sick for the past 2-3 weeks - being sick with a toddler is not a fun experience. All I want to do is curl up in bed for a week and read books and drink hot tea and heal. Instead I'm doing everything but what I need. My house needs to stay clean, Sadie needs to get fed, laundry needs to be done, diapers need to be changed and my desire to rest in bed all day is a distant dream. One of the best parts of being married is having a husband who calls you out on your shit. I was initially upset with Logan but now I am grateful for his opinion. He knows how important it is to me not to have a "yelling" home. I want a place of peace and serenity and love. I need to go back to that desire and deal with Sadie from a place of love. Tonight I am renewing my commitment to staying calm with Sadie. I went to my first ICAN meeting yesterday.
I entered a room filled with pillows and five women smiling and laughing. I was greeted and then welcomed, allowed to take my fill of the space and remain a quiet observer of the obvious camaraderie around me. I sat on a chair furthest from the women and watched them. I waited to be introduced, to meet new friends who would share war stories of dramatic deliveries and victorious VBACs. Ten minutes after I had arrived five more women sat down and we began to share our stories. We each had a story we carried. We were soldiers dealing with the stress of a birth we didn't want. None of us wanted our C-Section. None of us wanted the doctor to cut the child out of our womb. When we shared our views on birth and what giving birth meant to us, we all agreed that it was our right to give birth vaginally. It was a right of passage. It was our entrance to motherhood. It was a violation to not have the birth we wanted. Medical intervention prevented us from having our desired birth experience. Maybe that pitocin wasn't necessary. Maybe that epidural was too soon. Maybe we don't need to be monitored every moment. Maybe we should be allowed to birth like our bodies were intended to. I joined in this chorus of women and declared I felt this was another example of woman being oppressed by the man. However, upon reflection, I think it is more than that. I think it is society's vision of dehumanizing ourselves. What is natural isn't necessarily good. Modern doctors continue to vilify eastern medicine, even though its old and has a place in medical history. Acupuncture works. Energy healing is real. However, talk to most doctors and they think it's a joke. We are not machines. We are women. We are complex. We are unique. They cannot dehumanize us. They cannot simply put us into a machine and spit out a baby at the end. We are not a cog in the wheel of birth. We are birth. And that is what I saw yesterday. I saw a group of earth mothers. Women in touch with themselves, their sexuality, their power as women. Modern medicine is terrified of what it cannot control. So it attempts to control us through intervention. There are births that need C-Sections. I am actually one of those women. Sadie had the cord wrapped around her neck tightly several times. She wasn't dropping at all after 24 hours. Another woman at the meeting shared how her water broke and walked around for four days without going into labor. She also needed that C-Section. However, a 33% rate of C-Sections in this country is absurd. Three hours after entering a room full of women I did not know, I left feeling like I found a support base. Every single woman there was a power house full of dreams and hopes and desires. They were all alive. Birth mothers, I salute you. Sadie was 15 months June 10th.
This means that Sadie nursed 15 months as of June 10th. This is a victory for the two of us. I have a whole post on the challenge of nursing, you can read it here: http://www.thewomansgift.com/3/post/2011/05/my-nursing-story.html Today I am facing a new battle, weaning. I have a child who is attached to nursing. If she falls, if she's bored, is she's tired, is she is feeling anything, if she even remembers that my boobs are within a ten mile radius she demands to nurse. She will come up to me, get my attention, look me deep in the eyes and make the sign for nursing. I have successfully managed to wean her at night. She can nurse to sleep in the evening and then she doesn't get to have any milk until 5am. It has done wonders for me. I actually get to sleep for 4-7 hours in a row (depending on when I go to bed). I haven't gotten that much sleep in a row since before my pregnancy. This is outrageous! This is amazing! Okay, okay. I won't lie, we do have some nights where she wakes up crying either from teething or some other reason I can't figure out and I don't get a perfect night of sleep. However, I have maintained my resolution not to nurse after she has gone to bed and I love it. About a month ago I put my foot down. She had regressed to nursing every hour and I was going nuts. I mean seriously, I was suffering from horrible sleep deprivation. It had to stop. I had tried when Sadie was 10 months to stop nursing her at night and she cried for hours. She was in bed with us and I would try to pet her, kiss her, calm her down but she refused to settle with anything less than my boob in her mouth. So I gave up. I mean, after a few nights of thoughtful pondering, I made the adult decision to continue nursing Sadie at night. I am the boss here after all. It was all my decision... Err, anyway. Last month I felt Sadie had gotten big enough to survive the night without nursing. She cried for a small period of time for the first three nights and then she started to sleep deeper through the night. She actually had some nights of sleeping from 9pm until 5am without waking up. Logan and I could talk in the room at night and she would continue to sleep. It was a miracle! Last Friday I was diagnosed with an ear infection and prescribed some antibiotics. They gave me a very mild antibiotic that they prescribe to pregnant women. As of today I'm still feeling some discomfort in both of my ears. I am worried that the medicine isn't strong enough. I have a long history of ear infections during my childhood and have some memory of penicillin not working for me in my teenage years. The prescribing doctor recommended minimizing the amount of nursing Sadie does to avoid thrush and passing on a heavy dose of the antibiotics. I decided Friday I was going to wean Sadie. I did not want to deal with another round of thrush. I hate thrush. Thrush is evil. I spent over a month fighting thrush when Sadie was a newborn. Sadie did not like the idea of weaning during the day. She threw a three hour fit with tears and screaming - this is while I am sick and have little energy to do anything. After a very long day and talking to two veteran mothers (a mother of 6 and a mother of 4) I decided to minimize nursing, stuff as much yogurt into her that she would eat and hopefully the antibiotics wouldn't have an effect on her. I was strongly suggested that cutting Sadie off in a day was not a good idea. My breasts didn't like the experience either! I have decided that Sadie gets to nurse for two years and then we're done. I am cutting her off. The deal is over. Even now I don't really "love" nursing like I used to. I know she doesn't need the calories and I am not providing any extra nutrients. She can and should survive on food. And frankly, I'm nervous about those 7 big teeth that I feel grazing my nipple every once in a while. Nursing has become a game of Russian roulette. You've got two years Sadie, two years. You better enjoy them! Sadie bit me tonight. I was sitting at my computer and she was upset because I didn't want to hold her. She whined for about 15 minutes in between my legs and then decided to take a chunk out of my right thigh. I watched as she put her head down towards my leg and then screamed in agony as those 7 little teeth ripped through my pants and cut my skin.
I didn't kill her. I didn't even yell or hit her. I did yell out in pain and in shock. Logan grabbed Sadie and put her in the corner. Since she's only 1, corner time is for one minute. Usually I count out loud for 60 seconds so she knows when her time is up. I couldn't even do it. I don't know if you've ever been bitten in your inner thigh but it is extremely painful. Sadie went into rage mode. Bent over and screaming, turning bright red, even gagging in anger... that behavior looked all too familiar as I remembered my youthful rages. Afterwards she came to me and I held her in my arms. I called my father asking him for advice and explained to him the situation. He suggested pouring a cold glass of water on her the next time she bit me. (This was the second or third time she has bitten me and the first time she has pierced my skin.) As we spoke on the phone, I realized she got exactly what she wanted. She wanted me to hold her and it worked. I was trying to comfort her during her time of distress and she got to be held - the means justified the end. I was comforting her from her punishment - a punishment she earned and deserved. Carefully I put her down, got off the phone with my dad and went to speak with Logan in the kitchen. Sadie then began to lose it. She followed me around yelling, demanding for me to pick her up. I showed her repeatedly my wound and told her "owie." I explained to her how much she had hurt me and how upset I was by her behavior. In between her demanding to be held she would touch my leg and repeat "owie." She understood what she had done and she was visibly upset about the situation. Only when she really started to cry with tears rolling down her cheeks and she held her hands out with remorse did I hold her and kiss her and tell her I forgave her. Parenting is much more complex than I imagined. I figured giving a child food, love and warmth would create a happy baby. Instead I am learning that a child's mood can swing at a moment's notice. A happy child can turn sour if her needs are not met immediately and to her satisfaction. Living life for myself is over. There is a new boss in town: Sadie. Here is a list of things Sadie does that is cute and annoying at the same time:
1. She demands the piece of newly buttered toast about to enter my mouth. I give it to her. She scrapes off the butter, eats it and throws the bread on the floor. 2. She will not eat in her highchair. She will eat only in someone's lap (picking at their plate) or on the floor. 3. If I give Sadie a cup/bowl/plate with food, she will turn it upside down and then eat off the floor. 4. If I'm sweeping the floor she will take food from her mouth and throw it into the dustpan. Toys and other things that are not garbage will be eagerly flung into the garbage pile. She will follow me around and laugh as I say again and again "no, Sadie, that's not garbage." 5. She has not found a puddle, mess or other disgusting thing that she can ignore. She will step into it, repeatedly. And then drag her foot for 6 inches to make sure the mess grows in size. 6. If I am trying to eat at a restaurant she will throw a fuss until I hold her and let her dig into my food with both hands. If I don't do this she will scream bloody murder nonstop. 7. She is in love with her bubbles. Bubbles in the morning, bubbles in the day. And she likes to lick the wand. 8. She can't drink out of a juice box. Drinking out of a juice box means there will be juice all over Sadie and the floor. The juicebox straw is discarded immediately. Instead Sadie prefers to squeeze the box and drink from the hole on the top of the box. 9. After Sherman, our neighbor'd dog, stole a cracker out of Sadie's hand last week, all crackers are now Sherman food in Sadie's mind. I have tried getting her to eat her crackers but she refuses. Instead she takes a bite and tries to get Sherman to eat the rest of it. 10. When Sadie sleeps she burrows into my neck. I have woken up once from a dream of being suffocated. I found Sadie's head to be pushing my neck in and cutting off my oxygen supply. 11. She sits on the potty and makes big grunting noises. She still has her diapers on but it's a start. And it's pretty hilarious. 12. If the shower is running she will run into it fully clothed. Every time. Okay, that's all I can think of for now. Any cute but annoying things your kids do? |
Meet the Blogger!
I'm a mom. A writer. A lover of good fantasy. A proponent of nursing when possible. A birth advocate. I am absolutely horrible at keeping my house clean or the dishes washed or the laundry done. I strongly believe in women having a positive birth. When we start to respect women's rights to birth the way they want, we can start to treat women as equal people in this world. Archives
February 2016
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