Squidbits from FOUR
Squid is four. And he is a very, very big boy. He can dress himself with minimal help, brush his own teeth and get most of them clean, sleeps in a big boy bed that Daddy made just for him, and helps me when I cook dinner (he can stir and sift like anything!)
He even helped make his own birthday cakes, though the more elaborate parts of that project were taken care of by Yours Truly. He wanted a “shark cake” – but last year, when I made him a shaped cake to his request, he cried when we cut it. So this year I made a small shark cake … and also some shark-fin cupcakes, to be et on the day of. The shark cake itself lasted 24 hours before meeting its demise at the ravenous jaws of a school of hungry preschoolers. Squid got the fins, as he had already licked them (ew!) and I’m sure, as they were made of pure marzipan, he floated through the remainder of his birthday on a sugar high unprecedented around these parts.
Of course, the next weekend he out-did himself at Grammy Vi’s 98th birthday party in LA. My Aunt K, who is not big on discipline, had put the gummi bears out in a large dish at child height. I tried to move them once (“If you keep eating those, you will feel sick,”), but he found them again. If you ask him what happened after that he will tell you, “I ate too many gummi bears. And then I got sick.” Score one for my psychic mommy powers of prediction! Poor little bug. But everyone has to learn that one through experience. Heck, I had hurt myself in an all-too-similar fashion with some Thin Mints just the week before, so who am I to judge?
He’s a little over three and a half feet tall, all energy and opinion and curiosity about his world. The mantra this month has been “Be careful of other people’s bodies!” because he is so excitable and distractible that he is prone to crashing into people or whacking them by accident out of sheer enthusiasm. Or pique, but you know, that’s a different issue. In any case, there’s some growing going on somewhere, though we’re not seeing noticeable height or weight increases recently, because his food intake has spiked (even as his pickiness as increased) and he is hungry all the time.
The battle of wills around eating and other things continues apace, and we are talking a lot about how we need to help each other make good decisions, because my patience doesn’t always hold up well to his testing. We get sequences that look, all too often, like [Bad Squid behavior] –> [correct and patient Mommy reaction] –> [Bad Squid behavior repeated as necessary until] –> [bad Mommy reaction] –> [upset Squid]. “I’m angry that you’re mad at me!” he will say. “Can you say sorry that you were angry?” It’s so hard to take responsibility for my own poor behavior while still pointing out that his actions have consequences as well. But personal responsibility is a central value in our family, and we’ll get it through by hook or by crook.
He’s been staying up later – he still has a nap at preschool daily, as well as on the weekends, and so while his bedtime has remained the same, he’s upped the delays (particularly as he is no longer in a crib so he can get up and come out if he needs something) and regularly stays up for an hour or so reading to himself (well, looking at pictures) or playing in bed. Both Himself and I frequently read in bed, so we’re not discouraging it, but I do wish the Squid would make up for it by sleeping a little later (even Daylight Savings has not helped in this regard). Like his mommy, he gets cranky when he’s short on sleep.
We’ve been solo parenting this month, and the Fan Club is out gallivanting around Southeast Asia, so we’ve been without our usual backup. I am glad to report that with careful planning and a lot of outside help (some paid, some from dear friends) we have been doing okay so far. I’m very tired, but instead of pushing through, I’ve made getting the sleep I need a priority – over my job, over my scruples about having a nanny in (someone has come to help twice a week in the mornings, which is a godsend), and over anything else I need to do that is not directly related to Squidcare. And it’s made me a better and more patient mommy, I hope and believe. Still, we will both be very glad when Daddy comes home. As will Himself, no doubt.
When the Squid sits on the potty he has started to say, “I want privacy! Shut the door!” And we do, because he asks. And similarly, Himself and I have talked, and we will now be drawing a curtain over this period of the Squid’s life. It is time that he should get the privacy that all persons, big and small, are entitled to, and I will no longer be writing detailed public updates about him every month. I am grateful on a regular basis that the Internets were not ubiquitously around prior to the more robust development of my own prefrontal cortex, and I will extend that blessing to young Squid as well as I can.
Of course, this is still my blog and I am still his mother; I won’t pretend I don’t have a wonderful son who delights and thwarts me on a regular basis. But the updates, when they come, will be primarily about me and the new small person (due June 3 or thereabouts), rather than about the Squid.
Speaking of which, pregnancy continues apace, now entering the third trimester. I am disappointed that we have made it to the 21st century without the ability to grow babies in vats, but “it is what it is” – my most recent life motto – and so we carry on. I’ve knocked all the major prenatal items off my to-do list, passed the glucose tests, passed the amnio, fetus is kicking and squirming like anything, we have all the baby clothes we need, I’m knitting up a storm (after 4 years of nothing on the needles), and I’m tired and uncomfortable as hell – in other words, all systems normal. The dreams are totally vivid and fucked-up, though, wow. You would not want to share my subconscious these days; it’s like all the abstract thought processes that escape me in my waking hours appear in surreal Technicolor during REM sleep.
I have no idea what my life – our life – will be like once this baby arrives. I have given up on catastrophizing or speculating or hoping about it, at least for the nonce. I have no idea how we will manage or if we will manage or what we will need or anything. And I’m feeling remarkably Zen about it; after all, it’s out of my control now. It is what it is, que será será, etc.
He even helped make his own birthday cakes, though the more elaborate parts of that project were taken care of by Yours Truly. He wanted a “shark cake” – but last year, when I made him a shaped cake to his request, he cried when we cut it. So this year I made a small shark cake … and also some shark-fin cupcakes, to be et on the day of. The shark cake itself lasted 24 hours before meeting its demise at the ravenous jaws of a school of hungry preschoolers. Squid got the fins, as he had already licked them (ew!) and I’m sure, as they were made of pure marzipan, he floated through the remainder of his birthday on a sugar high unprecedented around these parts.
Of course, the next weekend he out-did himself at Grammy Vi’s 98th birthday party in LA. My Aunt K, who is not big on discipline, had put the gummi bears out in a large dish at child height. I tried to move them once (“If you keep eating those, you will feel sick,”), but he found them again. If you ask him what happened after that he will tell you, “I ate too many gummi bears. And then I got sick.” Score one for my psychic mommy powers of prediction! Poor little bug. But everyone has to learn that one through experience. Heck, I had hurt myself in an all-too-similar fashion with some Thin Mints just the week before, so who am I to judge?
He’s a little over three and a half feet tall, all energy and opinion and curiosity about his world. The mantra this month has been “Be careful of other people’s bodies!” because he is so excitable and distractible that he is prone to crashing into people or whacking them by accident out of sheer enthusiasm. Or pique, but you know, that’s a different issue. In any case, there’s some growing going on somewhere, though we’re not seeing noticeable height or weight increases recently, because his food intake has spiked (even as his pickiness as increased) and he is hungry all the time.
The battle of wills around eating and other things continues apace, and we are talking a lot about how we need to help each other make good decisions, because my patience doesn’t always hold up well to his testing. We get sequences that look, all too often, like [Bad Squid behavior] –> [correct and patient Mommy reaction] –> [Bad Squid behavior repeated as necessary until] –> [bad Mommy reaction] –> [upset Squid]. “I’m angry that you’re mad at me!” he will say. “Can you say sorry that you were angry?” It’s so hard to take responsibility for my own poor behavior while still pointing out that his actions have consequences as well. But personal responsibility is a central value in our family, and we’ll get it through by hook or by crook.
He’s been staying up later – he still has a nap at preschool daily, as well as on the weekends, and so while his bedtime has remained the same, he’s upped the delays (particularly as he is no longer in a crib so he can get up and come out if he needs something) and regularly stays up for an hour or so reading to himself (well, looking at pictures) or playing in bed. Both Himself and I frequently read in bed, so we’re not discouraging it, but I do wish the Squid would make up for it by sleeping a little later (even Daylight Savings has not helped in this regard). Like his mommy, he gets cranky when he’s short on sleep.
We’ve been solo parenting this month, and the Fan Club is out gallivanting around Southeast Asia, so we’ve been without our usual backup. I am glad to report that with careful planning and a lot of outside help (some paid, some from dear friends) we have been doing okay so far. I’m very tired, but instead of pushing through, I’ve made getting the sleep I need a priority – over my job, over my scruples about having a nanny in (someone has come to help twice a week in the mornings, which is a godsend), and over anything else I need to do that is not directly related to Squidcare. And it’s made me a better and more patient mommy, I hope and believe. Still, we will both be very glad when Daddy comes home. As will Himself, no doubt.
When the Squid sits on the potty he has started to say, “I want privacy! Shut the door!” And we do, because he asks. And similarly, Himself and I have talked, and we will now be drawing a curtain over this period of the Squid’s life. It is time that he should get the privacy that all persons, big and small, are entitled to, and I will no longer be writing detailed public updates about him every month. I am grateful on a regular basis that the Internets were not ubiquitously around prior to the more robust development of my own prefrontal cortex, and I will extend that blessing to young Squid as well as I can.
Of course, this is still my blog and I am still his mother; I won’t pretend I don’t have a wonderful son who delights and thwarts me on a regular basis. But the updates, when they come, will be primarily about me and the new small person (due June 3 or thereabouts), rather than about the Squid.
Speaking of which, pregnancy continues apace, now entering the third trimester. I am disappointed that we have made it to the 21st century without the ability to grow babies in vats, but “it is what it is” – my most recent life motto – and so we carry on. I’ve knocked all the major prenatal items off my to-do list, passed the glucose tests, passed the amnio, fetus is kicking and squirming like anything, we have all the baby clothes we need, I’m knitting up a storm (after 4 years of nothing on the needles), and I’m tired and uncomfortable as hell – in other words, all systems normal. The dreams are totally vivid and fucked-up, though, wow. You would not want to share my subconscious these days; it’s like all the abstract thought processes that escape me in my waking hours appear in surreal Technicolor during REM sleep.
I have no idea what my life – our life – will be like once this baby arrives. I have given up on catastrophizing or speculating or hoping about it, at least for the nonce. I have no idea how we will manage or if we will manage or what we will need or anything. And I’m feeling remarkably Zen about it; after all, it’s out of my control now. It is what it is, que será será, etc.
posted by The Stute Fish at 07:48
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