Fred Rogers wins again

"I'm learning to sing a sad song when I'm sad.
I'm learning to say I'm angry when I'm very mad.
I'm learning to shout,
I'm getting it out,
I'm happy, learning
Exactly how I feel inside of me
I'm learning to know the truth
I'm learning to tell the truth
Discovering truth will make me free."

Sometimes. Just sometimes, you can see a crack open up in that incomprehensible two-and-a-half year old brain that drives your sweet child to pee on the floor even as he is screaming, refusing to sit on the potty (despite that you have not suggested he do anything of the sort). Sometimes it is while Fred Rogers, patron saint of small children and marionettes, is singing the truest words you've heard since the last time he sang the truest words you've ever heard. And that adorable floor-peeing despot will stop ripping up puzzle pieces, stand up and stare at the TV like Mr. Rogers is peering straight into his very soul, then approach you and say, "Mama, sometimes I'm a rascal because I feel something inside, like a crinkly feeling or something. I just want to play. I get intense. I'm sorry, Mama." And if he were alive, you would book a flight to Pittsburgh that very second to throw yourself at Fred Rogers' worthy feet.

how to stain your baby

Zelda is so into being a regular person. She wants to drink your water and eat your pizza and play with that choking hazard and she will not take no for an answer, even when it is the obvious answer (I do not feed my seven month old pizza: don't bother). So during Nathan's first week back at school, when I was attempting to keep extra busy, I tried to find some fun things for both kids to do together at levels they'd each enjoy rather than George coaching Zelda or Zelda having things pried repeatedly from her grasp. Cornstarch paint seemed a nice, easy DIY for these last warm days and George is on a painting kick that I'm really trying to encourage.

My recipe is 1 cup of water to 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. For this batch I made three cups because I knew they'd go through it quickly. You just mix the cornstarch into lukewarm water, then heat over medium-high heat until it's thick, stirring pretty frequently. I put a few drops of food coloring into cups and added the gloop once it had thickened to my liking, stirred to mix in the color and put the cups in the freezer to cool off for a little while. I gave them another stir when they came out, and they were ready to go.

Zelda immediately turned the tablecloth and paper into a slip-n-slide. The sensory aspect was basically it for her, but she squished the paint around in her fists and slid all over the place and that was good enough for her. George is something of a rule follower and wasn't thrilled that Zelda had dumped the paint and subsequently got it all over herself, but I tried to give him an area of his own by repositioning the remaining paint and corralling his sister. I encouraged him to paint on his own arms or belly, but that was preposterous and he was deeply offended at the suggestion.

Zelda was having so much fun rolling around in the paint that George finally decided to give some handprints a try, and, after watching her brother for awhile, Zelda picked up a paintbrush. This exploration inspired by each other was, to me, totally the highlight of the activity.

I plunked them both in the bath immediately after they were finished playing, but Zelda came out looking like I'd haphazardly shot a tube of sunblock at her and left her out in the sun all day. It came off, though... eventually.

our journey to dreamland

That kid right there, he started out as a 12 hour a night sleeper. Does he sleep through the night? people would ask me. Yes! I could say, without lying. Well, without telling untruths, that is, because I was definitely lying. Next to him. All night. And all morning. Because that kid, right there, he slept from midnight until noon as long as he had a bosom for a pillow. Well-meaning folks suggested that I try waiting until he was deeply asleep, then rolling away from him to go about my day. As though I hadn't tried that. Have you ever forcibly waited until noon to get out of bed? If you had, you'd know that the urge to pee strikes around 9:30 and that scenario probably doesn't need further explanation. 

He woke up if I even thought too hard about scootching over, and it went double for naps. The penalty for my ambition was always the same: an underslept baby with one target for his displeasure. Me. so, I got a Kindle and went with it. I was so well-read back then, you guys. 

He slept in the sling, with his papa, too. That was nice. On weekends, I got a break from lying down with him (Let us pause for a moment, parents of more than one, to laugh and laugh. 

Hoo boy! Yeah. Okay. Anyway.) and that continued until he was well over a year old. At fifteen months or so, he nightweaned and moved into a crib, a change prompted by his obvious need for more personal space at night. His kicking and flailing were keeping everyone, himself included, awake, and the crib gave him boundaries he seemed to enjoy, coupled with room to move and make sheet angels. But getting him to sleep at night was HARD. I'd nurse him and hand him over to Nathan, who put in one to two hours per night sitting next to the crib, singing and humming, shooshing and patting. And naptime? I, pregnant and afflicted with a bad case of the breastfeeding heebie jeebies, was unable to nap-nurse like we'd always done. So Nathan dashed home on his lunch break and made a nap happen, then drove back to work, rarely having eaten.

George was elated to receive a hand-me-down toddler bed, but fell out of it a few times, so we reverted to the crib. It started feeling a little desperate, like this particular toddler was going to need this papa-led patting and shooshing routine well into grade school. Nathan and I had no evening time to ourselves, the lunchtime dash was kind of ridiculous, and, more than once, we both wondered aloud if this level of attention was counterproductive. We knew families who "Ferberized" their kids, and if Facebook and casual conversation were to be believed, their evenings were full of primetime television shows and cocktails. In short, they seemed to be having a lot more fun than we were. But, we persisted, because being unresponsive to our son's expressed needs felt like the wrong thing to do. 

The funny thing about raising kids is that things gradually get better and sometimes you don't notice. I couldn't tell you the date of George's last dirty diaper (because that would be pathetic, a little), and I don't know exactly when he stopped throwing all of his food on the floor. Similarly, the sleep routine got shorter and shorter until we decided to try something new. 

For the past month, I've been putting George to bed. We do "stories and nummas" -- books and a nurse -- and then he lies down. I turn off the light and we talk about his day. I sing Moon River and Take Me Out To The Ballgame, really slow, as per his request. And then, I leave. I leave him there, blinking at me in the hallway light, saying no, I love YOU! And I shut the door. And he goes to sleep. 

I never thought we'd get here. Or, rather, I knew we would, but it seemed a far-off fantasy like I'd imagine when he was a baby. The patter of jammy feet on wood floors, the eating of grilled cheese and soup on blustery days: these feel like distant, hazy idyls to the mother of a six month old. What I'm most proud of, besides his accomplishments as an independent sleeper, is that we got here by honoring his needs, his wishes. We kept him feeling safe, and in that feeling of safety, he grew into what we hoped he would, what we needed. I sometimes miss the feeling of lying there next to his baby body, devouring a novel while he snored, looking down to see his eyelids flutter open that gummy good morning smile. But another funny thing about raising kids is that there's always a next thing, another thing to love. And that retort? No, I love YOU, mama. God, is it good. 

one of those

Some days you need a reminder that your kid is cute and fun, just two after all, and not deliberately making you miserable with the most ridiculous, terrible, clichéd garbage you never thought would be a part of your reality. Let me paint you a little picture. A woman is wearing an outfit cobbled together of things that were left downstairs when the rest of the laundry was taken up to be put away. She has an infant in a carrier on her front, and she is holding a small boy up in front of her. They are in a mall. The small boy is screaming. Is she swinging him, for fun? Is he screaming with delight? Oh no. No, no, no. Also, the baby is crying. 

We're having one of those days. One of those everything-goes-wrong kind of days where you try to turn it around with a trip to the Children's Museum but that doesn't work out either, and you resort to the mall's play area which proves to be your gravest error yet. A day when you beg the universe for a break and instead get a diarrheal cat. 

If you'd have seen me moments prior to the swinging/screaming scene, you'd have caught me calmly saying, over the fussing directly beneath my face, George, I know you're disappointed, but we will walk until Zelda falls asleep and then come back to the play area. Let's find a place to buy a snack. You would've seen me try to quiet the fussing with a quick nurse, then hurriedly corral one boob back into my shirt while I chased after my toddler who had seized a golden opportunity and run off. I was doing pretty well...and then I wasn't.

His priorities are not your priorities, I repeated to myself, as I carried him to the car. It didn't make me any less frustrated. For all the gentle parenting resources I could list, all the redirection and communication tactics I know, sometimes I'm still that lady. The "did you see that lady?" lady. Ach.

So I put him to bed when we got home -- a nap was sorely needed -- and looked at these photos of the art project we did yesterday. An exercise in tape and placement. I asked him: Would you like to make a pond or a tree? I cut out shapes and he put them where he wanted. We taped them on, one by one, together, and with markers he added some eyes to the fish, some bubbles.

The pride on that face. To say he was pleased with himself would be an understatement. I thought because he's not able to draw figures that look like figures yet his finished product would be more abstract, less "correct" about where everything went. But sand was at the bottom, the frog was at the top, and the plant was planted right in the dirt. Go figure.

He's pretty alright, that boy. Even though he tees me right off sometimes. He apologized, by the way. I'm sorry, Mama. Sorry for being a rascal.

I know, I said. Let's just try again. 

do you hear that, world?

First, he said he was painting a picture of Mama. Here's one eye, and two eyes, and hair and some legs.

I asked again: "What are you painting?" This is a tree. Here are some leaf-es.

I'm painting like an artist, he said. "When you're painting, you are an artist," I told him. Do you hear that, world? I'm AM an artist, he replied. He doesn't quite grasp contractions yet.

I couldn't make that shit up.

When he was finished, he explained that he'd painted a picture of Mama and Zelda, when Zelda was in Mama's belly. It sure was purple in there, he told me.