Toddlers

3 Things Every Parent Should Know About the Baby Stage

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

For 6 years I had a toddler or infant in the house. Now, nearing my 7th year as a parent — with a newly minted 3-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a nearly-7-year-old — I can reflect with greater clarity on that precious, wholly exhausting, messy, beautiful time. In doing so I’ve discovered 3 important things every parent should know about the baby stage.

IMG_20180627_132653_409.jpg

1. EVERYTHING IS TEMPORARY. If you haven’t yet learned that every single stage, phase, good time, rough patch, annoying habit, and terrifying challenge is temporary, you’re most certainly new to the parenting game. As soon as you gloat about your child’s brilliance at creating 3-word sentences well ahead of developmental norms, they’re licking the storefront window. As soon as you feel like your child will never poop in the potty, the digestive dilemma is no more. As soon as you wonder when you’ll ever get your body back, your child weans. As soon as you really begin enjoying the morning cuddle routine, it’s over and replaced with another habit. As soon as you begin to think you will never again not be a heap of saggy, leaking, oddly pillow-like human randomly crying into your 3-day-old breastmilk stained pajamas in a mixture of fear, deep sadness, exhaustion, and raging postpartum hormones, you exit the hole. As soon as you think, “Will these needy, week-long days ever end?” They’re over. All of it comes to an end; positive and challenging. And you may loathe reading this if you’re presently in the parenting trenches with no light peeking above your laundry piles of spit-up and diaper-blowout stained onesies, but it’s true: it goes fast — faster than you can ever imagine — these are the good, hard (incredibly hard), long, worthwhile days.

2. IT GETS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER. Think of most any developmental leap, milestone, or change and you can pretty much guarantee that things took a nose dive before the ride got smoother. Potty-training: a regression is bound to happen before you’re in dry pants territory. Sleeping: you’re going to hit (multiple) regressions and blips before you get some semblance of solid sleep. Walking: they go from speedy independent all-fours (or some variant) mobility to a rickety, slow gait before a sturdy walk is established. The first high fever bug: that thermometer reading has to keep going up and up (along with your blood pressure) until it eventually inches down. And afterwards, all of that stress and worry and strain remains as nothing but a memory. So know that if you’re at a parenting point when you end each day exhausted in all ways, doubting yourself and your abilities, feeling frustrated and stressed beyond what you ever knew possible, and wondering:”Will this ever end?” Know it will. And trust that this is just the precursor to improvement.

3. IT’S SURVIVABLE AND SAVORABLE You will have days when you lower your personal performance bar to such a degree that you refuse to be witnessed by any outsiders… your goal is survival. That’s ok. Those days (or a week) are normal. Nope, you’re not a failure. Nope, you’re not doing anything or everything wrong. Yep, it happens to everyone — EVERYONE — just people don’t admit it. But amidst it all, you can find a way to savor it. Savor your child’s smile in between tantrums or the sweetness of your child’s finally sleeping face or your own strength for being there despite everything going sideways. You may read this in the thick of things and think I’m full of it, but just try it: savor it. I’m not saying relish the crappy moments. No, those can stay sucky. I’m saying ignore the big picture of awful and appreciate the snapshots of good. In those tiny hidden moments you’ll find something to savor. There’s always something, no matter how small. Just look for it. Squint if you need to.

In no time at all you’ll be looking back on where you’ve been and think, “Wow, that was a shitshow, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!” This is your life, your child’s life; don’t wish it away for what it isn’t. Don’t ignore all the pitfalls and spin it into what it never was. Dig in and appreciate it for what it is.

Survive it. Savor it. One day at a time.

Next Year will be Entirely Different

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

“This year will be tough,” I thought to myself, anticipating the summer beach trips at my mom’s beloved but entirely toddler-unfriendly beach house, “but next year… just wait until next year!” The glass-topped tables, the readily accessible stairs, the breakable lamps attached to tuggable cords, the vulnerable trinkets, the vertical blinds, the unlatched cabinets, the massive canvas painting hung within swatting distance above the sofa, the media console with an array of enticing buttons… so much to safeguard from my bumbling tike. But being at the beach makes it all worthwhile.

20160609_101709

Summer 2016

I envisioned my long, memory-filled, sand-dusted, sun-soaked days wrangling my kindergartener and preschooler while simultaneously chasing my toddler on the beach, at the pool, on the playground, and then at the beach house. I recounted the strain of having no childproofed place I can safely place my littlest so that I can cook dinner, pack the beach cooler, make snacks, go to the bathroom, or just sit for a beat. I remembered how I woke up every day at 6AM on vacation and popped him — wailing — into the pack-and-play so that I could wearily pump, set out breakfasts, and pack for the day’s beach excursion before the rest of the house awoke. I remembered the sinking dread I felt at the prediction of a rainstorm that would keep us trapped inside.

This year, I’ll have to wean from pumping before we take our trips and I’ll have to wear him whenever we’re in the house, because a pack-and-play will no longer stand as an impeding obstacle to my athletic tot. I will be on duty from wake-up to bedtime. I will enjoy it. I will treasure it. I will end the season with a multitude of photos and a plethora of cherished memories. I will be exhausted in the best and most depleting way. “Just push through this year,” I reassured myself, “next year will be entirely different.”

Then it struck me: next year will be entirely different. It will be easier, but next year they’ll all be older. My herd will be 7, 5, and 3. 7… 7-years old! The better part of a decade? And my middle son a burgeoning kindergartener?? No more baby? No more toddler? Tears welled. My throat grew tight. They’re growing too fast! Make it stop!

Sure, life will still be loud and chaotic, because that is our familial heartbeat. Vacations will still be life relocated. I will still fight the descent into anarchy by planning and packing, scheduling and routine. My “vacation” will happen each night during the two hours between the kids’ bedtime and my own. I will, no doubt, still referee and soothe, corral and amuse, but I won’t be needed in that primal way. That exhausting, rewarding, wholly taxing manner that both fills the soul and drains all mental capacity.

And with that I stopped coaching myself to “just push through this year” but, instead, to savor it. Because next year will be entirely different.

Mental Snap Shot

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

Some moments something inside of you tells you, “remember this!” “Freeze-frame this!” And so you do.

You study every detail of the moment, as if taking a mental picture to file away in your mind. You feel the magnitude of the possibly trivial-seeming or overtly significant moment. You are beyond present in the moment; your are memorizing its every facet.

20161106_151434

Last weekend, on a beautiful fall afternoon, I took my troublesome trio to their preschool playground. My eldest — now a kindergartener — happily played on her alma mater grounds as my preschooler scampered to the familiar swings.

My littlest, at 16-months old, was excited but challenged by the uneven ground and play structures. As he attempted the steep equipment’s stairs, my mind commanded me to store this memory.

I memorized his struggle, his efforts to master the play structures, his bumbling gate and toddler stature. I realized that next year he would not be bumbling about the rocky, toy-strewn area but would, instead, be climbing and playing with ease. In less than one year, this would be his school’s playground. My baby will be a preschooler.

Time goes so fast.

For now, I’ll soak in all I can. Freeze-framing and mentally snap-shotting with abandon. Surviving and savoring one day at a time.

Ups and Downs

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment
#2 learning to rollerblade

#2 on his first rollerblading attempt

Falling. It’s a part of life. Bumps, bruises — to the body and the ego — are life’s way of teaching you, molding you, and keeping you humble.

Getting back up from a fall is painful, trying, and necessary. Learning how take a tumble and pull yourself back up again without becoming disheartened, that’s a valuable life lesson.

On this beautiful April afternoon, #2 tried rollerblading for the first time. “You will fall,” I warned him as I strapped on his safety gear, “it’s ok. What you need to do is learn how to get back up. Soon, with more practice, you’ll fall less and get up faster. Just know you will fall today. You’ll fall but you’ll get back up and be fine.”

He wobbled and rolled and tumbled. He scrambled awkwardly to coerce his bumbling toddler limbs, encased in oversized safety padding, to pull his 30lb frame upright. He’d try and fail, get halfway up and fall back down. I offered my hand for stability only. He — determined — refused. He plopped down on the driveway, deflated.

“You can do this. You’re strong and you’re smart. Think before you move and you’ll be up on your feet in no time.” He looked at me through the visor of his helmet, paused, slowly pulled himself up to squatting, and then to standing. He did it!

“My ride my bike now.”

Learn how to fall and get back up: check.