Being Sara

Lately Xander has turned into a very fresh little toddler.  One of his favorite sentences is “I need it” or “I need it now”.  Not to mention the directives “Sit Mom”, “Eat Dad”, “Mom, drink”, etc.  My least favorite is “Stop Mom” and he covers my mouth with his hand when he wants me to stop talking.  Unfortunately, this usually catches me off guard, so I’m rendered speechless for a few seconds, which of course means he’s achieved his goal.

I keep explaining how these are not nice, and hurt people’s feelings, make sad faces, etc.  But it doesn’t seem to change the behavior.  I don’t think Xander is doing these things to intentionally be rude.  Usually if he tells us to eat, it’s because he’s eating, and he wants to be doing what we’re doing.  When he tells us to sit, it’s because he wants us to sit on the floor and play with him.  The “Stop Dad (or Mom)” one is the most rude, and we’re working on stopping that behavior before it gets out of hand, but I’m just surprised at how quickly he learned these phrases and their effects.

That being said, he is still a very sweet little kid - always making sure to share with us, whether it’s potato chips or a soggy piece of grilled cheese from his plate.  He’s not generally naughty, and usually listens when we ask him not to do things (though he definitely does test his boundaries on a regular basis).  Ocassionally he’ll use an unprompted “please” or “thank you” and he’ll always say it when prompted.  Just the other day he gave Zach an unprompted hug and “I love you” which I think might have been the sweetest thing in the world ;-)  I’m just not sure how to teach this little guy about manners…  Anyone have any suggestions?

I think every kid develops their own set of entertaining and interesting quirks. Xander seems to come up with new ones every few weeks. One of his more recent and rather entertaining quirks is his fascination with trees. Sure, most kids probably find trees interesting at various points of development, that’s not out of the ordinary. Xander’s quirky little personality has decided that it is necessary to pet every tree and say “nice tree”. I’d like to be clear - we live in New Hampshire. We do not live in a city. There are plenty of trees in our back yard, there are trees surrounding our parks. There are trees at day care, and pretty much every spot that Xander inhabits has a backdrop of trees. So trees are not a new phenomena in Xander’s life. However, petting each tree, and telling it that it’s a “nice tree” is new.

I think he discovered this most recent trick when our friend’s daughter (about 9 months younger) was examining a pine tree during a recent visit. Someone said, that’s a nice tree, isn’t it? And suddenly, Xander discovered the joys of petting bark.

This becomes particularly entertaining when there is a row of trees, say in a parking lot, and Xander must pet each and every one. Of course, the entertainment value wears off quickly when suddenly you’re running late and arguing with a 2 year old why you simply don’t have time to pet each tree three times today, but maybe tomorrow we can come back and pet them again… Somehow that “tomorrow” reasoning just isn’t good enough yet

Anyway, this is one of those quirks that I expect he’ll outgrow relatively quickly, and someday I may want to look back here and be able to tease him about his desire to pet trees.

I stumbled across an interesting blog post a few days ago, and it’s been on my mind ever since. So, first, please check out the post here, and then you’ll be able to follow along with my thoughts (don’t worry - it’ll open in a new window).

So, to sum up what Jesse was saying, essentially, we are being too soft on our kids, and teaching them to blame others for their problems. Some of the points that Jesse makes are good ones. I always felt that the movement to use purple pens for correction instead of red was insane. I don’t think it helps kids to make them feel less stressed about red pen markings. Same goes for everyone getting a trophy in little league, or no one having to sit down during a spelling bee.

However, I think that it’s easy to go too far with this as well. I think there must be a happy medium. Jesse talks about raising their 4 month old daughter. He makes reference to her almost being able to roll over, and someday trying to walk. These are things that I can easily relate to. I thought back to our experiences with Xander rolling over. It took him a long time to get this figured out. We could have left him screaming on his stomach for longer I’m sure. On the other hand, when he was flipping out, he wasn’t being productive. It wasn’t like he was trying to move himself, he was just crying, red-faced and miserable, so we didn’t leave him like that for lengthy periods of time. The same when Xander learned to walk. We held his hand when he asked, and let him attempt on his own when he didn’t.

Now, Xander is very clear with us when he wants to do things on his own. Two examples that come to mind immediately are the stairs, and food. Xander rarely wants help going up or down the stairs these days. We still play spotter when he’s walking down, but we let him go on his own for the most part. Xander also will refuse to eat if he can’t hold his own utensil. He doesn’t want to be spoon fed, and he doesn’t want help getting his food from the plate to his mouth. Regardless of how much he spills, he wants to do it on his own, and we let him as much as possible.

According to Jesse’s theory, Zach and I are raising a member of the “Y-Me?” generation. We help him when he asks for it, and sometimes when he doesn’t. On the other hand, we have an extremely self confident child. He adapts easily to change, isn’t afraid to try things on his own, and is confident that if he goes running around on the playground, Mom or Dad will be around somewhere to catch him if he slips.

We haven’t reached an age where we can start teaching things like fiscal responsibility, or familial responsibility in terms of chores, etc. Before I was a parent, I probably would have had some strong opinions about what we would and wouldn’t do in terms of these decisions. Now, I’m taking a “wait and see” attitude. I can’t tell you that we will definitely require Xander to do chores around the house or that we’ll give him an allowance or not. I just don’t know right now. I do know that when we need to make the decisions, we’ll make them based on what is best for Xander - what will help him to learn and develop in a manner that we are comfortable with.

I don’t think that anyone wants a child to grow up blaming the rest of the world for his or her difficulties, but I also don’t think that raising a 2 year old to understand that life is hard and you’re just going to have to get used to it is the only way to get there. I read through some of the comments on Jesse’s site, and everyone seemed to think that his ideas were right on the money, and this was definitely the way to go. It makes me wonder how many of those commenters actually have kids… Anyway, it was an interesting article and definitely thought provoking.

I try very hard not to be one of those parents who brags about their kid all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever said “Xander said/did the cutest thing…” Zach and I of course agree that our son is the cutest, most adorable, smartest kid in the universe, but we don’t ever push this theory onto others.

That being said, I’ve been so impressed with his speech lately! At our last doctor visit, he said that as long as Xander could string 2 words together by the time he is two, then they won’t be worried about his speech. Well Xander is already stringing 3 or 4 words together. Granted, it is in Xander-ese, so for people who don’t live with the little native, it sometimes takes a little interpretation. For example, “a squirrel go?” really means “where did the squirrel go?” or “a Grandpa no working” really means “Grandpa, no more working!” He has the two word commands down though - “Dada, sit!” “Momma, eat!” “Ready, go!” For the most part, the words that he does say are pretty intelligible. Though there are times when we just have no clue what he’s trying to tell us, and we can see that it frustrates him.

He’s also quite good at identifying animals (and the noises each animal makes) - not with any detail, he couldn’t tell you the difference between a Sperm Whale and a Killer Whale, but he can tell you that they are both whales. What impressed my mother-in-law (the third grade teacher in the family) the most is that he is starting to identify emotions in books. When he sees a character looking sad, he gets upset, says uh oh, and seems to want us to “fix” the sad person. I’m not sure when that empathy thing is supposed to start, but Xander is well on his way.

The only drawback at this point is that he sometimes still uses a pacifier. Mostly when he sleeps, and sometimes if we’re watching a cartoon (he’s only got three available to him - Curious George, Little Einsteins or Phineas and Ferb). However, once the new baby arrives, if he or she also uses a pacifier, I can imagine that Xander might regress a bit with his pacifier use, which would bother me a little bit, as at that point it may actually start to interfere with his speech development. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes… So that’s it for bragging, but every parent has to brag once in a while, right?

Xander is a wonderful first child. He is relatively easy going, he’s happy to follow a schedule, but he’s flexible when we need him to be. He sleeps pretty well and eats pretty well, and he loves us completely. He also very much enjoys his role as the “baby” of the family. He can have Zach’s or my undivided attention anytime he requests it. Both my family and Zach’s family dotes on him - they love to visit with him, play with him, and care for him at any opportunity.

I worry about how Xander’s personality will change once his baby brother or sister arrives. I hope that it will change for the better - he will learn patience, and empathy and sibling love. However, I think that the transition will be difficult for him. One article I was reading on Babycenter compared bringing a new sibling home to a husband or wife bringing a new spouse home. Not quite the same of course, but kids experience similar feelings of being replaced or not being needed/wanted anymore. At nearly two, I’m not quite sure how to prepare Xander for this. We’ve bought books, and talked about the baby in Mommy’s tummy, but he never seems to understand the concept, and even if he did, I don’t think he could grasp the big picture of how much his life is going to change.

I love my little guy, and I have always wanted him to have a brother or sister - not only because I wanted two kids but because I didn’t want Xander to be an only child. I want him to have a sibling to play with, who will sympathize with him when Mom and Dad are being “mean”, who will help him convince his parents that getting a gerbil really is a good idea, etc. I just wish there was a way to help him understand some of this stuff before we walk in the door with a squirming, crying infant who absorbs so much of our time…

I’m sure some of you out there have had similar experiences. How did you ease the transition for your oldest children? I’ve read lots of articles, but I haven’t seen anything that sounds like a good solid plan yet…