ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Yeah there was a news story yesterday that had Jeff and I unapologetically shopping for toddler leashes so we are at least right there on the same page with you, NA.

When I was about Evie's age we lived in a courtyard apartment in a small city and my mom used to let me play out in the yard with all the idiot neighbor kids and I ran away a couple of times (not out of anger - I was just bored). My dad once found me wandering along a heavy-traffic road (think Ashland or Western) when he was coming home from work. It was the first time I ever got grounded.

So yeah. Leash, GPS, whatever, only God can judge me.

*straps baby into carrier; helicopters away*

imo as kids get older its important - formative even - for them to have some degree of unsupervised time to interact with other kids. I feel like between the ages of 7-12 or so I spent a LOT of time just running around with other kids in the neighborhood. I always had to tell my parents where I was going/what I was doing (playing baseball in the street, going to ___'s house) and yeah sometimes I wandered away or got in trouble or was exposed to stuff my parents would not have liked but in retrospect these were important experiences where I was learning what the outside world was really like and how to navigate it. My oldest daughter is 6 so she's not really there yet, but there's clearly a community of kids forming in our building - some of whose parents I like, some I don't - but as she gets older I fully expect her to go wandering around the building with other kids, to a certain extent. The important thing is to a) have open communication with the other parents in the building (it takes a village yadda yadda) and b) instilling certain decision-making processes in my child so that she can make appropriate decisions (don't take candy from strangers etc.)

haha I was googling toddler tracking devices this weekend

we have one of these, but didn't use it as often as we thought we would.

http://www.amazon.com/Eddie-Bauer-Harness-Buddy-Monkey/dp/B0054U4RLO

I dunno I wanna teach my kid that I trust them, and that they can earn that trust, not that I'm here to keep them on a leash

I tired the Filip out for work research, and it was pathetic. Like 6 hour battery life.

And I hope to let my (now 7-year-old) boys out to play by themselves soon. Luckily I live in a less-fancy neighborhood, so I don't think I will be judged as much.

(XP) I'm broadly of the same opinion, also because I think kids need to learn to negotiate, sort out disagreements etc. while they're relatively young and learn the consequences of risk taking. Stuff that turns you into a decent grown-up, really. How I'll feel about this once Fox reaches that age, though, I'm not sure. It might be a moot point because no kids round here roam about like I used to.

My mum had me in reins (do you really call them leashes in the US or is that just slang?) because I had a tendency to bolt and if you do a lot of walking in a place with a lot of traffic, it just seems sensible to me.

Hi my name is VG and I was a leash-baby

me2

yeah me too

wow I didn't know they had been around that long (or else you guys are way younger than I thought)

like I didn't even know those things existed until they were parodied on the Simpsons in the mid-90s

yeah mine was like a harness that had a leash attached to the back

I am 38 fyi

if you do a lot of walking in a place with a lot of traffic, it just seems sensible to me.

Bingo.

I'm all for fostering independence but I'm talking about toddlers. And NA's daughter is 3* so wanting to watch her when she's playing in the yard, especially when she's playing with other kids, is not exactly being a hovering, overprotective parent, IMO.

*I feel she would be cross with me if I did not tell you that she is almost 4.

Oh and yes, we really call them leashes in the US.

yeah toddlers you gotta watch cuz otherwise they're going to be hitting each other over the head with shit, crying, running away etc. no argument there

exception being MAYBE if they were accompanied by a much older sibling

And even without older kids having some kind of nefarious motive, it's pretty easy for an excited six year old to push down a three year old in the heat of the moment so you want to be there to stop the madness/comfort the afflicted and it would be really useful in those situations if there was someone in a position of authority over the perpetrator to be like cut that shit out.

this weekend we were joking with some visitors that we planned to send the boys over to their house to help them landscape this summer; reading this current thread digression with the vestiges of the conversation in the back of my mind is generating images of us putting 4-month-old twins out on the sidewalk in front of our building with instructions to play responsibly

That's very Scandinavian of you.

clothed or unclothed

I will let them choose; far be it for me to oppress them with my ideas on nudity

right on

I pureed a sweet potato for Ivy's first foray into non-cereal food. I'm unreasonably excited about this. I hope she likes it better than she liked the cereal.

But even if she doesn't, I will get to enjoy seeing a baby with pureed sweet potato all over her face so it's pretty win win for me.

:D

My wife and I joke about "Richard Branson-ing" our daughter, ie leaving her in a field 5 miles from home and telling her to find her way back

xxp

Heh our Yooper friends whose son was born four days after Ivy similarly joked that they were going to drop him off in the woods with only a spoon so he could prove his UP bonafides.

Then I noticed we were in a den of the types I am not comfortable with. They were all sitting there, languidly under the tree and staring. August went up to their dog, tried to play with their much younger child and the whole time I am silently freaking out, perspiring and heart thumping. I want to just get out of there. They were not friendly, didn't look happy, seemed annoyed. UGHGRRRRR! All my sweetly delivered exit lines to August were really calm and controlled but behind them was a shit load of anger and anxiety. Once we got out of there, I had to just leave.

just circling back to this for a second. tera i basically hate other parents and don't even really have much time for most other kids so i completely - COMPLETELY - feel you in this situation. however it seems to me - from what you've written, at least - that you are inventing some pretty unhelpful stories in your head about what other people are thinking, and that these stories are making you tense and angry when you probably don't need to be. and i guarantee you that if you're tense and angry, august is going to sense that on some level, and potentially even adopt anger and anxiety as the default mode for people she doesn't know.

there are plenty of times when my sons wander into a group of people that i'd much rather not have to deal with, but i try to refocus my thoughts on my sons, and what they're getting out of it, and what THEIR story is right now, and try to be their "backup" amongst the strangers.

good advice

want:
http://gizmodo.com/a-car-seat-with-retractable-stroller-wheels-frees-up-tr-1582050397/+andrewliszewski

I've seen much uglier versions of that irl...

Good points.

Was watching an episode of Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated with Abby last night. At one point, Daphne tells Fred "no means no" which Abby got a big kick out of and repeated back. Sigh.

Ultimately that's a good thing for her to internalize.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I was glad to see it even brought up in a kids show. Still...

My son just made an abrupt shift from wanting to wear the expensive Assassin's Creed and Minecraft and Doctor Who shirts that we had been indulging him in. You know, so he could express his unique tastes or whatever. He now finds all such clothes completely unacceptable and only wants to wear solid colored shirts, of which he owns maybe 3 and they're all in the wash at present.

Dude's basically a teenager now, right?

normcore iirc

want:
http://gizmodo.com/a-car-seat-with-retractable-stroller-wheels-frees-up-tr-1582050397/+andrewliszewski

― Mordy, Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is cool, but (1) the carseats with the separate base are easier to deal with because you just install the base and leave it there (the seat just pops out) (2) you only use this style car seat for a relatively short period of the baby's life, (3) a snap-and-go is like $50 and doesn't take THAT much room in a car, not to mention that many other strollers have car-seat adapters. $500 is a lot to pay for something that can't even serve as your primary stroller.

Oh can I recommend the wheels that you can get to fit the Chicco Keyfit 30? Those things are amazing.

We got a used Snap-and-Go for like $20 and probably used it way more than our big bulky Mamas and Papas stroller. Now we have a subway stroller and never use the M&P stroller.

Solid food scorecard so far:

Baby oatmeal - D
Sweet potatoes - B-
Bananas - G (for GAG)
Peaches - F

My son just made an abrupt shift from wanting to wear the expensive Assassin's Creed and Minecraft and Doctor Who shirts that we had been indulging him in. You know, so he could express his unique tastes or whatever. He now finds all such clothes completely unacceptable and only wants to wear solid colored shirts, of which he owns maybe 3 and they're all in the wash at present.

Dude's basically a teenager now, right?

― how's life, Thursday, May 29, 2014 12:00 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was thinking fondly of this post this weekend.

This weekend my wife was holding D while talking to her mother on speaker phone. My MIL kept saying "Hello, D! It's Granny! Hello! Hello!"

D very clearly said "Hello!" back. The child is not even three months old. What the everloving fuck.

that reminds me that my least favorite vice as a parent is that i can't help myself from comparing my kid's developmental milestones to their peers. i think my kids are super smart + wonderful in every way but whenever i'm around a friend's similarly-aged genius kid who is spelling in two languages or 3yo and already playing violin i start comparing in my head. it's def not a good or healthy thing to be doing + i feel bad about it. :(

I always remind myself that no adult gets a prize for having been a genius at 3. There's a quote maybe from Benjamin Kunkel or some other novelist along the lines of a character realizing he "could no longer be considered precocious at age 34"