Better Make It A Double

lucky

My twin pregnancy was scary and difficult, but we had a very good outcome, making it to 35 weeks after 13.5 weeks of bed rest, 7 of those in the hospital. After the birth, I had some pretty hard-to-live-with post partum anxiety. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, and I was hyper-alert alert all the time. Unpredictable noise agitated me greatly, and I had a preoccupying fear of accidentally waking the boys when they were finally sleep. It was pretty awful, and a therapist later diagnosed it as mild PTSD from the stress of the pregnancy combined with PPA (post partum anxiety).

 It took many months to come to terms with all that, for the anxiety to lift and to be able to relax. It was during this time that I started this blog. Therapy helped a lot. It took longer just to grieve all of it, the infertility, the very sudden loss of a normal life, the fear for my boys’ lives. I can safely say I’ve done it; that I’m pretty much at peace with all of it. It was so hard to imagine ever being at peace with it, but here I am. I am at peace with being a family of four, and the word “infertile” no longer causes me pain. I am OK with the fact that I didn’t have the pregnancy experience I’d hoped for. I believe that save for a difficult stage here and there, things should only get better from here.

 What I didn’t have the clarity to realize until recently, (and this was brought home again today when I read this) was that I was so very lucky to have been on bed rest for all of 13.5 weeks. It’s the people who are “only” on bed rest for a much shorter period of time whose kids were born months early, their very survival a daily question. Every day on bed rest brought us closer to the shore, closer to survival, then to more certainty, then to a week shy of full-term for twins. This is a new way for me to think about my experience. Yes, it was hard, but how very lucky I was to have all of those 13.5 weeks with my babies still inside me. I am finally ready to be grateful not only for the outcome (for  which I’ve never been less than utterly grateful) but also to really appreciate what got me there. I received good care in an imperfect system. I had the economic resources to worry more about my kids than about the bills. I had the loving support of both sides of the family, two churches, and many friends. My kids are fine, wonderful.

People used to tell me, when the boys were babies, how lucky we were that they were OK. I wasn’t ready to hear it, and the very word grated on me – I resented the fact that only the people who deal with real hardship ever seem to get told that. I wouldn't say that to someone like me, even if it was true; I wouldn't expect anyone who has recently dealt with any type of scare or difficulty with their children to embrace their good fortune.

They were ultimately right though; we were and are lucky.

Alexa’s premature girl Simone is recovering from surgery on her tiny body, and she’s had a very rocky few days, though things appear to be looking up. Simone’s twin brother died in utero for unknown reasons.

My comment to Alexa today:

I’m sorry for the loss of your boy, and hope that the rest of Simone’s time in the NICU is progressively less bumpy. You are clearly a great and devoted mother, and hopefully there will soon be a time when all the damned wires and machines and fluorescent lights go away, and it is just the two of you, rocking in the dark, needing only each other.

love and loss

I wrote the following post over a couple of days, before I received some terribly sad news today. When I got home from work this afternoon, I opened my in-box to find an e-mail from our pastor to the whole congregation. A long-time member of our small church was struck by a car and killed as he was walking from his hotel to his mom's house in Fargo, where he had been visiting with his family to be with his mom after his Dad's own untimely and unexpected death. Two untimely deaths in one family in a single week, and the loss of two great men. It is just so unbelievably sad, I can't seem to wrap my head around it; I just kept wishing I could shut the computer and start over and have that terrible message not be there. Our pastor is on her way to be with the family. I am also a bit concerned for her, as she herself lost three members of her family when a boat capsized less than 2 years ago. This must bring an awful lot of very difficult memories back for her. The world doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense today. Since this post has a lot in it about how much I love my kids, I suppose it isn't inappropriate to post. Just know that I also dearly love my husband and the rest of my family, and that I'm grateful for every day they are a part of my life.

___________________________________

Oh, I am so in love with my kids right now. They are an awfully big handful at times, maddening even, but my goodness, are they sweet, and the conversations they have with us and with each other just kill me. They are kind of obsessed with rhyming right now, and poems are a favorite. They nonsense rhyme everything, and when they hit upon a real rhyme of two actual words, they are delighted with themselves. We are one language-obsessed family, it would seem. Besides that, what I especially love lately is watching these little glimpses of maturity start to emerge. They can be very polite sometimes, with us and with strangers, and I can’t help but think that this unprompted politeness might become more frequent in the future. Whether it was the 15^th or the 16^th million reminder that did it, we’ll never know, and maybe it’s fleeting, but whatever it is, it’s wonderful and an added reinforcement to our efforts to teach them some manners. Sometimes a stern “no tantrums!” while looking a boy in the eye actually works, before I lead him to the nursery and tell him to have it there or not at all. And the sweetness—these little glimpses of emerging empathy that catch me by surprise and make me swoon with a mixture of pride and relief. I hadn’t realized what a joy this would be—to see your extremely self-focused two-year-old suddenly be able to put himself in another’s shoes a little. After a few years of intense one-way empathy, it is like water in the desert to receive an “it’s OK, mama, let me kiss it for you” after stubbing your toe.

This age, combined with certain issues of temperament, definitely has its difficulties, and I’m pretty darn sure they’re not going to magically go away when they turn 3 in a few weeks. As I was reminded yesterday, when we had to swim in a different pool because the leisure pool at the Y was unexpectedly closed, the boys are fairly good at remembering the rules and sticking to them, but they still lack the ability to reliably generalize a set of rules from one situation to another. At this age, it’s still more about rule-following than actual good judgment. They know, for instance, that they can’t climb in and out of the leisure pool or run on their way into it, but in the new setting, it was like starting all over. It’s easy to forget that and get into the trap of assuming that they should just “get it” and behave in a new situation without our outlining our expectations. Our Early Childhood teacher says that this is a real benefit of the maturing three-year-old, having that ability to generalize from one place to another better. I can’t wait. Hopefully the boys will be a bit further along in this a few months from now when we take them to the Netherlands. .

I think O is really only starting to hit the tantrum phase, and my goodness, can he pull out all the stops sometimes. He had a tantrum last week that left him hoarse for the whole next day. We ignore him completely when he does this, since his tantrums are pretty clearly of the attention-seeking, I waaaaaan’t something sort, and I’m pretty sure that’s helping keep his fits to a minimum, as he’ll often stop when he realizes we’re not paying any attention to his drama. Nonetheless, they’re still happening some no matter what we do or don’t do. This may get better once he’s better able to manage getting through the day without a nap. When he’s better rested, he’s really very charming, all smiles with a sing-songy way of talking that cracks me up constantly. O loves structured group activities, the very thing that tends to be hard for N, and for this reason, we’ve enrolled just him in a tumbling class at our neighborhood rec center on Mondays. He loves it, and hams it up for the whole class with his enthusiastic dancing and competent somersaults. It is such a joy to watch him thrive in a setting like this when he used to have a hard time with gross motor stuff before going on preventative asthma medication. Now he’s not only running well, he’s actually quite good at the stuff they do in class. J and I take turns taking him, and get to then spend some time alone with once boy each week.

N, for his part has an intense need for control that isn’t all part of being two – by now it’s pretty obvious that this is a part of his temperament. He really doesn’t like change or uncertainty, and he deals with that by becoming rigid and resisting transitions. This tendency isn’t always obvious while he’s in the midst of whatever new or different thing, but he tends to fall apart later. At times, this can be very challenging to deal with for both J and I, but we are learning. We’ve been even more consistent with him—this is just absolutely essential with N—and trying to make sure that we don’t throw too much new stuff at him at once. With N, a new person and a new place would be a double whammy that’s guaranteed to leave him upset and difficult to manage, so we would never, for instance, have a babysitter take him someplace he’s never been before. As he gets older, we’ll do our best to help him learn some strategies to deal with change and transitions, and even now, we try to get him to stretch his comfort level and learn to become more flexible. I predict that preschool may be a rocky adjustment for him at first, but the small, nurturing place we’ve selected should be a help with this too. I think that having two full years of preschool will be good for him in learning to better handle transitions and change within a group before the demands of kindergarten.

N also has so many strengths—he’s very imaginative, expresses himself well and clearly, and learns easily. If he’s in his element, he’s generally a delight. He has a tendency to overly direct his brother, and O isn’t putting up with much of that right now. O put up with N’s bossiness without much complaint for months, so this has been a bit of a blow to N’s sense of how things ought to be between them. Sometimes he’s using some great language to try to negotiate with O, and it’s a lot of fun to watch them try to figure it out. He’ll say “O, maybe I will have that in a minute, OK?” About 5 seconds will go by, and then N will say, “O: It is almost a minute, I think.”  Two more seconds go by.  “OK, it is a minute, so I need that now, please.”  O usually relents, but sometimes he runs away. When they fight, it usually amounts to some verbal sparring (and O tends to know exactly how to get N going, telling N to his horror for instance, that he not only wants the yoghurt in N’s bowl, but also the yoghurt in his tummy that N already ate!) or some pulling at a toy they can’t figure out how to share. They thankfully don’t get terribly physical with each other, and their motivation to get along and play together is larger than their frustrations with each other by a long mile. What’s changed recently is that they’re able to really hurt each other’s feelings. Along with this new skill is a realization that they don’t really want to hurt each other’s feelings—part of that emerging empathy—and sometimes they’re very sweet in trying to make things right with each other. The other day, they spent about ten minutes just cuddling together on the couch, giggling and hugging.

One area where our boys are very different is in how they give and prefer to receive affection. I remarked to J the other day that O seems to need as much affection as he demands and N seems to need as much as he puts up with. O demands and gives a lot of affection. I don’t mind that at all—it’s pretty easy to cuddle O whenever he asks for it, and he’s a sweet little hugger and kisser. He’s not usually whiny about it. N’s needs are a little harder to meet. I know instinctively that N needs lots of hugs and reassurance too, but N’s intense need for control often trumps his drive to ask for affection. I’ve always been fairly conscious of this with him, making sure we cuddle when we read books, that I pick him up for hugs and kisses, or rub his shoulders when I talk to him. If I don’t do those things, it shows – he starts pushing at me with his head, or getting wild and uncooperative. Finally, though, at almost-three, he seems to be maturing enough to ask to have his needs met when he wants affection, and this is a bit of a relief. When I drop him off at MOPS (which isn’t easy for him because it’s two whole hours only every other week, not quite often enough for him to really get comfortable with the routine), he tells me he needs two hugs and a kiss, and that the second hug should be a really, really big one. No problem—I am so proud of him when he takes care of himself in this way instead of just getting tense and falling apart later.

Every night now at bedtime, he says quietly, “rock me a little minute”, and we rock in the rocker in his room for a few minutes while I sing him a hymn or two. To be able to do this, I put N in his room after story-time and tell him I’ll be right back, go upstairs to put O down, and then come back onto N’s room, at which point he’s usually sitting on the edge of his bed waiting, sitting on his hands with his little legs swinging back and forth. This time together is so special for both of us, his whole long-limbed body draping over me as I sing to him, both of us relaxing at the end of whatever kind of day we’ve had. The boys  are getting so big, barely both fitting into my lap together at story time, me having to regularly remind them to move their heads further apart so I can actually see the book. These might be the last months I ever rock a child of my own at bedtime, and I’m happy to oblige. Since he rarely naps now, O has been asleep within minutes of his early bedtime, but he just wants an “extra-long-big hug” while sitting on my lap, his head on my shoulder, arms around my neck. Somehow, the time of day that was very difficult a couple of months ago (and still often is, until we get everyone into pj’s) has become one of the best parts of my day.

Since the boys were about 18 months old, I’ve said the same thing to them as they clamber up onto a knee each, ready to listen to the 3 or 4 stories and several poems we read together before bedtime each night. I say “this is the favorite part of my day, sitting here with my boys”. They love hearing it, and wait for me to say it or remind me if I forget. Last night, as I was rocking N, he said, “this is the favorite part of my day, rocking here with my mama” and then giggled at his own cleverness. My heart melted into a puddle on the floor, and I’ve been trying to put it back where it belongs ever since.

 

unstuffed

I cleaned out my closet yesterday and put about one-third of them in the throw pile to be given to charity. I went into it determined to be ruthless, and I was. I had way too many clothes I didn’t wear, and couldn’t access them all properly simply because my closet was too stuffed. Having too many clothes makes it too easy to focus on the kids’ laundry and let my own go. I wanted to, as a recent article I read suggested, group most of my clothes into ready-to-wear outfits with also-matching shirts or pants next to the complete outfits.

So yesterday, during a rare couple of hours at home without kids, I pulled everything onto the bed and did the first purge. Anything with anything at all wrong with it – worn, missing a button, anything – went. Then I started grouping and hanging up the complete outfits. The hardest part was sorting what was left – I liked some of the pieces, but didn’t have much to wear them with. I did what another tip in the same article suggested: I imagined if I’d ever miss it. That was really helpful, because the answer was almost always “no”. When I was done, all the outfits hung in neat, ready to wear rows, all the knits were folded in manageable piles on the shelves. There is room to spare, and for the time-being, I’ve left the closet open, because I smile every time I look at it. We’ve already gone through the socks, and I went through my underwear drawer with the same ruthlessness, chucking a fair bit of the drawer’s contents.

This morning, J put a bag the size of a large ottoman inside the car to go to Saver’s. I pulled a few things out for friends – nursing tanks, nursing pajamas, some never-worn underwear that was a tad too small. The rest is gone, gone, gone.  Today, I went to Saver’s and used the 20% off coupon I received in exchange for my donation to purchase a few summer clothes for the boys. I even found summer pj’s for them.

I’d gotten stalled a bit. Fatigue got to me over the last few weeks – I’ve been working on a few things from home, and I’ve been busy and a bit overwhelmed. The kids have been high-maintenance, and I’m often just a bit deflated by the time they’re in bed. When I get like that, I need to remember how good it feels to streamline, to purge, and to no longer live a life stuffed to the gills.

the sandman needs to do his da*m job

O has been dropping his last nap, and it has not been an elegant transition. Why, oh, why do kids drop naps weeks or months before they can actually get through the day on one less nap?

At least until they start grade school, J and I plan on having at least an hour of “quiet time” in the house every afternoon, and on this front, both boys do great. N is still pretty much napping, but is also starting to drop a nap about once a week. They’re very good at amusing themselves in their rooms without complaint, and it feels really good that they’re getting daily practice in this important skill, getting a little time apart from their twin to play with whatever they want to play with for as long as they want, and giving me and/or J a little break in the process.

So what’s the problem, you ask? The hard part is, well, everything after that. The hours between 3 and 6:30 have been filled with drama some days, with lots of tears, whining, foot-stomping and tantrums. Without a nap, they fall asleep almost the moment their head hits the pillow, but, oh, those long, tired hours until we can get that far. And of course, they never seem to both either nap or not nap on the same days, and putting down one boy before the other goes over like a lead balloon.

However, occasionally O will play with all his toys, read all his books, rearrange the furniture, strip the sheets from his bed, and then finally end up like this:

Fifteen minutes before we need leave to get somewhere on time. Sigh.

Except today. Today, I got them out of the house and to the zoo nice and early, wore all three of us out, and all three of us took a much needed nap.

 

processing

Something sad happened at our house recently. I’m still kind of thinking it all through, so I haven’t mentioned it until now. On Sunday, a neighborhood dog broke into our yard and mauled one of our four hens. When I found Fanny, her best buddy Clara was leaning against her in the snow, and Fanny was alive, but her eyes were closed. I think she was in shock. When I examined Fanny, I realized what would have to happen. Fanny was badly hurt and in a lot of pain, so we had to put an end to her life.

I’d thought some of this through before this unfortunate incident happened—predators are everywhere, even in the city, and chickens are vulnerable to everything from raccoons to dogs to hawks. I’d also been encouraged to ask myself: are these pets? Why do we have them here with us? Will they go to the vet like any other pet, or are these more like farm animals? Our primary motivation for having hens was to have healthy eggs, and for the boys to have the experience of helping with the production of our family’s food. I wanted them to understand the cycle of life, to pick fresh eggs out of the nesting box, to see how our scraps can be turned into protein; how their compost can feed our garden, and so on. In a culture where most of us have no idea where the food we eat even came from, I wanted them to grow up exposed to a healthier model than that. I also wanted them to see that the animals we rely on for food can be treated humanely, that we owe them that respect and a chance at a good life. But I also knew that they weren’t going to be pets. It is possible to save a bit of money having your own backyard chickens, but a single vet bill could wipe that out for years. And if a chicken got hurt, it wouldn’t be kinder to wait for a vet to put it down – our hesitation to be merciful by handling that deed ourselves would be a cruelty to that chicken. And what would we do when our hens aged and stopped laying? We can only have 6 hens at a time – would we be willing to have all those spots taken up by hens that didn’t lay anymore?

I eat meat. Not a lot, and most of it from sustainable, humane sources, but I do eat it and I’m not conflicted about that as long as those animals were treated decently (and the vast majority of animals used for meat are not treated decently, not even close). If that is the case, then would it not be consistent to be at peace with allowing our relatively pampered hens to be processed humanely after their productive laying days are over? To me, that made sense. We would treat our hens kindly, even affectionately, feed them the best food available, allow them to roam as much as we are able to let them, and make sure they had an overall good life as long as they produced eggs with some consistency. By deciding they were essentially farm animals and not pets, we were keeping them as part of our food chain by providing food, not just using more of the world’s resources for some new hobby. Having backyard hens was not just another way to consume; it was part of bringing a little of our food source closer to home, where we could control how humanely the animal was treated and what went into its feed. Having thought quite a bit about all this, not to mention reading both “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and Barbara Kingsolver's latest book this past summer,  I was somewhat prepared for the circumstances we dealt with last week. What I wasn’t prepared for was how this experience would connect two halves of a whole.

We had some choices to make. Animal control had been called by the neighbor, and they wanted to know what our plan was for the “body”. We could have had them take her for a fee, or we could process her for the soup pot. Putting an entire large dead chicken into the garbage to attract even more predators was not an option.

Even now I can not completely explain it, but processing her absolutely felt like the right thing to do. If this magnificent bird with the kind eyes, who provided compost and eggs, and ate our slugs and weeds, was not longer with us, would it really be the rational thing to do to then treat her as a pet only after the end of her life – when it didn’t benefit her at all? Did it not make more sense to respect her purpose here with us by making full use of the nourishment she could provide for a family? Wasn’t the only thing holding me back just the disconnection most of us have from the reality that meat comes from live animals? But could I really process a chicken with a name in my city home?

J had done the actual killing, certain that it would make a complete wreck out of this animal lover. He was mistaken, I think, but I love him dearly for it anyway, because, really, what says true love better than a vegetarian who insists upon killing a chicken for his wife's sake?* His job was done, though, the processing part was mine if anyone was going to do it. I decided to go ahead with it.I called my buddy Peat, our local urban chicken expert, and he walked me through what processing a chicken would entail, and then I looked at a few pictures online to get a better idea of what was involved. I let the blood flow into a pan for an hour, and then put her into boiling water for two minutes to loosen the feathers. I painstakingly plucked the feathers, cut off the legs, then removed the scent gland and the organs, and put her into a pan of ice cold water. Somewhere along the process, the sanitized form of a chicken that we all recognize began to emerge – the pink shrink-wrapped chicken we all see lined up in the grocery store refrigerator case. There was a wide and messy gulf in between Fanny the bird with the kind eyes and that bird we see in the grocery store, and I realized that this work was about everything in that in-between, the literal blood and guts we never have to face when we order a chicken sandwich or toss some chicken breasts into our cart at the grocery store.  That gulf was bridged, two halves of a real whole reconnected as I found myself hunched over the sink, plucking and cutting, pulling and washing. There was something sane, even spiritual about the process even as I also grieved the loss of a beautiful animal.

When I reached inside the plucked bird to pull out the insides, a waiting pan beside me in which to transfer the un-needed organs, the first thing I discovered was a bright orange orb by her vent – a large yolk not yet surrounded by albumen and shell. As my arm moved further inside the bird, I discovered yolk after yolk, each a bit smaller than the last, the final one the size of a pearl. I lined them up in a row, fascinated to realize that each egg’s potential had existed within her weeks earlier.

If you’d asked me to imagine what it would be like to discover one of our hens hurt by an animal, and asked me also what would be hardest about that experience, I’m fairly certain I would have said that ending her life would be the hardest part, and that I didn't think I could process a chicken that had a name. I was wrong about both of those assumptions. The hardest part was seeing her buddy Clara huddled beside her in the snow, and seeing Fanny herself hurt and suffering for any time at all.  I felt terrible that I’d let that happen. The killing, though, was a relief, an act of mercy that couldn’t have come soon enough. The boiling and the plucking and all the rest were acts of respect for her life and it’s purpose, a life well and happily lived, and for our ability to provide a good life for any future animal that comes into our care. We will be adding three more pullets this spring, bringing our total to six. We look forward to many more years of tending a clucking backyard flock, of very small-scale animal husbandry, knowing that we can handle whatever comes and learn from the experience as we go.  I won't process a hen again myself unless it's an emergency - mostly out of respect for my neighbors -  but there are other places in town to have that done humanely and inexpensively if we need to.

While too much exposure can desensitize, none also makes it easy to ignore the sources of our food.If anything, this experience has made me more determined to be consistent in avoiding meat that I don’t know anything about. More and more options for non-CAFO meat are available, at least around here. It costs more, but we try to balance that out with some inexpensive beans-and-rice type meals every week. J is still mostly vegetarian, and the boys are starting to eat a little meat here and there when they ask for it. The boys didn’t see any of what happened, and I did the processing when they were thankfully napping, but we did choose to share some information with them. They know our flock well enough to notice Fanny’s absence. We told them that Fanny was hurt, and we had to help her die. They took this in stride, as they have in general when we’ve talked about what “meat” is, but they often say “Fanny died” out of nowhere. This kind of thing might actually be a whole lot harder a couple of years from now. When we go to the grocery store, N or O always point to the chickens and says “those are processed”. I always remind them, in the simplest way I can, that anyone who processes and eats an animal has a responsibility to be kind to that animal first as long as it’s alive. I’ll miss Fanny, but I’m grateful, at least, for the opportunity to be more connected to the reality of where my food comes from, and that we're making some choices to make that a reality we can live with.

(Fanny was the buff hen on the left) 

 

*This is an edit/addition - I somehow (and accidentally) left this paragraph out when I posted yesterday.

 

sealed lips

This afternoon, I was searching for my trusty lip balm, and couldn't find it. I resorted to some lipstick for my chapped lips, and both boys followed me into the bathroom as I leaned into the mirror to apply it. Since my applying lipstick (or even lip balm) doesn't happen with any regularity, O was a bit confused. He said, "Mama is putting a pink glue stick on her lips!" N responded with: "Now she will be silent".

foxes, and puzzles, and trains, oh my!

On the first warm day in ages that we haven't had a pollution advisory, I took the boys to our favorite nearby Nature Center. We've had a lot of pollution advisories here lately, mainly because there's so much snow on the ground, and when the temperature gets above the freezing point it creates a lot of evaporation that keeps the pollution stuck in the air if there isn't a lot of wind. Unfortunately, O's asthma diagnosis has been down-graded to "severe", and that also means that he's really affected by the pollution. So for the last month, it's been either too cold to go out, or too polluted. The boys were kind of unsure what to do outside after nearly a month of going only to and from the car, but they soon got into it, and walked about half a mile before getting back into the jogging stroller.

I don't have any pictures of it, but a really kind woman stopped by and talked with us and pointed out different animal tracks to the boys. They were really excited about this, especially the fox track. They're still talking about it.

Having a hearty snack in the stroller after their walk. I was worn out myself after our walk - it's not easy pushing 70 pounds plus the weight of the stroller in the snow, even in a jogger.

We warmed up in the interpretive center. The only not-so-great part about that was N running into the men's room, and me having to try to figure out how to retrieve him. I was really nervous about going in there and having some guy be standing at the urinal. He did eventually come out when I yelled for him, and when he had a time-out underneath a case of stuffed birds, he said "Mama does not have permission to go in that bathroom. Those birdies say I didn't make a good choice to go in there. "

The boys are still really, really into puzzles, and the other day they took it to a new level by figuring out how to do a fair bit of the ABC train puzzle on their own. Sometimes O sang the ABC song to figure out the next letter to find--not an error-proof method quite yet-- and N tended to look more at the box, but it was really amazing to see them trying to figure it out. There's some confusion about the uppercase and lowercase letters sometimes, but they know most of them pretty well, and they're starting to figure out a few of the sounds. Yesterday, O said "M is for Mama, and moose, and mouse!" Interestingly, N knew all of them by the time he turned 2, then forgot many of them due to general disinterest for about 6 months, and now knows most of them again. They both know all their colors really well, and can count a little, but are not very interested in numbers right now. I don't know if they can recognize any of them except 2 and 3. They are able to group by three or four, though - as in, they can give you between 1 and 4 blocks if you ask for an amount of 4 or under.

We went to our favorite train store on Saturday, followed by Chinese food at the restaurant next door.

N was kind of getting pushed around by a little boy of about 4, and he said "excuse me, please". The boy said "you don't say that to kids, just grown-ups!" I later told him quietly that this is not actually the case!

N is learning to view the merchandise with his hands behind his back. This was a cardinal rule when I was growing up, mostly because my mother had a tendency to frequent antiques stores. I distinctly remember informing my mother that I was old enough to be allowed access to my own hands in a store.

The boys were great in the restaurant - here O was playing with his reusable Tho*mas the Train sticker kit. I cannot believe how much mileage we've gotten out of this little kit. It has two picture boards and re-positionable stickers, and the boys play with it in church and whenever we have to wait anywhere for a long time. They have all kinds of conversations about what's going on in the picture.

We ordered enough for 8 people somehow, and I didn't have to cook the following night either. Heaven!

By the way: O tested "equivocal" for peanuts at age one (when both boys were also tested for celiac disease, which I and my mother have), and so we've been holding off on peanuts. The AAP recently changed its recommendations about holding off on potentially allergenic foods, so now that O is well and while J and I were both home in case anything went wrong, we tried peanuts on both boys today. No symptoms of any kind. I'm so relieved about this, because peanuts are a nasty, dangerous allergy, and it can really limit where you can go and what you can do with your kids. So, no celiac, and no peanut allergies, and while N was indifferent, O seemed to love a good old peanut butter sandwich.

mama means business

Isn’t it amazing how sometimes a little sun breaks through just as the fog threatens to send you completely over the edge? The boys and I had a great day yesterday. O was finally much better when he woke up, full of bouncing cheeriness. N was much the same, and sweet and affectionate to boot. I was utterly relieved that they seemed well enough to go to church, as I’d been simply dreading another day cooped up in the house alone with them. J works all day on Sundays. At church, O sat with me for the first part of the service through Children’s Time, something I’ve been doing alternately with each of them to try and prepare them for when they’re too old to go in the nursery. He was really well-behaved through it all for the first time, and was a great willing participant during the Children’s Time. Sitting still isn’t easy for O. The boys are starting to really love church—the building, the people, and what we do there—and that’s so nice to see.

I think I’m on the verge of a bit of a breakthrough with N. After thinking about it a lot, as well as reviewing the Love and Logic book, I have to admit that I’ve fallen into the trap of giving him way too many warnings. I’ve gotten a bit afraid of the shrieking and waling, and tried to hard to avoid the shrieking and wailing in hopes of gaining his willing cooperation. I know that some discipline philosophies specifically emphasize taking the extra time it might take to gain willing cooperation from a young child, but I’m convinced that it’s exactly the wrong approach with N. I do give lots of choices and advance warning of transitions, but I need to stop with the multiple requests for compliance. It’s stressful for me to be giving repeated warnings and not getting anywhere, and it causes a snappish impatience in me that’s really hard to stifle. I’m realizing that it’s also stressful for him, to have to work so hard to know where the limits are. On top of that, it’s also really stressful having O’s needs not taken care of while I’m negotiating with his brother. O has spent way too much time just kind of standing there waiting for me and N to finish our little dance lately, and he’s starting to mimic some of his brother’s behavior. So this weekend, I made an abrupt change to one warming, using the “uh-oh song” as outlined in the Love and Logic book. An example: I say, “N, come here please, I need to help you put on your shoes.” I might also offer him a choice between putting on his shoes or his coat first. Typically, N looks briefly at me and ignores me. Right after I make the request, I silently count to five, then say “Uh oh!” I silently count to five again, and if he doesn’t comply, I then scoop him up and say, “You didn’t listen, and that’s disrespectful. Looks like a time-out." (If I’m in public, I might just pull him onto my lap and put on his shoes, or scoop him up and take him to wherever we’re going, depending on the situation. But I am willing to give him a time-out in public if necessary.) Sometimes he screams bloody murder at this point, but I give him a time-out (2-ish minutes; if he can’t sit in a chair, he goes in his room). I repeat my request, and he always complies immediately, but if he didn’t, I’d give him another time-out, skipping the warning altogether this time.

What all this comes down to is, he has ten seconds to comply, or deal with a consequence. I cannot tell you what a difference this is making, and honestly, he seems less stressed and more willing to happily comply. In other words, the change in my approach is not only having the effect of gaining cooperation, it’s also making for a more harmonious time for all of us together. A couple of times this weekend, he actually did what I asked him to the first time I asked, without delay. That’s a huge change. And N was happier—less whiny and more confident.

Now, if you have a low-intensity, generally compliant sort of child, you might think this approach is pretty harsh. I probably would too, and O really doesn’t need quite this rigid an approach in order to comply with a request or make a transition. If I ask him to put his coat on, he usually just does it, sometimes without even needing to be asked.  It’s not easy to find a discipline style that works with two very different kids but also seems fair and consistent to the two of them, and figuring out how to do that is something I’m continually trying to figure out. But N is the kind of kid who just thrives within structure and firm, loving limits. He needs to know what the boundaries are in order to feel safe and secure, and if he doesn’t have that, he feels out of sorts and irritable from the effort it takes to scope out the boundaries and limits in his world. At some point, we’ll have to help him be more independent in meeting that need, but for now, I’m happy to help him with that. It’s better for all of us, and the real world doesn’t negotiate every little thing and give all kinds of warnings either.

I think I also need to just leave and go home when he’s acting up, even if it’s not technically fair to O. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this if I just had one kid, or a kid and a baby who doesn’t know the difference. I know it works, but I really struggle with this, for a couple of reasons. Obviously, it just sucks to take O home too when he’s been behaving himself. I feel really bad for him. But the other hard part is that when I tell them both that we’re leaving and it’s because of N’s misbehavior, then I have two wailing kids to get dressed and out the door.  They’re big boys, as big as your average newly-minted four year olds, and the logistics of getting them both into the car under those circumstances are formidable. The last time we had to leave somewhere, I had one kicking kid on my hip, and one going boneless. I simply can’t carry them both anymore – that’s 70+ pounds of kid, and I have a bad back.

Still, I think there are some things I can do. I can arrange something with O to make it up to him if he unjustly has to leave. I now have a lollipop in my glove compartment for this purpose, and while N isn’t going to like that one little bit and I sure won’t rub it in his face any more than it naturally would anyway, I think that’s fair. O has no choice about whether we leave if his brother acts up, so as far as I’m concerned that’s not a bribe, that’s compensation. If they’re both refusing to physically cooperate about leaving, I can hold onto both of their wrists until they move forward. I hate this—everyone stares, people offer to help but there’s really nothing they can do, and it seems like time just kind of stands still when I have to do this. I can also remind both boys of the rules before we go in somewhere. I did that in the car before we went into church on Sunday, and they were great. N tested me once, refusing to listen and leave the Church Nursery when his brother urgently needed to go to the bathroom and we were going to visit Fellowship time between church and Sunday School. He did scream really loudly after I counted silently to five and then picked him up, but only for a second, and then he was fine. And so was I.

 

breath sounds

O is having a really tough time kicking this cold despite being on preventative asthma meds now. We’ve been to the doctor twice in the last 24 hours to get his breath sounds and oxygen checked. He’s been on the low side of acceptable both times, but he’s still home with us and not on the drug from hell that makes us have to live with a little crazy man prednisone, so we’ll take it, I guess. Today’s doctor had his asthma diagnosis changed from moderate to severe. It’s becoming obvious that asthma is a part of our family’s experience now, and affects everything from our budget to our schedule to what we worry over and plan around. Every cold, even every high-pollution day, brings extra medication, monitoring, and worry. O is a very happy, otherwise-thriving little guy, but I pray that he grows out of this before it really limits him.

I’m emotionally and physically wiped out today. I am a worrywart, and my kids’ illnesses are the worst of all worries, it seems. Despite all that, I’m amazed what a little empathy does for my ability to be patient. O was so sick today, his breathing so heavy and labored, so warm, his little body drooped all over mine. All that loving touch we had together filled me up a little, and the chaos, and the whining, and the crying and the mess just didn’t undo me today the way it normally might. Today I’m not angry at the world, or mad at my kids or anyone else, I’m just spent. I remember being more patient like this when they were tiny, and it’s a good thing for me to remember—that I was once better able to embrace their innocence.

The era of discipline is so complicated, so fraught with doubt for me at times. I was a more confident mother of babies. N and I have been struggling together, and it has been wearing on me over the last few weeks. He is filled with tantrums these days, and seems to want to control every part of every transition. He has such a tough time with transitions, such aversion to change, and seems to crave so much control over every little thing. J has been struggling with him too. Trying to gain some kind of peaceful cooperation from him takes tremendous patience, and tremendous creative effort. I feel like I’m trying so hard, to be consistent, to give him choices and fair warning, to be empathetic, and it is still very hard to get through some days without losing my patience mightily. I get so frustrated with him at times I have to leave the room for a minute just to catch my breath. It’s been harder to take the boys places lately than it’s been for some time, and to feel like our world is shrinking a bit in the midst of a long and very cold winter is a blow.

To top it all off, I can’t seem to shake a feeling that I’m a bit ashamed of: I’m embarrassed. Though I would never judge another parent for simply having a child who throws a fit in public, I admit to being embarrassed to be that mother at times lately. I really need to just get over it and not worry about what people think, but that’s easier said than done. N throws a big fit, or several small ones at a playgroup or in a store, and I can feel the stares, even if I have no reason to think they’re anything other than sympathetic. Family members on both sides spanked, and I sometimes wonder if they think we should too. I shouldn’t care what people think, but I do.

Thankfully, N was in some kind of Terrible-Two remission today, and he was incredibly sweet to O. It’s so easy to feel all swollen with love for him when he’s like this, his giant smile lighting up the whole house, his boundless energy and enthusiasm carrying us all through. He’s had a sinus infection, and maybe he’s finally getting past it. At nap time, we went through our little song-and-dance: I ask him if he needs anything else, and he says no, then as I’m almost to the door, he says, so quietly I almost can’t hear him: “rock me a little minute”. And I do. I support my children’s independence whenever I lovingly can, but I am so very happy to rock my almost three-year-old boy in the dim light of his bedroom, the afternoon sun coming through the blinds in slits on a frigid day. N doesn’t let people in easily. He’s not the least bit shy, but true trust and vulnerability are another story, and he struggles with letting himself receive the affection he seems to need, choosing most of the time to brush off any attempt at a hug or a squeeze, even from his parents. Vulnerability from him is a rare enough gift that I'm never anything other than grateful to see it. I sing to him as we rock, Dona Nobis Pacem, a round in three parts all on my own, one part after the other. He relaxes, grows heavy, clutches Bunny in his left hand, his right hand playing with my hair. Rock, soothe, rock, breathe, rock, sing, breathe, grant us peace…

fear

So, a little more about Lent. I’m losing a bit of momentum with the cleaning and purging, and part of what’s standing in my way is fatigue. I’m so tired at the end of the day, and so I do more sedentary stuff. But, I also go to bed too late, either because I start the cleaning and purging and organizing too late, or because I actually stay up too late in front of the computer. I’m not immune to getting sucked into a screen even without the TV, and I think the main “suck” is blog reading. I really don’t want to give this up, because I’m a blogger myself, and unlike TV, I really value all the relationships I have in the blog world. I enjoy it and I am enriched by it. You guys mean the world to me, and are a legitimate part of the community in my life. Nonetheless, I know I’d go to bed earlier,  get more sleep, and have more energy to tackle the clutter and the basement if I spent less time reading blogs.

So, for Lent, I’m giving up my super-long Bloglines list. I created a separate one with just 10 blogs on it (and no, I’m not telling), mostly family and friends who don’t post much, but if I want to read anyone else, I’ll have to look them up for the next month and a half. If I’m not commenting in your neck of the woods and did, I’m sure I’ll be back, but I’m going to take this time to find a little more balance and get a little more rest. I’m also going to use a timer for my computer usage unless I’m actually writing. I really need to clean up some essays and articles and get some queries out there, and while blogging is a wonderful and enjoyable form of writing, it competes with the time I have to write essays and articles. It’s so much easier, with so much more immediate reward and feedback, to write a blog post than an article. I don’t know if I’ll be blogging less during Lent—I’ve really been feeling like posting lately, and I feel like writing about the Compact is an important part of doing the Compact—but I might.

And the truth is, I’m also afraid. I lack confidence as a writer sometimes, and I think I find a lot of safety and support in the blogging format. It’s not just more work, it’s also a lot scarier to send a perfected version of something out there and have it possibly be rejected, and it’s harder to have to wait for a response or receive no response at all. But I think I just need to do it anyway. I want to write, to be a writer. I don’t have an English degree or any fancy letters after my name, and that holds me back sometimes. Pursuing a more well-rounded education in English or writing is such a distant dream I don’t even think about it most days. It simply isn’t possible anytime soon, and may never happen. Instead, I start thinking that other writers have all this context and knowledge about writing that I don’t have, which is probably true, and there’s this little voice inside that chides me for even thinking I can do this.

But what’s the worst thing that could happen if I put my writing out there a bit more? It’s not like I’m trying to publish a novel or write for the New York Times right now. Rejection isn’t the end of the world. Fear is a big monster to tame, but if that’s possibly the biggest thing standing in my way, even if I do have a lot to learn, then I think it’s probably worth taming. So, during Lent, I’m also trying to whisper kind and encouraging thoughts to myself, the same kinds of things I often whisper to my children: One step at a time. Keep working at it. Practice. Keep trying. Be brave..