Higher Highs, Lower Lows

Despite the fact that nursing is Seabass’ favorite thing in the whole wide world, we finally decided to wean him.  At 21 months, it didn’t feel cruel, but it certainly didn’t feel simple, either.

We chose to wean him somewhat gradually, going from four feedings a day (FOUR FEEDINGS A DAY!!) to just one in about 10 days.  I’m happy to report that the morning feeding and the post-nap feeding disappeared fairly uneventfully when I could distract him with something like breakfast or a snack.  But those pre-sleep feedings, oh oh oh.  So tough.  Seabass just looked up at me (and still does, sad to say) with his precious little cherub face, making a pathetic little “eee?” sound and the sign for milk furiously.  Then we kiss him, put him in his bed, and he cries for about ten minutes until he falls asleep.  It’s not exactly how I pictured his new bedtime routine, but then again, nothing in parenthood has been how I thought it would be.

Once Seabass was down to just one feeding per day, we went all out and took a “weaning weekend” away.  Yup, as in Jake and me without Seabass in a remote location, enjoying ourselves.  Selfish, right?

Whatever – it was dreamy.  We dropped the little guppie off with his grandparents on Friday evening and had two whole nights in Palm Springs to eat at restaurants, see movies, sleep in, read the newspaper and live generally unscheduled lives.  Glory, Hallelujah!

Palm Springs did us a favor by boasting 78-degree days, which we spent wandering the fun vintage design shops and lounging poolside.  Of course, the thing we most looked forward to was sleeping in, however, the first night I slept in a whole three minutes.  (Seabass had me on remote control, I swear.)  The next night, though, I managed to reach 7:30am.  Holla!

I expected my biggest revelation to be how much I love and cherish Seabass by being away from him.  And while I do love and cherish him, the truth is I came away from the weaning weekend with a greater love and affection for Jake.  In Palm Springs, we were just a couple of lovebirds again, discovering who the other is even after ten years.  Funny how that whole discovery thing never ends with a spouse.

Apparently Seabass was “an angel” for Grandma and Grandpa.  I’m not surprised. (I’ve always said that I was like an addiction for him – that if you removed me from the scene he’d be so much calmer and easier.)  But when we met up to do the exchange at the end of the weekend, he melted down, predictably.  Jake and I had been dreading the five-hour drive home, but only the first half was horrible.  He slept the rest of the way.

So now he’s completely weaned, though he still wants the boob (and the boob is hard as a rock!)  Whenever he asks for milk, I try to reason with him that “Mama’s milk is all gone.”  But Seabass has never been much for reasoning.  Instead, it seems best just to stay consistent and attempt to distract him from his laser-point focus on my chest.

It was late at night or early in the morning – I can’t remember, as this took place several months ago.  Seabass was awake again and my many efforts to soothe his wailing had come to nothing: holding him, rocking him, nursing him, patting him, etc etc.

With an aching back, I finally laid him down in his crib after 45 minutes of attempting to calm his restless little Seabass soul.  Enflamed, he rolled to his belly and pulled up on his feet to stand and scream in my face.  I was desperate.

And indeed, desperation is precisely what inspired me to cast off my slippers, grab the crib railing and heave myself into Seabass’ crib.

I was so tired, I just wanted to lay down, so that’s exactly what I did; scrunched up knees and toes shivering under a tiny toddler blanket.  I pulled Seabass’ body down to lay beside me and quickly pinched my eyes shut to convey the message that NOW IS THE TIME FOR SLEEP.  THIS IS WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW.  EVERYONE.  WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

I lay there, eyes closed, breathing slowly in the hopes that Seabass’ breathing would soon follow suit.  He lay still beside me, in what I believed to be a drowsy elation that his most favorite person in the whole world was closer than ever.

Ten minutes went by without so much as a stir on either of our parts.  I thought it safe to peak with pride at the boy I had so cleverly put to sleep.  With the crack of an eye I saw…

A wide awake Seabass – eyes round as dinner plates – laying on his side, staring at his weird mama who had somehow thought it helpful to jump into his bed.  Ever heard of personal space, lady???

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/011212/

Glennon Melton is a blogger who recently wrote a piece called “Don’t Carpe Diem” at the Huffington Post.  The post is a reaction to comments from older women to young mothers like “”Oh, enjoy every moment. This time goes by so fast.”  The writing is funny, honest, and realistic.

Being told, in a million different ways to CARPE DIEM makes me worry that if I’m not in a constant state of intense gratitude and ecstasy, I’m doing something wrong.

The piece resonated with me – and thousands of other people – because I have the same feelings of guilt whenever someone tells me to “enjoy every moment” while Seabass is tantruming on the cement floor at Trader Joe’s.  To paraphrase the author, it’s tough to see a forest of love for the poopie-diaper trees when you’re just trying to make it through the day.

To be fair, I completely get what you older women are saying when you tell me that it goes by so fast.  And I want to enjoy every moment – I really do!  But enjoying every moment of parenting a willful toddler is a little like achieving world peace: Man, it sounds nice, but…how????

So that’s my question to you, beloved readers: How do you enjoy your little people even when things are hard?  How do you make the most of your parenting experience?

…you find the second spider in three weeks crawling around inside your current bra.  You know, the nursing bra that has gone from pristine white to a terrifying shade of grey since you first bought it.  The one you wear because it feels so much better than your old normal bras – more like a gentle hug than a poky punishment.  The one that apparently attracts spiders to call it home, causing you to yelp, jump, and flail like a psychopath in front of your neighbors while casually checking the mail.

That one.

From the archives.

I have a dear friend who finds acronyms particularly hilarious, so I’d like to start this post with a giant

OMG.

We are leaving for Idaho to visit the grandparents tomorrow and have I packed one single item for the trip?  No.  Have I folded clean laundry from several days ago which has accumulated in a gruesome pile at the foot of our bed?  No.

What, pray tell, have you been doing then, Jaime?  That’s an excellent question, beloved reader.  Try this on for size: Seabass has stopped napping.  YEAH.

It all started about three weeks ago with a missed nap here and a missed nap there.  Pretty soon, there were two missed naps right on top of each other, and then three.  And then Seabass’ name changed to Mr. No-Nap-Grumpy-Pants and I had to up my dosage of antidepressants, just to make mental ends meet.

Fellow mothers, I ask you: Is there anything more glorious, more necessary to sustaining sanity, more indulgent, and more downright expected than an afternoon nap from a toddler???  Because the world takes all types of kids, I know that some of you will say your child has never taken naps, or doesn’t need a nap, or whatever.  But for the rest of us – the vast majority of us – getting a nap from our kids feels as good as a deep tissue massage or glass of wine.  My friend Ginger calls it her chance to “smooth out the wrinkles in my mind.”  I have really clung to that description.

Especially, now that the naps are fewer and farther between.  Oh, and that’s not all: the nighttime sleep is a mess too.  One night, in the middle of a screamfest at 3am, Jake rolled over and groaned, “Email the consultant.  I don’t care what it costs.  Just get answers from her.”

I wish I could say that the consultant solved all of Seabass’ sleep problems, that I have had a good night’s rest and a couple hours of smooth-brain-time every day ever since.  But no.  Much as I love Deb the sleep consultant, her advice hasn’t quite panned out.  The fact that child sleep is a cycle in which bad nighttime sleeps infects the daytime sleep and vice-versa has become like a torturous SAT question that has no right answer.  If I put Seabass to bed at 5pm (the earliest recommended time for seriously sleep-deprived kiddos), he wakes up at 5:30am, if not before.  Then he’s exhausted by late morning, but I can’t put him down at 11am because then he’ll wake up at 1:30pm, which means bedtime has to be 5pm again, and then we’re back to square one.  So I do what Deb strongly recommends against, which is I kept Seabass up after a 5:30am wake-up time until noon, at which point he overtired and only slept for an hour and a half, and was back up and at ’em at 1:30pm.  Then I tried to extend his wake time some more to “wear him out” and didn’t put him down until 6:30pm.  Then he overtired again and woke throughout the night before permanently getting up at – what else? – FREAKING 5:30am.

Look.  I know how boring that last paragraph was, ok?  I’m bored just typing it.  But these are the kinds of thoughts I have to think when Seabass isn’t sleeping well because it affects every fiber of my being.  Even if I leave him in his crib and shut the door during supposed “nap time” (i.e. he’s wide awake), even if he’s happy and cooing in there, I can’t relax.  I can’t get work done.  I can’t take the edge off.  You may be thinking, So what if he’s awake?  Just let him be and do your own thing.

That’s good advice, except…if you are thinking that, I know you’re not a mother, because every mother understands that unless their child is asleep and dancing through dreamland, there is no shutting off.  It’s like a curse.

He’s asleep now, which is why there is anything of value to read on this post.

Jake and I watched the movie Inception for the third time last night, and I was once again moved by the fantastic film score by Hans Zimmer.  (I loved The King’s Speech and all, but I still feel that the Inception team – Zimmer in particular – was robbed at last year’s Oscars.  Just sayin.)

Anyway, I’ve had the main theme running through my head all day and decided to look it up.  But what good is such an epic theme as this without an epic tail to match?  Hence, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present: SEABASS SEE FOOD.  It is a tale of mashed potatoes and a silly little boy eating his Christmas Eve dinner.

Enjoy.

Grin

I already had this nagging feeling I wasn’t doing enough to keep Seabass’ teeth clean.  (Can we use toothpaste?  How often do we brush?  Is this just the practice round until he gets his real teeth?)  But then I saw it: A brown, dead molar.

He was in the swing at the park, feet dangling and mouth open wide with glee.  At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  That couldn’t be a dead tooth, I thought, but then he swung forward again with his mouth open, and my certainty faded.  Upon stopping his swing and prying his mouth open to look, I knew we were dealing with something serious.

A friend of mine once had to have her 20-month-old daughter’s tooth pulled because it already had a cavity.  Thoughts of a dentist’s chair cradling a sedated Seabass entered my mind.  And the expense.  I called Jake at work.

“Jake, Seabass has a dead, brown tooth.” [Beat.]  “Hello?!?!?”

“Yes I’m here.”

“Well? I mean, do we have dental insurance for him?”

“Uh, no. No we don’t.  Are you sure there’s something wrong with his tooth?”

[Exasperated.] “Yes I’m sure!”

“Did you touch it?”

“No.  Should I?”

“Yeah, touch it and see if he winces.”

I looked down at Seabass’ happy little face and asked him to sit still so I could touch his moss tooth.  The instant my finger made contact, something brown and slimy slid off.

Banana.  From breakfast.

“False alarm.”

No one has ever accused me of being easygoing.

What do you get when you combine a curious toddler, water, glass, electric lights, a daddy who’s anal about his hardwood floor, and a faulty Christmas tree stand?

The Horizontal Christmas Tree Incident (HCTI)

Actually, the scene I walked into this morning can’t be blamed on Seabass.  He was an innocent bystander.  No, this was the fault of our pathetically underperforming Christmas tree stand: You know, the one we bought for something like $0.75 ten years ago at a Rite Aid in Berkeley, swearing we’d buy a “real” one next year and next year and next year?  Yup, that’s the one.

While what we’re calling The Horizontal Christmas Tree Incident (HCTI) wasn’t technically Seabass’ fault, he sure managed to make clean-up impossible.  Try asking a 19-month-old little boy to sit down and watch as you sweep up shards of glass and glittery water (from the shattered snow globes ornaments, natch), and you’ll get the picture.