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

We don't live in a place near as big as you all, but I hope you find comfort in that this shit happens all over.

here in the ring around Paris school shit is also complicated, further complicated by our being fairly recent arrivals, and my son's middle school has been off/on strike for the last three weeks, which is both hilariously French as well as a mix of shitty and awesome for/from the perspective of my son.

It's so fucking crazy. We had one parent suddenly pull his kid out of our daughter's class and we had no idea why. Then we ran into him and asked what happened, and he said his son was now at ____ instead, but he wouldn't really give us any detail on why. Then we found out that place does have a UPK, and I have a feeling he did it just to get the preference next year. Suddenly we're wondering if we should do the same, but the thing is last year we pulled K out of ____ because we didn't like their twos class, and she's basically happy where she is now. So IDK.

Another parent reportedly got upset with H for even suggesting we were going to try to send K there for UPK, like "DON"T YOU KNOW THERE'S A PREFERENCE!" as though we were trying to take her spot.

DC's universal PK is a godsend

I did not know that a toddler's feet could get so stinky.

For those who don't know me on Facebook, this happened:

*awful noise*
Me: Do we need to change your pants?
Michael: *knowing smile* no
Me: didn't you just poop?
Michael: It's not my problem.

True story

looool

oh god. sorry dude. XD

my son had pretty long hair for a while, like a rocker, and we'd often get told "she's so pretty", & what could you really say but "thanks"

― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 30 September 2015 16:38 (1 week ago) Permalink

have a similar problem where people keep mistaking our one-year old daughter as a boy. contributing factors mainly her hair has never grown out/we've always used a shorthand/male-centric version of her proper name. and the one time she wore overalls.

GO TO FUCKING BED ALREADY
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRIsCy9UcAAe1sm.jpg

Another night climbing the walls, eh?

dude just will not stay in his room/bed

I guess the conventional wisdom would be just make sure he doesn't get rewarded for getting out, and consistently bring him back every night until he learns to stay? (e.g. no extra story, no snack, no tv, no fun time with dad, etc.) Of course I know the conventional wisdom is always easier to espouse than to follow.

it's just been like this ever since we got him his toddler bed (6 mos ago I think?). And yeah we follow the conventional wisdom consistently, it's always us just carting him back upstairs and putting him in his bed and that's it, but he persists. It's more annoying than anything else, and I'm sure it's a phase that will end, but you know the sooner the better.

i wouldn't want to sleep in that hamper either.

well usually we line it with hay and give him a dead apple doll

I mean we pretty much gave up when the baby was born -- K's sleep habits in her new bed were just not well-established and went to crap when the baby slept with us, so for the first few months we just let her sleep on a mat in our room, and now we've moved both kids to the second bedroom and H sleeps on the trundle in there with them (still feeding the baby at night so this was easiest). The hope is to then transition back to H sleeping in the room with me again in a few months when the baby (hopefully) mostly sleeps through the night.

For those who don't know me on Facebook, this happened:

*awful noise*
Me: Do we need to change your pants?
Michael: *knowing smile* no
Me: didn't you just poop?
Michael: It's not my problem.

True story

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten), Sunday, October 11, 2015 6:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought about this today and LOLed.

should've ended with

Me: It is now.

One sure fire way to tell that Ivy's got a boom boom diaper going on is that I'll say, "Do you need a new diaper?" and she'll say "Noooooo!!!!!!" and run away and hide behind the curtain.

But I guess that's a classic example of not asking a question when you only want a specific answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LQRmxPqSEQ

<3

haha. my four-year-old just managed to turn on adventure time the other day. she was TRANSFIXED and baffled.

Our first experience dealing with race issues, yay. K (3.5) pulled her eyes slanted and said "I'm a Chinese girl," which she must have heard on the playground or something. I told her as gently as I could that she shouldn't do this, because it could hurt someone's feelings. But she obviously picked up on my underlying discomfort because she looked more ashamed than I have ever seen her. And she is also confused by the whole thing -- I don't think she even gets what it means to hurt someone's feelings, and I'm not even sure if she knows what "a Chinese girl" means. For context, our neighborhood is heavily Chinese and she will be going to a public school that is like 40% Asian, but right now she's in a Jewish preschool that has no Chinese kids. However, our next-door neighbor is Chinese and has a girl her age and there are many Asian kids on the playground.

Anyway, since then she has brought it up a few times and said "If someone does like this (slants eyes) it will hurt my feelings." And any explanation I try to give her just seems to make it worse, even if I assure her she didn't do anything wrong.

guess I just have to not talk about it for a while and let it blow over?

I would say no. I would continue talking about it because not talking about it makes it more likely that she will internalize a fucked-up societal view that you don't espouse.

The next time she does it, tell her she must have hurt her own feelings by doing that and see where that leads you.

(This is what I'm referencing btw: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/)

I...think not talking about how people look different from each other is something that happens a lot and makes those differences seem secret or shameful to kids? As you are already seeing, our discomfort with talking about race is v transmissable but kids don't have all the context so it makes the whole topic seem like A Problem. Idk what the solution is but I just think that avoiding discussion will only drive it further underground and make it seem like something forbidden.

xxp bingo

I hear you and agree with you in theory, but iirc your little ones are younger and you haven't gotten to toddler psychology yet, and every time I try to talk to her about it it's just this weird rabbit hole where she feels guilty but doesn't actually understand what I'm telling her.

Like I think it would be easier if she were 5, or even 4 maybe. I do tell her things like "people have all different kinds of eyes, all different colors of skin" etc. I don't mean generally never talk about race, tbc.

I...think not talking about how people look different from each other is something that happens a lot and makes those differences seem secret or shameful to kids

yes. don't do this. talk about it.

yea it is good to talk about it.

my son started preschool a couple weeks ago and there are two teachers in the room, a white woman and a black woman he was not saying their names at all but referring to them as the "white skin lady" and the "brown skin lady", he has been asking why some people have white skin and others have brown skin a lot lately. we talked to him and said that people like to be referred to by their names and not how they look (something we said again when he would talk about one of our bald friends as "the no-hair man")

agree though that the toddler "why" questions are very intense and it is easier than not to just confuse them more, but yea still obviously worth talking about

and to clarify even though we said he should refer to his teachers by their names instead of their skin color we are still talking about why some people have different skin colors, hair texture, etc. it does help that we live in a fairly diverse area and he's had a ton of people in his life of various races

My kids (who go to a mostly-non-white school) asked "why do brown people litter more?"

because no white people will pick up after them

Double parent teacher conferences today. That'll knock the wind out of you for a good 8-10 hours

I have relatives who talk like these people because they're teachers themselves: "Beeps excels greatly on the DRA 2.8-4.1, but her lab results skew lower on the ACFAL because she doesn't apply herself."

ME: ...

TEACHER: "Dedicated Reading Acceleration. Arkansas Criteria for Accelerated Learning."

ME: "OK, that fills in some of the gaps, I think..."

So Em's gone back to work as of last week (Weds-Fri until Xmas, then Tues-Thurs thereafter), but, obviously, she'd rather not be at work, and not have N in nursery. I think we've both been surprised by how much she's taken to being a mum. So I'm vaguely looking at houses and thinking 'could we downsize and exist just on my wage for a couple of years?' but realistically it's just not practical.

So, stories about going back to work, or managing not to, please, I guess.

I went back, both times, full time the first time, and dropped 3 hours the second time. I actually found the second time harder, maybe because after 12 months of maternity leave I was leaving them both, rather than just a one year old, also I found returning to work a lot harder second time round - the attitude seemed different, I was (and still am) seen as part time, even though I've only dropped three hours, because I leave at 1.45pm two days a week and leave early the other days, even though I'm in ridiculously early - out of sight out of mind.

Three days a week sounds good, so long as she doesn't end up doing more than three days of work a week... Was she part-time before, or is that new? Can you afford a cleaner? that made a HUGE difference to everyone when we finally got one, not arguing/brooding over who was going to hoover etc.was massive.

I think the shock of going back after I had Aidan was what made me more attachment based with Molly, compensating for the time in childcare, if that makes sense?

Part-time is new; she was full-time before this.

We're investigating a cleaner now, actually!

Hey, good to hear you guys are doing ok. Did N's sleep improve?
I'm not going back for another few weeks, and I have really mixed feelings about it. Baby still has quite bad random bouts of stranger anxiety.
I'll be going back 3 days/week after being full-time until now. It's a job-share, so that'll be interesting. I think one of the weirdest things for me is that my OH will be dropping off the baby at nursery, rather than me, and I feel like I'm the 'expert' atm, OH has only had the baby on his own for one day so far.

I have already started with a cleaner! But tbh it's slightly a pain in the arse while I'm at home, trying to work out where to be. But lovely to have a clean house and will be awesome when they'll just come in while I'm at work.
My OH has also had similar thoughts of downsizing but it's not at all realistic for us.

H took a year off the first time around and had a really hard time with it. For the first year after that K split time between a nanny and her grandmother, and then the year after that she did preschool. H is a teacher so she can pick up K. H is planning to take a minimum of a little over a year this time, but if we can financially swing it we may do longer.

I do strongly recommend a cleaner, laundry service, or whatever household help you can swing. In re "where to be" ours comes on Saturday every other week and we just use the time for family outings.

I've also heard it said that the quality of the time you spend with kids is more important than the quantity. Make rules for yourself about being completely present during certain times, e.g. put away the smart phone from home through bed other than for urgent uses.

I went back to work after the barbaric US standard of three months of unpaid leave and it was pretty devastating. I didn't and don't particularly want to be a stay at home mom, but three months was not enough. I was able to go back part-ish time, and to only take Ivy to day care three days/week and work the other two days with her strapped to my chest for another month or so. Then she started going to daycare four days per week and I tried to fit all of my work into four days and take Fridays off, but ended up getting in trouble at work for not having my head in the game, so she started five days and has been going five days since.

My employer was right - my head wasn't in the game. I was exhausted and missed my baby and resentful. I'm still resentful, even though Ivy and I are both happy that she's in daycare full time now. I wish I could leave work early to get her because I hate that we barely have two hours together in the evenings before she goes to bed but god forbid I not work as much as humanly possible.

That's not very helpful, I would imagine, but the truth is that it can be really fucking hard and I'm still really tired all the time.

Oh, it was definitely easier after Ivy weened and I didn't have to pump any more.

i'm also slightly doubting my decision to choose nursery over childminder as it'll be so much bigger and less like a home environment. I mean it looks awesome, loads to do, but if he's showing signs of shyness already I hope it won't be overwhelming at the age of 1. How the hell are you meant to decide these things :/ (here you have to sign up to nursery like months in advance and some even have waiting lists of 18 months)

xp yeah 3 months is crazy, you have my sympathy. I think any time after 6 months I could have just about dealt with but before that, ugh.
My baby has self-weaned around 10 months, much to my kind of dismay

I think daycare/nursery really helped Ivy turn into a very outgoing kid, and since she is and will be an only child, it's giving her a lot of life skills as far as sharing and interacting with other kids. We almost got a nanny early on because getting her to daycare was such a massive undertaking but I'm glad we were too tired/busy to every follow through. Plus she loves her teachers and will randomly mention them by name now and then.

Oh, race issue update: after not talking about it for a couple weeks, K asked me "Will it hurt feelings if I say I am a French girl?"