I took Happy Fun Baby to his first Itsy Bitsy Tots yoga class on Wednesday. Itsy Bitsy Yoga, in case you don’t know, is yoga for babies: interactive classes in which babies are encouraged to try out various poses, the names of which are chanted in a singsong voice by the parents and instructor, in order to sort of imprint the idea of yoga on the child’s brain and form a foundation for later practice.

Yes, crunchy granola parenting, here I come. I’ve already got the shoes, right?

The class was somewhat less dynamic than I’d hoped. Happy Fun Baby is a really active kid, and the gentle, non-demanding tone of the class didn’t hold his attention for very long. Er – at all. He did think it was pretty cool to run around with the other kids, though. I thought maybe there would be a bit more grown-up yoga along with the baby-centric stuff, but no, we didn’t even really get to stretch. That was disappointing.

The instructor clearly expected the parents (and by “parents” I really mean “moms,” because although the class description was careful to use inclusive and non-gendered language, it was all mamas who showed up) to bond instantly over their shared desires to instill their offspring with inner peace, but we all just sort of milled around trying to corral our children and only spoke when asked questions. Pretty reasonable, as far as I’m concerned, but the instructor seemed a bit at a loss as to why we were not all suddenly BFF – perhaps because our lack of interaction underscored the fact that this was less a thrilling yogic expedition and more a glorified play-date.

We’re signed up for three more classes in the series, and part of me sort of wants to bow out. I mean, whatever, it’s an excuse to get out of the house, right? But it’s an hour and a half out there and an hour and a half back, all for a one-hour class that isn’t particularly stimulating. Is a three-hour round-trip reasonable? I ask you, internets: would you go to so much effort? Or would you just sleep in?

I do sort of wonder if taking all four classes will help Happy Fun Baby find some balance, though. He’s such a physical kid that classes of some sort seem like a good idea. I suspect that he needs something a little more high-energy, but he’s too little for almost everything that comes to mind. What’s out there for a 16-month-old that isn’t Music Together or Itsy Bitsy Yoga?

technorati tags:itsy bitsy yoga

Yes, friends, that is the face of the baby who refuses to nap. A cute face, though somewhat more full of motion than his mama would like. (Also: floor clothes! His new favorite thing is emptying his dresser drawers of clothing and filling them with things like crayons and shoes. Getting dressed in the morning = challenging.) I do not understand the Nap Strike. If I were offered the chance to nap every day, would I not take it? That is clearly rhetorical, and I will spare you my enthusiastic HELL YES. For the sake of the children.

This morning began on an inauspicious note: after dressing the child in what can only be described as the Cutest Freaking Outfit Ever (it involved a Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie, and you have not seen cute until you have seen my kid working the Burton duds) we went downstairs to acquire foot coverings, at which time Happy Fun Baby found a full cup of water that someone had left in his reach. You know where this is going. I did consider just cramming his soggy feet into his skater shoes and fleeing the scene, but that only lasted as long as it took me to discover that his whole outfit was soaked. Sigh.

Then, of course (of course) we got to the office to find that the internet was not so much with the connecting. Phone call to ISP revealed, eventually, that the property management team had apparently decided to re-do the roof. Where the antenna is located. Without telling anyone. So strike two, and I had to conduct my client meeting with a series of gestures and a winning smile instead of an online walk-through. Oh, and did I mention that my child took the opportunity to fill his diaper mere moments before the client arrived? Welcome to my office; this is a scent I like to call Eau de Excrement. Would you like to give me some money?

So now we are home, where there is internet, and also a place where the baby could quite reasonably nap, were he the napping sort. There was an incident involving peanut butter a little bit earlier, but I will spare you all the details. Mr. No-Nap is now entertaining himself by throwing things under the baby gate at the top of the stairs. Apparently they make an entertaining show of tumbling ever downward. Hooray!

Someone here needs a nap, anyway. It might not be the baby.

technorati tags:baby who will not nap, stairs, excrement, spill

Am 3/4 of the way into Real Boys by William Pollack, and the more I read the more I want to gouge my eyes out. Yes, clearly there is a gender bias in modern society. Yes, it’s ridiculous to constrain our sons by insisting they do not wear pink and labeling anything that isn’t dripping with testosterone as “effeminate.” Yes, I realize I am part of the problem, what with my use of “testosterone” in the pejorative just now. Fine.

The thing I can’t swallow, however, is this idea that all of these problems are exclusive to boys. Several times in the book Pollack makes statements like “this would never happen to a girl” while I think um, yes it would. Fathers use the word “disgust” more often in regard to their sons? Apparently no one in my family got that memo. Girls play cooperatively on the playground? Wow, what schools did he visit?

I get that I might have a bit of a skewed perspective, given that my father raised me, essentially, as a sort of revenge for his own perceived gender discrimination. Where my moody pre-teen sulks were mocked mercilessly, my brother’s adolescent tantrums were lovingly tolerated to the mantra of “It’s hard to be a boy.” This is the nicest thing I am going to say about my father, so make a note of it, if you’re the note-making type.

Pollack also has some interesting direct quotes, and by “interesting” I mean “I have never in my life met anyone who spoke like that.” There’s a section in the beginning about a kindergarten class in which the director, having a conversation with a new teacher about the different levels of separation anxiety for boys and girls, is quoted as saying “Boys, however, have to be more independent or their peers will call them sissies and make fun of them. It’s our job to help boys deal with this, especially if their mothers haven’t done it themselves.” Their peers? Seriously?

I don’t have a problem with a little creative latitude, but let’s not call something a quote if it’s a paraphrase, and while we’re at it, let’s not cite studies by saying “a recent study proved…” while providing no footnote or direct citation giving the reader an idea of exactly what study we’re discussing. It must be true – someone did a study! Proof is for losers.

I grew up a girl (I know! You’re shocked!) so part of me wondered if my reaction was just more gender stereotyping. I asked Not So to read a bit and tell me what he thought. His reaction? “That guy is a douche.” Well. There you have it.

But maybe that’s just the Boy Code talking.

technorati tags:real boys, william pollack, gender stereotypes

(Last night’s scattered post, brought to you by the letter B.)

Can’t connect to internet and am feeling v. sorry for self. Baby is sleeping, finally, but I’m going stir crazy. I haven’t had a break all day. I’ve either been wresting with a whiny baby or pointedly not wrestling with a whiny baby or trying to no avail to get whiny baby to take a nap, since it’s clear he desperately needed one. Then there was the incident with the Chex Mix, which is currently all over our living room floor (after having been stomped into a fine grit by one Whiny Baby, Esq.). At that point, I didn’t even care anymore. “Apparently he’s having some Chex Mix,” I deadpanned as my child began tossing it by the handful. “At least he’s not screaming,” added Not So. And that’s my parenting story for the day.

Oh, waah, poor me. I’m just glad he’s finally down. He’s very tired, and tired babies are not happy babies. He’s been sleeping abominably, which is to say better than when he was cutting molars but not anything resembling “well.” I’ve been staying up much too late because when he finally does go down I’m a) jangled and b) jonesing to get some work done. Which I’d be doing right now, but the laptop and the internet have not been on speaking terms since we hooked up the Apple TV downstairs. (Love the lovely Apple TV, but that’s another story.)

I’d like to work. I’d like to take a bath, maybe change out of the sweats I’ve been wearing all day and into some fresh sweats, for some variety. I’d like to eat some more M&Ms and not think about the baby for a little while. Don’t get me wrong. I like the baby. I like thinking about the baby, talking about the baby, talking TO the baby. But he’s really been relentless today, what with the screaming fits and the whining and the demanding to be held (and then demanding to be put down) and refusing to nap. I get that this is hard for him, this almost-but-not-quite talking, but it’s hard for me, too. He tries to communicate, fails, gets frustrated and screams. I try to understand him, fail, get screamed at. This, my friends? This is a no-win situation.

He’s snuggled up in bed now, all long eyelashes and soft baby-snores. I know the minute I get up and, say, run a bath, he’ll stir, realize I’m not there, and start freaking out. Even if I run back in, he’ll be all overwrought and inconsolable and the only way I’ll be able to get him down again is to nurse and then physically wrap myself around him until he falls back asleep. Even if I stay in bed, the odds that he’ll stay sound asleep are pretty slim. He always, every single night, wakes up at 10:30-11 and freaks out for a while. Some nights the nursing thing works; some nights it doesn’t. But he never skips his 11pm wakeup.

The nursing thing is getting to me, too. Something about being always on. Last night, after Happy Fun Baby’s fifth or sixth wakeup (during which he would not be comforted by anything except the Magic Boob) I actually told him “You don’t need to nurse every freaking hour! You can just sleep!” Naturally the baby ignored me, but I felt somewhat like the Bad Mama you read about on the internet, chastising her child for unreasonable things. The Magic Boobs, though, they are getting mighty sick of being the end-all, be-all source of comfort, food, entertainment and sleep. The Magic Boobs want to stay inside their tee-shirt for one night and not have to work for a living. The Magic Boobs, they are tired.

You’d think that after a beastly pregnancy, a crushing case of PPD and a schedule so full I always burst out laughing when I try to describe it, I’d have given up on the idea of gestating again. I mean, we won the Baby Lottery with Happy Fun Baby – I found out I was pregnant right about the time we got the results of Not So’s sperm tests, which said, basically, that there was a chance in hell that we could conceive without medical intervention, but only just. And let’s take a moment and think about my schedule, which currently involves two businesses, school, full-time mothering and a vast and endless supply of dirty dishes, all of which I am staying on top of by sheer force of I don’t know what. Not So and I sat down the other day and discussed the pros and cons of having another kid, and what it came down to is that we wouldn’t be able to maintain the same quality of life if we were to add to our family. Right now, we have the best of both worlds: an amazing kid who we adore, and career opportunities we used to only dream of. It’s a delicate balance, and another baby would send it toppling.

Does that stop me from wanting one so badly I could cry? It does not.

I always wanted a big family, and though the definition of big has changed since I was younger (I no longer want enough children to start my own circus troupe, although if Happy Fun Baby decides to be a contortionist I am so all over that) my idea of family still involves children, plural. More than one, fewer than three. Kids. Of course, I also thought I’d be a schoolteacher and have really great hair, so we’ve obviously got a bit of a reality disconnect here. Still. I find myself oddly reticent to get rid of Happy Fun Baby’s more memorable bits of baby gear, and every time I see a newborn I feel my ovaries twanging in a decidedly un-pc way.

Having an only child has its benefits, though. Besides the obvious perk of not having to go through the whole pregnancy thing again, our little family is uniquely suited to the type of lifestyle we lead. We love our little two-bedroom condo; a bigger family would need a bigger house, and more stuff to put in it. We don’t own a car and don’t want to. How would I wrangle a baby and a toddler on public transportation? People do it, but it looks very hard and I do not like things that are hard. We like the fact that we can strap the baby into the Ergo and go out into the world with only minimal additional baby-related gear. I’m terrible about keeping a schedule, and Happy Fun Baby is accommodating enough to let me wing it most days. I can’t imagine how I’d get a day’s work in with an infant and a toddler. And I like being able to be completely there for my kid. I don’t necessarily want to divide my attention, even if Happy Fun Baby would be getting a different sort of family experience from his theoretical sibling.

Only children have gotten a bad rap; most people think of them as spoiled, difficult, selfish. I’ve known only children who fit that mold, but I’ve known people with siblings who fit it, too. One of the moms on a bulletin board hit it on the head when she said “No kid of mine will be spoiled–just because we CAN give her something doesn’t mean we always will.” Happy Fun Baby won’t be an only child so that we can lavish him with stuff. He’ll be an only child because we made a choice about our quality of life. He’ll have parents who love him, and aunts and uncles who love him, and cousins, and friends. He doesn’t need a sibling to be a whole person.

Now, if I can just sell that pitch to my ovaries…

technorati tags:only child, quality of life, siblings

Holy Nap Strike, Batman. The kid, he is so obviously tired, yet does he sleep? He does not. Currently he is ensconced in a blanket nest on the couch, blearily watching Little Einsteins on DVD. (While we were at Target this weekend we wisely decided that some kid DVDs were in order, so the Little Einsteins were procured, as well as All-Star ABCs, which features Stephen Colbert as the letter Z. And is really freaking funny. Which strikes me as somehow very wrong.)

The kid has a stuffy nose, which might explain the reluctance to nap. It seems like every time we go anywhere he catches some sort of bug, because, hello, kids? Wee little disease factories. Just today my child came up to me and enthusiastically wiped his nose all over the shoulder of my shirt. And I didn’t even blink. Just “Aaaw, is your nose runny?” I can think of few times in my life that I wouldn’t object to being someone’s Kleenex, but like they say, it’s different when you have kids. Different, and more gross.

I think I’m doing the Crafty Mamas Bazaar at Milagros this Saturday, so I’m spending this week frantically creating toys. My newest idea involves a shirt with a button on the front, onto which one (or one’s child) can attach a number of interchangable felt creatures. As an aside: who knew that buttons were so controversial? Half the moms I told about this project reacted with chagrin that I would even consider using a button in conjunction with children’s clothes. Choking! Hazard! Am I insane? I am not insane. I am even working on a version which uses a felt button (thanks so much for the idea, K!) for younger kids. But I still think that regular buttons are really not that bad.

I think the kid has finally succombed to the lure of sleep, so I’m going to wander off in the direction of my craft table. Which, uh, is actually the kitchen table, covered in so much other stuff we couldn’t possibly use it for food. Yay, multitasking!

technorati tags:crafts, nap, baby, dvd

We’ve been sans cable for three days now. Three whole days of television silence, broken only by the occasional DVD of Aladdin or Chicken Little, and can I just say I would not be sad if I never had to watch either of those movies again, ever? I may leave them down where the baby can get them by “accident” just so the option’s closed. Guh.

I think I miss the cable more than the baby does. He seems mildly put out that I haven’t offered to put on Jack’s Big Music Show lately, but other than that he doesn’t seem to even notice that there’s nothing on the TV screen. Mama, on the other hand? Feels like a crack addict. I haven’t had my Scrubs fix in days, and yes, I am aware that Zach Braff does the voice of Chicken Little, and no, that does not make it better. (Though I did keep expecting Chicken Little to yell “Banana hammock!” at several points during the movie.)

The lack of television coupled with the sleep training thing is all blessing and curse, and I will tell you why. First, it is good, because much of the reason the baby was staying up so late was because it was so easy for mama to hang out with him while she watched Adult Swim and crocheted. Now there is nothing to distract the baby from sleeping or the mama from letting him. Then, it is bad, because there is nothing to distract the mama from the myriad worries flitting in and out of her head like a swarm of moths. Related note: I have a moth phobia. Also spiders, but that’s neither here nor there. Again, the not having TV thing is good because I am not parking said kidlet in front of it during the day while I work or do school. Likewise, it is a nightmare because I get NOTHING done, oh my god, the nothing I get done is STAGGERING in its nothingness, especially on days like today when I have a deadline and an article I have to write and a child who is just bored and does not want to play quietly while mama compiles data.

But, yes. It evens out. << I typed that, and then the baby began to wail. He’d been asleep for all of 30 minutes, and I have spent the last hour upstairs with him while he alternately screamed inconsolably and clung to me like a barnacle while refusing to fall back asleep. I sang. I told stories. I rocked. I nursed. But the baby is so freaked out by the idea of sleeping alone that he will literally startle himself awake every time he drifts off, just so I won’t leave. It’s heartbreakingly sweet and desperately frustrating all at the same time.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying what a horrible mother, and then you’re holding that thought because baby, awake. Again.

Okay. Where was I? Oh yes: What a horrible mother. Why make the poor child sleep alone? Why not just go to bed when he does? And I have no good reason, except that I don’t want to go to bed at 9pm every night, and also? I like being able to finish a thought every once in a while. I like being able to get stuff done. I like not having to divide my attention. Because did I mention the nothing I got done earlier?

The other half of you are probably saying Well why isn’t your husband helping? and the answer to that is that he is, just not tonight. We’ve been tag-teaming the bedtime routine, which is great (if somewhat less of a break for me than originally planned) but tonight I’m solo and he’s out gaming. The theory, I guess, is that Happy Fun Baby will not notice the lack of Dada as long as the schedule’s the same. Which is a lovely theory.

I have other theories. Many of them involve Tahiti, and the running away thereto. I hear it’s nice this time of year. Also? I bet they have cable.

technorati tags:sleep training, cosleeping, sleep, cable, television, Tahiti