This

Tags

babies, language, living in the now, motherhood, parenthood, speech, thought, toddlers

Owl and I are taking our evening bath. He’s a little overtired, on account of taking an unusually early nap that day. In order to calm him down I hold him on my arms and lay him on his back, with my chin resting gently on his head and my arms around his scrawny little chest. We breathe deeply together for a while, and Owl seems to become fascinated with this new view of the shower head and the shower caddy above us.

Owl: Deesh? *points upwards*

Me: What do you see?

Owl: Deesh. O? P? Q? Deesh!

Me: I don’t know what deesh is. I see the shower head, and the caddy, and the soap bottles, and my razor, and the loofah, and the wall, and the shower curtain…

Owl: Deesh! DEESH! Up? A… B… C… I… J… Deesh? *points again*

Me: Tell me more.

Owl: O… P… Q… Esh… Deesh? WOW! Yeah. Deesh? Up? UP! Deesh!

Me: What’s “deesh?” Do you mean “this”?

Owl: Yeah.

Me: Do you mean “what’s this?”

Owl: No.

Me: You don’t mean “what’s this?”

Owl: No.

Me: Just “this?” Only “this?”

Owl: Yeah. Yeah. Deesh.

Me: Only this.

Owl: Deesh.

He heaves a contended sigh and we lay there snuggled together, staring upwards, and thinking about Only This. 

 

DADA

Tags

babies, child development, parenthood

Owl is all about the Dada these days.

I wish I could say that this resulted in him being less interested in my boobas, but that is not the case. I am still Milk Bags and expected to lactate at his beck and call.

But Dada is FUN BAGS.

A friend of mine is a social worker and one time I picked up one of her text books. It was all about families and stuff, and one chapter talked about the relationship between children and their father. It claimed that studies show that fathers tend to play in a more “creative” fashion with their kids. While mothers tend to stick to more “traditional” or mainstream games and songs when interacting with their kids, fathers tend to be more unpredictable, more physical, and invent crazy games.

This is certainly true of PH’s interactions with Owl. When Owl was 8 months old or so, he invented a new game. It was called “It’s On Owl’s Head”.

The game involved putting unusual objects on Owl’s head, and then announcing, “it’s on Owl’s head!”

A simple game, perhaps, but Owl thought it was the most brilliant game of all time.

The repertoire of games is larger now, consisting of such gems as “Shoulder Baby”, which involves Owl hanging on PH’s shoulder in a fireman carry. “Drunken Baby”, which consists of PH spinning Owl around in circles, carefully setting him down, and then giggling as Owl tries to walk in a straight line, and so on.

Last night Owl worked himself into hysterics by pretending to fall asleep on his Dada’s chest, and then popping his head up suddenly with a big grin. Dada pretended to be surprised each time. This was, apparently, THE FUNNIEST THING EVER.

Mama’s pretty fun too – we have Tickle Hand and the Kissing Game – but she just isn’t quite the same caliber as Dada when it comes to sheer AWESOME.

Nothing brings a smile to Owl’s face a quickly as asking him to point out Dada. He loves to spot Dada in pictures – the photo of us kissing on our computer desktop, the family photo on the fridge – Mama is old news but hey, look, THAT’S DADA!

Sometimes, he wakes up in bed with us at 5 am, spots Dada, and gets so excited that it takes a while to get him back to sleep. 

This morning, PH had already left for work when Owl and I got up, and it took me a good ten minutes to convince a hopeful babby that Dada was not around.

“Dada?”

“He’s at work, honey.”

“Dada?”

“He’s at work, sweetie.”

*thoughtful pause*

“DADA??”

Even the sight of the Xbox controller (disturbingly) is enough to trigger a suffusion of Dada enthusiasm. 

“Dada?”

“What are you pointing at, sweetie?”

“Dada!”

“There’s no picture of Dada there, Owl. Are you trying to say DOG? There’s a picture of a DOG over there.”

*jabbing the controller with a finger*

“DADA!”

“That’s not Dada, that’s an xbox controller.”

“Dada?”

“XBOX CONTROLLER”

*pause, then emphatic baby-sign for “father”*

“DADA?!!”

Oooookay, then.

But Mama is crafty and has learned to use this Dada fandom for her own nefarious purposes.

This evening, as time drew nigh to pick PH up from his daily commute at the train station, I knew that suggesting we “go get Dada” would be the best way to get Owl’s attention and cooperation.

Even so, the sight of the coat had him folding his arms over his chest and running away as fast as his little legs could take him.

Normally I chase him down and stuff his arms in, but this time I just stood there, holding out the coat.

“Don’t you want to go get Dada?” I asked.

“Dada!” Owl gave me a big grin.

“Well, if you want to get Dada, we have to get Owl’s coat on,” I said reasonably.

We stared at each other for a moment, while Owl thought about this. I raised my eyebrows and let him weigh the choices.

His mouth creased into an impish smile as he measured me up.

Then,

“DADA!!” and he ran towards me and stuck his arm into his coat.

Willing to put his coat on voluntarily in order to see his father?

That’s proof of true love.

A Grown-Up Letter To Santa:

Tags

Christmas, letters to santa, parenthood, wishlists

When I was a girl I wrote you a lot

with wish lists that I would compile great thought

believing and trusting that you would come through

with some of the stuff I requested from you.

I don’t think that readers will be shocked to hear

that some gifts were notably absent each year.

The ponies and power-wheels for which I would nag

clearly could not be tucked into your bag!

And no one could blame you, not even me

for failing to leave me a horse by the tree.

But now I am older and feeling more wise

So I will consider the issue of size!

My requests should cause you no trouble at all

for all of them are quite reasonably small:

I’m sure, as you know, I am only a tech,

so maybe you could please consider a check?

For the mortgage, assessment, vacations and such

a million or so would be fine: not too much.

And then, because, as you know, I do blog

but working and sleeping and the baby can hog

a lot of my time so more time would be great.

Or maybe just take some things off of my plate,

like some of the time that I spend on my whelp:

A baby who slept through the night would sure help.

If you can’t manage that, and you wish to atone,

I’d take wifi, a new hard drive, and a data plan for my phone.

Just one more thing I would ask for myself:

Perhaps you could spare me a single good elf?

He needn’t be burly, or much of a hunk

To tidy my house and to purge it of junk

That should be enough for Christmas this year

to fill my poor soul with the old Christmas cheer!

In Which We Do Not Take Medical Advice From L.M. Montgomery

Tags

babies, coughing, croup, illness, parenthood, sleep, wheezing

You can sleep WHEN I CAN BREATHE

Little Owl has kennel cough.

Er, I mean, croup.

Right.

…

…

…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

…I’m awake.

Anyway, this may or may not be related to the fever of 39.5 from last week. 

Might not be.

He started coughing a weird barking cough that sounded like kennel cough on Monday night. But Daycare Lady said she heard no coughing at daycare the next day. But he was up all night Tuesday, too, coughing and crying and refusing to sleep outside of my arms.

Wednesday, again, Daycare lady heard no coughing during the day.

Until about 4 in the afternoon, when he began to wheeze. The Daycare lady was concerned, but pointed to his cheerful demeanor and good appetite.

Thing is, when Owl’s appetite disappears, that’s when I should rush him to the E.R. because I don’t think I have ever encountered anything that made him turn down food, especially Daycare Lady’s lamb stew with barley.

But he was definitely getting worse. 

“Every time he gives that sad, wheezy little cough, I feel like someone has just killed a kitten in front of me,” PH complained. “A sad, tiny, mewling kitten, and God just, like, SNAPPED ITS NECK.”

That night I ended up in locked the bathroom with the door closed while the hot water from the running shower filled the room with steam, until my baby stopped coughing and dozed off.

A consultation with Dr. Google revealed that he did not, in fact, have kennel cough, but croup.

“Then we should give him ipecac” I announced.

PH looked horrified.

“NO! Why would you do that to my baby??”

“Because when Diana Barry’s little sister was sick with the croup, Anne of Green Gables saved her life by giving her syrup of ipecac!”

But PH felt that perhaps a 19th century fiction novel might not be the best source of advice for treating our baby, so I was officially out of ideas.

…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry, I was just resting my eyes.

Daycare Lady took him the next day anyway, because he had no fever, was otherwise quite cheerful and she really didn’t think he was contagious – or that if he was, he had probably already passed it along. However, his wheeze was getting worse, and I ended up leaving work early to take him to the children’s walk-in clinic.

The doctor was concerned about his airways, gave me steroids, and told me to bring him back if they didn’t make a big improvement.

They didn’t.

“I would stick an ice pick into my own eye socket if it meant that I would never hear that cough ever, ever again,” PH told me.

Cue another night of steamed-up bathrooms and PH sleeping downstairs while Owl restlessly wiggled and coughed and wheezed through the night in our bed.

…

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

No, really, I’m awake.

So the next day I took him to the pediatrician again.

Happily, the doctor said his wheeze was getting better, and recommended adding some whacking doses of Tylenol to the steroids.

He’s getting better.

But he is still ending up in our bed, wiggling and coughing and kicking at his Daddy while he noms onto my boobas from the most improbable angles.

PH said one time he woke up in the night, and we were both asleep, but Owl was collapsed over my face, his bum up in the air.

We’re all a little tired. And by a little, I mean

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PH gave me a bit of a sleep in today. I’m hoping he’ll be able to take a nap this afternoon.

And we’re PRAYING that Owl will be all better soon, because tonight is his last dose of steroids.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………………………..

Two thirds of the way around the sun…

Tags

babies, child development, eight months old, first foods, milestones, motherhood, parenthood

Eight Months on Mother's Day!

I can’t believe how the time flies. I have to find a daycare, and a job, and rejoin the working world in a few months, but I just want to stay home and cuddle my baby.

Must learn how to control time. Am putting that on the to-do list.

Watching Babby discover life is amazing.

There was the day he learned how to open his own hands. He was dealing with the constantly aggravating problem of trying to get at the remaining bit of food clutched tightly in his fist after gnawing off the bit that was sticking out.

One day, he opened his hand, pressed it flat against his mouth, and gobbled that last bite. He chewed in triumph as he stared at his hand, opening and closing it again and again, marvelling at his new-found control.

That last bit of food never bothered him again (although that last bite tends to be a doozy, and he usually ends up chewing it for half an hour like a wad of gum until I stick my finger in his mouth and sweep it out of there while he protests loudly).

Then there was the day he discovered clapping. He was waving his hands around and they happened to hit each other, and I burst into a round of applause. He grinned at me, and stared at his hands, and tried to repeat his performance. It took a couple of tries, but he managed it again, and PH and I clapped back at him, telling him what a clever baby he was. He did it again, and again, and he loves the attention he receives.

We still can’t prompt him into it, though. He doesn’t take requests, yet.

He figured out how to wave this week, and he spent many minutes doing it enthusiastically while I cheered and waved, too.

Unfortunately, he will only wave at one person: his own reflection. While he now lifts his hand in joyful salute at the sight of “Babby-in-the-mirror”, he still just stares at us with a polite smile if we try to get him to wave at us.

He will give a high five, though, if he’s not too distracted. While high-fiving us is a fun game in the house, he tends to leave us hanging when there are other people watching.

I still love his relationship with food. 

Lettuce? I EAT IT

So far, he has not discovered food that he won’t eat.

He has gobbled salmon (I hate fish), and spinach, and chickpea curry, and guacamole, and a zillion other things.

We had to warn some friends who were babysitting him a couple of weeks ago not to eat anything in front of him that they weren’t willing to give him, because when he sees food come out he clenches his fists and starts screeching like a dying velociraptor until the food is delivered safely to his pudgy fists. It’s really charming.

What I can’t figure out, though, is how he knows what food is.

I mean, this kid puts everything from dog fur to wet diaper covers into his mouth, so clearly his idea of “food” must be vague… and yet, if I walk into the room with a strange object, he doesn’t react. He only does the argh-you-have-food-i-eat-it screaming when it’s food.  He does it with food he has never seen before.

He did it when he spotted PH buying corn dogs at the midway. How did he know that those corn dogs were food? Corn dogs certainly don’t look like anything edible. So how did he make that mental leap?

Brains. They astound me.

That’s the most amazing thing at all – Babby is a living, breathing, thinking person.

Sure, he thinks that things like Daddy walking into the room and Mommy making fart noises are funny, and that a piece of plastic wrapper is the last word in entertainment, but he is thinking about the world, and watching it, and processing it, and trying to make sense of it all. He’s trying to discover this body that he was born into, and watching what the people around him do, and thinking “so this is what people do.”

He is constantly trying to get at books, trying to figure out what I find so endlessly fascinating about them.

He watches us brush our teeth with fascination, although he’s still not thrilled when we try to brush his.

He wants to eat what we eat, be where we are, and touch what we touch.

In short, he thinks he’s people, and it’s adorable.

THEN WHY AM I DRESSED LIKE A RABBIT??

And I keep marvelling and thinking:

We made you, but we don’t own you.

We gave you your body and your name, and that was our divine privilege, not our prerogative. 

We must care for your body until you can do it yourself.

We must teach you your name until you can speak it with pride.

We must show you the world until you can explore it yourself.

We must give you what you need, but not always what you want, until you learn the difference.

You owe us nothing.

We owe you everything, and it is the most joyful debt we could ever owe. 

Babby Update: “I EAT IT” Edition

Tags

babies, baby led weaning, baby proofing, crawling, milestones, object permanence, parenthood, seven months, solid foods

I can’t believe he’s seven months old.

The first three months lasted an eternity, and the last four have winged by. My mat leave is more than half over. How’s that for a scary thought? Maybe I should, like, look for daycares and a job and such.

Most of the time, Babby is happy, occasionally fussy, and continually sleepless. His good napping fell apart a week or two ago. I won’t dwell on the sleep thing, though, because I have a sleep mega-post coming down the chute, so stay tuned for that.

He has also been fussier this week. I think his teeth are starting to come through – when he opens his mouth, I can see two well-defined nubbins on his bottom gum. He still bites everything in sight.

As far as milestones are concerned, he’s fine. He can sit up (although he still thinks the best way to stand up is to arch his back, so when he’s had enough sitting, he flollops onto his back). He hasn’t figured out crawling. He’s still working on the theory that lifting his hands and feet off of the ground so he’s balancing on his belly and then waggling his butt energetically like a stranded dolphin is the way to propel himself forwards. This works great in the bath/the pool. Not so much on land.

SCOOT!

When he props himself up on his hands, he pushes himself backwards instead of forwards. The more he tries to creep, the more he just ends up scooting away from the object he’s trying to get at. Then he gets frustrated and wails until I come and rescue him.

I haven’t been looking forward to him becoming mobile, and when he started flipping over at 6 weeks old, I thought I was doomed to an early crawler. However, I am relieved to realize that I didn’t factor something in: when a baby can flip onto his back before two months of age, his tummy time becomes drastically reduced, through no fault of the mother. So that slowed things down, I think.

This is probably good because we haven’t babyproofed in the least – the house is a death trap. Electrical sockets without their plates on, let alone protective covers. Plastic bags on the floor (PH pointed out the irony of the fact that there is a big plastic bag in Babby’s room… filled with baby-proofing equipment). Toothpicks and elastic bands in unexpected places. Man-eating tigers under the bed. That sort of thing.

However, I’m not thrilled with him getting bored and fussing to be moved every five minutes. I’m starting to wish that he would get crawling so he can stop complaining about it.

It’s not a strength issue, that’s for sure. He’s been able to support his own weight practically since birth, so he likes to stand on the ground while one of us holds his hands. Then he tries to walk, but it’s really just a controlled wobble forwards. It’s not walking.

Also, when he’s pissed off he arches his back and he ends up doing this weird thing where only his head and his toes are touching the ground. So strength? There. Finesse? Not so much.

He definitely has object permanence.

Peekaboo, once his favourite game, no longer holds any surprises for him, although he still enjoys the occasional game of it. Hidden objects don’t faze him – he immediately tries to lift off the lid/move the blanket to reveal the toy.

He especially thinks it’s hilarious when I hide behind a blanket and then, when his fingers come thrusting underneath to find me, I bite them. HILARIOUS.

Also worthy of big belly laughs: dolphin kicks in the bathtub, having adults imitate his noises with excessive dramatic flair, tickles, being held upside down, and anything startling.

The biggest thing this month has definitely been the food. This month, for the first time, he has taken in energy which I did not provide. Up til now, every molecule in his body came from my body. Now he is taking in food that I did not make for him. *weeps*

Of course, I’m still the primary source of food. Solids are just supplemental at the moment. All he ate today, for example, was an arrowroot biscuit. But yesterday he gobbled a hunk of soft chicken and masticated a big piece of chewy steak. I try to make sure he gets something with iron in it on a regular basis, like red meat. The paediatrician actually told me that they are thinking of changing the recommendations, and listing meats as ideal “first foods”, because of the iron.

At first he just played with food – it was something new to put in his mouth. But around the middle of the month he really got the idea. I noticed that he was actually eating when I gave him some pork gyoza, two, and realized when cleaning up that there wasn’t nearly enough scraps left over.

Then he sucked the entire pulp out of a slice of pickle and we knew he had the idea.

He has eaten: apple sauce, squid, shrimp, pork, beef, chicken, carrot, green pepper, orange pepper, red curry (actually, he didn’t enjoy that much), spicy thai chili sauce (he did like that), potato, cauliflower, broccoli, gyoza, pickle, lemon sorbetto (just a taste), tomato, oatmeal, arrowroot cookies, saltines, and probably more.

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NOM NOM NOM

Got anything that needs eating? Babby will eat it for you.

Nom.

*No cats were actually harmed in the making of this baby.

Did I Miss Something?

Tags

abnormal, age, alertness, babies, comparisons, development, mothers, normal, parenthood

Every now and then someone says something to me about young babies that  goes right over my head.

For example, when Babby was small(er) they would give me strange assurances that I did not understand.

just under two weeks old

“Don’t worry, it gets much better when they get older. They don’t spend so much time unconscious and they get much more interactive!”

…More?

“Oh, flying with them this young is easy, because they still love their sleep!”

…They do?

 

“You can cut his nails while he is sleeping.”

…But then he wouldn’t be sleeping any more…

I had no idea what they were talking about. Babby has always fought going into that good night with all the rage of Dylan Thomas and spent all of his waking hours demanding constant interaction.

Then I saw a baby at a restaurant.

babby at 12 weeks old

Over Christmas, I left Babby with my mother and went to dinner with some friends.

A lady at the restaurant had a tiny baby girl.

She still had that floppy, wobbly, curvy look that new babies have, and her flimsy neck was carefully supported by her admirers as they passed her around.

She mostly slept or squinted into the middle distance and was about as interactive as a potato.

I felt like an experienced women at that moment.  This lady had just entered the wonderful and exhausting world of motherhood, with her newborn and I felt worldy by comparison with my ancient twelve week old, who was so insistent on standing all the time that you couldn’t fold him, let alone cuddle him floppily.

“How old is she?” I asked the proud new mother indulgently.

“Nine weeks,” the woman responded with a glowing smile.

…

…?

…?!!

Babby at nine weeks old.

I just managed to prevent the look of shock from spreading over my features.

Nine weeks? NINE EFFING WEEKS? She was only three weeks younger than Babby was at the time.

This baby, at nine weeks, did not remotely resemble my baby at that age.

That was when the comments of strangers and the perplexing references made by other parents came rushing in at me, and this time they carried a different meaning of what “normal” might mean.

It’s such a flood of mixed maternal emotions when one surreptitiously compares one’s own baby to someone else’s. Everyone secretly wants to believe their baby is advanced, smart, more special than other people’s babies. But at the same time, no one wants to feel that their baby isn’t “normal”

…and there’s a fine line between “good different” and “BAD different”.

Looking at that dozy, uninterested, spineless nine week old, I found a little senseless pride that my own baby was so much more advanced (and I felt heartily ashamed for feeling proud of something so meaningless) but there was another emotion there, too:

I felt cheated.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my baby. I miss him whenever he isn’t in my arms. I love his big smiles, and I am proud of huge eyes, and of his sturdy little legs, and his indomitable spirit.

But.

I feel like I missed a whole stage of babyhood – one where two month old babies are still floppy lovebugs who get passively passed around in public and can even go to a restaurant and sleep through the meal.

It’s better now. He can go to a restaurant without screaming. He sits and looks all around and grabs at the forks drops Sophie on the ground and looks to see where she went and then tries to eat the napkins.

But that feeling of envy keeps coming back, sometimes when I least expect it.

For the last three weeks, I have attended a “Baby Bonding Group” at the Women’s hospital where my shrink is. A girl there had a 10 week old. Guess what she was complaining about?

“I feel like I never get to spend time with my daughter. She’s only awake for a certain amount of time each day, and then everyone passes her around and when she comes back to me, she’s asleep again.”

…She is?

There was that feeling again. The feeling of jealousy. Of confusion. Of realizing that a mother with a baby younger than mine was experiencing things I had never experienced. Sure, there are clearly downsides to her experience. But it seems like hers is more… usual. More normal.

A friend of mine has a newborn baby, and has posted adorable pictures of him slumped over and sleeping in everyone’s arms, curled up like a sweet little bug and people were like “I love that stage!”

…and I realized that I never really had that. I tried to take pictures of him being all cute and curled up in my arms. But they never looked right.

10 days old

He was always holding himself stiff, and straight. The legs always dangled down, often stiffened like tent poles.

The cute Anne Geddes style pictures other people get of their baby adorable curled on a furry rug in the fetal position, or snuggled into their mother’s chest in a bug-like ball or cupped peacefully in loving parental hands… just never happened for me.

It’s not that he didn’t want to be held. He insisted on it. But he has always seemed to be in a battle. A war against sleep, against the environment, against his own body. Even when he slept, it was stretched out, or tightly swaddled.

Ever since he was born – even now – the first thing anyone says about my baby is

“Look at those eyes! He’s very alert for his age!”

Seriously. Every. Time. I was out with him yesterday. Three people told me that he is very alert.

4 weeks old and still damn well alert

I’m sure alert is good. I’m glad I have an alert baby.

“Has it occurred to you that he’s just very, very bright?” asked the leader of the post partum group when he was three months old. Sure, it has. Babby’s father is a genius. I’m sure my baby is bright. But my mother in law says that PH slept great as a baby, so there goes that theory.

While everyone else’s babies (geniuses included) were curled up all cute and sleepy, mine was alert. Alert and screaming, or alert and interactive, but always alert. I have sleep logs to prove it.

I’m happy. I’m happy with my son. But when I see small babies doing things mine never did, and I hear parents talking about things I never experienced, I feel a little sad, too.

It makes me wonder if I did something wrong. People in non-Western cultures have never heard of colic, and consider it strange for a baby to cry for more than a minute or so at a time.

WHY AREN'T YOU A BETTER MOMMY TO ME??

I carried my baby, I wore my baby (more so after my mother left) and  I breast fed him on demand. But still he was always awake, always screaming. Could I have done something differently?

Is my baby born different or was I not satisfying some inner need of his biology?

I wonder… did I mess up my chance?

What No One Told Me About Parenthood

Tags

babies, colic, crying, love, motherhood, parenthood

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading Mommy Blogs, it’s that love for one’s child is totally independent of actually enjoying the day-to-day life of being a parent.

Parents are human.

Parents get tired.

Parents get stressed.

Parents sometimes need TWO FREAKING MINUTES without another human being clinging to them.

Yet many women tend to romanticize parenthood, and then the overwhelming reality of baby care tends to gobsmack us.  Women everywhere are struggling with accepting this, and it’s a feminist act, a step towards sanity and freedom, to say “it’s okay to find this really damn stressful, and you can hate the individual moments while still loving your baby.”

So people have been telling me from the moment they found out I was pregnant that this was going to be awful. They tried their best to prepare me for the fact that no matter how ready you think you are for that baby, the screaming and the sleep deprivation and changing the diaper that you JUST CHANGED TEN MINUTES AGO will get to you, eventually.

“Sleep while you can!” they would tell me, as if I could store the sleep in the jar for when I would really need it.

“Want mine?” they would leer threateningly, looking vaguely hopeful that I would say “yes” and take their devil child off of their hands forever.

“Babies are false advertising, you know,” I was reminded.

“You won’t be getting sex again for at least six weeks after the baby is born,” the OB warned PH with a cruel laugh.

People have been telling and telling us how insanely difficult we would find parenthood. The love I would have for my baby was touted as a consolation prize that would help make up for all of the inherent awfulness.

I believed them. I had learned from the Puppy Incident that life just doesn’t go by the book, and that reality really likes to smack you in the face with a metaphorical dead trout.  So I tried to prepare myself. I didn’t want to be all “I’m so disillusioned” while the Mommy Blogging community laughed and said “told you so!” I also knew that I was at a high risk of Post Partum Depression, since I was already on antidepressants and still struggling with blues through my pregnancy.

In order to properly slaughter any romantic notions that might have been frolicking innocently in my brain, I subjected myself to every horror story I could find. I read It Sucked, And Then I Cried, and Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, and prepared myself for similar crazy.  I expected PPD and an increase of my antidepressants. I hoped I wouldn’t have to contend with colic, sure that a screamer would push me round the bend.

Rage Babby is Rageful

I did get a screamer.

Some days, like yesterday, he nurses almost constantly for the whole day, and wakes up and cries if I put him down. The house is a mess. My Perfect Husband is overworked and sleep deprived and constantly berating himself for not being able to do everything, including lactation.

So when I went to see the shrink on Wednesday, and she asked me how I was doing, we were both surprised by my answer.

I’m doing awesome.

I love motherhood.

Even when Babby won’t sleep all day and insists on spending the entire day hanging off of my nipple like a lamprey, until I feel literally drained… I’m still pretty happy. The PPD hasn’t arrived. Between the two of us, I think that poor Perfect Husband, what with having to get up early in the morning after the late nights of Babby-wrangling, is closer to the edge than I am.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t have my moments. Caring for the baby is very time consuming, so the dishes go unwashed and the floor goes unswept, especially on days when he just doesn’t want to be put down. PH has to pick up the slack. Sometimes I sit there, being sucked on for hours on end, and glare at poor PH, who has the unimaginable freedom to move around the house unencumbered almost all the time. As much as he tries to help with diaper changes and baby snuggling, the incessant demands for booba mean that I am still the one with the baby 90% of the time, even on weekends. It isn’t PH’s fault. It isn’t even his preference. He wants to care for his baby. If he could lactate, I’m sure he would. But he can’t, and I can. And sometimes, that sucks.

But I wouldn’t switch places with him in a million years. Because honestly? I like having something to take care of. I loved taking care of my crazy, always-awake, totally-active, needs-constant-supervision puppy. I even loved Tamagotchis when they were all the rage, and all they would do in return for my constant care was beep at me demandingly. So I like caring for someone who depends on me, love being so important to another living thing. I love thinking of ways to make their life better. I love cuddling something that is MINE.

That part… that’s everything I fantasized. BETTER, because I believed the horror stories over my own fantasies, so I didn’t think it would actually be this awesome. But it is. I love snuggling my baby, and even when he is screaming and looking at me with the most rageful expressions, I just keep thinking “Aw. You’re so cute when you pout like that” and then I kiss his cheek while he goes “Aaa! Aaah! Aaaaah!” in my ear.

When he sleeps for more than an hour or two at a time, I am deeply grateful. But when he wakes up, I’m grateful too, because when he’s sleeping I really miss the little bastard. I’m delighted to be able to pick him up and hug him again; reunited after a long separation.

I like smiling into his eyes, the eyes that look at me so seriously and then stare off in the distance while his brow furrows. Those eyes are so human, so thoughtful, and I know he’s wondering what it’s all about. I want him to know that it’s all about how loved he is. I want those eyes to grow up to see the world with confidence, and joy. And I want his life to start with a smiling mother who always answers his cries with unconditional love. So even when I’m feeling stressed and drained, I make a point of smiling at him anyway, and we both feel happier because of it.

Besides, the screaming is getting less and less. There’s a lot more smiling and a lot less screaming than there was three weeks ago, and his smiles are so joyful that he made a whole crowd of female employees at PH’s work go “awwww!” in unison when he graced them with one.

Parenthood comes with all the strains and difficulties that I was warned about.  What no one told me is that I could have them all and still think it was pretty fun.

No one told me that I might actually like this job.

I kiss you, little rage babby

My First Reality Check, Part the 2nd

Tags

behaviour, buster cube, dog training, dogs, learning, parenthood, puppies, puzzles, reality check, tricky treat balls

So, on day five of being a puppy parent, I had a break down. I started wailing uncontrollably in the garden.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM?? WHY WON’T HE JUST PEE?? PEEEE, DAMN YOU! PEEEEEEEE!”.

My boyfriend of the time, who was visiting for the weekend, was like “Whoa. Okay.” He told me to go upstairs and go to sleep. He would take care of the puppy overnight. I was to sleep. Just sleep. The puppy went in the spare room with my boyfriend and I slept the sleep of the dead.

Things looked better in the morning.

I can has Smokey?

Over the next couple of weeks, I began to get the hang of it. He started sleeping for longer periods in the night time, and I discovered that he loved eating slices of Smokey cheese-stuffed sausages. Within a weekend he had started to pick up that peeing in the garden resulted in a slice of smokey, whereas peeing on the carpet resulted in a lot of nothing.

That was the real turning point.

Soon he was peeing eagerly to receive sausage, and I began to focus on putting it on command, and getting him to tell me when he wanted out. My mother and I looked everywhere for a set of jingle bells to hang on the door knob for him to jangle, but could find no such thing (in Vancouver, Land of Granola-Eating Pet People, you can find exactly that in many pet stores. I was not in Vancouver).

So I decided that if I could train a rat to press a lever, I could train a puppy to push a button. We bought one of those battery operated doorbells with the wireless doorbell button. We stuck the ringer in the kitchen, and the button by the back door. I spent a long time smearing peanut butter on that button, and clicking him for going near it and licking/nudging/sniffing the thing.

There was the slight issue that my puppy didn’t learn as fast as a rat. He was only nine weeks old, after all.

But while I often felt frustrated (and so did he – he would start barking in impatience, unable to figure out what I wanted), I knew I could do this. My self-confidence, thanks to The Great Smokey Breakthrough of ’04, was restored and even if my expectations were still sky-high, my schedule was more relaxed and realistic. I accepted that he might not learn this quickly. I accepted that it might take, quite frankly, for FRICKING EVER. But I knew that some day, my dog would ring a doorbell when he needed to go outside.

How to escape??

Whenever the bumbling efforts resulted in an actual ring from the bell, I immediately threw open the door and led a wild romp outside, to his great delight. It still took him a long time to figure out the connection, and even longer to figure out how to set it off. Nowadays, I could teach him this same trick in under ten minutes. But he was younger and stupider back then.

I was rewarded when he was 12 weeks old. I had left him with my mother for a few days to visit my boyfriend in Newfoundland, where he was getting his B.Ed. I called home to check on my furry baby, and as my mother was giving me an update, an unmistakable sound ding-donged in the background. My puppy had rung the doorbell. Mum immediately got off the phone and took him outside and I did a dance around the room.

From then on, things were a lot easier. The sound of that ringing doorbell had us all jumping to action, but the number of mistakes in the house declined remarkably. When I moved into my new apartment at the end of the summer, my dog was five and a half months old and pretty much housebroken. With the exception of illness (like the Ice Cream Incident), I can only think of two or three mistakes he made in the new place. But boy did I rely on that doorbell. My Beloved Dog hasn’t used that doorbell in years. Now he waits patiently until I decide to take him outside, even if I don’t get around to it until two in the afternoon (IRON BLADDER!). But that first year, it was a godsend.

I spent that year constantly following him around the house, and rewarding/punishing as necessary every single thing he did – and he never stopped moving. I never dared leave him for more than three or four hours at a time, and then only in a crate. We had to get sitters for him if we wanted a night out.

Meet Mr. Squeaky

I discovered the joy of squeaky toys – because when I could hear that squeaky toy, I knew what he was doing. That meant that so long as I could hear that high pitched incessant squeaking from the next room, I could actually take my eyes off of him, sit down and do something else for a few minutes. I could actually check my email, or read a book for five, maybe even ten minutes at a time!  I grew to love that ear piercing squeal. It was the sound of being able to sit down and rest.

I initiated a routine that involved a long walk with stick-fetching if he pooped by a certain point, and an abbreviated walk if he had not pooped by the time we reached that point. He learned quickly that Poo is Worth It.

He was my pride and joy, and the bane of my existence all at once. But really, I loved my enslavement. I loved that my training was working. I had forgiven myself for thinking that I could do in a few days what actually takes weeks and months to accomplish, and for thinking the speed of his learning curve reflected on my abilities. The important thing was that I could accomplish it, and that this pain in the ass, this constantly moving, chewing, romping ball of fluff was actually learning.

My baby had a brain

He came when called, he left things when I told him to, he peed and pooed on command. He could do sit, down and stand-stays. He could play dead. He could fetch. He could play tug. He obeyed hand signals. He dropped things that I told him to drop, and gleefully grabbed things to keep away from me when I said “I’m going to get you!” and yes, he rang a doorbell with his nose when he needed to go outside.

I was learning, too. With the arrival of Mr. Squeaky, I discovered the joy of Knowing He Was Occupied. I became highly skilled at keeping the puppy busy.

Possibly the best gift my dog ever received was from Perfect Husband, who was simply Adoring Best Friend Living in Vancouver And Worshipping Me From Afar at the time. He came to visit me for Christmas and brought a Buster Cube as an offering to my new fur baby. I had already begun to rely on Tricky Treat Balls to feed and occupy my ever-busy puppy, and the Buster Cube took food puzzles to a college level. Six years later, we still fill that same puzzle for him on a daily basis. No food bowls for this dog; not since he was seven months old. He works for every single kibble and it keeps him busy when we leave the house. Buster Cube = GOD SEND.

Big and Handsome

Then, at one year old, he grew up. It was sudden. Over a matter of a month or two he went from a spazzy freak to a calm, obedient, and reliable dog. Since then he has hardly ever caused me a moment’s grief, unless you count the occasional copious diarrhea incident. He’s a good boy, who lies quietly in whatever room I am inhabiting and waits patiently for food, walkies, and anything else I deign to give him.

Still high in my priorities

In a strange way, I miss his youth. He’s too easy now, and too easy to list lower in my priorities. I suffer guilt when I realize that it’s nearly three and he hasn’t been on his walk yet; when I realize his cube has been empty all day; when I realize that Mr. Squeaky has been in a bag in the pantry for over a year. Part of me misses the days when my world revolved around him… because part of me revelled in being so wrapped up in another creature. I still love him. I love him more, probably, than when he demanded every minute of my every day.

But part of me misses the days when he was a furry toddler leaving destruction in his wake, needing my constant supervision and guidance. Now… he’s all grown up.

Warning: This video is rated C for Cuteness. Uncontrollable “squee” noises may result.

My First Reality Check, Part I

Tags

book learning, dogs, expectations, parenthood, puppies, reality check

They say that no matter what you do, nothing will prepare you for the reality of having a child.

I believe them.

In 2004, I was desperate for a dog. My first dog had died when I was in Junior High, and my recently-retired parents didn’t want to be burdened with another. Now I was graduating university and finally in a position to own and care for my own puppy. How can you be a dog trainer if you haven’t owned a dog in your adult life? Would you hire a dog trainer who hadn’t owned a dog in 10 years?

5 weeks

My longing for a puppy was deep and desperate. Checking out good Sheltie breeders, I found a litter that was perfect – exactly what I was looking for – but already born and all spoken for. I wept and wept over those pictures, spilling bitter tears of heartbreak. Yet one of those puppies was to become my Beloved Dog.

“I know were were talking about upcoming litters,” the breeder said to me over the phone, “but I was wondering if you’d be interested in the bi-blue boy from this current litter. He… reminds me a lot of his mother, who is my favourite dog. But right now he’s lined up for a very elderly couple, and… I think this pup would do better in a “performance” home…”

I jumped at the puppy. I knew it would be a challenge. This was a puppy who the breeder felt would be too difficult for a settled and elderly couple. Who better to take him on than an aspiring dog trainer with a diploma in behaviour modification?

Just a blur

When we went to go meet him, the litter jumped all over me except for this one, who roamed obsessively around the room as if unable to keep still. Twenty minutes later, the 6 week old pups were slumbering deeply. But not the bi-blue boy. No, he was still roaring around. He was roaring around a good hour later, when we left.

But, I had read the books! I knew I could handle this puppy. The Culture Clash was my Bible and I read and re-read it obsessively until I knew it by heart. I read Don’t Shoot The Dog, which summarized what I already knew about operant conditioning. I bought a crate and kongs and clickers, spent hours choosing the perfect name, and told everyone my plans for training the heck out of him.

The first week was terrible.

The books all say that puppies that age spend most of their time sleeping. I have since found out that the books are right… about most puppies. But nooooooo. Not MY puppy. We brought that puppy home and he didn’t sleep for 13 hours. He tore around unstoppably for hours and hours, not collapsing into sleep until we physically restrained him in a tight embrace at midnight.  He would also stop to dig at the carpet obsessively every few feet. I thought there might be something wrong with his brain.

The books made it sound like puppies constantly piddle everywhere. I have since found out that the books are right… about most puppies. But nooooooo. Not MY puppy. We joked about making his pedigree name “Iron Bladder” because he would go for hours and hours without toileting. The books said to take him outside every hour or two for a potty break so he would develop good habits. The books didn’t say what to do when it’s the end of April in Nova Scotia, and four in the morning, and you’ve been standing outside shivering for forty five minutes, covered in dew, waiting for your puppy to pee. And then, when you admit defeat and bring him in to get warm because the poor thing is soaked and shivering, he does what the books say you should never allow to happen, and pees right there on the floor.

It was around day 5 that I cracked.

Part of it was the sleep deprivation. I was getting up diligently in the night, every two or three hours, to take my little Iron Bladder outside for what my father referred to as “evening constitutionals”.

The rest of it was high expectations. I wasn’t prepared to get a puppy who hadn’t read the books. I wasn’t prepared for the books to let me down. I had expected to be awesome, and now I felt like I was messing everything up. When my puppy wouldn’t take the high value treats I offered him, I despaired that this un-motivated puppy would never be the dog I wanted. When my puppy pooped on the floor for the third time in a row, I felt sure that he would never be properly house trained, because he was picking up bad habits and I was failing him as a trainer. When my puppy preferred digging at the rug over interacting with me, I was sure that we would never bond.

Don't let the innocent look fool you.

I felt helpless. I felt frustrated. I felt like a failure.

Every mistake I made felt like a knell of doom; one that would have lasting repercussions forever.

I felt bogged down by this woolly little nightmare who was nothing that I had ever imagined.

All the books in the world had not prepared me for the reality of this puppy.

 

 

 

Next: My First Reality Check, Part the 2nd.