Peter's Cross Station

A Year and a Half Later It's A Lot Easier and So Worth it

Tonight I was thinking "wow, I'm so glad we have Selina." I have to tell you, I've always been glad we have Selina but I haven't always been glad we have two kids--if it's possible to somehow speculate in a detached way from your own specific children.

Some of you may recall that only days before we brought Selina home, we had informed our agency that we wanted to be an only child family and to take us off the list. They ignored us and called us with Selina.

Obviously, they knew our ambivalence was deeper than we realized, because we jumped on the offer of this newborn baby. Next thing you know, all my predictions about how much having a toddler and a newborn would suck came true. So much of it sucked. It was soooooo hard. (I know, YOU have six kids, I admire you, I'm even jealous. For us, two was very hard.)

But almost immediately, all the good things about having siblings came true too, even though I had not expected them to for, oh, 30+ years or so. Nat adored baby sister, baby sister adored Nat. Any jealousy or frustrations Nat had, she took out on me, not Selina. Selina she cooed and sang and read to. That happy surprise helped pick me up in the midst of the sleepless misery of so much of the rest of it.

Then pretty soon, Selina developed this little personality that was so different from Nat's yet every bit as charming. She and I would exchange secret grins. She was overflowing with affection and completely easy-going. She bumps her head, she rubs it and moves on. She trips and falls, she giggles and gets up and moves on. Sister grabs a toy away, she cries. I make Nat apologize, but by the time she can say "sorry Selina," Selina has forgotten the problem and is just thrilled that Nat is talking to her.

The other day I realized that at some point recently, Nat turned a corner and became Selina's sister as much as Selina is Nat's sister. That is, Selina joined Nat in the family, but Nat had already established herself. Now, they've been together for so long that they both exist in relation to each other in the family. It isn't Nat and her baby sister, it's The Sisters. Nat's language reflects this. Instead of asking me for things for herself, about half the time at least she says "two girls need something to eat" or "two girls need to get down now and do some jumping" (and they did, as I'd had them at the table watching videos for a hour while I washed dishes and other things I didn't want them getting into). "Come on, sister!" Nat says when I tell Nat to go play in her room for awhile. And in the morning, if I have left a cup of milk and a sippy cup of formula in the fridge the night before, Nat will get them both, take them back to their room and they have their milk together before waking me up.

But most of all these days, I'm glad Selina is here, because she is just a little ball of sugarplum sweetness right now. Not only is that great in and of itself, but when three and a half-year old Nat is making me tear my hair out, I look at sweet, grinning Selina and remember that no so long ago, Nat was that compliant and easy-going and just plain cute and it reminds me to cut her some slack. She's still my sweet little baby, she's just growing up. Selina will do it too, and go through her own terrible threes (and I have no doubt they will be most terrible--she has a nasty temper when she shows it--it's just that she's still little enough that her tantrums are comical and cute instead of exasperating).

So as good as Nat is for Selina, Selina is doing Nat a big favor too. They are really well suited together and I can't imagine either of them without the other. I'm so glad we put up with the misery of that first year (and it did get increasingly better all year anyhow). It was so worth it!

(No word yet, on our speculations about adding a third. I still look at moms with three and feel a pang of jealousy, but that doesn't mean I'll do anything about it--necessarily!)

Long Time no Write

Sorry to be so quiet over here!

News Round Up:

- We close on the new place, Friday and the movers come as soon as we get the key. Everybody is very excited. I told Nat she'd get her own (well, shared with Selina) bathroom in our new house and she said, "with soap?!" I told her, sure, she could have soap in her bathroom. Since then she's been telling people that in her new house, she will have soap. make of that what you will.

- A visit from my BFF and her nursing toddler made a HUGE impression on Nat. Now she carries her little stuffed dog around under her shirt, telling anyone who'll listen that she's feeding the dog milk from her body, which comes out of her nipples.

- Many human reproduction conversations before and following the nursing mom visit. We've been fleshing out a few more details of Nat's (and Selina's) birth and adoption stories. I picked up a copy of It's Not the Stork and brought it home for her. She read the cover thusly:

Nat: It's not the st--st--what's that?
Shannon: "stork" it's this white bird (pointing to picture on the cover)
Nat: Stork. A book about girls, boys, babies, b--b--babies?
Shannon: "bodies" see the o and the d? "bodies."
Nat: bodies. families, and friends

The thing is, I don't really ask Nat to read much, so I don't quite keep up with exactly what she can read and so every time she reads something like that, I get all shocked and impressed. Mostly, she'd still prefer to be read to, to recite a book from memory (a big favorite she knows perfectly by heart is The Gruffalo) or to pretend to read, by telling a story while turning pages. So I let her do whatever she wants in the reading department, seeing as I'd estimate that she is reading roughly at a mid-year kindergarten level at age 3.5 with no particular "pushing."

As for the contents of the book, so far the thing that interests her most is the picture of a little girl pulling another little girl's hair. She's very concerned about the whole scenario. Why did she pull her hair? Why did she say "yeow!?" Why did she say sorry? No doubt this is right out of a growing big sister psyche.

- Selina is blossoming intellectually herself. She is just as interested in letters as Nat was at her age. Nat reads books to Selina now and then and that makes more of an impression than anything else ever could. Selina is still Nat's biggest fan.

Selin'a hair is now officially as long as Nat's. Her curls are looser and softer. In four poofs it's comically adorable. Not sure what we'll end up doing with it in the long-run. I think I'm just going to have to comb it every day when she's older. Right now she HATES a comb touching her head under any and all circumstances. She tosses her head violently side-to-side, Snoopy-dance-style and screams at the top of her lungs if she just sees the comb in my hand. I have found that four braids will last about three days without looking horrible, so I've mostly been doing that to minimize hair styling time.

- Speaking of hair, here's a short answer to recent requests for tips on styling toddler/preschooler hair:

With Nat, she has become more and more willing to sit and let me work on her hair as she has gotten older. When she was Selina's age, I used to do her hair on the run, following her around as she tried to run away from me. I often made parts while walking and bending over her little head. They weren't perfect, but they were adequate. These days (since she was about 2 and a half) I plop her in her high chair (buckled in!) let her choose a video and sometimes a snack and get to work. She is usually reasonably cooperative for about 45 minutes. It usually takes about one hour to an hour and a half to get finished. When she causes me too much trouble--complaining, jerking er head around or whatever--I turn off the video, leave her view and ask her to let me know when she's ready to finish. When she's ready, I turn the video back on and get back to work.

This gets the job done and Nat's hair styles tend to last between 7-12 days, so we don't have to revisit it daily.

When we finish hair, I make a big, gushing deal out of how gorgeous it is and we visit the mirror together to admire it. Nat likes to put butterfly clips and things in her hair, and that helps encourage and bribe her during the process, but she also pulls the butterflies out and fiddles with them until they break, so I actually don't let her put them in very often.

When Nat was little, many Black mothers, grandmothers, aunties and baby sitters told me to do her hair while she was asleep. If you want to, go for it! I didn't want to waste precious nap time doing hair! But considering how much more violently Selina objects to hair care, I suppose there are kids out there whose hair just wouldn't get done any other way. And it does have to get done. That's non-negotiable. That's another aspect of teaching my kids to put up with it--the idea that it just has to be done, like we have to put on our seat belts in the car.

- Why I like white male baby sitters:

I like white male baby sitters, because there are no white males in our immediate family (though we've got uncles and grandfathers and all that) and I love that what my girls are learning about the species is that it is a species of caregiving, nurturing, child-centered kindness. That's not really the dominant idea of what white men are. But it's what I want my girls-and the women they grow into--to expect from the white men they meet in life. I want them to be shocked and horrified when they encounter anything less and to hold those people accountable to humane expectations.

- How Strollerderby is going:

It's going pretty well. Its nice to have this job, because it's an all new type of writing for me to learn and an all new audience (well, a mixed audience, some new, some I'm used to) to learn to write to. It's a good exercise in maintaining my own voice in different kinds of contexts. Here's what I think might interest my readers here the most lately:

The Trouble with Safe Haven Laws: Some Thoughts for National Adoption Month

As always, see my bio page for my most recent writing.

Interesting Conversation

Over at Strollerderby, my late-night post about Little Black Sambo has generated quite the discussion in comments.

I have to admit to you, my blood runs cold at the idea that white parents are reading this book to their white children and think it's an okay way to represent Black children. I would guess those are the same white children who have little to no contact with real-life children of color, too.

This is the kind of thing that makes me roll my eyes when people say "only old people are racist and they will all die off and then everything will be fine!" as someone did, last week.

Yeah right. In my dreams.

My Baby

Selina is quite happy and handy with her foogo cups. We have two and I'm ordering two more. If you click that link, you'll note that many Amazon reviewers don't like it, but it is working for us. Basically, I don't give the kids cups on the go. We have a sit-at-the-table rule, and I am just training Selina to use a cup rather than a bottle. So she only gets the sippy (sans leak-proofing valve) in her chair, with an adult spotter to keep an eye out for spillage. Once she's got the hang of the flow in the sippy cup, I'll promote her to juice glasses and teach her to use real glasses and then we're pretty much done with sippys except for the canteen to take to the park, etc. For that, we'll use the Kleen Kanteens. (Nat uses them occasionally now.)

All this is really to say that I have given away all the baby bottles as of today and I am sad and blue. I weaned Nat from bottles cold-turkey a week or two before her first birthday and never thought twice about it. But this is probably my last baby and I had been holding onto the before-bedtime-rocking-chair bottle. I decided to hold out until she was eighteen months and then yesterday, she bit the tip off of the nipple and I decided it was a sign.

Selina herself is indifferent to the shift. She is pleased as punch with herself for being able to drink from her cup. She will even hold it one-handed, while drinking and signing "milk! milk! milk!" enthusiastically with the free hand.

So the bedtime routine will shift to be more about books and songs and not so much about bottles in arms.

But Selina is really starting to love books, which is nice. She will look at books all alone for extended periods, flipping the pages carefully and examining the pictures (all in the right order, too). The other day, I put up some dishes in the kitchen while Nat and Selina played in the living room and thus were sort of unsupervised for about ten minutes. When I came back, Selina was gone, so Nat and I went on a little hunt for her and found her in the kids' room, sitting in a corner, happily "reading" a book to herself. She was so engrossed, she didn't even notice we had come in. Nat and I decided it was very cute.

Selina gets her very own Mama Shannon book time before all sleep occasions, and I try to sneak one or two in during the day, but Nat tends to poach on those attempts. So Selina gets over-Nat's-shoulder book time then. Poor second baby.

She's still crawling with vigor and pulling up everywhere but not walking. She lets go with one hand regularly, and quite often lets go with two, then slowly sort of wafts down onto her bottom in a controlled way (versus a "real" fall). I think she'd be walking if she wasn't such a good crawler, but at any rate, it's coming soon for sure.

She is also starting to get a little more lingual. She can say (at her initiation, and in proper context) "eat," "hi," "yep!" (which doesn't really mean anything but it's cute) and "mama" as of today. She can sign "milk," "more," "hi," and almost "mama" (she will copy me when I show her, but hasn't initiated yet). I don't remember where Nat's expressive language was at this age. I have a sense that Selina is behind her, but I'd have to look it up. Second child and all that. She is well within normal range.

Yesterday, I kissed her cheek while we were looking in the mirror and she grinned big and made a "kiss" to the mirror. I kissed her cheek and she kissed at her reflection over and over. She thought this was the greatest thing ever. So now Cole is trying to get real kisses out of her. I'm not holding my breath.

Selina's hair is sooooo long. Even the back is pretty long (whereas the back of Nat's head was smoothly bald for a good two years). I put it in two pony tails and let the back that doesn't reach fall out and make a mess for now. I think it'll all catch into two hair bands within a month or two. She looks really cute when her hair is "done." All grown up. Nat has an annoying habit of taking Selina's hair bands out (of course), so that's a challenge. I usually leave it out until the minute we're leaving the house.

Selina still loves singing and music more than your average baby (and babies love singing and music in general, I know). When I turn music on for her, she looks at me like I just presented her with a chocolate cake. She has this look of utter joy and gratitude on her face. And she bounces in perfect time to the music and always has. And when I sing to her, she still always sings along.

She loves to eat. She gets very excited about all occasions for eating and has a mini tantrum every time she finishes a meal or a glass of milk. If I give her a piece of a bagel or a cracker or whatnot, she waves it aloft triumphantly and shows it to me proudly with a "look what I have!" expression on her face. She does this with other things too, like sticks in the back yard, or books or toys in the house. She will grab it, crawl up to me and wave it at me proudly.

I am still making most of her food, food-cube style. Breakfast is a combo of four whole grains, two fruit/vegetables, featuring something orange (like carrot+banana, or sweet potato+apple), blackstap molasses, brewer's yeast and ginger. (I make it all up together and freeze it like that, instead of freezing parts and mixing them up before meals, individually.) Lunch is yoghurt and a two or three veggie/fruit combo, like avocado+banana, onion+potato+carrot, apple+pear, cauliflower+potato, red pepper+yellow squash+zucchini, to name a few recent ones. Dinner is "green supper" which is breakfast, except featuring green, like broccoli+onion or spinach+potato or something. The breakfast and dinner cubes I only half defrost and then let her nibble with her fingers. I know this sounds really gross, but she is all good with the foodcicles. I think that lately she likes the cold on her teething spots (first molars coming up). Mostly her snacks consist of cheddar cheese or bits of tofu.

She definitely gets more "junk" food than Nat got at her age, though. Lots of "cracker bunnies" (as Nat calls them), rice cakes, instant mac&cheese, the aforementioned bagels or other white bread products (usually just at restaurants, though). I figure she is pretty set, nutritionally and can afford the occasional empty calorie. I am still giving her a half-formula/half-whole milk combo of about 24 ounces a day, so I am not going to introduce any vitamin supplements until she stops liking the formula. (In Nat's case, that was around age two.)

Another thing she gets more of (and I am less happy about) is television. There is no television consensus in this family, so I compromise my less-than-10-hours-per-week ideal and it is probably more like 20. Selina never watches t.v. expressly for her. But she gets a lot of second-hand t.v. chatter from Nat's shows. I am trying to not freak out about it, as long as she gets lots of active play and attention too.

As far as t.v. goes, I was thinking of posting a list of kids' shows I don't hate and why I don't hate them. Interested?

And with that, I must run, as nap time seems to have ended...

Sleep When the Baby Sleeps

It's all well and good with that first baby (and assuming you are not working a full-time, paying job), isn't it? But every mother of more than one knows that usually, when the baby sleeps, someone else (or multiple someone else's) are in desperate need of constant service and attention.

I have achieved that magical goal of overlapping naps, folks! Selina has lately decided that one nap per day is just fine for her, thanks, and believe it or not, this is a great relief to me. Now I can put her down at 11:30, put Nat down at 12 and they both sleep until 1 or 1:30.

This has been going on for three days now.

That means I have had a nap myself (even if it was only ten minutes on the couch) for two days in a row! It's amazing the difference ten minutes makes for an insomniac such as myself. All the difference in the world.

I don't know how long this will last. Nat is well over three now and is bound to give up napping at some point sooner rather than later. But I will enjoy it while I can.

Tired but...

I am really too tired to write much of anything these days.  But I had to stop in and tell you something.  I talked a mom today with a six-week old and a 22-month old and she is ready to kill somebody and certain that she is a failure as a mom and doesn't know why she can't handily parent two kids like she sees so many others doing.

I told her, and I'll tell you:  No, you aren't a failure or crazy it just really is that hard.  It is, it is.  It is totally normal to feel like you want to die, and that you'd perhaps even like to take a little person out with you when you go.

Yes, you should get some help--a friend, a relative, the UPS man, anyone!  Someone who can give you a nap for a hour, or a trip to the store alone or something.  Beg if you have to, pick up the phone and call someone you barely know.  And tell yourself that "this too shall pass" because it shall, it really shall.

Won't it, ya'll?  Tell her about it!

Hands

These are Nat's hands.

But I was noticing Selina this morning and thinking that I really love the stage of babyhood when they are still quite little, but their hands start working properly. Selina is getting increasingly dextrous these days. If she reaches for it, she tends to get it. If she aims for her mouth, she makes it. If she grabs for a crumb fallen from her rice cake, she can pick it up with a perfect "pincer" grasp.

I think it melts my heart to watch because the hands seem so ahead of the rest of the child. She's still more or less a helpless, completely dependent being but her hands are a little window into her future as a competent, independent person.

It's a reminder of the fleeting nature of this time when they so easily love me. Who knows what those hands will get up to when they're attached to a 17-year old?

It's Sunday Morning

Nat and I slept in instead of going to church today. I am hoping to use the time change to bump bedtime back by half an hour and thus hopefully, bump waking time up in turn.

Selina and Nat have been sharing a room for about two weeks now and it's mostly going swell. The careful placement of a screen and the judicious use of white noise have worked to cover each others' comings and goings during incompatible naps. I might be able to slip them onto a same-time nap routine when Selina decides to shift from two to one nap per day, but for now, I am just grateful that at three, Nat still willingly takes an hour+ nap every day. She certainly needs it. She's always been an easy and deep sleeper on a very regular schedule. Selina is a little less so, but not by too much. So hopefully the "sister room" as I'm calling it, will work well for them.

Big Home School post TBA. Watch this space!

To a Googler

The sheer desperation of this all-caps search string compels me to answer.

WHEN DO NEWBORNS GET EASIER

Ah, sweetie! Been there (twice). Babies are all different, but I'd say each of ours really turned the corner to sleeping more (which was the key for us) around 8-12 weeks old. Our first was colicky--crying from about 5pm to about 9pm (give or take) almost daily until five months old. That was tough. Putting her in a sling and walking around or bouncing up and down helped, though it was tiring.

But in general, they get easier and easier exponentially as time passes. Every week down is a week closer to easier. Hang in there!

Baby Sitters

When I was a baby sitter (on and off from age 12 until 34), I always just figured that when parents gushed over how great it was to have me, that this was some kind of blah-blah routine thing parents say to baby sitters.

Ha!

I appreciate me more now.

Nat's most consistent baby sitter (aside from Uncle David, of course) leaves soon for a semester abroad in Spain (I encouraged this crazy idea and am now kicking myself!) and we are all heartbroken. I now know just how fabulous it is when someone loves your kid and your kid loves her and she's someone who you can just totally leave your kid with and trust completely and she even feels a bit like the baby sister you never had to boot (English major!).

To get all those elements to gel is nothing short of a miracle.

Now it seems her best friend would like to step up to the plate and try to fill her shoes. I'm hopeful it will go well. But there's just no such thing as a true replacement for someone like Nat's Sarah.

We will miss her!