Yelling and Screaming and NO!...oh my

My baby. My perfect, happy, adorable little baby. Man, can she scream.

E is officially making her bid to gain status as an independent human being. Loudly. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. In theory, it is very much a good thing. In reality however, I am seriously wondering how long it will be before concerned neighbours show up at my door with child welfare representatives in tow. Everyone goes through this, right? Right?

Okay, I know it's normal. What I don't know is how to handle it. I used to watch Nanny 911 and scoff at the incompetence of parents who were afraid to discipline their children and would rather give in than spend the energy teaching their children how to behave. I was always able to offer up my sage advice on how I would have appropriately handled the situation. Now I'm on the other side of the fence. The side where the decibel meter is shattered daily, where the reward for ensuring a child's safety is an all-out tirade of fury, and where one is constantly reminded of her inadequacies as a caregiver. It's tough on this side. And I could use a little guidance. Like, oh I don't know, a visit from Nanny 911.

Not that it has gotten that bad yet. Right now we just have a fiery little 15 month old who is not sure what the rules are and just wants what she wants without a full arsenal of skills to express herself or understand why her mama does what she does. And a mama who just wants her baby...er - toddler...to be happy and cuddly all the time no matter what, which may not be entirely realistic.

I could use some advice. So please, anyone with wise words for coping with this tricky stage, please impart your wisdom. Should I be giving her time-outs for tantrums or just when she does something wrong? Do I just wait out the tantrum or get in there amidst the flailing body parts and try to redirect her attention? How much explanation can she handle at this stage?

Part of the problem is that we haven't really childproofed yet, apart from the odd plug cover and a couple of elastic bands around door handles. Also, the place is a mess. So she is always seeing things to get her hands on that she shouldn't. The obvious solution to this is to get the apartment in order with all things she can't have out of her reach/sight, and to childproof. Okay, so who is picking her up and taking her away this weekend so that I can get started? Anyone???

Inspiration

Everyone needs a little inspiration now and then. A little motivational speaker on their shoulder to remind them about the importance of finding joy and peace in everyday life. Yesterday was a rough day and I found myself lacking perspective. E was cranky, we hadn't had much sleep, it was cold and gloomy, and nothing seemed to go the way we wanted it to. It was just one of those days.

This morning I was reading a friend's blog, and clicked on a link to one of the blogs she follows. It was about the trend these days in getting so much genetic testing done and people choosing to abort fetuses as a result of illness or even gender. From there she went on to talk about God and the tendency people have these days to "design" a God that fits their lifestyle. I'm not a religious person, but the post resonated with me. I took away a message that was perhaps different from what she had intended, but just as valuable.

Life is to be enjoyed. Everyone struggles and falters, and no one has it all. Every day there will be things around us to complain about, and things around us to cherish and be grateful for. All we can do is make a choice. We can focus on the negative and become weighed down by misery, we can focus on the positive and be surrounded by hope and good will, or we can choose not to focus at all and lose out on the experience of life itself.

I am making the choice today to see beauty wherever I look. I hope to make the same choice tomorrow.

Here are three poems that often pop into my head when I'm having a bad day and need some inspiration. I am grateful for the people who have shared them with me.

Don't Quit (My Grade 6 teacher Mrs. Goulagh forced us to memorize this poem. This is an excerpt.)

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Untitled (We used to have this up on a corkboard in our kitchen growing up.)

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

The Serenity Prayer (Our cheerleading coaches, Sandy & Adam, would lead us in this prayer before competitions)

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

...and that's about as spiritual as I get folks. :)

Look at all the FAH-VAHS!

It's springtime in New York! If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the most pretty places to be this time of year, along with Paris of course. And our neighbourhood must be one of the prettiest in all of Brooklyn. Carroll's Gardens are all in bloom, and it's driving both my daughter and allergy sufferers crazy, though for different reasons. My neighbour was outside sweeping all traces of plant matter from his stoop and sidewalk the other day in a futile attempt to keep the sniffles at bay. My daughter, on the other hand, can't be within arms reach of a flower without yelling "FAH-VAH!" (in a surprisingly convincing Brooklyn-baby accent) and going in for a "pet". She LOVES flowers. Especially ones that she can touch, and she's usually pretty gentle. But if a petal "accidentally" becomes separated from the stem, she likes it when I stroke her cheek with it.

We have flowers from Easter on the kitchen table that cause her no end of distraction during mealtimes, there is a new planting of annuals two doors down from us that she MUST visit EVERY time we walk by, and the multitude of pink and white flowering trees along our street send her into shrieking ecstasy.

Her second favourite word these days is "CAH" (there's that accent again!), which includes anything with wheels. And her ride of choice is the trike she got for her birthday. When we get it out she says "CAH! CAH!" and as soon as she's on it she starts demanding "GO! GO!". I don't know who looks happier - my girl on her sweet ride, or the passers-by getting a kick out of how cute she is.

Daddies have fashion sense too!

I am a lucky girl. Every weekend, J gets up early and takes E for a little daddy-daughter time so mama can sleep in and relax. They always have lots of fun together. They take Ralph for walks, they go out to brunch, and sometimes they go to Gymboree. I used to feel like I had to get her ready for these excursions, probably because I'm so used to doing it every day that if I don't do it I feel like I've forgotten something. But J is more than capable of handling the entire production. In fact, he takes particular pride in choosing her outfits. I have to say that in general, he is more concerned about what she wears than I am. Some days I just keep her in her pyjamas all day, but not her da-da. Every day is a new opportunity to look fabulous!

The New Rules

The internet is down. Gasp! What will I do while I drink my coffee and eat breakfast? What will I do to escape from real life for a few minutes in the middle of my day? Will I miss out on some great deals from my online parents group? Who has emailed me that I won’t know about? How much time can I spend trying to fix the problem before I am categorized as “obsessed”?

For the past several - erm - months, I have been thinking about cutting down on the amount of time I spend on the computer. At one time I had told myself that I would not use the computer when the girl was awake. Hm. That didn’t take. A couple of days ago I implemented a strict “Computer use limited to one email check/hour while E is awake” rule, coupled with a “No Facebook while E is awake” clause. Just making the rule made me feel like a bad mother. I mean, who sits on the computer while their child fends for themselves in the background? Shudder. Something needed to be done.

You see, I’m a fly-by surfer. The computer is always on, always logged in to email and usually to Facebook. Also occasionally to Amazon and other online shopping websites while I debate whether or not to pull the trigger on various purchases. (I’m casting a pretty wide net with the use of the word occasional.) I don’t spend large chunks of time sitting at the computer (except during naps and at night), but I can’t seem to walk past it (and it’s conveniently located in the middle of the apartment so that I’m ALWAYS walking past it) without doing a quick “Check Mail”, and perhaps a little “News Feed” update.

---First check to see if the internet has come back up---

I don’t want to be addicted to the computer. I take pride in the fact that I don’t have a television. It is important to me that E doesn’t grow up glued to the screen, brain numbed into submission and motivation beaten senseless. I used to watch a lot of television; it’s how J and I used to spend the hours between roughly 5pm-11pm every evening. I loved it, and I hated it. It was so liberating when we got rid of it. But now I’m afraid that I’ve just replaced it with another equally debilitating vice. It’s just as important to me that E doesn’t develop an obsession with the computer, stripping her of all need for real human contact. But at this point,

---Second check to see if the internet is up---

the computer is one of the focal points of her day as her mom and her dad spend so much time at it that she figures it must be pretty important. We don’t let her use it, and probably because of that she always wants to get at it. The only time we let her near it is to Skype with my parents, and she gets so excited and wants to press all of the buttons. It’s obviously going to be a source of interest for her, and we’re obviously going to have to let her use it at some point and set some boundaries and limits and strike a balance and all that parenting crap, but I think the first thing we need to do is get it in check for ourselves. One of the reasons that we stopped watching tv was to set an example for our children. This is the next challenge for us. After that it will be cutting back on my chocolate consumption, but I’m not ready to talk about that yet. Let’s stick with the computer for now.

The Rules

1. Email can be checked only once every 3 hours, as well as during naps and in the evening. Replies to email are limited to naps/evening unless absolutely necessary.
2. Absolutely no recreational computer use (FB, online shopping, etc.) while E is awake.
1. Time spent on Facebook is limited to 15 minutes per day.
3. Online banking, mapping/scheduling reference and other “semi-legitimate” browsing permitted on an as needed basis - but is limited to 5 minutes at a time.

---Third check---

4. More time is to be devoted to writing. Blogging, emailing friends and family to stay in touch and working on various writing projects should be the main focus of computer use.

I feel better already. Wish me luck on this daunting challenge, and feel free to inquire on my progress. All encouragement/harassment/brow-beating will be appreciated. It’s for the good of the children.

Happy Days

Today was a good day. A little slow getting going, and a little hectic at times, but it all worked out. I managed to make it to Go Go Babies class, albeit about 25 minutes late, and she had a great time. She is in love with the teacher, Ellynne. She just stares at her the whole time. Then we headed over to Prospect Park to take some pictures in the leaves. It's a bit late in the season but we've had some beautiful weather this week and I wanted to take advantage of it.

On the way home, baboushka fell asleep and I decided to stop at a cafe and relax with a cappuccino. I found a little place called Trois Pommes Patisserie on 5th Ave. at Carroll St. The cappuccino was delicious, but the real treat was the little concord grape pie that grabbed my eye. Grape pie? I had to try it. I brought it home to enjoy after my dinner of pumpkin-filled gnocchi and greens. It was spectacular. Who knew?

There's poop on the floor...and I'm okay with that.

I'm not a neat freak. I would say that I'm about average in terms of tidiness. I'm about half a dozen steps down from Godliness, if you will. I do get stressed out in an untidy environment, and that usually spurs me into action, but sometimes I'd rather just be stressed out.

And then along comes baby. Yes, I blame the baby. She's a great scapegoat, especially since she cannot yet form the words to defend herself. Before E arrived, I managed to make sure that at the end of each day the dishes were done, dirty clothes were put in the hamper, and the place was tidied of daily clutter. I would keep the floors fairly well swept, the sinks pretty well clean, and once in a while I would commission my wonderful husband to scrub the toilet and push a vacuum around for a bit. As systems go, it worked for us.

Fast forward to present day. I am generally still capable of washing most of the dishes by day's end. There are several key spots in the apartment where clothes are routinely deposited, dirty or otherwise, and neither of those spots is the hamper. If by tidy you mean that I can walk through the apartment with relative ease and minimal risk of tripping on scattered debris, then...no, it's not tidy. J still pushes the vacuum around once in a while. The sinks and toilet? Well, they get attention on special occasions, read: when we get visitors.

Does this make me a bad person? I don't think so. In fact, I believe that I remain average in a new category. Average for people WITH KIDS. Although there are days when I may sink to the bottom of that category as well. Take yesterday, for example...

We use cloth diapers. Before E started on solid food, it was just a matter of throwing the whole diaper, poop and all, in a bag and throwing that bag in the washer on laundry day. Now that she's eating big girl food however, it's a whole new ball of...well, you know. I remove the poopy diaper in the bedroom and bring it to the bathroom where I use a handy sprayer (glorified bidet) to spray the poop into the toilet. Then I bring the diaper back into the bedroom and deposit it into the diaper bag. It's not the best system, I realize, but our bathroom is impossibly small and there isn't room for the diaper bag in there. So, once in a while, we lose a soldier. It's embarrassing to admit that I have poop on my floor, but there it is. Last night, as I was walking through the "dining room" (you would have to see our apartment to understand the quotation marks around "dining room"), I noticed a little...chunk...of what I imagined was composed primarily of sweet potato and banana on the floor. Mercifully, it was on the hardwood, centimeters away from the rug. This the kicker: I actually considered leaving it there. (Buries face in hands in shame.) I was on my way to the shower and just didn't feel like going out of my way to grab the paper towels and do the clean-up. But I did (gasp of relief), and it turned out to be a piece of leaf. So the only damage here is to my psyche, as I realize that what used to be a half a dozen steps is now about 20 or so flights.

Let's face it: I'm walking up an escalator going down.

BFF

Poor Ralph. He really has been getting the shaft for the last nine months or so. I distinctly remember a time when I wondered if I would be able to love a human baby as much as I love Ralph. Well, unfortunately for him, it turns out I can. But that's not to say that there isn't plenty of room left for my furry first child. He does still rate, of course. It's just that now he has to wait a little longer for his walk, his breakfast and his cuddles.

The good news is that he has gained a new friend, and once he gets over the fear of torture by hair-pulling, I think they will be inseparable.

What I'm reading

One thing I love about NYC is the stoop sales! The season is getting on now, but throughout the summer and early fall, we would wander around the neighbourhood on weekend mornings, hunting down stoop sales and finding all sorts of treasures. And almost equally abundant are the free items left out on the curb for the benefit of the likes of us. Our apartment is full to bursting of steals and deals that we brag about often.

One department in particular that has benefited most from this new lifestyle is my library. I promised my husband several months ago that I would cease and desist with the purchase of new reading material. I certainly have nothing against the local library, but I grow easy and deep attachments to my books, and have a very difficult time bringing myself to part with them once the due date comes around. I also covet new books. I just love the look, the smell, the feel, the shiny "newness" of them. But, in the interest of not digging further into our black hole of debt for unnecessary luxuries, I have complied. And in return, my neighbours have smiled on me. I have procured no less than 20 books since arriving in Brooklyn, and at least half of those were gifted to me by the fairy book gods who leave them by the boxful outside of their gates for passersby to adopt. The rest have been purchased for a pittance at various stoops.

I am averaging about 2 books a month. A snail's pace, I admit, but my time spent reading is limited primarily to the time I spend nursing baboushka. And so far I have not been disappointed by any of my selections. These days I am reading a book called Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This is a book I discovered last year, while researching books for our book club in Grenada. At the time we had more titles than time to read them and it was dropped from the list. But it has stayed in the back of my mind and on more than one occasion I have been one click away from an Amazon purchase before remembering my vow to my darling husband. So you can imagine my pure unabashed joy at finding it staring up at me while rifling through a box of free books around the corner from our house. Quite serendipitous. I scooped it up and put it aside until I was finished the book I was already reading*.

I picked it up about a week ago now and it has been an effort to put it down at the end of each session. From the first few pages it had me, and each time I pick it up the hooks sink a little deeper. It is a mystery, translated from Spanish, about a boy and a book he discovers that holds many secrets. It reminds me of a more sinister Neverending Story. I am absolutely smitten with it and am now wondering what I am doing writing about it when I could be reading it. Please excuse me...

*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I think I will devote another entry to this gem of a novel!

Hallowe'en

As I sit here munching away on an infinite assortment of sugary sweets, I am happy to report that E's first Hallowe'en was a roaring success! We crammed her into the "newborn" chili pepper costume donated by Jeff's aunt and spent ages photographing her in all sorts of adorable poses before parading her around the neighbourhood collecting candy that she can't eat. And she was fabulously good-natured about the whole thing. Even when another chili pepper turned up on our travels, she graciously offered to be photographed with him. I am already looking forward to next year when she will have more of an idea of what's going on...except then I might have some competition for the candy.