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5 Things I Did Not Know About My Firstborn

December 26, 2016 By Sara M. 17 Comments

First time parenting is rough. It’s one of those things in life that even preparation leaves you unprepared. I studied early child development during my Psychology degree. I read tons of books while pregnant. I drew on my experiences from taking care of my younger siblings as a teen. I talked to everyone I knew about parenting strategies.

Despite all of this, what I learned about my daughter, my firstborn, was mostly in retrospect after my second arrived.

How “Little” She Really Was

This may sound intuitive to some people, but I continually expected my daughter to be so much more capable than she actually was. I pushed her very hard to be able to sit quietly, entertain herself, play well with other children, and get quickly over disappointments and tantrums.

But now, watching my 22-month-old son, I am struck by how little she really was at this age. Now I “get it” and I am gentler with him (and her) because of it. I better understand how much time it takes to learn to communicate or develop emotional control.

I think part of what made it so hard for us to see was that she was so advanced. She ate with utensils at 10 months old. She spoke in full sentences at 18 months. She could entertain herself for an hour or sometimes more. She appeared so much more mature than she actually was.

How Much She Was Capable of Doing for Herself

I had super high expectations for her on some things, but I also had very low expectations in other ways.

It wasn’t until I enrolled my son in day care at 1 year that I realized how much babies could do for themselves. Their goals for that age were self-feeding and self-care. They were consciously teaching this age group things I was still doing for my daughter at 3.

I had just done so many things for her, instead of taking the time to empower her to do them for herself. I picked out her clothes, dressed her, washed her hands for her, even fed her if it was too messy.

So now, with two little ones, it is a lot easier to encourage him to try more things for himself. And I get a lot more resistance from her because I have helped her for so long. She sees my reluctance to help her with those things as me pushing her away.

How Much She Was Not “Boyish”

At the risk of sparking the gender debate, please remember this is just an account of our experience.

My husband and I watched her approach to life and would often comment that she was more like a boy than a girl. She was aggressive and rough, preferring blocks and cars to dolls and stuffed animals. She wanted to run around, jump around, and be thrown up in the air.

At 1, we noticed she was incredibly mechanically minded, driven to figure out how things worked. She was fascinated by buckles and latches, manipulating any she could get her hands on.

When our boy arrived, it become obvious how wrong we were. The elements of her that had seemed to be “boy-like,” now proved characteristics of her unique personality as opposed to being gender related.

Our son does not ever stop moving. She can sit still for long periods of time exploring a book or a puzzle. Our son is rough and tumble in a different way, often getting hurt without even noticing.  Our son climbs everything, whereas it never occurred to our daughter to try some of the things he’s climbed until she saw him do it.

How Kids Are So Different

So often we watch our son do something that instantly reminds us when our daughter did the exact same thing. Their mannerisms are so similar it is eerily reminiscent of déjà vu. And yet, what I’ve really learned is that they can also be so different, despite being so alike.

Our little man is sweet and sensitive, craving physical closeness. She’s much more independent, preferring physical contact on her own terms. She plays imaginatively, while he is very physical: throwing balls, pushing cars, running, and jumping. She loves to communicate; he is not determined to do so. He tends to get frustrated and gives up easily, she will persevere until she solves it.

How Siblings Aren’t Necessarily Good for Each Other

This one was a huge hurt for me. I knew from my husband’s experience that sibling relationships aren’t always easy. However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened.

She was two when he was born. Our son was a difficult baby, who commanded an extraordinary amount of time and attention. She had been very attached to me up until that time, barely allowing anyone else to do anything for her, even my husband.

His arrival broke our bond in a very intense way. Despite our goal of encouraging additional connections in her life, I wish it had not happened in such a drastic manner. Looking back, I don’t think there was much more that we could have done to ease her transition, short of postponing having another baby.

It took her more than a year to even out, get more settled into her new role. We are heartened by the beginning of a relationship between them now that he is almost 2.

*****

These are not things you can learn from a book or a more experienced parent. You have to live them and breathe them, and let the experiences change you. I have regrets, but I can’t change the past. I can learn from these insights, applying them to each new stage as we all grow together.

Filed Under: Parenting, Personal Tagged With: daughter, kids, parenting, reflections, siblings, son

Cold Season Brings Back a Little Insanity

December 2, 2016 By Sara M. 6 Comments

The little ones have been sick. Flu season has thoroughly knocked us on our butts. We’ve trudged through 4 illnesses in the last month, but this latest one was the worst.

The 4-year-old girl is a real trooper, only a little more whiny than usual. But my almost 2-year-old son? This cold has brought out the worst in him.

He experienced a complete and utter regression back to his babyhood. Which made me realize that I am actually still traumatized from it.

600x900-screamDon’t get me wrong, I am a very sympathetic mom to the fact that he is sick. And I totally get that he needs extra love and attention because he just feels so miserable. But the nonstop screaming that has resumed when I have to put him down for any reason has me twitching all over again.

This behavior has flashed me back to how hard it was on our whole family when he was younger.

I feel traumatized by the sound of his constant screaming. I am revisiting the helpless feeling that I could nothing to ease his unhappiness. He would have just this instantaneous visceral reaction to everything. Not getting what he wanted. Not being picked up. Everything.

He screamed every day for the first year. In the beginning, we figured it was colic. Hell, it’s not like we were first time parents, we knew babies cried.

But the phase seemed never ending. 3 months. 6 months. A year. And oh, he was so unbelievably loud. To this day, he is the loudest baby I have ever heard. You know those cute little infant cries that are so adorable because they haven’t really found their voice yet? Before they’ve had proper practice to really give a good cry? Well, our son never had that. He was loud from the moment he was born.

680x450-concertMy husband is an audiophile, so he happens to have a lot of sound monitoring equipment. Just for kicks one night, in an attempt to find the humor in our plight as the parents of a screamer, he actually used a sound pressure level meter to measure the decibels that little man was putting out at full bore. He hit 100 decibels from 4 feet away. To give you an idea, that is about rock concert level loud. Coming from my baby in a quiet, otherwise peaceful home. I am pretty sure my hearing is not as good as it used to be.

I recall always telling people, my son has two modes. Extremely happy and extremely unhappy. And when he was mad, he was going to let you know it. You know how most babies stop crying when you pick them up? Not this guy, he was not quite done crying when I picked him up. It was as though he wasn’t finished letting me know how upset he was for not being held in the first place.

The fever from this cold made him extra clingy all over again. Strapped to my legs like a barnacle. To the point that he would cry if he was not being held for longer than 10 minutes. This includes all night long. Out of sheer desperation for sleep, I found myself back in a bed with him just like when he was little. And never mind that he could have just slept next to me, he would actually position himself on top of me, with an elbow in my neck. Needless to say, I’m wrecked.

He has regressed to using screaming to communicate again. Which is not very effective at all. He was pretty delayed with speaking, and typically only says a couple words now. But at least we’d gotten to the point that he could indicate if he was hungry, tired, wanted to watch Octonauts, needed to be picked up, or wanted his binky.

It’s like we’d traveled back in time to the stage when he wouldn’t even try to tell you what he needs. Instead, bursting into tears if you moved in the wrong direction (away from whatever he apparently wanted but wouldn’t express).

The last two days, he’s finally better and returning to his more peaceful, typical self these days. Which makes me the most relieved mom on earth. Because I don’t think I could go through another year long episode like that again. It literally has shaken me up how quickly all of those same feelings bubbled right back up out of nowhere.

And I am eternally grateful that miserable phase is in the past. I can handle a couple days of regression, but any more than that and I’ll be running for the hills.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: baby, colds, colic, loud, parenting, screaming, son

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Welcome to THE SANITY PLAN! Here you will find my attempts to restore order in my crazy life post kids. I'm just getting started & I have a lot to say. So far I've written a lot about my perspectives on parenting (sorry, it's where I am at), but I'd love it if you followed my journey to improve my habits, get more organized, redefine my career, and generally live a good life. Or, you can follow just for the entertainment, I promise there will be lots of that. Do you want to learn more about building A Sanity Plan?

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