S'kid stuff

Where the Wild Things Are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY-dXsR_ZFg

Where the shits and giggles are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsLqKAvKiQM

Mad Marriage

Anonyhub and I have watched a few episodes of "Mad Men" together over the past couple of nights. Good show. It's mostly about sexism so far, and set in the 50's so the characters can say outrageous things no one could get away with now.

We talked for hours after both of our TV-watching sessions ended. It was nice. Anonyhub said some things I didn't expect him to say; he made me laugh, and vice versa. We talked about sex, and past relationships. For so long, we've only ever talked about Anonybabe. We were/are both a bit obsessed with her.

I like that my focus on Anonybabe is easing a bit. She's still the apple of my eye, but the more I see she can fend for herself, the more I let go and let her hold her own. It felt appropriate - if exhausting - to play hovercraft over her for a couple of years. Now, it doesn't feel so appropriate. I feel like I'm waking up and realizing I have a life, I have a husband, I have some goals. It's pretty exciting, actually. Knowing that I have all of these things and a kick-ass little kid to watch blossom along the way.

Help

To the two people who read my post now and again: Hi. I found a couple of parenting magazines that accept submissions from people such as you and me, and I was thinking of recycling a blog entry to send in to them. Be it silly or sad, is there any blog entry you found memorable? Or, more likely, a subject I may have touched on that you think about on a regular basis? Let me know and I'll try to send something in. I do love the smell of rejection letters in the morning.

Thanks.

Dad, Dad, Daddy-O

http://www.dadcentric.com/2009/06/black-hockey-dadcentric-reviews-bad-kids.html

Toy Story

What is it with toy stores and throw-away parenting revelations? Because I had another one standing by the wooden doll houses Saturday.

Anonybabe has been asking to go to the toy store a lot. We take her to one Anonyhub and I frequented well before she was born. They have a Thomas the Train play table that she loves, and balls, and books, and...well, toys. And I like taking her because she likes it so much. Although taking a 1-2 year old is not as fun as going alone. I can still remember wandering freely through the store and wanting this or that tidbit for my very own. Now I just spend my time making sure Anonybabe doesn't wing a Thomas across the crowded store and accidentally hit someone, or mouth the sippy cups emblazoned with kids' names, or wander out the door.

As I was leaning on a shelf and yawning lustily while Anonybabe was put a wooden doll to sleep in his wooden doll house bed (green wooden dollhouse, complete with little wooden recycling station and little wooden solar panels...I didn't know whether to cheer or roll my eyes), I realized it was my own damn fault I was bored. I was in a fucking toy store. So I willed myself to at least imagine - if I weren't watching Anonybabe and could play with anything - what I would play with. I didn't realize how rusty my own play wheels were until I felt them laboriously grinding into motion. It was really hard to think about which toys tickled my fancy, honestly. But being there was a lot more fun when I started trying to engage myself. And I thought of things I could play with Anonybabe. Things I actually want to do. Not that we should always be playing what Mommy wants to play, but having two people with differing but vibrant ideas about what constitutes fun has to be a lot better than one zombie deadbeat wishing she were watching TV instead.

But going to the playground still sucks. I was always more of a stay-inside-and-watch-PBS kind of kid. I don't like playing on the playground equipment. I like walking, which bores the shit out of Anoybabe. We'll have to meet in the middle on that one, but at least I am trying to think creatively about ways I, and hence we could have more actual fun.

Shake, Shake, Shake, Senora

Coincidence? I think not.

It feels like I say this every few days, but it seems true: something has shifted. I feel tolerant of Anonybabe's peccadillos all of the sudden. I don't know why. But there are a few happenings clustered around this feeling that may or may not be related.

Happening the first: Anonybabe's daycare had their annual picnic on Friday. All the kids and parents got together at 4 o'clock for pizza and chit chat. (It was fun; a crowd of middle-aged introverts with only one or two kids each. Anonyhub and I are hitting it off nicely with several families). At one point Anonybabe wandered off with a balloon she'd been given and managed to pop it on the lawn. I asked her to pick up the pieces of orange rubber and throw them in the trash can. While we were walking to the trash, she got distracted by some revelry by the swing set and threw her balloon bits down to run over and join in. I called her back, and as I stood over her, dictating that she pick up each piece she'd missed, I had a moment of clarity. I was being a fucking asshole. Yes, I did and do want to teach Anonybabe to be responsible for herself, to clean up her messes and be generally considerate. But I was using my responsibility to teach as an excuse for being lazy and rude. If I were with an adult who was picking up, I'd have given them a hand. Especially at a freaking picnic. Something in me relaxed - I decided it was okay to use some common sense and a sliding scale when it came to teaching my daughter responsibility. Hmm, it wasn't until I wrote this sentence just now that I realize this was exactly what Anonyhub was lecturing me about last week.

Happening the second: I finally tried spanking Anonybabe. A sharp slap on the hand that I warned her about ahead of time. It didn't work at all. She looked at me quizzically after the first slap and then laughed nervously after the second. It was bedtime and she wouldn't be quiet. The punishment didn't help the crime because she was venting nervous energy to begin with and the slaps just amped her up. But I felt strangely light and free after trying it. I'd come to the conclusion that spanking isn't a big deal and is worth a try, and I'd decided if it worked, I was gonna use it. It didn't (that time - not saying I won't bust it out again) and I lost the guilty feeling that I was avoiding a simple fix for no good reason.

The upshot is that I found myself being laid back with Anonybabe yesterday. Enjoying her and/or keeping my cool when she went off the handle. She's been a horror today and - knock on wood - it isn't getting to me like it usually does. I hope the self-control and tolerance lasts, because it's delightful. Something about it feels like it did when Anonybabe was a newborn, and being a parent was nothing but draining, but I had this deep, deep sense of peace. For the moment, I feel like my gut instincts are on track.

Incidentally, I have also been getting more Anonymom time. Time with friends, time to myself.

Burning Buns of Fire

I have never wanted to spank Anonybabe as badly as I wanted to spank her last night. It would have been incredibly satisfying to smack her little behind hard. I only speak the ugly truth.

She spent the early evening throwing things at me after I asked, then told, then harshly told her not to. This is not something she's usually wont to do; she casually tossed my shoe to me when I walked in the door "Mama? You want your shoooe?" and after I asked her not to do that she spent the rest of the night observing the effects of launching this or that item in my direction (a ball, a food-covered fork).

And then we had an awful bedtime. Much of it our fault, she'd slept in with Anonyhub and didn't take a nap, and then we didn't get her to bed early so that she was incredibly slap happy by the time we turned out the lights and told her it was quiet time. She babbled and sang at the top of her lungs, stood up and crashed down in her bed, kicked and squirmed. None of this would be an issue if we didn't share a bedroom. But I was also going to bed early because I was nursing a cold. Plus Anonybabe has pulled this sort of stunt in daycare, when she's in a room of 2 year olds trying to take a nap. The girl does need to learn to be quiet when we ask her to be quiet. She feeds on the attention she gets from being loud when she's supposed to shush up and it's fucking obnoxious. She attention-mongered for something like half an hour, pushing my buttons, pushing Anonyhubs, giggling nervously and giddily when we would snap harshly at her to be quiet. I longed to slap her behind repeatedly, vengefully. Thankfully, Anonyhub saw how unhinged I was getting and he kept me at bay.

The only time she would be remotely quiet was when we were in her face. Anonyhub finally picked her up and pinned her arms and legs and rocked and shushed her to sleep.

Sigh. Did she run the show last night? Yeah, she did. Would a spanking have been in order? Possibly. I'm saving that for my nuclear option. It may be that they would work beautifully with Anonybabe and I'm doing us both a disservice by not spanking her. It's a little arbitrary to withhold it when I've pinched and yanked her in the past. But I don't know that spanking is such a good idea for me either. I had weird spanking experiences as a child and so the act is a little bit tainted for me. Plus they didn't work on me, so I'm a little bit biased. But I don't think physical pain is such a horrible thing to inflict on a kid, it's the psychological jabs you throw that are the problem. And those can happen with or without the application of palm to behind. I don't think they are such a big deal.

We'll see. I get the impression discipline is a custom-made ride for each parent and child, so I don't feel so bad that I'm flying blind, here.