Posts Tagged ‘infant’
April 8, 2010
Parker has always been our rough and tumble kid. He loves to wrestle. He loves to be tossed about. He loves anything that involves physical play. In our house, most of the time, this is ok. We separate the boys when Parker gets too physical. I put him down when he tries to hit me. We constantly remind him to be gentle, and show him gentle touches. But the kid just loves rough play. Last week at day care he chased another child. He pushed the child down (the kid’s head bumped a table) and then Parker when in for a bite. The teacher pulled Parker off of the other kid and reprimanded him. He, in his typical Parker fashion, melted and collapsed on the floor in tears. After the reprimand came the comforting and eventually they went back to playing normally.
After this, I asked the teacher what I should do. Her response was vague – he didn’t actually bite, so they didn’t have a “no biting” discussion. He’s not even 18 months yet, so lengthy discussions don’t work. I let her know I was open to any suggestions, that we were trying everything we could think of and would try anything anyone else could think of.
I asked my mother-in-law and sister-in-law what they thought. They have over 50 years of parenting experience combined, so I thought between all of the kids and grandkids maybe they would have come across this sort of situation before. My mother-in-law talked about a friend of the family who used to bite her older brother when she was little. Eventually the mother encouraged the boy to bite her back. He did, and the biting stopped. I thought that biting back wasn’t an approved solution, but I could be wrong. This wasn’t exactly biting back either, since it was the brother who bit, not a parent…
I asked our pediatrician. He said this behavior is normal, and that we should just keep doing what we’re doing.
Then last night Parker bit me. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood. We were playing on the floor after dinner. He was getting pretty rough, so I wrapped him in my arms and told him that hands were for hugs, not hitting. While I hugged him, he bit me. After I had pulled him off, and recovered from the surprise, I tried to explain to Parker that he hurt Mommy. That we don’t bite, etc. but he was too riled up to listen to any words coming out of my mouth.
So, anyone who happens to stumble across this blog: How do you teach a 15-month-old not to bite? Furthermore, how do you teach this particular 15-month-old boy to please, please be a little more gentle?
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Posted in General Info | Tagged babies, Baby, baby development, bite, biter, biting, child, children, day care, development, developmental milestones, infant, infants, mom, mommy, mother, motherhood, mothering, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, toddler, working mom | 7 Comments »
February 10, 2010
Ok, confession time: I watch Private Practice. It’s a cheesy spin-off of Gray’s Anatomy. I can’t convince anyone else I know that it’s worth an hour of their time, but I faithfully tune in each week (or so). Most of the time, the cast is dealing with some rather depressing issues – infertility, abuse, death, etc. I sat down to watch the most recent episode last night and it was especially heart wrenching.
Spoiler alert – if you haven’t seen it and you want to, don’t read the rest of this post. The episode opens with a woman giving birth (not the gory stuff), but she isn’t interested in the baby, only in the baby’s cord blood. It turns out the couple has a pair of 8 year old daughters with leukemia and they need the cord blood to treat them. Unfortunately, the cord blood has a low cell count which means there is only enough to treat one of the girls.
This is of course Hollywood drama – the parents are then faced with the decision – which daughter do they save? The mother puts her foot down. She refuses to choose. If they can’t both live, then they both die. The show paints the mother as crazy, and cruel for not choosing to save at least one of her daughters. And I found myself sympathizing with her. In her shoes, I don’t think I could choose which child lived and which child didn’t. It’s the age-old Sophie’s Choice question. It kind of surprised me that the writer’s of the show weren’t more sympathetic to this woman’s position.
None of us can really know how we’d react in a similar situation unless we are actually faced with it. I know that much as I’d love to be the type who springs into action, my instinct is to freeze in the face of an emergency. I can only imagine that I would freeze, shut down, if faced with that sort of choice. The father in this episode did choose, sort of. He voiced his opinion, and a few minutes later (again with Hollywood drama) the daughter he chose to let go got too sick for the treatment. Watching them explain to the two sisters that one was going to live and one was going to die was most definitely a tear-jerker.
If nothing else, the story from this episode made me squeeze my children a little tighter and longer this morning and send a silent non to the Gods that everything is right in our little world, and that my kids are healthy, happy and safe.
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Posted in General Info | Tagged babies, Baby, children, family, Gray's Anatomy, infant, infants, mom, mommy, mother, motherhood, mothering, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, preschooler, Private Practice, Sophie's Choice, toddler, working mom | No Comments »
February 8, 2010
We have been living inside a spelling bee for several weeks now. My day starts sometimes as early as 5:30 with a whisper in my ear, “Mama, how do you spell ‘window’?” and if I don’t respond, “Mama, how do you spell ‘couch’?” and it’ll keep going until I start spelling. In the car on the way to work I hear “Mama, how do you spell ‘tree’?” and “Mama, how do you spell ‘back hoe’?” or my personal favorite, “Mama, how do you spell ‘Signwithredinit’?” and “Mama, how do you spell ’somethingelse’?” And my favorite response – “Wow, that’s a weird word”
The worst part of the inescapable spelling bee is that I’m pretty sure Xander thinks we’re like seals. He asks and we perform. I’m not convinced that there is any sort of retention or learning going on when we spell. I think this because if you ask Xander to repeat what was just spelled, or even the first letter, he can’t (or won’t – not sure which) do it. Which then leaves me wondering at 8pm when I’m trying to get the little man to sleep and he’s asking me “Mama, how do you spell ‘bear’?” why do I keep going? I’m pretty sure it’s negative reinforcement, like when you pick up a phone to make it stop ringing, or pick up a tea kettle to get it to stop whistling. I wonder when (and how) we’ll get out of this never-ending spelling bee…
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Posted in Preschool Posts | Tagged babies, Baby, baby development, baby talk, child, children, development, developmental milestones, family, infant, infant development, infants, learning, mom, mommy, motherhood, mothering, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, preschooler, spell, spelling, spelling bee, toddler, working mom | 1 Comment »
February 5, 2010
I’m coming out of radio silence this week after juggling two rather sick boys for the week. It started last Sunday with two very cranky boys. We went for a drive to get out of the house – Xander of course needed to pee and for the first time ever, we got turned down when we asked to use a restroom. Where, you ask? The Campton Cupboard. They have zero sympathy for pee-pee dancing 3 year-olds, so don’t even try. Also, if you try to use the restroom in the Dunkin’ Donuts in Campton, be forewarned that it’s easier to pee outside than it is to try to skip in front of rude tourists in line.
Fast forward to several sleepless nights and two days home, first with Xander and then with Parker (who managed to catch another bout of RSV, complete with a 101.6 temperature and back onto nebulizer treatments). Parker is still waking up between 2:30 and 3:30 every morning for a few hours, and Xander is still crying every morning that he doesn’t feel good and doesn’t want to go to school (please note that by the time we arrive at school he is running to get inside and play with his friends, so we’re not taking those complaints too seriously).
Evenings have been EXHAUSTING. First, one kid will cry, and then before one of us can calm that one down, the other starts crying so we’ve had an almost constant flow of tears between the hours of 5pm and 8pm for the past 5 days. Yeah, I’m on my pity wagon – all are welcome! I’m hopeful that we’ll turn the corner this weekend and start to see more smiling and less crying.
Unfortunately, Xander has rediscovered his love of puzzles recently. He’s getting quite good at putting them together on his own. The biggest challenge is that Parker firmly believes that his primary role in our family is to pick up puzzle pieces and put them in boxes. He couldn’t care less if anyone else might have wanted to use that particular piece. This of course starts a great deal of arguments and the cycle continues until Parker goes to sleep. Ah, the joys of parenthood…
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Posted in General Info | Tagged babies, Baby, baby development, Campton Cupboard, child, children, Dunkin' Donuts, family, illness, infant, infant development, infants, mom, mommy, mother, motherhood, mothering, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, preschooler, RSV, sick, sick children, sick kids, toddler, working mom | 1 Comment »
January 21, 2010
I read quite a few different mommy blogs, and I get a little something out of each one – humor, kinship, understanding, respect, sympathy, etc. This mommy blogger has a pretty impressive story riddled with more ups and downs than I can even imagine. All of her posts are good reading, but this one in particular hit the nail on the head so to speak.
I’m gonna miss this…
It’s an excellent reminder about why we should be more patient with our children. I know that the day-to-day chores often raise my stress levels at the end of the day when I’m trying to juggle cleaning, cooking, bathing, bedtime, laundry and anything else that might come up along with cuddling, playing, refereeing, and trying to catch up with my husband on his day. But McMama’s words keep coming back to me, and lately I’ve been letting the chores wait for a bit while I enjoy a few more minutes with my kids. It doesn’t help with my stress levels later in the evening, but it sure is a whole lot more fun to enjoy my kids while they actually want me to spend time with them…
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Posted in Preschool Posts, Toddler Times | Tagged babies, Baby, baby development, infant, infant development, infants, mom, mommy, mother, motherhood, mothering, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, preschooler, toddler, working mom | No Comments »
