I think perhaps way back when I started this blog I meant for it to be more terse and um, lyrical? Less pedestrian and angsty? But somewhere along the way I stopped writing in my pen and paper journal as frequently, and all the angst has transferred over here. I want to do a little better. Yesterday:
- Snuggling in bed with Jonah who was tired after waking too early. "I'm going to tell you a story," I said. Creation. God created light, and then water and trees, then (said Jonah) "cows and sheeps." And then, somewhere in there, He found time to make bubble wrap. And it was good.
- A visit to the barge in Red Hook, where Jonah dealt quite well with the fact that he was the only kid aboard, so the barge owner was not going to do a juggling show this time. Abe sat on an oriental rug on the old plank floor and bounced up and down while the waves gently rocked. The smells of old wood, fishiness, history. The owner rang every nautical bell he had for us: a dinner bell, a showboat bell, a trawler bell.
- Dinner with grownups! An old friend of Josh's and his lovely girlfriend, the nicest one he's had in a while, we hope she's a keeper. Good red wine (with no red wine headache), lots of belly laughs, pie for dessert. Before eating we had to go and put the kids to bed, but it didn't take more than 30 minutes (possibly even 20).
- I slept on the couch again (sleep training, phase II) and was awakened at 4 a.m. not by crying but by a loud argument outside on the street. I tried to watch without being seen - it was fascinating watching the two men nearly escalate to violence and then rein themselves in, get louder, then quiet themselves almost to stage whispers. I finally gave up on them and went to sleep in bed. No police tape outside today, so I guess they sobered up and moved on.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Better
After having a foundation-shaking crisis of confidence in my mothering skills yesterday, one necessitating a nearly half-hour long phone conversation with Josh punctuated by long silences, I did Jonah a good turn today. Due to a strange turn of sleeping habits (Abe is back in the crap sleep zone, and we must re-sleep train him starting tonight, now that he is in the big crib), Abe was up at 5 and wouldn't nurse back to sleep. I was mortally afraid Jonah would be wakened by Abe's crying and decide to get up to watch the clock turn color - again - I had Josh take him to the living room. Then I slept for just over an hour before Jonah woke up for the day. And since Abe was now asleep again, on Josh, it fell to me to keep Jonah company, something I haven't done in the morning for ages and ages.
The first thing I observed was that he was being very anti-social - either burying himself in books or lying down on the floor to play. I decided to make it clear to him that if he's up, he needs to interact with me - and, more subtly, that if he's too tired, he should go back to bed. It took some doing, but I managed to get him to help me empty the dishwasher (something he used to jump up to do without asking), and decide on something new to eat for breakfast (he shunned blueberry yogurt but did eat a bowl of dry Cheerios and a banana).
Since that had gone well, and since (after some prodding) he dressed himself, I decided he might be ready to try a new workbook I bought him, which is for learning to cut with scissors. I hadn't the faintest clue how to show him to hold the scissors, so every time he took them off his hand he'd forget how to get them back on (and I had to keep checking my own hand to see how to explain it). A few times I thought we might have to stop, as he was fidgeting so much. Eventually, he managed to get through not one, but two pages of cutting exercises. When he started cutting a fairly straight line across the first page, I was so excited I was almost shouting, egging him on. He was beaming with his achievement. He took that first completed page to school for show and tell.
Just a quarter-turn in one direction or the other produces such a radically different effect, both on a gas stove and on my big boy. That's the Zen lesson for today, neatly packaged in a white cardboard take-out container. Now to prepare for my night on the couch, hopefully free of the intimations of mortality that the last round of sleep training provoked...
The first thing I observed was that he was being very anti-social - either burying himself in books or lying down on the floor to play. I decided to make it clear to him that if he's up, he needs to interact with me - and, more subtly, that if he's too tired, he should go back to bed. It took some doing, but I managed to get him to help me empty the dishwasher (something he used to jump up to do without asking), and decide on something new to eat for breakfast (he shunned blueberry yogurt but did eat a bowl of dry Cheerios and a banana).
Since that had gone well, and since (after some prodding) he dressed himself, I decided he might be ready to try a new workbook I bought him, which is for learning to cut with scissors. I hadn't the faintest clue how to show him to hold the scissors, so every time he took them off his hand he'd forget how to get them back on (and I had to keep checking my own hand to see how to explain it). A few times I thought we might have to stop, as he was fidgeting so much. Eventually, he managed to get through not one, but two pages of cutting exercises. When he started cutting a fairly straight line across the first page, I was so excited I was almost shouting, egging him on. He was beaming with his achievement. He took that first completed page to school for show and tell.
Just a quarter-turn in one direction or the other produces such a radically different effect, both on a gas stove and on my big boy. That's the Zen lesson for today, neatly packaged in a white cardboard take-out container. Now to prepare for my night on the couch, hopefully free of the intimations of mortality that the last round of sleep training provoked...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Neighbors
I'm feeling kind of heartbroken as I type this. Hoping that getting some words out will somehow turn my mood around. It's 8:20 pm, the boys have been asleep for a while, and I'm coming off a truly ghastly day. Our new downstairs neighbor (more on her in a minute) was having a ductless A/C installed today. I knew it was going to happen, knew from our experience how much goddamn noise it makes to drill through a brick wall, but I didn't think that it would interfere with BOTH of Abe's naps today. I didn't think that Jonah would come home with no socks under his sneakers, due to a vague conflict with the teacher I already don't like very much (he claims she took his socks away because he wasn't listening - currently trying via email to get to the bottom of THAT), and proceeded to have the shittiest afternoon possible. Abe actually seemed a little scared of him at times. He was howling, bellowing for food, refusing to tell me what he wanted, etc, when he wasn't flailing around on the floor and slapping me. He finally, gratefully, ceded to sleep at 7 pm. What I had to thank for this is his brand new clock, which has color-coded lights to signal to him when it is OK to wake and when it is not. This morning he got up to pee (since he now sleeps in underwear) too early, then decided he'd just stay up to watch the light change to green. Great.
Our new downstairs neighbor does not, shall we say, conform to the demographic profile of the building. She waltzed in and snapped up the apartment, paying all cash for it (apparently some family money). She appears to be an absent-minded academic. Abe and I met her earlier this week, and what she had to say to darling, adorable Abe was this: "I guess you'll have to get used to me." This morning, I was coming down the stairs on my way to take Jonah to school. I introduced them. She said, "But I already met you, didn't I?" She was confusing JONAH for ABE. This woman has not even the slightest clue about children, and she is moving into a building whose residents (counting from top to bottom) are a nearly 4 year old girl, two boys of 8 months and almost 4 years, and, in the basement, twin boys due about a month from now. She saw the strollers during the open house. I am praying she understands just what she is getting into.
Our departed neighbors are so, SO missed. They were Irish and Italian, Boston-born, and just the nicest people you could ever hope to wind up in a building with. I'd go so far as to say they felt like family. Emails I traded with them this week find them kind of shell-shocked about being gone from such a close-knit building, but happy about having more space for their family (which includes a seasonal grandma). They have a boy who is 6 and a baby just a couple months older than Abe, and even when we weren't seeing each other as often, I miss the bustle emanating from their apartment. Jonah misses the many cool cars he borrowed from James. I even miss their patio furniture. We're throwing a party for them in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see them again.
This afternoon I looked out to the backyard and saw the new owner, kind of floating around in her own head, with a long pruning stick in her hand, absent-mindedly jabbing at high branches while the A/C installer called her, trying repeatedly to get her attention through her thick fog. It freaks me out that we're now to live our lives over the head of this kooky character, and I worry about the first passive aggressive note we get about "noise." As unbearable as the thought is, because I love this place, I suspect that in the Farewell Symphony of our young condo, we may be the next instrument to leave the stage.
OK, mood enhancement FAIL. Off to drink some yummy tea and play Angry Birds.
Our new downstairs neighbor does not, shall we say, conform to the demographic profile of the building. She waltzed in and snapped up the apartment, paying all cash for it (apparently some family money). She appears to be an absent-minded academic. Abe and I met her earlier this week, and what she had to say to darling, adorable Abe was this: "I guess you'll have to get used to me." This morning, I was coming down the stairs on my way to take Jonah to school. I introduced them. She said, "But I already met you, didn't I?" She was confusing JONAH for ABE. This woman has not even the slightest clue about children, and she is moving into a building whose residents (counting from top to bottom) are a nearly 4 year old girl, two boys of 8 months and almost 4 years, and, in the basement, twin boys due about a month from now. She saw the strollers during the open house. I am praying she understands just what she is getting into.
Our departed neighbors are so, SO missed. They were Irish and Italian, Boston-born, and just the nicest people you could ever hope to wind up in a building with. I'd go so far as to say they felt like family. Emails I traded with them this week find them kind of shell-shocked about being gone from such a close-knit building, but happy about having more space for their family (which includes a seasonal grandma). They have a boy who is 6 and a baby just a couple months older than Abe, and even when we weren't seeing each other as often, I miss the bustle emanating from their apartment. Jonah misses the many cool cars he borrowed from James. I even miss their patio furniture. We're throwing a party for them in a couple of weeks. I can't wait to see them again.
This afternoon I looked out to the backyard and saw the new owner, kind of floating around in her own head, with a long pruning stick in her hand, absent-mindedly jabbing at high branches while the A/C installer called her, trying repeatedly to get her attention through her thick fog. It freaks me out that we're now to live our lives over the head of this kooky character, and I worry about the first passive aggressive note we get about "noise." As unbearable as the thought is, because I love this place, I suspect that in the Farewell Symphony of our young condo, we may be the next instrument to leave the stage.
OK, mood enhancement FAIL. Off to drink some yummy tea and play Angry Birds.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Onward and upward
Jonah is sleeping well, and late! And tonight is his first night in underwear since we finally got night lights for the hallway, in the event of a trip to the bathroom. This afternoon I left Abe with Josh, and took Jonah (with his BFF Sasha, our upstairs neighbor, and just 6 days older) to a kid-friendly dance recital in a Chelsea loft, which was followed by snacks and hula hooping. It was a delight to behold the kids race into the just-emptied dance space after the performance, and watch them strike poses similar to those the dancers had held. They aren't even 4 years old, but they really gleaned something from the experience of watching the dancers. We may go back next month (since Jonah didn't manage to break anything in the apartment).
When I got back home after a long afternoon away, confirmation that what Abe is doing now is WAVING! With one hand and then BOTH ARMS, FRANTICALLY! He shook his arms so violently when he saw me and smiled so hard I thought he'd split his face open. Eight months in a couple of days, and cuter by the minute.
And we just watched a heartwarming film about a female drifter who freezes to death in a ditch. OK, it wasn't heartwarming, but it was amazing. So far, a great weekend.
When I got back home after a long afternoon away, confirmation that what Abe is doing now is WAVING! With one hand and then BOTH ARMS, FRANTICALLY! He shook his arms so violently when he saw me and smiled so hard I thought he'd split his face open. Eight months in a couple of days, and cuter by the minute.
And we just watched a heartwarming film about a female drifter who freezes to death in a ditch. OK, it wasn't heartwarming, but it was amazing. So far, a great weekend.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
ReparationsMom
With only slight hiccups (night I pulled him into bed when he cried, without realizing it, and found Abe on my chest at 4 a.m.; last night, Abe woke screaming from having passed a poop that felt like slightly dried out clay), things have gotten a lot better in the sleep department. So I've been able to move on to the next item on the agenda, namely, repairing my relationship with my firstborn. Recognizing my anger is only a fraction of the battle, that is now clear. Finding a way back to Jonah, rebuilding his self-esteem (which I must believe has suffered as a result of my anger, if his uttering, after a tantrum, "I want to throw myself away!" is to be considered a window into his psyche), is my first priority.
As Abe gets farther into solids and starts eating three mini-meals per day or so, I am finding that the hours between feeds are increasing almost exponentially, leaving me with some time to kill. Abe is happiest these days on the living room rug, where he will promptly jolt himself from seated to flat on his face, swimming in the air and trying like hell to figure out how to do a pushup and get his butt up so he can finally start crawling. In the meantime, he is perfecting the roll-and-pivot method of exploring the apartment, and often winds up in odd places, like jammed up against the French doors, or under the couch. He waits there, patiently, to be extracted.
Jonah just had his first full week of school in ages, since there was a lot of time off for the Jewish holidays. The teacher who works with him for five hours a week in the classroom reported that he did not have a great week - he was constantly distracted, not able to pay attention, not responding when his name was called, etc. It took us a great while to realize that he is simply TIRED. We were keeping to his same bedtime, not realizing that the longer school day, combined with the fact he doesn't nap there, is exhausting him. We've started getting him to bed a full hour earlier, and I'm hoping we will reap the benefits next week.
In the meantime, we had a so-so outing with him today (again with the sleepiness), but when we got home, Josh got to work preparing a succulent dinner he'd been planning to cook for ages, and I got to spend quality time with the kids. Quality time I define as any time during which I can fully enjoy motherhood and not feel stressed out about the demands that one boy or the other is making. Abe, having successfully and painlessly pooped (at last!), was on the living room floor doing his calisthenics, and I settled into the couch with Jonah, who was holding up some obnoxious little Tonka books we got a while back. He wanted to read those with me. They are board books that fit in your palm, the illustrations are hideous, but who would have thunk it? He was treating these books as his freaking Rosetta stone. I didn't even get a chance to say "The tow truck pulls cars and trucks" before he'd pointed to the word "cars" on the page and said, "That says, CARS!" He delighted in finding words that I challenged him to find on each page, solely by figuring out which ones started with the right letter. I was breathless, watching all of this come together for him. Later, while we read Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel before bed, he said, "We can move things with our bodies." I said, "No we can't! Can you move a car with your body?" He thought for a millisecond, then replied, "Well, we can use our hands on the steering wheel." I was floored by this rapid use of logic.
Today he rode the carousel with me, and then solo. During the long wait for his second ride, I motioned "I love you" to him through the fence and he motioned it back at me. I think this physical show of affection means more to him (and me) than the words, and it bridged the gap between one carousel ride and the next, the distance between a penitent mom and her sometimes-petulant nearly-4 year old, on a spotlessly blue-skied October afternoon. I hope like hell this was the opening of a new path.
As Abe gets farther into solids and starts eating three mini-meals per day or so, I am finding that the hours between feeds are increasing almost exponentially, leaving me with some time to kill. Abe is happiest these days on the living room rug, where he will promptly jolt himself from seated to flat on his face, swimming in the air and trying like hell to figure out how to do a pushup and get his butt up so he can finally start crawling. In the meantime, he is perfecting the roll-and-pivot method of exploring the apartment, and often winds up in odd places, like jammed up against the French doors, or under the couch. He waits there, patiently, to be extracted.
Jonah just had his first full week of school in ages, since there was a lot of time off for the Jewish holidays. The teacher who works with him for five hours a week in the classroom reported that he did not have a great week - he was constantly distracted, not able to pay attention, not responding when his name was called, etc. It took us a great while to realize that he is simply TIRED. We were keeping to his same bedtime, not realizing that the longer school day, combined with the fact he doesn't nap there, is exhausting him. We've started getting him to bed a full hour earlier, and I'm hoping we will reap the benefits next week.
In the meantime, we had a so-so outing with him today (again with the sleepiness), but when we got home, Josh got to work preparing a succulent dinner he'd been planning to cook for ages, and I got to spend quality time with the kids. Quality time I define as any time during which I can fully enjoy motherhood and not feel stressed out about the demands that one boy or the other is making. Abe, having successfully and painlessly pooped (at last!), was on the living room floor doing his calisthenics, and I settled into the couch with Jonah, who was holding up some obnoxious little Tonka books we got a while back. He wanted to read those with me. They are board books that fit in your palm, the illustrations are hideous, but who would have thunk it? He was treating these books as his freaking Rosetta stone. I didn't even get a chance to say "The tow truck pulls cars and trucks" before he'd pointed to the word "cars" on the page and said, "That says, CARS!" He delighted in finding words that I challenged him to find on each page, solely by figuring out which ones started with the right letter. I was breathless, watching all of this come together for him. Later, while we read Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel before bed, he said, "We can move things with our bodies." I said, "No we can't! Can you move a car with your body?" He thought for a millisecond, then replied, "Well, we can use our hands on the steering wheel." I was floored by this rapid use of logic.
Today he rode the carousel with me, and then solo. During the long wait for his second ride, I motioned "I love you" to him through the fence and he motioned it back at me. I think this physical show of affection means more to him (and me) than the words, and it bridged the gap between one carousel ride and the next, the distance between a penitent mom and her sometimes-petulant nearly-4 year old, on a spotlessly blue-skied October afternoon. I hope like hell this was the opening of a new path.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Quitting the night shift
This is the (fourth? fifth?) night of Abe's sleep training. Whichever night it is that we wait 15 full minutes before going to him, just for starters.
Sometime mid-last week, when Abe started waking five or six times a night to nurse, I finally hit the wall. I dug trusty Ferber out and started reading it again. Though of course once you've read his book once, you don't actually read the words again. You just flip through until you find the handy chart with suggested intervals for leaving your child to cry when he wakes, and go from there. And hopefully you don't cave. The first night, I stayed in the bedroom, but Josh got up and attended to him in the night. It was a rough night. Luckily the noise didn't wake Jonah, nor our downstairs neighbors, who are in the process of sleep re-training their baby son, who is a couple months older than Abe.
Thursday I was bleary-eyed despite extra caffeine, and the mom of a classmate of Jonah's who came for a playdate suggested that I was the problem - that Abe can smell my presence in the room (meaning my milk, of course, and not the fact that my new deodorant sometimes leaves me smelling like a dirty hippie) and that's why he's staying awake, holding out for the good stuff. So Thursday night I took to the couch. An excellent couch for sleeping, says my mom, who chooses it over the Aerobed when visiting.
I waited and waited to go to bed. I kept listening for noise in the baby monitor. I couldn't seem to shut off the computer. And I definitely didn't want to lie down on the couch. Even though we bought this particular couch because it could accommodate our extra length, for naps, I just couldn't seem to settle down. There was the nervousness of the sleep training endeavor, sure, but also something else at play. I was starting to take my leave of a pretty major component of my job.
For seven and a half months, I have been Abe's night nurse. I have picked him up each time he's let out something slightly longer than a whimper, and I have soothed him back to sleep in the most primal way. (Of course, the fact that he would fall asleep within two minutes of latching on kind of escaped me until I could no longer function on such interrupted sleep.) My reward has been lowering him carefully back into the crib and watching his arms flop above his head in sleep-surrender, and then flopping back onto my bed and sinking back into another sleep cycle. Or, when I was too tired to do that, tucking him under my arm and having him sleep there.
To sleep on the couch was too frightening the other night, because I sensed an accelerating cascade of farewells: to my smiling, immobile baby who does not yet wreak general havoc (as his gleaming eyes seem to promise he may); to nursing, forever, since we most likely won't have any more kids; to our tiny roommate, who will eventually go and share a room with his big brother, resulting in (I hope, I fear) whispered flashlight conversations that neither I nor Josh will be privy to.
Yes, virtually all of my life flashed before my eyes, simply due to one night on the couch. To sleep on the couch seemed to be a certain succumbing to mortality. Even though I know otherwise, I daresay Abe slept better than I did that night.
Sometime mid-last week, when Abe started waking five or six times a night to nurse, I finally hit the wall. I dug trusty Ferber out and started reading it again. Though of course once you've read his book once, you don't actually read the words again. You just flip through until you find the handy chart with suggested intervals for leaving your child to cry when he wakes, and go from there. And hopefully you don't cave. The first night, I stayed in the bedroom, but Josh got up and attended to him in the night. It was a rough night. Luckily the noise didn't wake Jonah, nor our downstairs neighbors, who are in the process of sleep re-training their baby son, who is a couple months older than Abe.
Thursday I was bleary-eyed despite extra caffeine, and the mom of a classmate of Jonah's who came for a playdate suggested that I was the problem - that Abe can smell my presence in the room (meaning my milk, of course, and not the fact that my new deodorant sometimes leaves me smelling like a dirty hippie) and that's why he's staying awake, holding out for the good stuff. So Thursday night I took to the couch. An excellent couch for sleeping, says my mom, who chooses it over the Aerobed when visiting.
I waited and waited to go to bed. I kept listening for noise in the baby monitor. I couldn't seem to shut off the computer. And I definitely didn't want to lie down on the couch. Even though we bought this particular couch because it could accommodate our extra length, for naps, I just couldn't seem to settle down. There was the nervousness of the sleep training endeavor, sure, but also something else at play. I was starting to take my leave of a pretty major component of my job.
For seven and a half months, I have been Abe's night nurse. I have picked him up each time he's let out something slightly longer than a whimper, and I have soothed him back to sleep in the most primal way. (Of course, the fact that he would fall asleep within two minutes of latching on kind of escaped me until I could no longer function on such interrupted sleep.) My reward has been lowering him carefully back into the crib and watching his arms flop above his head in sleep-surrender, and then flopping back onto my bed and sinking back into another sleep cycle. Or, when I was too tired to do that, tucking him under my arm and having him sleep there.
To sleep on the couch was too frightening the other night, because I sensed an accelerating cascade of farewells: to my smiling, immobile baby who does not yet wreak general havoc (as his gleaming eyes seem to promise he may); to nursing, forever, since we most likely won't have any more kids; to our tiny roommate, who will eventually go and share a room with his big brother, resulting in (I hope, I fear) whispered flashlight conversations that neither I nor Josh will be privy to.
Yes, virtually all of my life flashed before my eyes, simply due to one night on the couch. To sleep on the couch seemed to be a certain succumbing to mortality. Even though I know otherwise, I daresay Abe slept better than I did that night.
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