I've read that all toddlers go through stages when they prefer one parent or the other.  I am the Chosen One right now for the little angel.

The other night, she woke up crying with The Poopy.  I sent my beloved in, since I had done night duty for the past several nights. 

The little angel, she was not having this strange blond man from whose loins sprang the seed that would become Somebody Little.  She ran away from him, or at least, she ran the five steps across her Very Small Bedroom.  She clung to the footstool at the base of the rocking chair, screaming for me to save her from the kindly stranger who offered to put her back in her bed.

"MOOOMMMMY!" she cried, as though the Elmo had been shot at point-blank range by an insomniac, trumpet-playing Ernie.

I gave in, as I do so many nights, because me?  I just want to sleep.  Tax season is wearing me down, friends.

In the purple light of morning, they are always friends again.  She usually only loves me best when it's dark out.  Perhaps she remembers the comfort of my womb.  Perhaps she just does it to make him feel like The Most Useless Piece of Shit Ever.  Which is how he feels.

Plus, there is this little, evil part of me that LOVES being the preferred one.  LOVES being the apple of her shiny blue eyes.  LOVES that, as they should, mommies sometimes win.

 

This afternoon, I left work a bit early, ran home to change, and jogged over to pick her up in the stroller.  We had a lovely time on our way back.  She wanted to play in the SandBacchus (the god of wine and sandiness).  As she stuck out all of her piggies, including the one that wanted to go wee-wee-wee all the way home, she allowed me to help her remove her Mary Jane tennis shoes.  My beloved, who I swear engineered the death of our twenty-five year-old, hand-me-down lawnmower, had gone to get more gas for it so that he could make that one last pathetic effort to start it that would convince me to let him buy some Cadillac of Lawns. 

As he pulled out of the driveway to go fetch more foreign oil, the little angel looked up from her digging in the pristine play sand. 

"Bye-bye, Daddy!"  she trilled cheerfully, waving her purple shovel.  "See you next weekend!"

I've read that all toddlers go through stages when they prefer one parent or the other.  I am the Chosen One right now for the little angel.

The other night, she woke up crying with The Poopy.  I sent my beloved in, since I had done night duty for the past several nights. 

The little angel, she was not having this strange blond man from whose loins sprang the seed that would become Somebody Little.  She ran away from him, or at least, she ran the five steps across her Very Small Bedroom.  She clung to the footstool at the base of the rocking chair, screaming for me to save her from the kindly stranger who offered to put her back in her bed.

"MOOOMMMMY!" she cried, as though the Elmo had been shot at point-blank range by an insomniac, trumpet-playing Ernie.

I gave in, as I do so many nights, because me?  I just want to sleep.  Tax season is wearing me down, friends.

In the purple light of morning, they are always friends again.  She usually only loves me best when it's dark out.  Perhaps she remembers the comfort of my womb.  Perhaps she just does it to make him feel like The Most Useless Piece of Shit Ever.  Which is how he feels.

Plus, there is this little, evil part of me that LOVES being the preferred one.  LOVES being the apple of her shiny blue eyes.  LOVES that, as they should, mommies sometimes win.

 

This afternoon, I left work a bit early, ran home to change, and jogged over to pick her up in the stroller.  We had a lovely time on our way back.  She wanted to play in the SandBacchus (the god of wine and sandiness).  As she stuck out all of her piggies, including the one that wanted to go wee-wee-wee all the way home, she allowed me to help her remove her Mary Jane tennis shoes.  My beloved, who I swear engineered the death of our twenty-five year-old, hand-me-down lawnmower, had gone to get more gas for it so that he could make that one last pathetic effort to start it that would convince me to let him buy some Cadillac of Lawns. 

As he pulled out of the driveway to go fetch more foreign oil, the little angel looked up from her digging in the pristine play sand. 

"Bye-bye, Daddy!"  she trilled cheerfully, waving her purple shovel.  "See you next weekend!"

Toddler High (otherwise known as the two-year-old room at the Emerald City) is doing WONDERS for the Blog That Never Sleeps.  The little angel has slept until 6:30 in the morning three nights in a row.

It is a minor miracle.

I'm not sure what they are doing in there. I do know that the school is sponsoring a jog-a-thon to raise money later this month. I am a bad mommy. I actually garnered some pledges but then completely forgot to turn in the sheet.  I may try to sneak it in late, but then again I may not, considering that my offering for the March auction actually sold, unlike one hundred other useless items donated by parents who are even bigger losers than I.  I wonder about toddlers (and even waddlers!) doing a jog-a-thon. I picture them warming up in their infant Adidas, doing deep knee bends and squats, pushing their muscles to the very brink.  Oh, wait, that's walking across the room when you are a year old.  WTF??  They start 'em young, folks.  They start 'em young.

Even if she's not doing a few practice laps around the playground, she must be doing something to be so tired.  And I love them for it!  Because then I do not have to make her do laps with me around the block so that she will be tired enough to Sleep! All! Night!  Maybe I can even do my OWN excercise, which does not involve walking only slightly faster than a caterpillar down the sidewalk, pausing every time one sees a dandelion.

Me, sleep AND exercise in the same week?  What's next?  Television?

Childhood constipation.

Yes, this post is about constipation.  You might want to just stop reading now.  It's not going to be for the faint of heart.

The little angel's favorite foods are, in order:  mac & cheese, milk, yogurt and bananas.  See a pattern here?  She also eats a lot of fiber, but it seems that her favorite foods are interfering with her digestive tract.

It just started a few months ago.  She would cry, and stare pathetically off into the distance as she grunt, grunt, grunted.  Then she would look at me with crocodile tears streaming down her face and utter one word:  "Poopy."

My best friend's mother once told me (when she witnessed one of these spells) that I should help her.  At the time, I was all "no way am I doing that.  NO WAY."  Then about two weeks ago, I had to do it.  She was so uncomfortable.  She was doing everything right, and alas, it was just not working.  I laid her down on the changing table to check for progress.

I saw it crown.

I thought NO.  There is NO WAY that I am doing it.

Then you know - I did.  I helped.  It was sort of like pulling baseball-sized modeling clay out of an eel.  It was the most disgusting and loving thing I have ever done in my entire life.  I was so grossed out that only watching my best friend pick up a decomposed mouse with a baggie when I was three months pregnant and very sick beats it out for Most Disgusting Event Ever.  But I did it, because I. Am. Her. Mother.  And this is the sort of thing that only a mother will do.

Last Tuesday, one of my students broke off in the middle of a group project to tell me about her three-year-old who had an X-ray to reveal an abdomen black with withheld waste.  I have no idea why she chose that time or me in general with whom to share this little tidbit, but it scarred me to the point that at the little angel's two-year appointment with the Benevolent Pediatrician, I inquired into whether or not they make Baby Metamucil.

Turns out, of course they do!

We bought some of this disgusting, brown Little Tummies stuff, and today, after a day and a half of No Poopy, I gave her the smallest amount.  The bottle said there would be lift-off in six to twelve hours.

I gave it to her at one when she woke up from her nap. It is now ten p.m.  No poopy yet.

I'm scared.  She ate beans, peas and peaches for dinner.

Scaaaaarreeed.  But hoping for poopy.

Childhood constipation.

Yes, this post is about constipation.  You might want to just stop reading now.  It's not going to be for the faint of heart.

The little angel's favorite foods are, in order:  mac & cheese, milk, yogurt and bananas.  See a pattern here?  She also eats a lot of fiber, but it seems that her favorite foods are interfering with her digestive tract.

It just started a few months ago.  She would cry, and stare pathetically off into the distance as she grunt, grunt, grunted.  Then she would look at me with crocodile tears streaming down her face and utter one word:  "Poopy."

My best friend's mother once told me (when she witnessed one of these spells) that I should help her.  At the time, I was all "no way am I doing that.  NO WAY."  Then about two weeks ago, I had to do it.  She was so uncomfortable.  She was doing everything right, and alas, it was just not working.  I laid her down on the changing table to check for progress.

I saw it crown.

I thought NO.  There is NO WAY that I am doing it.

Then you know - I did.  I helped.  It was sort of like pulling baseball-sized modeling clay out of an eel.  It was the most disgusting and loving thing I have ever done in my entire life.  I was so grossed out that only watching my best friend pick up a decomposed mouse with a baggie when I was three months pregnant and very sick beats it out for Most Disgusting Event Ever.  But I did it, because I. Am. Her. Mother.  And this is the sort of thing that only a mother will do.

Last Tuesday, one of my students broke off in the middle of a group project to tell me about her three-year-old who had an X-ray to reveal an abdomen black with withheld waste.  I have no idea why she chose that time or me in general with whom to share this little tidbit, but it scarred me to the point that at the little angel's two-year appointment with the Benevolent Pediatrician, I inquired into whether or not they make Baby Metamucil.

Turns out, of course they do!

We bought some of this disgusting, brown Little Tummies stuff, and today, after a day and a half of No Poopy, I gave her the smallest amount.  The bottle said there would be lift-off in six to twelve hours.

I gave it to her at one when she woke up from her nap. It is now ten p.m.  No poopy yet.

I'm scared.  She ate beans, peas and peaches for dinner.

Scaaaaarreeed.  But hoping for poopy.

On Tuesday night, my class got into a post-break discussion of labor.  The representative students were almost all female, and two of the students have four children.  One of my students is seven months pregnant.  Somehow we started talking about Britney Spears and her non-necessary but scheduled C-section.  I mentioned a discussion I'd heard on the radio about the new trend in scheduling births even for those women not requiring a C-section for medical reasons.  I quickly regretted the decision to mention it.

The pregnant woman, who earlier during a group project had approached me on the subject of her son's constipation, started talking about how happy she'd been to have a C-section with her first son.  Another student, who has a three-year-old, launched into her horror story of twenty hours of pushing.  I tried to bring the conversation back around to grammar.

Me:  "Okay, poor K. (one of the lone men, and the only heterosexual man in the room) looks like he's about to jump out the window.  Let's talk about grammar."

K:  "No, I'm down with the C-sections."

Me:  "Really?  Why?"

K:  "No pushing, no 'fuck you,' just two beautiful babies."

Well, there you go.

Thursday is the little angel's second birthday.  The past two years have changed me more than the thirty that came before them.

Today I thought for a few hours that the little angel had beaten up one of her Waddler B friends.  It was a case of mistaken identity.  When J's mother told me that she thought the little angel had been the one to attack him and scratch his face so much that it swelled, I almost threw up on my keyboard.  I found myself in tears in front of six co-workers over it.  I think I was in pain not because I thought she had struck out at another child - she's two, after all - but because I thought she had done it unprovoked.  I thought perhaps she was harboring some anxiety of which I was unaware.  I thought maybe it was connected to me going back to an office and giving up an hour and a half of the time we spent together each day, an act that was not entirely my choice.

At lunch my friend B. pointed out we were both born under the sign of Aquarius.  I pointed out that that made sense, not because I put any faith in horoscopes - I am the great-granddaughter of a Lutheran minister, after all - but because the water sign is traditionally thought to be torn between the yearning for creative expression and the practicality of needing to provide a good living, the awareness of the reality of it all.  B. is a talented artist.  I am a struggling writer.  But he has a wife who has had medical problems, to the extent that she had to rebuild her whole life and identity, and I have over-analyzed my role as provider and mother to the point where sometimes I can barely breathe under the responsibility of it all.

Tonight as I waited SIX MINUTES TILL NIGHT-NIGHT four times, I watched the little angel toss and turn in her little Carter's short set, thinking how incredibly insane it was that I had grown her in my innards for ten months and successfully pushed her out into the world, for better or for worse.  The world may be a terrible and beautiful place, a sublime place, in every sense of the world, but I think it is a better place because she is in it. 

She is a beautiful, loving person, already at two.  She is my finest work.

Happy birthday, little angel.

Thursday is the little angel's second birthday.  The past two years have changed me more than the thirty that came before them.

Today I thought for a few hours that the little angel had beaten up one of her Waddler B friends.  It was a case of mistaken identity.  When J's mother told me that she thought the little angel had been the one to attack him and scratch his face so much that it swelled, I almost threw up on my keyboard.  I found myself in tears in front of six co-workers over it.  I think I was in pain not because I thought she had struck out at another child - she's two, after all - but because I thought she had done it unprovoked.  I thought perhaps she was harboring some anxiety of which I was unaware.  I thought maybe it was connected to me going back to an office and giving up an hour and a half of the time we spent together each day, an act that was not entirely my choice.

At lunch my friend B. pointed out we were both born under the sign of Aquarius.  I pointed out that that made sense, not because I put any faith in horoscopes - I am the great-granddaughter of a Lutheran minister, after all - but because the water sign is traditionally thought to be torn between the yearning for creative expression and the practicality of needing to provide a good living, the awareness of the reality of it all.  B. is a talented artist.  I am a struggling writer.  But he has a wife who has had medical problems, to the extent that she had to rebuild her whole life and identity, and I have over-analyzed my role as provider and mother to the point where sometimes I can barely breathe under the responsibility of it all.

Tonight as I waited SIX MINUTES TILL NIGHT-NIGHT four times, I watched the little angel toss and turn in her little Carter's short set, thinking how incredibly insane it was that I had grown her in my innards for ten months and successfully pushed her out into the world, for better or for worse.  The world may be a terrible and beautiful place, a sublime place, in every sense of the world, but I think it is a better place because she is in it. 

She is a beautiful, loving person, already at two.  She is my finest work.

Happy birthday, little angel.

So last night I left a LENGTHY comment on Dooce's site. The subject was sleep.  I have a lot to say about children and sleep. I think I'll say some more!

I've written about the little angel's sleeping habits on this blog approximately one bazillion times. The most recent discussion that I remember was here.  However, I made a New Year's resolution this year to NOT TALK ABOUT HOW I NEVER SLEEP, and so I have made a Herculean effort not to bore you with any more of the wah-wah-I-just-walked-into-a-wall commentary that has plagued me yea these last seven months.

It wasn't always like this.  You see, we Ferberized.  Yes, and as everyone knows, once you Ferberize, you never have to do it again. Life is then perfect.

Bullshit.

For a while, it worked. The little angel ate every three hours when she was first born until I stopped breastfeeding at seven weeks.  You see, I was a wee bit tired after seven weeks of not getting more than two hours of consecutive sleep. Like, ever.  You should've seen her, though - she grew like a weed.

We Ferberized her for the first time when she was about four months old.  And it worked!  It worked about as well as quitting smoking has done for me.  It works for a few months to a few years, but inevitably, there is some wee setback that threatens the whole damn healthy house of cards and takes a supreme act of will to resist toppling altogether in a huge cloud of whatthefuck.

So yes, the Ferberizing didn't really make it through Christmas break.  When we were ready to try again, she was about eight months old. This began a series of five ear infections in a row and five rounds of full-spectrum antibiotics.  Between the ear pain, the teething pain and the rats that visited her at night to gnaw her perfect toebuds (she claims - I'll never believe it), she was NOT HAVING THE SLEEP.  We tried, oh, we tried!  I read every book!  We finally decided that since this was not working anyway, maybe we should wean her off the paci while we were behind.

I had just seen the episode of Supernanny where the four-year-old has the paci and stays up ALL NIGHT LONG when Supernanny takes it away.  I feared this consequence of too-long-paci-love.

Hee hee, ho ho - if I ever have another child, he or she will be hanging his or her paci around the rear-view mirror of the family car and sporting invisible braces until the child is 34.  Taking away the paci equaled seven months of the worst hell I have ever faced.

Each night, she would wake up. She would cry.  She would scream.  We got the white-noise machine.  We tried four different types of nightlights.  We Ferberized for three weeks.  One night she actually was awake for four hours, screaming.  SCREAMING LIKE THE HOUNDS OF HELL HAD STOLEN HER SOUL.

I'm not one of the mommies who can't hack the screaming. What I can't hack is the not sleeping.  She got her naps in at daycare.  I had to work all day.  So did my beloved.  Where were our naps? We cried, we sobbed, we read 90 more sleep books.  We tried Weissbluth, we tried others.  My beloved refused to co-sleep even when I begged for it when she was nineteen months old.  He was adamant.  I said fine, I'm sleeping with her on the couch.  FOREVER.

So for a while, if she woke up after three a.m., she got to come down on the couch with us.  We stretched this to four a.m.  After this past Christmas, when she was about twenty-odd months old, we got her the big-girl bed.  What the hell?  She wasn't sleeping anyway.

Around the holidays, I started getting really depressed. I was crying up to two hours a day while I scoured the Internet for a clue as to how to get my daughter to FUCKING SLEEP.  I felt like a complete failure of a mother. And the worst part?  I started irrationally thinking she was somehow doing it on purpose to torture me.  Probably because my pediatrician's nurse accused me of being wrapped around her toddler finger when I called for a child psychologist's phone number.

I called the child psychologist. I consulted the head of the Emerald City.  I considered taking her out of Waddler B.  We kept working with her.

One night from two to four a.m., I sat on a stool in her room. Every time she got out of bed, I would put her back in.  She cried and screamed the entire time. I finally got her to the place where she would at least stay in bed. I promised her I would lay down on the floor until she fell asleep if she would stay in bed. 

One might say I had "won."

But see?  That's where we go wrong in these sleeping battles.  They become a battle of wills, or at least all of the literature will try to convince you that it's that way.  And me?  I don't need more challenges.  I was already deranged.  I went and saw a psychiatrist, who listened to my deranged crying and told me she thought the prolonged sleep deprivation was giving me a chemical imbalance.  She offered anxiety medication. I took her up on it.

About a month into the medication, I still wasn't sleeping, but I was feeling a little better about it.  I started feeling stupid for making such a battle out of the whole thing. I even felt good enough about myself that I decided the hell with the kid, I was going to sleep. Even if that meant on the floor of her room. 

And so we did.  My beloved and I would take turns getting up when she awoke, walking in her room, handing her the sippy cup of water and wordlessly lying down on the floor beside her toddler bed.  Both of us have been known to fall asleep there upwards of four hours, but usually we get up after twenty minutes or so and come back to bed.  Our bed.  Our blissful, adult bed.

I'm not criticizing the Sears fans or the attachment parents.  I begged for this relief.  And I love, blessed Jesus do I LOVE cuddling with the little angel.  I love the little noises that she makes when she sleeps. I love how she wraps her arms around my arm and stuffs her toes between my knees.  She is the perfect size for spooning.  She is like a little kitten in my arms.

But my beloved?  He wants to sleep with me.  And so, I decided not to do it.  Because folks, if you're going to share your bed with dogs, cats, children or extra adults, the other person in the bed better be down with it, you know?

So this was our compromise.  For some reason, the less attached I became to whether or not she was sleeping, the more she slept.  I don't know if it was the toddler bed, the sticker chart, the promise of getting to wear blinky shoes if she slept (this started a shoe fetish, though), the constant praise for sleeping, the reminders of the importance of sleep or time, but her sticker chart in March was more full than not. 

We're very proud of her.

And you know what?  I'm very proud of me.  It was hard for me to let go of that need to WIN. That need to bend my child's behavior to my will. It seems like so much of the parenting advice and literature and television is trained to getting us parents to always be Large and In Charge.  Heavens to Betsy, no, I don't want to raise a spoiled brat, but I also don't want my tendency toward obsessive Type A behavior to be what my little angel remembers about her childhood.  In some ways, I'm very proud of myself that we struck this little compromise where neither of us exactly won.

And all of us, most of the time, are sleeping.  Her decision, not mine.