ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

Shout out to grandparents for being awesome and majorly sucking at the same time.

Tilda pinches too but I think it's just part of her figuring out her hands. It hurts though.

I actually told my MIL this weekend "You know she throws those tantrums because she knows she'll get what she wants." Pretty sure it just bounced off her.

My pleas for "gentle hands" at bedtime haven't really worked, because now F just tenderly strokes my eyelids for a moment before prodding my eyeballs hard and digging his nails into my cheeks.

LOL for real at "tenderly strokes my eyelids"

You can totally tell when the tender stroking is about to turn into painful jabbing.

There was one amazing ten minute period when Ivy stroked my hair as part of her quiet time routine and I was so excited because that's way better than pinching and also felt really nice. But it didn't last and never happened again.

I was carrying both boys to the nursery to change them and J was happily chattering away and then he turned his head and BIT THE FUCK OUT OF MY NIPPLE THROUGH MY SHIRT

lol

Usually the signal that my kid is about to fall asleep is that she'll wrap both arms around my head, but last week at bedtime she tried to add "grinding her foot into my crotch" as part of the routine.

D's current signal that he's about to fall asleep is to scream like someone it currently digging a knife into the back of his knee

J's signal OTOH is "haha fuck sleep, I'm in it for the long haul; brew some coffee, chumps"

Ivy bit Jeff on the shoulder yesterday when they were horsing around, but I think she was just overstimulated. We had a talk ("talk") about how important it is not to bite our friends or people we love, and she gave Jeff a hug and kiss, then ran over to give me a hug and kiss, so I think maybe on some level she heard us? (That's the kind of hubris that almost guarantees I'll get a note about her biting a kid at daycare today...)

We only bite our enemies.

we ESPECIALLY bite our enemies.

That's the way they put it at her old daycare - "We don't bite our friends" - so I went with it for consistency's sake.

http://youtu.be/U6UWNA-WQgI

I have no idea if that will embed, but it's a Yo Gabba Gabba classic.

Ahhhhhh I see!

YGG is the best

he's often looking at his hands and opening/closing them

C did this a lot a couple weeks ago, we referred to it as "stoner hands", like "oh man have you ever REALLY looked at your hands before?"

Also he was pinching the backs of my arm quite a bit when feeding but it only lasted for a couple weeks and it's been a while since he's done it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKkHWhaCMAAPET9.jpg

lol yeah that's exactly it! He went through a phase a few months ago where he'd practice moving one hand around and the other hand opening and closing, but hadn't realised they could both do both.

carl/jeff i dont have anything to bring to the table except OMG THE PINCHING WOULD DRIVE ME INSAAAAANE

wtf ivy, cmon girl

my niece is an armpit pincher, i've just discovered. but she also giggles all day and has cutest little face in the entire history of the universe, so it's ok.

As I told my mom after she declared Ivy's pinching wasn't too bad: talk to me around minute 45.

stevie there are two sisters on this bus about age 2 and 4 who could seriously be older versions of Marin.

Anybody else have routine diaper changes turn into full-on epic wrestling matches? Like he's not angry or sad, just squirmy and trying to get away. It takes like three times as long and routinely ends with half-applied diapers.

Yes, although Ivy is often angry and sad about it, too. Distraction works for the wiggles - giving him a toy or something particularly enticing (a clean diaper, a pack of wipes, matches, I don't know) - and to avoid angry/sad especially in the morning, I've taken to changing her diaper while she's watching Daniel Tiger or whatever.

Mine always uses it as an opportunity to flip onto his front then turn round and grin at us. He looks so proud I can't be too cross (until the 5th, 6th, 7th time...)

diaper changes are like a baby's version of Jazzercize AFAICT

Lol yes. The diaper comes off and it's like "wait, whoa, LEGS, I have LEGS"

Most nappy changes, once they'd mastered coasting round the furniture, were done standing up. Couldn't face the endless wrestling

Are any of your kids facetiming relatives/friends yet? Our kids are huge fans of it but it is getting a little out of control. Just the other night I busted Hank facetiming his grandfather with the camera pointed in full close up of his balls that were, thankfully, covered in Avenger underwear. He looked so pleased with himself. Like a broken record i said once again 'Henry, please try to remember, FACEtime is for FACES.'

We've been doing Facetime/Skype since Evie was little since our families live elsewhere. The biggest problem is Evie always gets super hyper and crazy and starts yelling and wants to grab the iPad and run around with it instead of talking. She often wants to Facetime with her friends from school too, we've only let her do that a few times.

Kindergarten orientation yesterday was making me emo. I think Evie will be fine once she gets into it but she was being shy at the orientation and sitting by herself reading instead of talking with other kids. It's a big change from a small day care to a big school with 65+ kids in kindergarten alone (split into three classrooms).

My local public school I think has 25+ kids in K classrooms and 30+ in first grade. It's been the subject of a lot of handwringing for us, private school not really being an option so it's sort of this or the suburbs. And I hate to be all special snowflake about my child, but she is pretty sensitive wrt noise/large groups and does tend to shut down a little. So I totally feel you on that NA.

This is supposed to be a really good school, so I'm not worried about that so much. I'm not even really worried about her because I know she's generally very social. I'm just eager for the transition period to be over.

I'm sure she's just absorbing things for now, which is great, because that means when her normal outgoing personality kicks in, she'll already understand how it all works. I'm excited for her! Go Evs!!! <3

Ivy and I Skype with my parents every Sunday and have more or less since she was born. If you say, "Where's Pop Pop?" she looks at the computer. Or if I'm sitting at the desk, she'll hop up in my lap and say "Pop Pop" or "Mom Mom" or "Coco" (that's their dog). She doesn't have much patience for sitting for long periods, but the desk is set up so that my parents can see into her room, too, so I'll let her play on the floor and get out of the way so they can just basically watch her do stuff for about a half hour. Sometimes they feign interest in my well being but mostly they just watch the kid.

I really wish that we could do a similar video call with her other grandparents since it really does help her stay familiar with her far away family but they can't get internet access where they live.

"Facetime is for FACES" is cracking me up. Oh Henry...

I've been facetiming with my parents pretty regularly, and my wife started to somewhat with her mom since all our families live 2,000 miles away. Cecil seems to really dig it, and I swear he was more familiar with my parents when we went to visit in July, especially compared to my wife's father who he'd never seen before, even on a phone screen.

Also ball time is the greatest thing

I'm pretty sure the only time Jesse and I tried FaceTime he put the phone in his pants so I'd like to say Henry will outgrow it but ...

Hahaha I don't doubt it

I can just picture Hank pitching silicon valley VCs: "It's Facetime for balls"

I call it Ballstime

I'm imagining that going like GOB's "Fuck City" pitch from Arrested development.

A friend's kid choked on a hot dog friday night and had to spend the weekend in the hospital with tubes in his throat and getting MRIs. His mom found him unconscious and not breathing and had to resuscitate him. They are very fortunate that she was able to revive him. God knows how close he was to death or brain damage.

If feeding hot dogs to little children, do not feed it to them in sandwich form. Instead chop it into little pieces. We use one of these to get hot dogs down into child-friendly pieces: http://www.amazon.com/Dachshund-Shaped-Hot-Dog-Cutter/dp/B0088OJB5U

My little girl is the same age and I've been known to leave her with a snack while I go take the trash out or flip the laundry or whatever. This has been a huge wake-up call.

I have extreme choking paranoia so we avoid hot dogs completely.

I always quarter lengthwise and then cut into sections. She doesn't like the bun anyway.

Worst thing about choking is that it can be totally silent so you could even be in the same room with your back turned. Sorry about your friend, hl.

marcos how did it go?

― carl agatha, Sunday, August 23, 2015 10:33 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ferber is going pretty well tbh!!! we made a lot of improvements. F is still only 5 months and nurses every 3 hours or so each night but the best thing we've accomplished is F can now fall asleep on his own so long as he has a full stomach. so that is cool. before, my wife would nurse him and one of us would have to dance him around for a long time, upwards of 45 minutes sometimes, before he could finally get to sleep and stay asleep. now he'll nurse and we place him in the crib awake and he might cry for a few seconds but then he's out. so huge huge huge improvement.

eventually we will try to space out the night feedings but it is so cool that he just goes to sleep on his own after them.

and we've been pretty lucky with our older kid, he's almost 3 now and has been a great sleeper since about 15 months or so (when we had to do some pretty intense and torturous sleep training stuff, which is why we're trying to get this over with earlier with F)

Ferber method is underrated imo