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Friday August 7th, 2009 “A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.
Bill Keane, ‘Family Circus’
I think I might have to change Crazybaby’s nick-name. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We call her ‘Crazybaby’ and she really is a crazy baby! Only, she’s not a baby anymore. I think I should start calling her, “Sweetest-Love-Child,” that’ll give her something to strive for. It’d be hard to take though, wouldn’t it? What about ‘Fig?’ I called her ‘Fig’ in-utero…it’s kind of cute. I’ll give it some thought.
I feel it necessary to present a sweeter side of Crazybaby today, so that you don’t get the impression that she’s just a defiant, hair-pulling ruffian. Among her many endearing qualities are these two: she is a glorious, full-face smiler, and a wonderful hugger. When the two go together, and you’re on the receiving end, you feel like the luckiest person alive.
Witness the following hug that began at least 4 metres away from Big-Daddy-O.
   
What did I tell you?
Thursday August 6th, 2009 “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”
Oscar Wilde
Have I mentioned how gentle Pip is? Well, Pip is gentle. As a baby, a toddler, and a little girl; gentle, gentle, gentle. Crazybaby, on the other hand, is not. For instance, the recent introduction of hair-pulling by Crazybaby has not been met with enthusiasm.
When Crazybaby is frustrated and a head of hair is within her grasp, she yanks. Sometimes it’s Pip’s hair and sometimes it’s mine; Crazybaby isn’t fussy. Worse yet, when Crazybaby yanks a good fistful of hair and I reprimand her by grabbing her hand and saying “NO!” in my ‘stern-voice’… she smiles!!! Can you believe it? She thinks my firm, “NO,” is funny! I’ve never encountered such a thing. In all my years of parenting, combined with fifteen years of teaching, my “NO!” has never been met with smiles. It’s not funny. My “NO!” is quite serious. I just wrote a post about the necessity of NO in my Teacher’s Hat column, so how dare my “NO!” be taken lightly?
I think Crazybaby is too young for a time-out type of consequence, but too old to get away with hurting other people. What to do? This is unchartered territory. I thought there would be less unchartered territory the second time around, but as it turns out…kids are different! Who knew?
Wednesday August 5th, 2009 “There are some people who live in a a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”
Douglas H. Everett
Ever since Crazybaby has been able to climb up onto Pip’s bed, there has been trouble. Pip’s bed had been her private domain; an area that the crawling, and newly-walking Crazybaby had been unable to reach. But now, the more advanced Crazybaby is easily able to invade Pip’s private space.
We want to honour Pip’s need for her own space, but at the same time, we’d love for the girls to eventually coexist happily in the same room. All of the girls’ toys and books are in Pip’s bedroom, so we’re not willing to shut Crazybaby out. Our solution has been to provide Pip with other places in the house to retreat to when she needs some privacy, but her favourite spot to read is on her bed.
Last week Pip was enjoying some solo-reading-time, when Crazybaby decided to join her. “Mama….we need you!!!” I arrived in the bedroom to find both girls on the bed. “Can you please get her out of here?” Pip pleaded.
“What is she doing that’s bothering you?”
“She’s bouncing up and down. I’m just trying to read. Can you please get her out of here?” she repeated.
“Okay Pip,” I began, “but it would be a dream come true to see my two daughters getting along.”
So now let me tell you about last night… It started off like this:
A few minutes after I took this shot, Pip called to me, “Mama, come quick! Your dream is coming true!” I picked up my camera and found this:
Then things started to deteriorate a bit when Crazybaby decided to practice her head-stand:
But Pip didn’t seem to mind at all, and I continued to bask in the dream-come-trueness of the moment.
Tuesday August 4th, 2009 “I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”
Maya Angelou
I think we just have to accept the fact that we’ll be buying two of everything from here on in. If Pip has something, Crazybaby wants it. If Crazybaby has something, Pip is suddenly interested in it. This is especially true when it comes to ME.
Pip and I had a four-hour date the other day. I was all hers for the entire time. We did a bit of hand-holding and I snuck a few smooches during that time, but Pip wasn’t particularly ‘clingy.’ When we got home, however, and Crazybaby toddled toward me with arms outstretched saying, “MAMA!!!!” Pip immediately clung to my legs and started crying, “Mama!” as well.
“Pip, I need to say hello to Crazybaby.” Pip remained fastened to my thighs. “Pip, you need to share Mama.” (That one didn’t really sound right, but I gave it a go.) Pip was crying and now Crazybaby was starting to cry as well. Big Daddy-O tried to pry Pip off of me, but physical force always meets with heightened emotions, so Pip turned it up a notch. In the end, Crazybaby was passed to her dad and I took Pip away for a chat.
I told her that I loved her and that I would never run out of love for her; that I had such a big heart that I had enough love for both of my girls. I told her that I loved my time with her, but I loved Crazybaby too, and there was room for both girls in my heart.
Then I reminded her of her new water-flutes from cousin Penny and she was off and running.
Monday August 3rd, 2009 “A heart is not judged by how much you love;
but by how much you are loved by others,”
The Wizard of Oz
Grandma P. treated her two daughters and two eldest grand-daughters to an afternoon of theatre yesterday: we went to see,”The Wizard of Oz.” We’d been talking about all things Wizard for a few weeks, and I had performed a highly condensed version of the musical for my daughters in preparation of the big event. (This was not a hardship you understand, as I have a theatrical background and am always appreciative of a captive audience.)
Prior to the matinee, Pip knew the plot of ‘The Wizard,’ and she knew most of the songs, but she had no idea that she’d fall in love with Dorothy. There we sat, a mere four rows from the stage; Pip on her booster-cushion with her stuffed pig ‘Wilbur’ on her lap, and me, sitting proudly at her side. The orchestra began playing, the lights dimmed, and Pip said, “When are they going to pop up Mama?”
When Dorothy did finally pop up, Pip was enchanted. Her favourite song is ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and it begins a bit differently in the theatre version than it does in my one-woman-show. “What’s this song she’s singing Mama?” Pip looked puzzled.
“It’s going to turn into ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ in a second, Pip.” I said. When Dorothy launched into, ‘Somewhere,’ Pip threw me a smile of excitement, then she looked back at the stage. Her eyes remained glued to Dorothy from that point on, and whenever the actress was offstage, Pip would ask,”Where’s Dorothy, Mama?”
Throughout the show, I was torn between looking at my daughter and looking at the stage, but Dorothy captured my heart as well. She was beautiful. Her voice was gorgeous, her acting was seamless, and she cried real tears when she had to say good-bye to her friends in Oz.
I got a bit choked-up watching Dorothy. Not just because she was having such an impact on my little girl, but also because I know her dad. We went to high-school together and I could see his smile in hers. I imagined how he must feel watching his little girl convincingly transport an entire audience to a land of munchkins and wizards and magic.
The show was long for my little three-year-old, despite captivating performances from all of the leads. By the two-hour mark, she started asking, “Is it over now Mama?” every time the lights dimmed for a scene-change. She was a trooper though, and lasted until the final curtain. I could tell she was on the edge when we walked out into the muggy summer heat and she refused to get into the hot car. Once she understood that the alternative was to stay in the hot parking lot, she whimpered her way into her carseat and I buckled her up.
A few minutes into the drive home I looked in my rear-view mirror to check on Pip. She looked sad. Her face was glistening with sweat and her mouth was turned-down. “Are you okay, Pip?” I asked.
“I miss Dorothy,” was the response. She looked like she might cry.
“I know, Honey, Dorothy was a real sweetheart.”
“I think she misses me too, Mama.”
Friday July 31st, 2009 “Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions,
they pass no criticisms.”
~George Eliot
Our poor pets rank fairly low on the list of priorities now that we have two children. We love them dearly, (well, I love our cats, but my husband merely tolerates them,) but lets face it: the kids come first.
I’m surprised that our two cats and dog don’t resent the girls more. Sebastian, our patient Springer Spaniel, has even been ousted out of his doggie basket occasionally due to overcrowding. (For some reason it has become a favourite location for pat-a-cake.)
The cats have, unfortunately, decorated Crazybaby with a scratch or two, but she was being too rough and I do want her to learn how to respect the space of animals; especially those who aren’t a part of our family.
I’d like to publicly thank our pets for adapting so well to these new, boisterous members of the family. I apologize for this temporary lack of attention, but hopefully there will be four times as much love coming their way in the future.
Thursday July 30th, 2009 “It’s a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it’s light out.”
Bill Watterson
I have a confession to make. My sixteen-month-old daughter has been waking up in the middle of the night, (usually around 3 or 4am,) and I’ve been nursing her back to sleep. I feel as though we’ve regressed back to the first months of night-feeding. It goes against all of the marvelous sleep-strategies that I’ve read about, but I’ve been feeling too exhausted in the wee hours to let Crazybaby cry it out. I know she’s not teething, she’s not sick, and I don’t think she’s hungry. My hunch is that she likes the comfort of nursing to help her get back to sleep.
Crazybaby was pretty good at sleeping through the night until we went on holiday at the beginning of the summer. We were sleeping in the same room and when she woke up, instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, she’d see Mama and think, “Boobie!!!” Unfortunately, it only takes a night or two to establish a new habit, and this is a bad one.
I know that I could probably break this pattern if I just got tough; I’m pretty confident that she would get herself back to sleep eventually if I just let her cry. I’m just not thrilled about waking-up the household at 3am and losing another hour of sleep. So, I tell myself that she’ll grow out of it. I tell myself that there’s no use getting tough while we’re still on summer holiday. I tell myself it’s going to be easier in the fall when it’s still dark in the wee hours of the morning, when the birds are still asleep at 4am. I tell myself that, in the grand scheme of things, my sleep-deprivation is only short-term. Am I telling myself lies?
 (Here’s the Little Miss who’s responsible for the dark circles under my eyes.)
Wednesday July 29th, 2009 “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist
once he grows up.”
Pablo Picasso
We’ve been taking Pip and Crazybaby to the local petting zoo on a regular basis. They LOVE it; each in their own way. Pip is our little observer and she likes to study each animal’s behaviour before she feels confident enough to approach them. 
Crazybaby, on the other hand, toddles right up to the animals and introduces herself. She waves ‘hi’ to all the goats and converses with the sheep.
After our visits, Pip is always full of stories about the animals, so we decided to make a little book together one day, while Crazybaby was napping. Each page was devoted to a different animal, and Pip dictated the story to me while I printed it down. Pip was in charge of all of the illustrations. When we got to the pig page, since there were actually three little pigs at the zoo, Pip asked me to draw one, so I did. “That’s a great pig mama!” Pip exclaimed. A little too great. When we got to the next animal, Pip didn’t want to draw it. “You draw the sheep, Mama.” Damn.
I read a book by Mona Brooks about teaching art to young kids. She claimed that, around the age of seven, kids became dissatisfied with their drawings and needed to be given tools in order to make their drawings more realistic. Pip is only three!!! I don’t want her to be unhappy with her drawings already! Did I blow it by drawing the little pig? Are there any artists out there who can help me out?
Pip seems happy with her paintings (they are glorious) but maybe it’s because she doesn’t have any pre-conceived notion about what they should look like. With a drawing, she has an idea of what she wants it to look like in her mind. Maybe that’s the difference.
Ever since she painted rocks in the Kidzone at our local Music Festival, she has become passionate about the medium. Until I get some good drawing advice, we might just stick with the rocks.
Tuesday July 28th, 2009 “Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day
and now the day was complete.”
~Marcy DeMaree
All of the grandparents I meet tell me how much they appreciate being with their grandchildren. Certainly part of it has to do with the fact that they’re not with the kids ALL THE TIME. They’re typically not doing all the tough work; the middle-of-the-night feedings, the time-outs, the toilet-training. But I think their enjoyment has more to do with the fact that they know how brief these precious years are. All of the old cliches ring true, “They grow up so fast,” and “It’ll be over in the blink of an eye.” Grandparents realize how fleeting this time is, so they cherish every moment with their grandchildren.
 Gramma P holding a month-old Crazybaby Wouldn’t it be wise then, if we parents started to think like grandparents? My husband and I actually have an advantage over most of you out there, because we’re older parents who technically could be grandparents! Sometimes we FEEL like grandparents!!!
The key is to cherish it all. What a cool word. Cherish. I think I’ll teach it to Pip today.
 Gramma J with Pip
Monday July 27th, 2009 “Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.”
Erma Bombeck
It’s so important to have conversations with parents who are not of your generation. I was at a function and found myself talking to two people in their sixties, who were both stay-at-home parents in their early twenties. They had asked what I was up to and I told them about this site.
The woman, I’ll call her Sally, said that when she was a mom it was all about ‘survival.’ There wasn’t a lot of time for reflection, or even just enjoying her kids. There was always so much to ‘do.’ Some things never change, do they? I think all moms can agree that there’s always something else ‘to do.’ Juggling work, child-care, relationships with your husband, family, friends, exercise, and housework is a universal challenge for moms. What Sally seemed to be implying though, is that all of the ‘stuff’ shouldn’t have been as important as being with her kids.
Her words were reassuring. I’ll be honest with you, I have a dirty house pretty much all of the time. Things are usually tidy, but with two kids, three pets, and a sandbox in the backyard, our floors can get pretty scary. When it comes right down to it, I would much prefer to make a craft with Pip than sweep and mop the floors every day, so that’s what I do. And that’s what Pip is going to remember about being a kid. Not that her mom had a clean house, but that her mom painted rocks with her.
The gentleman I was talking to at the party, whom I’ll call Tom, said that there weren’t as many resources for parents in his day; there weren’t any books that he had read, and people didn’t really converse about parenting as we do now. He said that love and patience was the basis for his parenting though, and that held him in pretty good stead. “I mean,” said Tom, “all of my kids are grown and they still like to hang out with me, so I think that’s a pretty good sign.” I agree, Tom. It’s a great sign.
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