Tag Archives: Parenting

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And Then, He Went Down

Children are just like us: no matter what, there’s a risk to everything they do. We want them to go out with friends, but I don’t know any parent that doesn’t worry when their child isn’t in their sight. Anything can happen and if something did, we’d second guess our decision to let them be free. The truth of the matter is we can’t bubble wrap them as much as we’d love to. All we can do is protect them in the best way we’re capable of, and hope that fate or whatever you believe in follow suit.

Case in point: putting your child in a sport. Organized sports are an incredible thing for our children. It teaches them sportsmanship and discipline. They get a ton of exercise, and they get to befriend people outside of their little circle at school. I fully support those youth organizations that help our children both physically and mentally. I would dare to argue that putting a child in some sort of organization that teaches discipline and sportsmanship helps that child grow up with team building skills. After all, they do enforce that there is no I in team. For the record and on a side note, I do hate that expression but the song is good.

The downfall of sports is the risk of injury. My son plays baseball, and does well at it. Of course everything has a risk, but the risk always seems higher when your child is just as graceful as you are. And if you’re as impossibly clumsy as I am, you spend more time worrying than you probably should. Every bruise he gets from pretending he’s a goal tender with line drives, I wonder if I should’ve signed him up for a chess team for 9 year-olds. He hits himself clumsily with his bat, and you really second guess this.  He enjoys it though, and it’s something he’d love to continue on with. As much as we fear harm, sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and support them. It could be worse, he could want to be a skateboarder or an X-Game BMX star. On Saturday his team had a game against their bitter rivals, and yes I’m just as in awe that a little league team has bitter rivals that young. His first up at bat was successful, he drove the ball and took the base. The next up at bat he did make it on base, but it was a lot less successful. The batter before him gets hit in the leg, he shakes the leg and takes his base. My son takes the plate, and he’s ready and determined to smack this ball in the outfield. The ball, it had other plans. The pitcher pitches and before my son could react, there he was on the ground. The ball went straight to his head.

As a parent on the sidelines, you don’t have time to react. If we had blinked, we would’ve missed this entirely. We didn’t blink though, and as soon as he went down, he stood up and gave us a thumbs up while running to first base. He was fine, and he was fine because we spent a few extra dollars on a well padded and sturdy helmet. Even though we can’t be there every second, we can still give them the tools to be safe. The bat he uses is second-hand, his batting and catching gloves are the same he’s had since he’s started. This year, we decided with kid’s pitch we’d rather be safe than sorry and bought extra protection for him. That moment, I was thankful we had. I was also thankful we’re crazy parents to know the signs of concussions or head injury. I’m also not ashamed to admit I didn’t sleep that night and constantly checked on him while he was sleeping. Sports are a great activity for your children, but the better thing you can do is to make sure they are well protected because you never know what could happen.

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A Letter To My Unborn Child

Dear Fetus,

Your father and I are overjoyed by the idea of your presence. I’m certain that it was an incredibly happy day when he found out he was going to be a father again. We’ve watched you grow for 29 weeks and it’s been a miraculous journey. However, it occurs to me you’re getting overcrowded in there and sharing a body with another person has become uncomfortable for me too. I would like to propose a small list to make these last few weeks more enjoyable for both of us, because I’m certain that your life will be miserable otherwise.

1) We need to discuss your sleeping. I know that I’m a bit of an insomniac normally, but since pregnancy I’ve grown used to sleeping at night. That was until you decided your prime time for activity occurs during my prime time for sleeping. I’d like you to consider changing your time of activity to daytime so I’m not too tired to feed us both. Cereal is not filling enough, and I’m too self-conscious to go for seconds.

2) I know we all have certain positions we like to sleep in. I appreciate that, except I don’t appreciate that your favorite sleeping position is on the major nerve on either side of me. I enjoy walking, I enjoy not having a searing pain shooting down to my toes. My theory is that this wouldn’t be an issue if you were to change the time of your sleeping. Let’s be reasonable, compromise is something all roommates need to work out.

3) Finally, no I don’t like pepperoncinis, buffalo wings, or artichoke hearts in oil. Don’t make me want them and make me regret ignoring you after, it’s not happening. This proves you already are your father and brother but since neither of them are carrying you, you’re going to have to just deal with it.

With these few requests, I hope that we can learn to live out these next 10 weeks in peace. I promise to continue to make sure your large appetite is well fed with food that doesn’t make me want to vomit. Let’s work in harmony to make this enjoyable for the both of us, because when you’re born I know that we’ll both live in chaos for the first few weeks. A nice, well-rested mother before labor will benefit us both.

Love always,

Mom

P.S. You can’t keep kicking people who “invade your territory”. The doctors need to hear  your heart and see you, and they think you’re a silly little ham of a boy. I think you’re just being a pain in the butt. Prove me wrong.

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Worst Expectations

I have a problem with expectations. Granted I have a problem with a lot of things, so that probably doesn’t shock you much. I blame this on the cynic in me, the part of me that believes the minute you allow yourself to believe something good that the universe finds a way to screw it up. The rest of me doesn’t fare better in this aspect, even the most optimistic part of me. Yeah, that optimistic part of me I pretend I have when things go wrong and I need to assure everyone else everything is ok.

What’s my problem with expectations? In truth, I think one of the worst things you can do in life is go into a situation with expectations. I’m not suggesting you go in with complete ignorance and end up surprised what you’re walking into. I would never suggest a surprise because I hate surprises. For instance, when you vote you’ll ideally know the candidate you want to vote for based (hopefully) on the informed decision you make. However, don’t expect he’ll keep his promises because he’s a man and they lie. (That was a joke.) The real reason is because he’s a politician and they lie.

The main point is expectations on pregnancy, labor, and the result: the child. The worst thing you can do is expect that “you got this” and go in there blind. Even worse, going in there and expecting “I’ve done my research, this is my birth plan and I’m sticking to it”. Why not? Because in life, you can’t expect anything because anything can happen. Sure you might go in expecting that the knowledge made you invincible and that because you’re informed, you can do it without pain medicine. You know what statistically is more likely to happen? You’re going to beg anyone who will listen for relief. If you go in expecting a calm water birth, you’ll probably end up with a scalpel cutting out your insides.

I know you’re probably thinking, “what’s your plan?”. I’m a “just go with it” type of person. I researched what medicine I’d want if I wanted it, and made sure I was ready for any situation that I could come across. Do I want an epidural? I managed the first time without it, I’d like to not have it this time either because I don’t trust anyone with a needle near my spine. In fact, I generally expect the worst. For instance, I imagine this one will be a colicky pain in my butt. If he ends up as angelic as the first one? Well I’ll be pleasantly proven wrong and I’m ok with that.

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Spending Nights on the Bathroom Floor as Parents

I’m sure we’ve all had those nights after staying out late where you made your bed on the bathroom floor so your evening’s mistakes would end up in the toilet and not your bedroom floor. Eventually we grow into parenting, and these days we spend our time sitting on the floor while our child vomits away a fever. It’s heartbreaking watching them moan and shake while getting sick, but it’s good to know that they can curl up in our arms afterwards to comfort them. It doesn’t make you feel any better though, and I think all parents hate it when they watch their child feeling miserable.

Once my son, then around 1 1/2 or 2, had a fever during a weekend he was away from me. I received a call at work telling me he had a high fever and wasn’t feeling well. I heard myself repeating “take him to the doctor’s” and restating the doctor’s information. He was never taken to the doctors and when I had gotten him back, his eyes were sunken in and he was lethargic.  He wasn’t my son, he was a zombie form of my child. I was scared, and luckily my doctor’s office had a nurse that was able to calm me down and told me to head to the emergency room.

I’ll remember that trip forever I think. The nurses were urgent with him, and hurried him into a hospital gown. I remember the look of terror in his eyes when they put in the I.V. and taped it to his arm and splint, and pumped him full of fluids. They took vials of blood and I sat and watched helplessly while this happened. He was sick and needed me to comfort him, but I couldn’t. They wanted us to walk around with him to make him thirsty enough to drink and my now husband got him a snack to coax him into drinking enough to get discharged. Several hours later he was released, diagnosed with a rhinovirus and severe dehydration. Ever since then, I’ve been neurotically overprotective every fever he’s had since then.

Mothers have this natural ability to tell when they’re kids are seriously sick or not. From the phone call, I knew instantly he needed to be seen by the doctor. Other times, I knew he had an ear infection and while the doctor’s argued with me, they checked and discovered I was right. We have this child inside of us for 9 months, and that gives us the ability to sense something wrong with them. This isn’t just true for the child being sick; I find that it applies to knowing when he’s had a bad day at school or similar situations like that. It’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it.

Sometimes we are irrational and overprotective, but sometimes you need to trust our maternal instincts. It might not make sense, but there’s usually a reason for it and it pays off when you listen. It still bothers me today when I sit there with the doctor and they don’t listen to me until they see that I’m right. “No, there’s nothing wrong he’s just small because that’s the way he’s supposed to be. That and he didn’t exactly hit the genetic lottery in the height pot.” The worst thing we can do is let our kids see us buckle under the pressure, whether it’s crying with them when they get a shot or getting nervous in the hospital. Kids get sick, everybody does. It might be heartbreaking, but as the parent it’s your job to make them feel as awesome as possible.

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Where Did The Time Go?

It seems like yesterday I was my normal skinny self starting my long list of Christmas baking that needed to be done, and on a whim based on my female dog Zoey acting funny around me, I took a pregnancy test without any expectations. Now, it’s 7 months and my husband and I have already established a sappy bond to this fetus we haven’t met yet. Then after all that excitement passes and you start seeing your collection of baby supplies grow, you get that moment of “oh crap” realizing you have 2 months to prepare if you’re lucky enough to go on your due date.

I sat staring at my assorted supplies and realizing that I’m not ready. Emotionally, I’m definitely prepared. I mean I’m not ready for it to actually be here, with 2 months it doesn’t seem like I’ll have enough time to get everything I need done. With my shower next month, I need to step it up. By that I mean, I have to go into crazy pregger nag mode on my husband to get stuff done. I’m not going to lie, I’m getting anxious with preparations of setting up the household to accommodate the new addition. That preparations are more unnerving for me than the real process of birth. Last time it was easier, I was smaller and more capable of doing grunt work. This time I can’t even tie my shoes or put on shoes that aren’t slip-ons. This time, I have no control over anything getting done and can only sit back and pray it gets done.

At least I have my birth plan all set. It’s pretty simple and straight forward: unless I can stick a needle in your spine with you hoping you don’t get paralyzed, you’re not doing it to me. It’s simple and to the point I think, and I’m praying since I went sans epidural the first time around that I can repeat this. Also, the fact I was only in active labor for less than an hour last time and they say the 2nd one is easier, that I’m going to just have him slide out. I know, it’s unrealistic, but sometimes you need to let us pregnant women hope. And let’s find a way to safely knock a pregnant women out for a c-section. I don’t like the idea of being awake while watching the shadows of the doctors pulling out my insides to retrieve a stubborn fetus., and I don’t think I’m the only one.

When you get to this point in the pregnancy, the lovely 3rd trimester unless it’s just me, that you’re less excited about the idea of the newborn baby in your eyes and alternate between “get this thing out of me” and “I’m not ready for this”. You can still revel in the fact that you can eat what you want, and if you’re lucky like me, take advantage of the massages your partner is willing to give. Just focus on what you need to get done, and then allow yourself time to sit back and imagine the newborn about to take over your life. It’s worth it, and after all you go through to get them here, it better be.

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The Real First Sign of Summer

And that sign says “Tag Sale”.

I love this time of year. Not because of the beaches or water parks, I hate being out in the sun because the sun hates me. Sunscreen wasn’t really made for the pale complexion of the Irish. I hate the heat, and admittedly am a baby when the temperature hits higher than 75 degrees. Okay, maybe the baby in me complains if it’s over 70. My allergies make this time of year miserable for me, and I’d rather stay locked in the air-conditioned house. I do enjoy my son’s little league baseball games, and more with the portable fan my husband bought me because I’m more of a baby about the heat now that I’m 7 months pregnant. BBQ and bonfires may make this time for me, except I dislike most BBQ food.

So with the long list of things I hate about Summer, you’re probably wondering why I started off by saying “I love this time of year”. Really, I only like that this seems to be tag sale season. I’m notoriously cheap, and that’s being nice about it. I love shopping at thrift stores and tag sales, and this love has increased with my pregnancy. I remember how expensive all those diapers and bottles are, and how expensive necessities like onesies are for how easily they get ruined and the baby grows out of them. This is exactly why I like tag sales.

My neighbor from across the street gave me notice that over the weekend, there was going to be a tag sale, and her friend was bringing by a ton of baby boy stuff. Score, this was asking for me to wake up early and go crazy stalker and eye her house from my front window for me to pounce out and get dibs on the good stuff. I ran across the street, with a $40 budget in mind, and was disheartened that the person with the boy’s stuff hadn’t arrived yet. I did get a gorgeous and warm knit blue blanket and a couple of white onesies for $3. I looked for a blanket just like the one I had bought and found one very similar for $25. I was told to spot a specific car for the baby boy stuff, so I proceeded to go back into ninja stalking mode. Right after my start, the car appeared with boxes upon boxes of stuff. Soon, I noticed a brand new vibrating and music bouncing chair and a nice infant car seat. I struggled with being too “creepy stalker” and rushing over to stake claim on these items. Unfortunately, I’m notoriously cheap and that won the battle. Fortunately, the brand new bouncy chair was only $20 and the car seat was $10. The bouncy chair at the mall was about $150 and the infant seat at about $120, and neither item looked like they had been used. Add in a giant bagful of assorted sizes onesies and footy pajamas, and I had used my $40 budget. The approximate mall price for the items? My guess was $300 worth of new items, as most of the clothes still had tags on it and the bouncy chair I had gotten had no sign of use at all unlike the other one she had put out.

My point? Embrace tag sales. Sure, I wouldn’t buy things like teethers or cribs at one. If you’re smart and know what is safe to buy at a tag sale, they are a fantastic place to go to get great things. Rules like most cribs should be bought new, as safety rules for cribs are constantly changing and infant car seats shouldn’t be more than 3 years old and never have been in an accident. Also, keep note of certain areas of the town with tag sales. My neighborhood has a lot of hit or miss sales, but my mother-in-law lives in a fancy neighborhood where you can always find nice things. I also find the richer areas have more brand new stuff they tag sale, so new the tags are on and aren’t damaged. Plus, look at another benefit other than saving money: the exercise you get walking around the sales and carrying the stuff home. I’m not saying go hoarder and buy everything, but if it’s tag sale season and there’s something you need, I say go for it.

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I’m Sorry For Your Loss, I mean…

I consider myself a master at attending wakes and funerals. They are the few events I can maintain grace and poise and not feel completely awkward. Maybe because the guest of honor can’t really tell so there’s no pressure. I extend my condolences in a sympathetic way while nodding or hugging with sincerity. Most people do well at weddings or work holiday parties, but I can’t be normal can I?

What I haven’t quite mastered the full sincerity of my condolences. When someone dies, people say “I’m sorry for your loss”. I never understood that. Why are you sorry? Did you somehow cause the <insert natural cause here> that killed this person? Unless of course you did something that caused that person’s death, in which case I’m pretty sure something as simple as an apology isn’t really going to help the case at all. I can’t say “I’m sorry for your loss”, it doesn’t make sense to me.

So I say the usual “my condolences”. It’s simple and to the point, but nothing said seems more than hollow words. However, I found that outside of the funeral ritual, I’m awful at this idea of comforting someone. A friend of mine’s grandfather had passed away recently. He mentioned it on Facebook, saying “if you see someone with my name in the obituaries, it’s not me it’s my grandfather.” I was the first commenter and my reply was “I’d hope not, otherwise we’d be in a lot of trouble with talking zombies and no good could come of this.” It wasn’t until a mass of people followed with “I’m sorry for your loss” that I cringed at their apology and my sounding like the worst person in the world. Luckily, in seeing him over the weekend, I found that he was amused and glad for the laugh. I suppose it’d be worse if they didn’t expect that sort of comment from me.

Now I have to teach these lessons to my son. When he was in kindergarten my grandfather had passed away around Christmas time. He wanted to come to the funeral and despite my hesitations of him being too young for something like this, I agreed thinking that he could always be with my other family members in another room while I paid my respects. That wouldn’t fly with my little adult, and I had to give him a brief 5 minute lesson on what you’re supposed to do, how you’re supposed to behave and that at the end of it he was going to be kneeling down praying in front of a real dead body. Without being scared and with grace that I’ve never seen in someone his age, he did everything he was told and even used the word “condolences”. At the church, I couldn’t help but to try to fight my laughter while I watched him take a tissue like everyone in the room and dab his eyes to wipe away tears that weren’t there. He mimicked everything from the tissues to the proper Catholic church etiquette. It turns out all I had to do was give him a brief lesson and all he needed to do was take it from there. He just followed my lead, even giggling when I couldn’t contain my laughter at how silly he looked trying to mourn like everyone else. He learned the lesson of the mourning rituals, and was even more excited that he got free food out of it. Plus, he always did fancy an excuse to wear a tie.

This ties together 2 points I have made in my previous blogs. Point #1: I’m a terrible person that lacks social skills of how to behave in an acceptable manner. I could either change this or learn to accept that no one will really appreciate or accept me for this. I’m not changing, I don’t believe there is anything so wrong with me that I need an emotional soul-searching makeover. Point #2: Kids learn by example, there’s no denying that. My son didn’t know how he was supposed to behave so he behaved exactly like he saw everyone else behaved. There’s an emphasis on the “everyone else”. Children learn from everyone in a social environment and from things they see at home. Remember kids are sponges for knowledge, and unless you want an awful and inappropriate joke I’m probably a terrible person to console you.

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Life Without My Smartphone

A few years ago when the Droid Eris first came out, there was a buy one get one free and the first Eris would also get a huge discount. With that, my husband convinced me I wanted a smart phone because he wanted one with the discount. I looked at him with a “what do I need one of those for?” looks, but agreed because it was cheaper to buy both for the price of one and I did need a new phone. The first week all I heard from him was “how great this phone was” or “look at all this cool stuff you can do”. Much like every other time he did this, I pretended to pay attention and nodded in agreement.

I never quite appreciated that phone until our son started baseball and I realized that tee-ball was as exciting to watch as a chess game, and I could play games on my phone. Admitting that doesn’t make me an awful parent, it makes me an honest one. Then I realized I could easily put his schedule on the phone to keep track of games, practices and doctors appointments. Maybe this smart phone idea wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t understand those people who couldn’t live without smartphones.

That is, until now. I can send a grocery list to my husband’s phone so he can stop by the store on the way home. I can read the news while waiting at the bus stop for my son, and avoid conversation with the other mothers. I can manage my blog from it. There’s basically an app for everything: games to entertain your kids with while they wait for appointments to ordering a pizza so you can stop and pick it up on the way home. Personally, I love the pregnancy apps that give me daily bits of information. Today, I even discovered an app for Babies ‘R Us that I can scan items from my phone to add to my registry. This leads me to a question of what did we do before smartphones?

I take back everything I mocked my husband for in his excitement over the smartphones. I can’t go anywhere without it, and I find use for it everywhere whether it’s to prove my husband I was right about something or to get an address to a place we forgot to look up on the way out. The newest app to my collection is an app that tracks the infant feedings and changes, making it easier than the old-fashioned paper and pen way and less likely to lose it. Though since I’ve been pregnant I even lose my phone. With everything else being difficult and confusing, it’s good that we have our handy phones to make it a little more manageable.

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Those Silly Little Battles

I’ve only been a parent for about 10 years, so I’m nowhere near an expert on parenting. In all that time though, I was told by people to always pick your battles. What does that even mean, “pick your battles”? Aren’t I supposed to be the parent? Battles are supposed to be between people of equal standing, so I assumed as a parent that I’d have an upper hand by being an adult. They laughed at my stating this, and said I was a naïve child. Maybe so, being a single teenager probably makes me the last person who should comment about anything to do with parenting especially since my first-born wasn’t even more than a fetus yet.

Soon enough, I realized that he didn’t listen when I tried to be the boss of everything. Even worse, I realized that I sounded like a naggy old lady doing so. It did hit me eventually that they were right: it’s way too tiring to fight over everything with your child. Obviously, the serious things you still need to stand your ground. But I learned that eventually you pass some power over to your child. Is it good for them to eat hot dogs and mac and cheese everyday? Not in the least, but it’s better than spending more time fighting with him than him eating. But you can work around that with vitamins and other ways to trick vitamins into you child. Even something like clothes it’s better to bite your tongue than fighting about why plaid shouldn’t be worn with plaid. Friends don’t let other friends wear plaid on plaid, remember that. (Or like I ranted about before, that awful boys in skinny jeans trend.)

If not being stressed about every little things isn’t enough of a reason not to fight your child on everything, consider when you were younger. When your parents said “no”, didn’t that make you want it more? It started not to matter that you wanted it, that wasn’t the point anymore. Now it’s a matter of they told you that you couldn’t have it and you suddenly wanted it more than air itself. Do I like my son in a fedora with skinny jeans? No, definitely not.  But I’ll take that over a heart attack. So remember for you new parents: Pick your battles, you’re better off that way.

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What Kids Really Learn

Before having kids, I thought the “Nature vs. Nurture” was a joke. My son isn’t biologically my  husband’s, but that doesn’t make him any less the father. This scenario is the only proof I need that while kids are born with a certain disposition, the environment they grow up with influences them more than we can understand. My son is every bit of my husband, the same mannerisms and likes and interests. It’s something completely interesting to witness, and last night this all came together for my inspiration for today’s blog.

This idea of what a child learns is all speculation. No one really knows how a child really learns, but one thing most people agree on is that a child learns from observing the people around them. This learning comes mostly from our parents. We see how they act and behave and a child learns from this. This can go from 2 extremes, the really silly and the really serious.

To start with, the serious. A daughter who witnesses her mother being mistreated by her father might grow up thinking that this behavior is something acceptable, and allows herself to be treated the same way by her future partners. A son who sees his mom beaten might grow up thinking that is the way to treat women and become abusive towards his partners as well. Nothing is guaranteed, but statistically it happens more often than not. Children are sponges for information, and without being shown what’s appropriate or not, can lead down a path making us wonder what we did wrong not realizing it may be too late to fix it. With this idea, in raising my first son I led by an example I hoped that he would grow up and be proud of. My husband’s parenting style is the same, and it worked out well the first time around and I hope it continues the next time.

Now, the silly way this can be proven true with a funny story of my household. My husband is a very overprotective person, one feature I find both lovable and annoying. Next to our bed, he has a wooden stick that he jokingly refers to his “just in case beating stick that can be used from anything from robbers or a zombie apocalypse”. One day, my son was sitting on the bed watching streaming videos and dropped his favorite stuffed animal. When he picked it up, he noticed the wooden stick and asked about it and of course I told him and he smiled that smile he gets when I tell him something about his father that makes him want to be more like him. And last night I found out he was.

I went downstairs before I went to bed like I usually do to check in on my son and nephew while they were sleeping. I went into my son’s room to retuck him in and I noticed next to his bed was one of those plastic bats ready to be grabbed for “just in case”. I couldn’t help but to let out a loud laugh which made him turn in his sleep. I called upstairs for my husband to see what I can only blame him for, and we sat laughing together.

This just makes me wonder if I’m right about children learning from what we do and how we behave. While no one really knows the answer, I’d like to think that you should set an example for your kids. Then you can look on with pride when they explain to you in the morning why they had a plastic bat next to their bed or why they picked up someone’s money and returned it to them instead of keeping it. We do a lot by raising our kids to high standards of behavior and giving them knowledge to be good people in society.