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

Cecil had a stretch of sleeping fully 12 - 13 hours every night without waking up, then went to a week of waking up 3 or 4 times a night and throwing fits for 45 minutes before falling back asleep. We realized he had a low-grade ear infection and some teeth coming in and once the antibiotics were done and the top teeth finally poked through (five months after his bottom ones) he's back to waking up once, eating, and immediately falling back asleep. Which is pretty great all things considered.

I'm still amazed at how fast he changes, how much he can do now, how he's turned from an animal to a human and can communicate and all that. He points at trees now and says "truh", says "uh-oh" at times where it actually sort of makes sense, signals for milk or food and tells us when he's done, is much more open to other people now (thanks to being in daycare), is almost walking, and is just constantly yelling and babbling and furrowing his brow and crawling over excitedly to see me when I get home or pick him up at daycare. It's so great.

Have I mentioned that J is obsessed with animals? When we took them to the apple farm, every animal he saw got a delighted "OOOOOOOOOOOH!" followed by machine-gun giggles. He also tried to touch everything, including some loose geese; we obv didn't let that happen.

D was kind of over it but enjoyed being carried around.

N is obsessed with our two cats. Luckily they are the most placid, cuddly cats in the world, or she'd have been shredded months ago. She has, at least, stopped shrieking when she sees them.

there is some photo studio down the street from us that has open casting calls on the weekends and I'll just say that the gaggle of parents that haul their babies/toddlers to those things are p blech

cool story

I think I could've gone back to work full time around 9 months, but still would've felt not quite right. Now that Alden's a year old it feels different though. He started daycare at 11.5 months old, so about a month and a half ago, and it's AMAZING.

I'm so glad you said that! At 9 months my friends were beginning to start going back, and I was like 'no way nooooo what about when he wants his mummy and I'M NOT THERE waaah'. He would have started at 11.5 months but I've actually pushed it back so it's just after his first birthday, (!) so psychologically that seems way better, and already in the past few weeks I've seen how much he enjoys being independent (crawling around etc) and getting bored here, so in loads of ways it'll be brilliant for both of us.

our ideal situation at this age would be me and OH both being part-time with maybe a couple of afternoons somewhere like nursery, but that won't happen either. I love weekends so much when we're both around.

and yeah, the communicating! I find it amazing. He obviously can't say anything but he understand so many words and tries to tell me what he wants in his own funny little way.

When we put the boys into daycare at 9 months, they didn't care one little bit; there was no crying or concern that we were leaving them somewhere. We've scaled back to one day a week when my wife left work in July (primarily so she has the opportunity to do other stuff she wants/needs to do without going insane) and they've only just started showing some separation anxiety in the past month.

IMO the best thing is to do some legwork/research and find a place you really feel good about, even if it means a little more money or taking them a little further. The peace of mind you get will be worth it.

"loose geese"

i just like those two words together - "loose geese"

What if I wanted to rent just one of those birds?

ugh, school problems.... S is in first grade, is generally ahead of the curve w/ academic stuff BUT is having trouble socially. she hasn't really bonded with any of the kids in her class except one of them, and today that kid's mom told us that S is being "smothering." she's always been more the type to focus on one friend, rather than be a part of a group. not sure exactly how to deal w/ it. typing it out, it doesn't sound like that big a deal, i guess. but sort of stressful! i don't know, first grade has been kind of a bummer so far.

That is totally a big deal. What are you supposed to do? Tell S not to talk to her friend so much? Did it sound like the request came from the kid or the parent? Beatrice is the same with focusing on one person instead of a group.

I was very much like that as a kid. For most of my childhood, I'd have one friend per year. Interesting phenomenon. Seems strange for the other parent to bring it up instead of just letting the kids work it out on their own and develop their own senses of boundaries.

i think this particular friend is having adjustment issues of her own, so I don't really blame the mom for bringing it up. i think we just need to tell Sylvie to try to mix it up a little with some other kids.

K has a tendency to kind of be in her own world at preschool, we've heard.

She also has some issues asserting herself. The other day the teacher let us know that she was happy that K had told another girl not to tell her what to do. We told K we were proud of her, and she got weirdly ashamed and ran into the other room. Again, 3-yr-old psychology is so weird.

My wife and I don't want our kid (11) to play pickup games of tackle football in the neighborhood. To me, this seems like a lofty ideal and our dreams are bound to be shattered. "Sounds great on paper - it just doesn't work in reality!" When all (and I mean all) the other neighborhood kids are playing tackle football, do we just give up and feed our kid into the maw? We don't even let him play organized football, with pads and stuff, because we know enough other kids who have had concussions, etc. Are we over-reacting?

i'd bet any amount of money that pickup football with no pads is miles safer than organized football with helmets etc

You think? I was a non-sports kid. I rode bikes. I got no idea about this football stuff or my strange quasi-jock child.

the danger of organized football is almost certainly greater -- (1) organized football players are bigger, stronger, faster, and trained to hit very hard (2) the helmet itself causes risk of injury to the tackled person (3) the pads and helmets plus the stress/competitiveness/training will also encourage kids to hit much harder than they would in a pick-up game.

You could think of it a little like the difference between 11 year old kids in a playground fistfight and pro boxers in the ring.

into the maw he goes

I read a study a couple of years back that claimed high school football is the most dangerous sport in america

So I recently introduced my baby to the swings in the park and it's his absolute favourite thing (apart from swimming but way easier to take him to) and now it's pissing down with rain every single miserable day

Nora loves a swing!

20 steps last night!

I was reaching out my hands to her and she was trying to get them, but I kept moving backwards until she'd gone practically the length of the livingroom. Exciting!

woo! on the move. this is when things get really exciting.

ps, hide/bolt down/remove everything you don't want thrown or eaten

^^^

http://www.kidsafeinc.com/xtra-guard-dual-action-multi-use-safety-latches-2-pack/

We have these on every drawer and cabinet in our house.

Yeah highly recommend safety latches and burner knob covers.

Of course she knows how they work but she lacks the finger strength to push the buttons at the same time.

Yeah, we have one of those on the oven, plus burner knob covers, a toilet lock, those things you put on top of a door to keep the door from closing on tiny fingers, a different kind of cabinet lock on the TV cabinet (which she nearly tore off the other day because she thought the DVD cases were books, so she's pulling on the lock with all of her weight screaming "ABCs!!!! ABCs!!!!") and nothing that we care about 40 inches or less from the ground.

We keep the bathroom door closed, but have duct tape over the inside knob lock in case we forget to close the door because she loves to run into the bathroom and close the door (and then shout "KNOCK KNOCK" from inside).

We're trying to figure out what to do about our nice, high pile shag rugs now (they disguise little tiny coins and beads and parts REALLY well). We're thinking just cover with some playmats and vacuum frequently.

We put padding on our TV stand to protect the boys from its sharper edges. It lasted all of 36 hours before it was all pulled off and chewed upon.

Of course, the reality is, whatever childproofing you have or don't have, NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THEM, so the childproofing stuff is secondary backup.

I do think the padding around the sharp edges/corners of our coffee table was worth it though, K has run into it a lot of times.

also get some kind of playpen and/or gated area that you can leave them in for rare times that you do have to take your eyes off.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the corner bumpers and the TV strap - http://www.diapers.com/p/kidco-anti-tip-tv-strap-black-2-ct-25138?noappbanner=true&utm_source=Diapers_SG&utm_medium=PDP_SG&utm_campaign=di-sg-to-mobile&utm_term=tv%20child%20safety%20strap

If you don't do anything else, lock the cabinets with poison in them and secure your TV to the wall with one of those TV straps.

Yeah those tv straps are gold. We have a newish tv in a spare bedroom that we havent strapped down and i watched it almost topple over the other day.

We wanted to mount the TV anyway so we just went ahead and did it once the boys (really D) chewed all the padding off of the TV stand

We also inherited a giant play yard from friends that has been a GODSEND, also we got one of these which has been a portable GODSEND: http://www.summerinfant.com/popnplayportableplayard

my wife and kids are currently at my in-laws' house in OH where the kids have:

- received new All-Stars
- learned how to say "crab cake"

we already have to watch everything J does as he can crawl like lightning. We have one room we set up as pretty 'safe' for him to be in if I need to go downstairs (plus we have a playpen next to the kitchen which I could not live without). Anyway he was in the safe room (oh yeah, we now have nowhere to hang laundry on racks) and I thought I'd closed the door well enough to keep him contained but lo and behold about 10 seconds later I checked on him and he'd escaped to the bathroom and had his hands in the toilet OF COURSE

- received new All-Stars

YESSSSSS

- learned how to say "crab cake"

YYYYYESSSSSSSSSS

I have more or less mastered the classic dad move of napping through kids' movies.
I am also bizarrely proud of this milestone!

Crucial skill imo

Dont ask me what happens in those harry potter movies all i remember is ian brown cameo

ohio crab cakes?