Squidbits

In the Squid's own city, he has a different Mommy and Daddy. At first, there were no parents in the city at all - just kids - but in the last week or so he has added them in. They are not us, and not necessarily a great deal like us; the Mommy is nice and the Daddy is mean, and that's kind of all we know. They are just part of his mirror world. In his own city, he has a car and a truck and a train and a house and a bunch of other wish-fulfillment stuff. He also tells us, when we wonder about the veracity of this statement or story or that, that he saw it in his own city, or it happened in his own city. He saw a crocodile with no teeth that lived on plankton in his own city. Jet planes fly with their windows down. And snakes can have legs and not be lizards.

It's a permanent part of his imaginary life and he incorporates it into all his narratives - the narratives that aren't blatantly ripped off from books and movies he has read or seen, that is. I can usually tell which are which based on the consistency and coherence of the narrative, but not always. There's one about Peter and Mr. McGregor that seems to have nothing to do with anything Beatrix Potter ever wrote, and one about a "baby seal puff" (Me: "a baby seal pup?" Him: "No, a baby seal PUFF.") that gets rescued by its mommy. He weaves a decent yarn, these days.

But he has a crappy attitude. Not always, but sometimes - too much of the time - it's like he turned thirteen on us when we weren't looking. He rolls his eyes (a behavioral tic both Himself and I are also guilty of), sighs loudly, mutters "crazy old Mommy" under his breath, whines, stamps his feet, refuses to do what is asked of him, negotiates everything, and told me the other day, when I said he had to wipe down the toilet where there was pee on the rim, "That's not my responsibility." I would like to know whose responsibility you think it is to clean up your pee, then, bucko. I told him to eat his broccoli the other day and he actually got up off his chair, walked over to me, and kicked me in the shins!



Part of it is just that we have gotten tired of being permissive and are starting to crack down. He is almost four, and clearly capable of many of the things we would like him to do. He is now more consistently expected to clean up after himself, put away his toys, put his dishes in the sink when he is done, and eat the food he is served before getting any of the things he considers "good" in life (books, movies, playtime, dates with friends, dried fruit, etc.) Increased responsibilities mean increased policing and nagging. Spitting noises, lack of cooperation, throwing things, and other such behavior gets time outs or the loss of privileges.

Part of it is, I am sure, that like all of us, he does not want the responsibility part of being an adult. I hate that part too. It sucks. It also comes with the territory he does want to claim, and I think there's ambivalence about that. Or it could be that while he still naps every afternoon for an hour or two, he is staying up later and later past his bedtime. Our friends next door say he is ready to drop his nap, but we are not, particularly not with #2 on the way. We have always said he doesn't have to sleep as long as he does quiet time, but right now, he sleeps every day. And then stays up an hour or two after bedtime, punctuated by requests for water, better lighting, trips to the potty, and other delaying tactics.

Or maybe it's just almost-fourness; it doesn't seem developmentally out of line with what his peers are doing, not really. But whatever it is, we have gotten several bad reports from preschool lately about not listening to teachers, negative talk-back, and calling other kids names, so we are addressing it directly at home on a regular basis.

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We're also seeing more separation anxiety, possibly exacerbated by the imminence of the proto-sibling. "I might miss you," he says when we drop him at preschool, or even when we leave the room at his bedtime. "What if I miss you?" He's also asked a few times if the baby will take his toys away like the next-door neighbor's little sister does (though my observation says that that goes the other way 'round far more often.) I assured him that it would take a year at least before the baby had the coordination and speed to even try, and he seemed relieved.

We've had to crack down on the food front in part because he started requesting ice cream and cookies for dinner and refusing any and all protein- or nutrient-rich foods. If it were up to him, he'd eat nothing but snack food or cereal day in and day out. And after I had to take him to the doctor one day for his GI issues and the doctor said he wasn't getting enough fiber, well.

At first we told him that his body needed food to give it energy. But then that backfired, because he started telling me that his body needed cookies to give it energy, and it might be sad if I gave it broccoli instead. Um. So one night, he was telling me his body wanted ice cream, that it is good for his bones. And I told him yes, it is, but there is a lot of sugar in it. And then he tried to tell me sugar was good for his body.

How do you explain "empty calorie" to a three-year-old? I was super proud of what I came up with, so I brag here. It is so rare that I feel I actually get it right as a parent in any kind of substantive way, so I feel okay about rejoicing in those few golden moments.

I told him there are two kinds of things in food:
There is the caloric value, which is what makes you bigger and gives you energy.
And there is the nutritional value, which makes you strong and healthy.

Most foods, I explained, have a little of both. But it is easy to eat too much of the kind that just make you big and give you energy, and forget about how important it is to get enough of the kind that make you healthy and strong. Because different foods have different parts of what your body needs, you need to eat a lot of different kinds of food every day to stay healthy and strong and get the energy you need to grow.

Ice cream, I said, has some things that make you healthy and strong, but it has way more of the other things, so we eat it only sometimes, after we have more healthy food, as a treat. And he got it! He still doesn't like it, no, but he understood the concept, and I kept it pro-food and moderation-focused. Whew.

Himself did not like the explanation either - he is afraid I feed the Squid too many facts and too much science and impede his own, organic interpretation of the world. But my Dad was, like, the king of facts and info, and there was no shortage of imagination or wonder going on in my childhood, let me tell you.



And I swear he's just sort of that way inclined. We've been to four or five museums in the last month, and he inevitably gravitates toward the lab simulations, the pulleys, and the gears. Oh, he likes the otters, and the pin walls, and the snakes, and the cave crawls. But gears! And pulleys! And faux dinosaur digs! And lab experiments with sand! He is enthralled. I love watching him play at these places, and discover new things, and engage...though, to be honest, part of what I value is that it lets me disengage for a little while. I am becoming less interactive than ever these days, and I don't always have the patience or brain to keep up with all his needs for attention and information.



I am sunk deep in being an animal, people. Biology consumes me. All I do is eat, and sleep, and try new things to improve the quality of the eating and sleeping. Well, and work, and spend time with family and friends, but I don't even have words to talk about that, I just do it. It's not like the second trimester of pregnancy is particularly physically taxing, unlike the first or third (or fourth oh my god la la la la ostrich). I've just disappeared into myself.

Which is not to say that everything has been bovine contentment around here. On the contrary, I am experiencing increased restlessness and anxiety, familiar from my last pregnancy and now recognizable as such. I obsess over to-do lists. I occupy myself with busywork. Larger, more complex or creative projects are unappealing, but let me tell you, I am knocking the little shit off my list like nobody's business.I'm about to run out of busywork, once the taxes are done.

Any suggestions? Those of you who have two kids, what do you wish you'd gotten out of the way before the chaos of the second one arrived? I'm not talking like, quality time with the Squid or self-pampering, I'm talking about tasks, chores, concrete shit around the house. What do you now look back on and say, "Crap, I wish I'd taken care of that before, when I had more time"?



Look at that little guy. I love him so much.