You guys,
I have great news:
My 2-year-old is not a psychopath. He will bite you really fucking hard if you piss him off, but then he will show remorse by giving you a hug.
Phew.
I’m thrilled with the hugs, truly, but he’s still biting us. A lot.
George has some words but not enough to verbally communicate most of his needs. He bites — I think — because he’s frustrated or hungry or overtired or under-stimulated. Sam and I learned to respond to the bite with sadness and tell George he hurt us. This was challenging at first because I typically respond to pain with anger, but it’s been a wonderful little experiment to not respond to every single thing in my life by cursing and throwing a fit.
Here’s how it typically goes:
George bites me. I say, “Ow” and hold wherever he bit me. I sit on the floor and tell him he hurt Mama. He runs over to Sam, who kneels down and confirms, “You hurt Mama. Do you want to make sure she’s okay?” George quickly responds, “Da,” and runs over and rests his head on my shoulder while I wrap my arms around him and tell him, “I’m okay, thank you.”
Aren’t we just the best parents? We’re so good at this.
And then George gets pissed and bites us again. Sooooo what now? Is this working? Should we do something else, like, I don’t know… bite him back??
The other day, George didn’t want to come inside because he never wants to come inside because outside is way more fun, obviously. He screamed and resisted and when Sam finally picked him up, George sunk his teeth into Sam’s shoulder.
Sam couldn’t believe how bad it hurt and how bad it looked, so he took a picture of the bite mark. (“We’re always capturing happy memories! We should capture bad moments, too. I want to remember this.”)
We went through the usual dialogue we always go through, but this time, because the bite was so bad, we were left wondering, Now what?
I think the answer is that this will take time. George does know that biting isn’t okay, and he does show empathy after the act, but he hasn’t figured out another way to relieve his frustration or communicate with us.
In the meantime we are skittish parents, afraid of our son being too close to us, which is totally normal.
Mother of the Year
Layla gagged for so long on a piece of plum I was sure she was choking.
As she struggled to breathe, I realized I was counting on Sam to come to the rescue if she actually needed CPR.
Watching a baby eat her first foods is exciting and funny and entertaining. And then quite suddenly it’s terrifying. Feeding Layla real food was my responsibility. And I was unprepared to save my baby. I learned infant CPR when George was an infant, but even then, I knew Sam would swoop in if anything happened.
It felt like minutes while I stared, held my breath, and barely sat on the edge of my seat while I watched Layla make the sucking motion with her mouth like she was about to throw up. Finally, she did. It looked like half her bottle came up. So much milk. And then she was smiling and happy as could be while I was shaking for the next three hours.
Sam found this 1-minute Youtube video for infant CPR. I watched it and then practiced on a stuffed tiger. Later that night I practiced on Layla. She was wayyyy bigger and heavier than the tiger. She smiled and cooed as I rolled her from her front to her back to her front.
Sometimes I rush things. I wanted Layla to learn how to swallow and just assumed she would be fine. But while being fully prepared takes time and might even feel tedious, it’s worth it to feel confident and empowered for the worst possible scenario.
Super Mom
We had no childcare last week. Here’s what I learned:
Being around my kids all the time does not make me a better mom. It makes me frazzled and distracted.
When we have help I can break up my focus into blocks of time. For example: an hour writing, an hour cooking, an hour cleaning, an hour with the kids. For each block of time, I’m completely focused on that one thing.
Without help I’m in constant Mom-mode but thinking about all the other things on my list. I’m not present. I’m not patient. I’m not fun to be around.
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Until next week,
Charlie