toddlers

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s…Super-Ego!

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Wednesday Momming Around Entry

The other night when Z threw a fit because seconds of applesauce were not as readily forthcoming as she wished, Husband distracted her with a new chant: “Super-ego, super-ego, super-ego…”

She has none, of course. Not yet, anyway. She is driven by id, the part of her wanting that extra heaping spoonful of applesauce, more time with her blocks, and Mama’s tenth consecutive rendition of “Hey Look Me Over” (complete with interpretive dance moves…don’t ask).

And the thing is, the id is so honest when it doesn’t have the super-ego after it, making a person feel guilty or want to act appropriately. Z wants what she wants, and she’ll tell you about it. Loudly, if necessary.

Lately what Z wants more than anything is to exert control over her immediate environment. She organizes (well, it looks like organizing, but when a stuffed gecko, Duplos, and a teapot all end up in the same box, it’s anybody’s guess), she chooses her clothes, she rearranges (small pieces) of furniture. She’s taken to bringing things to the kitchen while I fix lunch or wash the Everest of dishes. If lunch actually requires heating up food and more than a five minute wait, we’re in danger of drowning in toys and whatever largish items she can haul in there (for example: the bike, the doll cradle, Mr. Penguin and the rest of her stuffed animals, a large selection of books, a foam booster seat that she likes to sit on and cover with blankets, “her” dish towels, puzzle pieces, and of course the blocks).

And that’s perfectly normal, right? For a toddler to want to control her environment?

I guess the only problem is I’m trying to control my environment, too, and we’re living in the same one.

She wins, for now, because I’ll gladly take tripping over the occasional board book over her side leg tackle trick she likes to do while I’m working at the kitchen counter. Usually chopping fruit or using a sharp instrument for some kind of meal preparation.

Duplos & Cheerios

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Wednesday Momming-Around Entry

As Z has grown, so has her tolerance of (I won’t say “joy in” because that’s too much of a stretch) independent play. I think I got a full hour of computer time here in our basement office yesterday, while Z shuffled around her Duplo collection, “read” a couple of books, and only once or twice pestered me to see pictures of “Wab” (Rob, her godfather) on the computer.

While she tolerates playing on her own, I revel in this time, because while it isn’t solitude, it’s as close as I’m going to get until she goes to school and hypothetical Number Two (who I am banking on being a big fan of sleep) takes marathon naps.

At the same time, Mommy-Guilt is starting to rear its ugly, multifaceted head and roar at me that I’m taking advantage of my daughter’s new-found independence. I’m selfishly checking email, critiquing work for other writers, and, if I feel gutsy and Z is particularly focused on her Duplos, working in some last revisions to Savage Autumn.

How much independent play is too much? I know it isn’t my job to talk to her every second of every waking moment, and I know that it’s good for her to know how to play by herself. Do I interrupt that play (and my hard-earned separation from her–I am not lying when I say she had to be ON me 24/7 until she was about six months old) to read to her, take her outside, invent trips to the store so we can get out of the house?

Right now I’m thinking an hour is good for both of us, unless she tells me otherwise–and believe me, she will. Loud and clear. I can really use that hour. Lately I feel as if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with writing groups, this blog (which I just cut down to three days a week), and various other things-going-on.

Well, apparently I’m not hurting her chances of life joy. I just came out of my writing reverie to hear her say, “hap-py, hap-py!” as she hurled the Duplo box lid across the basement floor. Guess we’re doing okay, then.

Number Two

Posted on by Beth Hull

Number Two is a popular topic. It’s talked of between Husband and me, amongst all the play group moms, with the grandparents. Who has one, who wants one, who–oops!–made one accidentally.

It’s really too bad that my euphemism for a second child is also the euphemism for defecation. The two are very separate in my mind…mostly.

The thing is, I finally feel like I’ve gotten a handle on this whole being-a-mother thing. On a good day, that is. Only on a very good day. I’m tired all the time, still don’t get enough personal space or enough time to write, and frankly, I’m a very cranky person. Adding a new baby into the mix sounds like a batch of the terrible pumpkin bread I made one time when I mistook the teaspoon abbreviation for tablespoon on the recipe and put in way more baking soda than required. You see? More is not necessarily better.

On the other hand, I loved being pregnant. And this isn’t as uncommon as you might think. What’s not to love about being huge with purpose and able to eat pretty much everything in sight? There’s a surprise inside, a little being growing, just by virtue of your own existence. For awhile, you are not one, but two. I loved the head trip of the whole experience, not to mention the Dairy Queen trips. (Yes I know ice cream is not the best fuel for growing a little body, but try telling me that when I’m in the third trimester and see if you keep your limbs.)

On the third hand (the one I took from you when you suggested I back off on the Dairy Queen Blizzards), Z could totally use a little playmate. A) I could get away with even more slacker-mom time, and B) her demeanor just begs for more people, all the time. She’s a little extrovert. I’m still puzzling over where she got that personality disorder…er, I mean…trait.

And on the fourth hand (the one I took from Husband when he couldn’t drive me to Dairy Queen that one time, so I had to drive myself and stand in line by my pregnant self and feel very self-conscious of what a bad mom-to-be I was), Number Two can be anybody. With my luck, Number Two will sleep even less than Z does. And s/he could scream even more, if that’s humanly possible. While I dread it now, I would feel the same as I do with Z. She’s aggravating, sure, but I’d never send her back. And that’s how it’ll be with another child…if Husband ever talks me into Number Two.

Five o’Clock Disco Breakdown

Posted on by Beth Hull

When five o’clock rolls around, it’s time to dance. “It’s five o’clock!” I shout, and you immediately start your funny shuffle, some cross between the Running Man and the Moon Walk. “Clear the dance floor!” I say, kicking books, stuffed animals, and assorted wooden puzzle pieces. I give a particularly rough kick to any toy that uses batteries and makes noise, hoping it will “accidentally” break. Then, with a good beat blasting, we dance.

You prefer to dance in my arms, face to face, bouncing your own exaggerated bounces until I give in and jump up and down. You squeal, smiling wide, letting go for a second to clap your hands. Once my back is about to give out, I finally put you down and hold your hands, or one of your hands and one of Mr. Penguin’s hands–er, wings. We dance in a circle, and I sing “Ring Around the Rosie” to a disco beat. Or we dance facing each other. I do the can-can, you kick your legs out in an approximation of the can-can that looks more like a goose-step.

It’s fun when Daddy joins us. We all spin, shake our groove thangs, and laugh a lot. The perfect end to a long day.

Great Expectorations

Posted on by Beth Hull

Here is my list of ten classic works adapted for parents of small children.

1. Great Expectorations, in which young Estella, instead of being coached to break the hearts of men, is trained to spit up all over them.

2. “The Lullaby of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Highlights: “I have measured my life in baby food jars,” “I have heard my parents singing, each to each / No, you go pick her up / I am asleep,” and “In the room mommies come and go / hoping their nursing bras don’t show.”

3. The White Badge of Courage, in which heroic parents are lauded for the spit-up stains on their shirts.

4. War and Pacifiers, featuring a number of babies with misleading nicknames who battle and philosophize over a long stretch of snow-covered binkies.

5. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Nap.” The speaker, a toddler, advises a younger sibling to rage, rage against the efforts of the mom.

6. As I Lay Diapering, in which a mother attempts to sleep while changing a diaper in the middle of the night.

7. Blubbering Heights. Two parents moan and cry for each other across the expanse of their bed, held apart by the kicking arms and legs of their young child.

8. One Day in the Life of Mama Denisovich chronicles a day in the life of a stay-at-home mom tethered to her child in a setting eerily similar to that of a Siberian prison camp. No bon-bons or soap operas included.

9. The (Rude) Awakening. A frustrated mother sets out to leave her family, then realizes she will surely starve without her husband because she doesn’t know how to cook. Returns home.

10. Babywulf. A colicky infant terrorizes a medieval household.