Just Powers

We bought a minivan a few weeks ago. I have to admit that I was not prepared for the level of emotion I experienced after the purchase.

I was never one of those people who vowed I would never own a minivan. In high school my family had a white Dodge Grand Caravan with wood paneling, and I loved it - the size, the myriad of places to stash things, the fact that I could sit in the third row far from my siblings. I always kind of assumed that I would own a minivan someday. When we bought the Mazda 5, classified as a “microvan” by some, it was a tiny step in that direction, what with the sliding doors and third row of seats. The Mazda was different enough though that I felt special in it - it had sliding doors sure, but it also had Zoom-Zoom and a sunroof. People stopped us to ask us about it and we loved to tell them. I was a rock star in my cute little red Mazda and no one could tell me any different.

When the Mazda got totaled, however, we had to replace it with something and it seemed to make sense to replace with something that was newer, more reliable, had more space and ended up being substantially cheaper for us each month, so we decided on a silver 2009 Toyota Sienna.

For a week after we bought it, I will not lie to you, we thought we had made a terrible terrible mistake. I will go so far as to say I was downright depressed about our purchase. I was no longer a rock star, I didn’t have any zoom-zoom, and no one stopped me to ask about my cute little car. Emma started saying “I just saw another silver mini-van! Mommy, why are there so many silver mini-vans?” and I wanted to cry.

When you are a stay-at-home mom who lives in the suburbs and cares for small children all day, it turns out your car plays a pretty vital part in shaping the identity you create for yourself. I hadn’t realized this when we had the Mazda, but once we had the same car everyone else has, it became clear that the car had become my identity. And I didn’t really like who I had become. In the Mazda I was cute, different, agile and downright sexy. In the Toyota I was big and cumbersome, not to mention boring, practically invisible, and definitely NOT sexy.

I am feeling better about the purchase now. The Sienna is comfortable, it gets us from point A to point B safely and it seats eight with room left over for the stroller, the bikes, stadium chairs, a kitchenette and a porta-potty (ok, a kitchenette doesn’t really fit, but if we put the back seats down it almost might.) It isn’t sexy but in the end I know we made the right choice for all the reasons we decided on it in the first place. Someday, all too soon, I won’t need all this space and then I will buy something tiny and zippy that decries my age. But as I drive it off the lot I will probably be jealous of all the young families in their generic mini-vans driving on the road with me.

Here is my dilemna - my daughter adores the children’s show “Caillou”. I do not.

It isn’t that Caillou doesn’t have some redeeming qualities. He is a big brother, helpful for teaching Emma lessons about having younger siblings. His parents are less than perfect - I completely love that they are slightly paunchy and definitely over 30. He has lots of multicultural friends and even a close friend named Emma. I mean c’mon, he’s even Canadian - what’s not to love about that?

Here’s my issue: Caillou giggles. A lot. As in makes-me-want-to-throw-my-television-through-the-window a lot. And the problem is that Emma can now do a dead-on impersonation of Caillou’s giggle, making me want to throw HER through the window. It is this unbelievably high pitched “hee hee hee hee” kind of a thing that you can’t even imagine could be so annoying until you hear it. Over and over and over. Even Emma’s preschool teacher has remarked that Emma seems to be doing a “giggling thing” lately.

Other issues I have with the show - Caillou is a whiner and his sister talks in baby talk. The whining - ugh - is something anyone with a 3ish year old child will tell you is a constant battle, so thanks Caillou but we really don’t need YOU to reinforce that it is cool to whine for everything.

And his sister Rosie is voiced by a grown up talking in baby talk: “Rosie want milk” “Rosie no like sleep” and on and on and on. Maybe it is because she is relating to the female character, or maybe it is because she is feeling some ambivalence about being a big girl now instead of a baby (developmentally appropriate mind you, but oh so annoying) but Emma now talks in baby talk constantly. I talked recently with the mother of a classmate of Emma’s - a boy who also has a baby sibling - and she said her son talks in baby talk all the time too. So it may be that Emma would be talking in baby talk at this point in her life anyway, but certainly the prevalence of it on her favorite tv show can’t be helping it. I choose to blame Caillou.

As a result of the above issues, Caillou is about to be banned at our house. I am not sure how we are going to do it, short of just telling her “it isn’t on”, and in the end it may not work. But we are going to do our darndest.

We just can’t take it anymore.

Emma and Will playing together. It was sheer luck that I turned around at the very moment they were playing and even better luck that the Flip camera was within arm’s reach.

I am hoping that moments like this will outweigh moments like the one tonight where Emma sat on her brother and earned a time out in the process. Didn’t get that one on video. Sorry.

I discovered something important about myself last week. I hate bath time.

I thought I liked it. I thought it was fun and relaxing and a great way to keep the kids occupied for a half an hour or so, while getting them clean at the same time - what a bargain!

Nope. Bath time at my house has turned into my worst nightmare. The ten month-old flaps his arms in joy as he lunges and lurches and nearly drowns every ten seconds or so. And the three year-old, oh the three year-old…she has discovered that bath time is the perfect opportunity to really REALLY push my buttons, and that I am mostly powerless to stop her.

The game starts when she first steps into the tub and refuses to sit down. She lingers, standing in the tub, pretending she can’t hear my requests to “sit flat”. Finally, when I up the ante and it becomes “sit flat or you are getting out” she sits.

Then the splashing begins. It starts out pretty sweet really, just little splashes, the kind you might watch with joy as you think about how fun bath time is for the pre-school crowd. But soon the tiny flicks of water turn into bigger splashes, whole hand splashes, and they start to find their way OUT of the tub.

That is when I realize I have already lost. I try desperately to regain control of the bath, threatening and cajoling her - as I clutch my youngest by his upper arm to keep him from going under. But my three year-old just looks at me with a glint in her eye, she is having too too much fun now, and there is no going back.

Soon she is doing full body seated leaps - throwing her entire self into the air from a sitting position and landing in the water with as much force as she can muster, sending water everywhere and drenching me and the bathroom in the process. At this point I am usually completely hysterical as I systematically remove all privileges and finally threaten that she will not be allowed to attend the senior prom if she doesn’t KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW.

Usually it is around this time that the boy looks at me, then at his sister, and with a huge grin on his face, begins to copy her. And that is when, depending on the day, I either surrender and pull the shower curtain closed to preserve the patch of dry still on my clothing, letting them splash to their hearts content, or I put an end to my torture and pull them both out of the bath.

Next time, showers for us all.

STANDING!!, originally uploaded by Justpowers.

Will stood by himself for the first time today. I think I let go of his hands because my fingers were turning purple, and lo and behold he stood all by himself for at least 5 seconds before he lurched forward. It wasn’t a chance standing, it was a definite balanced-on-two-feet-holy-crap-I-can-do-this standing. When I did it again he stood for even longer and got a huge delighted grin on his face. The third time I was able to snap this photo just before he fell.

Of course I know that this is the end of the world as I know it. He has already shown that he is, and will continue to be, more interested in getting into trouble than Emma ever was. This is not a kid I can leave alone in a room for even a second. Even now, only crawling backwards, he can find any number of things to put in his mouth, pull down and rip apart in just a matter of seconds. Once the walking begins…ai ai ai…I don’t think we even own enough gates to keep him out of trouble.

Emma turned three years old today.

It’s hard to know what to write really. She amazes, delights and frustrates us every moment of every day.

Last week she picked up a towel we were using as a door mat by the front door to soak up rain and mud. Mike asked her three or four times to put it down. She ignored him and instead shook it, spreading dirt and leaves all over the living room. Mike was understandably, um, annoyed and in a stern voice reprimanded her for not listening. She continued to ignore him, making him more and more mad, until she finally said in the calmest, sweetest and most sincere voice “Ok Daddy, I’ll stop. I was just being a goofball.” I looked up at Mike, who had been fuming, and we both had to stifle a laugh.

Out of nowhere the other day she said to me “Do you know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about a short nap. I want to take a short nap so I can watch Dinosaur Train.” Dinosaur Train replaced Thomas the Tank Engine this fall as her favorite show on television and she is rewarded with being able to watch 30 minutes of it after she takes her nap. This was a deal we struck recently after weeks of her refusing to take a nap left her weepy and whining by 5:00 PM every day. When Emma is weepy and whining, mommy is weepy and whining, so something had to be done. Dinosaur Train to the rescue!

Some of our favorite Emma-isms at the moment:

What is happolling? (happening)

It is so much bun. (fun)

Where’s the mokinintrol? (remote control, of course)

No bones at the table Daddy. (phones)

Things she loves:

Dancing - one day I took her to the mall and as soon as we walked in the doors and she heard the music playing overhead she started to spontaneously dance with joy. She especially loves to put on a princess (see below) dress and talk one of us into dancing with her to “I Could’ve Danced All Night.” I guess one of these days we should formalize her dancing and get her into lessons, but for now we are enjoying her enthusiasm and passion.

Reading - this girl loves books. And she loves “snuggling on the couch” and reading together. I think that started last year when I was on bedrest and I couldn’t do much else with her. However it started, it is a habit I am happy we got into.

Macaroni and cheese - I am pretty sure she would eat mac and cheese for every meal if I would let her. I used to be able to get her to eat homemade mac and cheese and could even sneak a little butternut squash in the recipe every once in a while to make sure she got her veggies for the day. A few months ago she informed me she liked the yellow kind and now will only eat boxed mac and cheese with nary a squash in site. *Sigh* The biggest problem with the Kraft mac and cheese of course is that Mike and I have to eat it with her sometimes - like for her third birthday dinner for example.

People - Emma loves to be with people. We have been working hard lately at getting William on a regular nap schedule, hoping it will help him sleep through the night. Unfortunately this means we are housebound from about 9-11 in the morning and 1-3 in the afternoon while he naps. The other day we went to an open gym session at a local gymnastics center and when we left and I told Emma we were going home she became almost inconsolable, crying to me that she didn’t want to go home, that she loved being out and doing ‘bings” and that she wanted to play with someone. It just about broke my heart and made me realize how bored she must be, home with me so much of the time. This is the challenge of having two I guess - figuring out who needs what, and how on earth you can give it to them. Something to work on I suppose.

Her bear-bear - this is a pretty sad looking little white bear head on a piece of white blanket lined with yellow satin. It was the thing she chose a long time ago to be her comfort object, especially at bedtime. When we realized she had chosen it, we ran out to Toys R Us and bought two more. Now she rotates between the three, switching them only when I am able to sneak the used one out for a freshly washed one. Every once in a while she will find one in the wash and grab it, laughing as she says “two bear-bears!!” She doesn’t suck her thumb and was never very interested in pacifiers, but I don’t really know what she would do without “sumping to chew on” as she says when she is asking for her bear.

Waffles - Eats ‘em every day. Eggo Nutrigrain waffles. She can get them out of the freezer, out of the package and into the toaster before I have even poured my first cup of coffee. If she could reach the syrup on the top shelf her father and I could probably stay in bed and get a little extra shut-eye.

Dinosaurs, Rocket Ships and Princesses - Thanks to Dinosaur Train Emma can tell you about all sorts of dinosaurs that I had never even heard of prior to about three months ago. She has decided her favorite is Tyrannosaurus Rex, and she loves to talk about Giganotosaurus, Deinonychus and Ornithomimus - but that Spinosaurus scares the heck out of her.

She was an astronaut for Halloween this year and as part of the lead up to that we got a couple of books about space out of the library. The books were far far too old for her but they had some good pictures so I got them. She was fascinated with the space shuttle, the training the astronauts go through and especially the pictures of the moon landing. She started planning a trip to the moon and asked me if she could wear her sparkly shoes when she went. I told her of course she could, and asked when she was planning on going. She told me when she was six and a big girl. Once Halloween was over we thought she might stop talking about rocket ships and astronauts, but much to our delight she is as interested as ever.

And what three year old girl living in America isn’t obsessed with princesses - Disney or otherwise? I loved princesses as much as the next girl when I was growing up - my favorite thing to wear when I was four was a “long dress” so I could twirl and dance around - but I am far from being the princess type now. Upon learning I was having a girl, I am pretty sure one of my first thoughts was, oh Lordy, please don’t let my kid be obsessed with princesses. Obviously I realize now that I would passionately adore my daughter no matter what she was obsessed with, but I have to say that the dinosaurs and rocket ships make the princesses much more palatable, even enjoyable, for me.

That’s our girl in a nutshell. She is spunky and determined and musical and challenging and sweet and passionate and loving and we are having more fun watching her grow than we ever imagined we could have.

Happy Birthday sweetie. We love you.

Will turned eight months old a few days ago. True-to-form for me this second time around I missed his seventh month update completely and am now late for his eighth.

To be fair, I was a little sleep deprived during his seventh month. It has been a rough couple of months here, with Will getting up every 2-3 hours most nights. You may remember that prior to about six months he was sleeping 8-9 hours at a stretch and I was rejoicing about what a great sleeper I had on my hands. When his sleep was starting to get a little disrupted at six months I think I might even have said something like “I would rather be up all night long with Will than deal with a cranky sleep deprived Emma in the morning.” How foolish.

When he started waking up all the time, we blamed his teeth. Then we blamed ourselves, perseverating over the mistakes we had made with regards to his sleep - nursing him till he was asleep, not putting him in his crib awake, bringing him to our bed too often, not letting him cry enough. Then we got tired of blaming ourselves and went back to blaming his teeth. Despite what the experts say about teeth NOT being as big a problem as most parents claim, I am here to tell you that those experts are, well, wrong. Way wrong. Totally. Wrong.

As I did with Emma at around the same age, I have obsessed about William’s sleep and convinced myself that he was ruined for life, that he would never sleep, and that I would be getting up to feed him every couple of hours when he was in college.

Sleep is a funny thing. When you are exhausted and sleep deprived at 3 am you will do anything to get that kid back to sleep. When the morning comes, you curse yourself for giving in, but in reality what exactly could have been done differently? Letting him cry for two hours just makes us all crazy and wakes up Emma, so what is the use of that? Especially if at the end of two hours, when nothing has calmed him down, we end up bringing him to bed anyway?

After almost two months of getting up three to four times a night, we finally turned to our pediatrician, who confirmed that it could be his teeth, that letting him cry for two hours was pretty useless, that we weren’t ruining him for life by nursing him or bringing him to bed, and gave us a book to help us along.

In the end Mike has had to be the one involved with Will at night, going in to him when he woke up and trying to soothe him back to sleep. It has taken weeks, and it is still a work in progress, but we are getting more good nights than bad these days.

In other Will news, he is *this* close to crawling. He started rocking back and forth on his knees about three weeks ago and now moves backwards with great enthusiasm, although he gets really really mad when he realizes he is not actually moving in the direction he wants. He can sit up completely on his own, and can flop over onto his belly when he wants to - but is still working on getting back into a sitting position from lying down. He loves to stand, but isn’t too solid yet and still needs someone to hold him up. Of course it might be the wild excited flailing he does that is causing him to be a little unsteady on his feet. When he gets excited while he is lying down, he flails both arms and both legs in unison - slamming all four of them down with great enthusiasm. This is great fun during a diaper change.

Yesterday he discovered - or maybe I discovered it - that he can wave. He looked at me across the room, got a big smile on his face and lifted his hand in the air. When I waved back he looked a little shocked and then smiled and waved even more. When he picks up a toy he holds it in his fingers and twists his hand back and forth at the wrist as he peers at it - it’s one of my favorite things ever.

He eats peas, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, pears and applesauce three times a day and has started drinking water out of sippy cups. For some reason watching other people drink is the funniest thing ever to him - he will watch us take a sip of something and break out into a huge grin.

Will took his first trip on a plane in October, to visit his Grammy and Grampy in Massachusetts, but other than that has stayed pretty close to home as we work on getting a nap schedule established and tackle the night time sleeping issue.

He remains amazingly mellow and sweet, and loves nothing more than to just sit and watch all of us as we make faces at him or sing to him or wave to him. He and Emma are starting to interact more and more, and when they aren’t interacting, he watches her curiously which she loves.

We love you Will - but just keep sleeping ok?

Happy Halloween!, originally uploaded by Justpowers.

I think I have decided that I like Halloween much better as a parent than I ever did as a kid.

I always did Halloween - I was a "rich lady" one year, dressed in a fancy dress, a fur stole and a stuffed bra that rivaled Dolly Parton. One year I was a present - a big box wrapped in wrapping paper with a bow on top and a slit for my eyes. And my favorite was the year I was a gypsy with a billowy blouse, big hoop earrings, a long peasant skirt and a scarf around my head.

But even though I did Halloween, and enjoyed it as much as any self respecting kid would enjoy any holiday involving free candy, I have to say that tonight may have been the most fun I have had on Halloween. I think I enjoyed watching my own kiddo experiencing Halloween for the first time more than I ever really enjoyed experiencing my own Halloweens.

She was completely entranced with the whole process and seemed hardly able to believe her luck each time her "trick or treat!" was met with the obligatory candy or two. Her biggest thrill of the evening though was when I told her that after we were finished trick or treating she
could dump all her candy on the floor and go through it. Her eyes got wide and she got a huge smile on her face when she said "on the floor??"

Clearly Halloween is a holiday for kids, but tonight I discovered that it actually is a pretty good holiday for parents too.

Ok, so just between you and me, I am losing my mind. Dealing with a two and a half year old day in and day out is taking its toll on me. From the first whine in the morning to the final negotiation at night I am constantly on edge, waiting for the next meltdown, trying to figure out the best way through the morass of emotions that is my child these days.

So far my strategy has been brute force. I set limits, I give time outs, I count to three and I yell. I yell way too much. And at the end of the day my head hurts and I am cranky and exhausted. And then it starts all over again.

Something has to give. I can’t keep going like this, and surely it isn’t doing her any good.

So as of today I am trying a different strategy. No more yelling. I’m going to kill her with kindness. I’m going zen on her butt.

I will be like Buddha himself, calm, wise and thoughtful. When she resists, whines and challenges me, I will be like water instead of a brick wall and will bend her to my will gently. I will still use timeouts and limits, but I will do it without yelling.

I figure at the very least my head won’t be pounding as hard at the end of the day and maybe, just maybe, she will be so caught off guard by my new affect that she will forget to whine about what I am saying. I’m not counting on it though. I just need my blood pressure to go down a couple points, and in the end life is just too short to be so cranky all the time.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Ten days ago Will turned four months old.

He had his four month check up last week and measured 15 pounds, 8 ounces and 25 1/2″ long. Sixtieth percentile for both, so not GINORMOUS, but to us he seems huge. He is already in 6 month size clothes, which amazes Mike and me since we are so used to Emma who didn’t fit into 6 month stuff until the day she turned 6 months old. He seems to have lost most of the hair he was born with, but there is a new layer growing in underneath, so at least he isn’t completely bald.

His favorite toys are the johnny-jump-up thingy that hangs from the door frame or his activity center. Oh, and standing. He loves to stand and has been doing it for at least a month. He hates to be alone however, no matter what toy he is in. If everyone leave him he gets furious and cries until we return. And speaking of furious, he seems to have a wicked temper. He doesn’t get mad very often, but when he does, there is no mistaking it. He turns bright red and his eyes get wide and he screeches in a way that makes him sound like what I imagine a baby pterodactyl must have sounded like. It makes it a little hard not to laugh at him frankly, and I usually do. So I guess we have that to look forward to in his toddler years. Great.

Most nights he sleeps about 8-9 hours at a stretch before he wakes up to eat. He is still co-sleeping with us, but we have begun to transition him to his own bed. He now takes one nap a day in his crib. Sometimes it is an hour long, sometimes just 20 minutes, but the point is to get him acclimated to it, so that when we start putting him in it at night he is familiar with the smell and feel. His other nap of the day is usually on the fly, in his car seat, while we attend to some activity or outing for his big sister. Not recommended I guess, but what else can we do.

My surgery this month was a little stressful for both of us, since I couldn’t nurse for 24 hours afterwards, and then was only able to because I had stopped the vicodin they gave me to kill the pain. He seemed a little desperate during that 24 hours, sucking down as many bottles as we would give him, maybe hoping one of them would turn into the mode of conveyance he was used to? In any case we both survived.

He is all smiles these days - watching us all in complete amazement as we live our lives. The person he loves to watch more than anyone is Emma, who, he seems to understand, is his people. He stares at her while she dances or sings for him, and then he breaks out into a huge grin. He is laughing and babbling more lately too, which elicits much laughter and babbling from those around him, and so on and so on.

He is snuggly and squishy and loves to kiss and hug and none of us can imagine what our family was like before he came. We love you Will!