Make Your Own Yes-Man

Tags

language, parenting, toddlers, training

They say that a toddler’s favourite word is “No”, so we trained Owl to say “Yes” instead.

It was fairly easy. We just made a point of only offering a choice for things we KNEW he wanted, like strawberries or going to the park or getting down from his high chair. Preferably something he had been begging for already.

“You want down/strawberries/to go for a walk?”

When he replied “No!” we took him for his word. “Okay, then.”

We’d then hum to ourselves for a few seconds while his little baby brain would nearly burst with frustration. Then we’d offer it again, prompting with “Yes?”

He caught on fast. He basically knows that all of our questions are trick questions. If we are offering him a choice, it must be something he wants, because otherwise we’d just be saying “We’re going inside now, not a choice.”

So now he says “yes” to just about everything.

Me: “Do you want me to sell you to the gypsies?”

Owl: “Yes.”

Sometimes he just agrees with us randomly when we’re talking just in case we’re talking about something HE MIGHT WANT.

Me: “Why did we decide to have a child?”

Owl: “YEAH!”

The only pocket of resistance that we get is when he has to do something he doesn’t want in order to get something he does want. Then it’s pretty funny to watch.

PH: “You want down from the stroller?”

Owl: “Yeah!”

PH: “Okay, but you have to hold my hand.”

Owl: “No! No hand!”

PH: “Okay, then you’re going back in the stroller.”

Owl: “…HAND!!”

PH: “Oh, you want to hold my hand after all?”

Owl: “Yeah!”

I feel so clever for tricking my parents into letting me out of this stroller!

When we’re feeling really cruel, we deny him what he wants even when he puts a comma after the word “No.”

Me: “If you don’t put on your shoes, we can’t go for a walk.”

Owl: “NO, WALK!”

Me: “No walk? Okay. Owl doesn’t want a walk.”

Owl: “No! Walk. Walk!”

Me: “Wait, so do you want a walk?”

Owl: “YEAH!!!”

Me: “Okay, then put on your shoes.”

Owl: “Yeah!”

It’s easy for him to answer yes/no questions when he knows the correct answer is almost always yes (unless we’re genuinely offering him a choice, which happens sometimes).

Either/Or questions aren’t going so well, though.

PH: “Do you want to hold Daddy’s hand or go in the stroller?”

Owl: “Yes.”

PH: “Yes to what? Holding Daddy’s hand or going in the stroller?”

Owl: “Yeah.”

PH: “Owl – do you want to hold Daddy’s hand or do you want to go in the stroller?”

Owl: “…Ball.”

MUST EAT LESS BREAD

Tags

dieting, weight loss

That’s it! I gained, like, 6 pounds while away, effectively undoing all the weight loss I enjoyed under the strain and stress of working with Mean Vet.

I’m going on Atkins, dangit, and for real real, strict-like. If it affects my milk, well, Owl’s nearly two. He can suck it up. Literally.

Or not, just as he likes.

(As an aside, according to our daycare lady, Owl didn’t gain any weight on his time away despite frequent fast food meals and a great grandmother who spoon fed him several containers of yogurt every day, and fried chicken every second day. Life is just not always fair.)

Ouch.

PH: “What are reading?”

Me: “I’m obsessively googling articles on child spacing.”

PH: “Well, instead you should be googling “why does my child bite everything he touches and how can I make one of those things NOT BE ME?”

Totally Overthinking Child Spacing BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I DO

Tags

babies, child spacing, children, family, pregnancy

I’ve always planned a rather large space between children.

I was an only child, and that means that I am entirely unused to the sibling dynamic. The rivalry, the fighting, the chaos were all absent from my childhood. It was just me and my parents. Often it was just me, hanging out in my room.

A wider spacing between kids would give me the chance to focus on each child with the kind of intensity that I enjoyed from my parents as a small child, while still giving my children siblings to share family memories with.

I figured about three years would be about right, but I wasn’t too picky. When Perfect Husband said a couple of months ago that we would have to wait until Owl was in school before we could afford a second, I just laughed. Five years seemed extreme, but if necessary, so be it.

PH has begun to change his tune.

As previously mentioned, Owl is an extrovert TO THE MAX.

Our week in Vegas really made clear to us how much of our time is spend in simply trying to entertain Owl. Taking him places kept him busy, but any time spent in our hotel room was time spent wrangling a pent-up extrovert.

Then, by contrast, our time in Wisconsin involved lots of people to deal with Owl. He especially adored his 12 year old cousin who came down for the reunion as well. He demanded her by name constantly, and we found blessed relief when she was around.

“Take out your IUD,” PH told me.

I think he was only half serious, but we are becoming more and more aware of the possible benefits of having a second child as a potential playmate (and, yes, squabble-mate) for Owl.

We also have begun to do the math.

Owl is not even two, so we have always felt like we have plenty of time. Turns out, it takes 9 months to make a baby.

“Even if you got pregnant right now,” PH pointed out, “there would be two and a half years between them. If we wait much longer it will be three years, and then three and a half.”

How big of an age gap would be too much? If we want a sibling that Owl can play with, and not just share memories with as an adult, we may be fast approaching a pregnancy deadline.

There is another thing that we are beginning to take into account, too. While we were away, we found ourselves really looking forward to when he is old enough to enjoy bigger-kid things. Rollercoasters and the Nuclear Testing Museum – the kinds of stuff that we like to do in Vegas. And we realized that we wouldn’t just have to wait until he is old enough – we have to wait until his younger sibling is old enough.

My mind has been whizzing with numbers.

If we had a baby when Owl is three, he would be four when the baby was one. They wouldn’t be able to play. The baby would be two when he was five. They could start to play. The baby would be three when he was six. They could probably play. The baby would be four when Owl was seven. They could almost definitely play.

If we had a baby when Owl is four, he would be five when the baby was one,  six when the baby was two, seven when the baby was three, eight when the baby is four…

It might be too much.

We’re beginning to think that instead of three being the minimum age gap, three may be the MAXIMUM gap.
The problem is, I don’t feel ready for another baby yet.

I always thought I would just wait until the baby urge came back. Perfect Husband only wants two kids, so if I pop out a second and then get the urge after that, well, I’m out of luck. My next kid is my last chance.

So I’ve been keeping that second future kid like an ace up my sleeve. When the baby urge came back, well, I could bring out the “time for a second!” card. Why condense the baby years, when I could enjoy them consecutively, instead?

I haven’t felt the baby urge yet. In fact, when I think about having a second one at this point I start panicking with thoughts like “OMG no one will ever baby sit for us ever again” and “what if Owl pinches the baby on purpose just to hear it scream??”

But if we change our goal from “let’s wait until we actually want another” to “let’s get someone Owl will actually be able to play with”, I may have to take the plunge early.

And soon, apparently.

The problem is further complicated by my nitpickiness.

Complication #1:

I have always had this dreamy image of being pregnant over Christmas: My family crowded around the tree, bringing me presents of baby clothes that I spread over my belly while Nat King Cole sings in the background. Christmas fills me with a deep peace and it makes me think more about birth and family than any other time of year.

I was technically pregnant over Christmas last time, but since I didn’t know it yet, I don’t think that counts.

If I want to be noticeably pregnant over a Christmas season, I would have to get pregnant either RIGHT THIS INSTANT or in spring/early summer next year.

Well, considering that I have an IUD and don’t really feel ready for pregnancy, not to mention that I don’t have a “pregnant” switch that I can just flip to ON, right this instant is clearly not happening. But if I wait until spring/early next summer before getting pregnant, Owl would be three and a half by the time the baby is born, and that may be too large a gap.

Complication #2:

I don’t want to do the ready-to-give-birth in August thing again. I don’t know if you remember, but I had the cankles of doom and was sweating peculiar slime last time.

Nor do I want a Christmas baby, because Birthmas gifts suck and I wouldn’t wish that on a child.

That leaves a time frame of getting pregnant in May-August, which again leaves me either getting pregnant RIGHT THIS INSTANT or waiting until next spring/early summer. Which, again, might be waiting too long.

Complication # 3:

I feel obliged to give my boss at least a year of work before I become knocked up.

I hate to tell someone who just hired me a few months ago, who just told me that she considers me one of her “senior techs” and who wants me to take an “active role” mentoring the newbies that I will be leaving in 9 months. I figured I wouldn’t be getting pregnant until after next February. But maybe I should be rushing things…

Complication #4

I DON’T HAVE A PREGNANCY SWITCH.

It’s all very well to over think this to the skies, but as The Farm Fairy pointed out to me today, nothing ever goes as planned.

Even if I decided I did want to get pregnant RIGHT THIS INSTANT, chances are excellent that I wouldn’t.

Ditto goes for waiting until early spring/late summer next year. An age gap of three and a half might be pushing it. If I don’t get knocked up with gusto, we could end up with that four year age gap which we no longer want.

…Which means that we should probably begin trying a bit earlier, since a smaller age gap is a better outcome than an earlier age gap.

…Which means that we should probably file Complication 1 and Complication 2  under the category of “Suck It Up, Princess.”

Tell me, honestly – what age gap do you think is too big? How long can I put this off?

A Week in Wisconsin – Part Of Owl’s Heritage

Tags

family, home, in-laws, travel, wisconsin

Well, here we are, home.

Our week with Perfect Husband’s relatives in Wisconsin was an odd combination of relaxing and incredibly exhausting.

On the one hand, we mostly just hung around his grandmother’s house. There was a lot of watching baseball on TV, listening to repetitive stories, and meeting distant in-laws that I will never see again.

On the other hand, we mostly just hung around his grandmother’s house. There was a lot of watching baseball on TV, listening to repetitive stories, and meeting distant in-laws that I will never see again.

I felt like I had to mind my p’s and q’s at all times, because PH has terrified me with stories about his grandmother, who did have a penchant for recounting memories of times when she felt insulted, and graphic descriptions of the violence she wanted to commit in return (I heard the phrase “My, I wanted to jest to punch her face in!” far too many times).

In reality, she was perfectly sweet to me and just doted on little Owl. “C’mere and let me feed you!” she barked at him regularly, and then she’d chuckle as she spoon-fed him yogurt. “He’s just like a little bird!”

But I still lived in fear. PH told me not to read in front of her, because apparently the sight of other people reading has been known to insult her in the past. So mostly I just sat.

When possible we made excursions. We took PH’s mother and Owl to a Brewer’s game and we drove up to Green Bay where PH and his sister drooled over Lambeau Field and Owl toddled around going “Foot. Ball. Foot. Ball.”

But mostly, it was relatives, relatives, and more relatives.

Only one of these relations actually showed up for our wedding, so I hadn’t met most of them. PH barely recognized many of them himself, and had no idea who others were. His American branch of the family doesn’t have much in common with the Canadian side.

Our stay with his distant relations involved a lot of racking my brain for polite rejoinders to announcements like these:

“Women must be stupid for going through the pain of childbirth more’n once.”

“We were so poor even the black kids weren’t allowed to play with us!”

“Mormon’s aren’t Christians!”

“I just had the most blessed bowel movement!” 

Ultimately, even though everyone was very nice to me, I was relieved to leave. I think it was more exhausting to my introvert sensibilities than all of Las Vegas.

But Owl certainly learned a lot about sports while we were there – PH is delighted.

A Canadian Extrovert In Las Vegas

Tags

babies, Las Vegas, photos, toddler, travel

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Eating Out With A Toddler: A Survival Guide

Tags

dining, eating, parenting, restaurants, toddlers, travel

This pie-chart has been floating around lately:

It’s funny, and to a certain extent it’s true. When I was a newlywed, PH and I went to dinner with an old friend of his and her 18 month old. The child threw crayons, ran amok through the restaurant, and basically destroyed the meal while his mother went “Oh, you little monkey!”. This pie chart totally applied, and I thought “I’ll NEVER let my child behave like that”. Then I questioned myself.

Thankfully, I am now a mother of a 22 month old and I never let him throw crayons at people.

Eating out with Owl isn’t too difficult for us, and it’s a good thing, because we don’t have a bar fridge in our crappy Excalibur hotel room (in fact, for the first five days, we didn’t even have a door that locked. It took us two days to notice this, and then three days of wheedling to get someone to fix it).

Ordering into the room didn’t work.

So we do have to go OUT. To restaurants. With humans in them.

It hasn’t been nearly as much of a hassle as the pie chart makes it sound.

We even took Owl to a fancy steakhouse and were hardly humiliated at all. Part of that is probably Owl’s sunny disposition and the fact that he is a good eater.

Yes, he has TWO FORKS in his hand.

I notice, though, that there are a few key things that other parents are doing differently from us, and I think that they may be making some mistakes.

You see, we have Strategy.

And so, I bring you…

How To Eat Out With A Toddler And Survive It

(Or, “The way that works for us”)

1. Bring toys and books.

Do not expect your dazzling conversation to entertain the child. I see a lot of parents trying to wrestle a toddler into sitting still with no distractions. It makes me wonder where their brains are. I know that Owl is a little perpetual motion machine and if we want him to remain in place, we need to at least give his little gyrating brain something to hover around.

2. Let the kid run around first.

Do not bring a child who is filled with energy to the table. Toddlers need to move. You keep a child in a stroller for most of the day and try to plunk them down at the table and let me know how that goes. Owl needs to MOVE, so we try to make sure he gets some running and climbing time in before we try and sit him down.

3. Don’t bloody order a kid’s meal unless you really have to.

The average toddler eats just a couple of spoonfuls of food at each meal, and kid meals are aimed at the 6 and 7 year olds of the world. What a waste of money. Besides, if your kid is like our kid, he’ll just want to eat whatever you’re eating anyway. Owl thinks it’s suspicious if we feed him something we aren’t interested in eating ourselves. If you know for a fact that your baby won’t touch a bite of your meal, then fine, go ahead, but you have been warned.

4. Take your baby for a walk once dinner has been ordered.

Once you’ve picked your meal, take the kid by the hand and go for a stroll around (or even outside of) the restaurant. Do not let him climb under other people’s tables, remove other people’s cutlery from the table, or chuck crayons at people.

5. Feed or don’t feed your baby as necessary while you are waiting.

If your child hasn’t eaten for hours and is on the verge of a hunger meltdown, ask for some bread or fruit to be brought out ASAP. Waiters are usually willing to jump whatever hurdles are necessary to prevent a full toddler tantrum at one of their tables. If, on the other hand, your child is not about to perish from hunger, then don’t give him snacks until dinner arrives. If food arrives and he’s full, you’re in trouble.

5. Once food arrives, immobilize the child.

Owl is old enough for a booster seat but we still request a high chair, though we don’t put him in it until his food arrives. If he wasn’t penned in, he’d be scaling me like a try and trying to yank my nipples out of my shirt. Once in the high chair with food in front of him (the food being the key part here) he has something to distract him.

6. The Copycat Trick:

If Owl is playing with his food more than he is eating it, I try this trick – Break off part of your meal (a small mouthsized bite) and put it on his plate. Then pick up your own ocrresponding portion and show it to him: “Mommy has steak. Does Owl have steak?”. A quick scan of his plate will reveal to him that yes, indeed, he DOES have steak. Wait until he picks it up and then grin at him. Show him yours and open your mouth and wait expectantly. When he does the same, gobble your bite of food and watch him imitate you.

7. Don’t force him to eat.

It’s okay to not be hungry. Provide more toys and books if you child has no interest in the meal, or take turns holding his hand and walking him around the restaurant while the other person eats. Just keep him busy and enjoy your meal.

We never get dirty looks – only coos and comments on the size of his eyes. I’d say we probably spend up to 30% of our time eating! :-p

Like I say, Owl is naturally fairly cheerful and he loves to eat, so I think we’ve been given a head start.

But still – seriously? 10% of your time begging a toddler to eat something violently orange which doesn’t remotely resemble your delicious salmon en croute? Not the way I would do it at all.

Finally, My Own “Horsie-Knight”. Er, For Owl, Of Course.

Tags

Excalibur, horses, Las Vegas, parenting, toys

I wanted to get Owl something from Las Vegas that didn’t have naked ladies on it. Since we’re staying in Excalibur, I decided to buy him a knight and steed.

Yes, I am doing this despite the fact that we have been entirely underwhelmed with Excalibur, since they gave us a room that didn’t actually lock and it took three days of consecutive complaints to get them to fix it. Oh, and they have signs everywhere for $40 poker tournament, which turned out to cost $50. Pointing to the signs had no effect.

I bought Owl a knight and horse despite Excalibur’s dismal customer service, entirely because I think that they will provide him with hours of amusement.

It is NOT because I want to play with them myself.

I am clearly a grown up.

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Owl loves the “horsie knight” which seems to be one entity to him. He kisses them, lays them on their sides and informs us that they are sleeping. So clearly it was a good decision.

Definitely not a selfish decision in the least.

How NOT To Market Your Restaurant To Tourists

Tags

bad customer service, dining, Las Vegas, restaurants, wtf

We tried to order-in ONCE. It went like this:

Me: “Hey, look! A flyer was slipped under our (unlocked) door for a local pizza place! Their prices are way better than most of the tourist traps around here.”

PH: “Yes, let’s order in tonight. Wow, 28 inch pizza. Let’s get that.”

*dials number for Flamingo Pizza*

Number is out of service.

*visits website for Flamingo Pizza*

Website is defunct.

*Googles Flamingo Pizza*

New website found.

*Attempt to order online.*

Flamingo Pizza doesn’t deliver to our area

PH: “So, they gave us a flyer with a bad number, a bad website, and they don’t even deliver to our area?”

Me: “Worst advertising ever.”

Vegas, Babby!

Tags

children, hotels, Las Vegas, travelling

Well, here we are in Las Vegas!

PH and I came down to Vegas a couple of years ago. Neither of us had ever had a strong desire to go, but when you live on the West Coast, Vegas is a cheap and common vacation spot.

Flights are usually well below a hundred dollars and when you come in the off-season (as we did last time) hotel rooms are shockingly cheap – like, 25 bucks a night. Plus, since everything in Vegas is aimed at getting you into their casinos, it’s easy to get discounts on everything from show tickets to meals. If you pay full price for something in Vegas, it’s because you were too lazy to check for a coupon.

Las Vegas is like walking into a bizarre Skinner Box which is specially designed for the extroverted mind.

Everything dings, flashes and clangs. People on the street dressed as Elmo or Spiderman accost you and demand that you take your photo with them. Signs assure you that “you can sleep when you get home!” while offering you all-night access to liquor, gambling, and naked ladies.

The slot machines are the most obvious Skinner Box kind of trap. Despite passing row after row of slots all of which offer different “games”, with themes varying from goldfish and cute dogs to Wheel of Fortune, Battleship, and Sex and the City… all of them offer the same basic game – pull the lever/press the button and hope that the computer will line up a series of pictures in your favour.

Even my teddy bear, Timothy, got hooked on the slots.

Every now and then the machine dings and gives you a reward for playing, which is usually just a fraction of what you have already spent. Nevertheless, the casinos know what I am always telling dog training clients : the size of the reward doesn’t matter – the behavior will still be reinforced whether you use a crumb or a giant cookie.

And so people lose their money at shocking rates, while being reinforced for pushing a button over and over again. I have trained rats to do the same thing. I really don’t see the appeal, personally.

So what are we doing here?

Well, first, as previously mentioned, it’s cheaper than a lot of other vacation options. Secondly, we’re on our way to see PH’s bible-thumping grandmother whom I have never met but am terrified of based on some of the family stories about her. Before we get to the place where I have to refer to Owl’s Christening as a “baptism” lest I suffer the wrath of the Almighty, we’ve got to get some fun into this vacation.

And Vegas is fun.

It is dirty, and sleazy beyond belief. But it is fun.

We specifically chose a hotel with a good pool, for Owl’s sake. Originally we wanted the Monte Carlo, but that was a little out of our price range so we settled for Excalibur, which we figured would be good when it came to entertaining Owl.

But it isn’t as good as we expected.

At our last stay, we stayed at Circus Circus. It is the epitome of Vegas – sleazy, filled with cigarette smoke and blinking lights. It’s also on the older end of the strip, making it a little out of the way.

But it was cheap.

We thought Excalibur with it’s fairy-castle exterior would be a step up, and in a way it is – it is cleaner, and less sleazy (although still full of sleaze – this IS Vegas).

I like the castle-ness of it, since knights and dragons appeal to me more than scary clowns. It is also closer to a lot of things, like the sharks at Mandalay Bay, is connected via indoor pedways to neighbouring hotels (which is good for walking Owl without roasting him) and the pool is pretty good, with a huge shallow end for Owl.

I feel like we made the right choice for this trip.

But it isn’t nearly as child friendly as you would think. If we come back again when Owl is older, I think we’d be much more likely to return to Circus Circus.

Circus Circus had a bigger arcade/midway, had an entire amusement park, had free circus acts to watch…

Excalibur actually has less stuff aimed at kids than Circus Circus, despite being priced higher, and to our surprise, the hotel rooms are not as good.

Our hotel room doesn’t have a safe, has holes in the coverlets, a stain on the floor, and it doesn’t even have a bathtub.

Now tell me, is it wise for a hotel which is semi-marketed to children to not offer a bath tub to the parents of these sweaty, sticky children? Shouldn’t they at least warn you? The site doesn’t say a word about no bathtubs. Now, it doesn’t promise you a bathtub, but it doesn’t promise you a toilet either. Some things you just take for granted.

I’m a bath kind of girl, but more importantly, Owl does NOT like showers. We would have to fork out another $300 bucks to get a fancy spa tub if we wanted to actually BATHE him (or if I wanted to do the same thing I did last time we were in Vegas, and eat Krispy Kreme in the tub at night).

Good thing we have the pool. 

We’re going to swim every day.

In other news, PH keeps offering to stay “home” with Owl while I go to a performance of Thunder From Down Under. I’m almost tempted, mostly because the girls at work would just about die from jealousy, but I’m pretty sure that a show like that is the kind of thing you DON’T EVER DO ALONE. So I think that I would really rather not.