Boys and Girls and... Feelings.

I was talking to my sister yesterday, and she told me a story that really drove home how different girls and boys are (she has two boys, roughly the same ages as my two older girls).  Something happened and my 7 year old nephew was upset about something and she had to literally sit him down and ask him "How did that make you feel?" and then coax an answer out of him.

I don't think I've ever had to coax a description of a feeling out of any of our girls.  Not ever.  They are always ready and willing to extrapolate on any and every emotion that might possibly flow out of them.

This pic was taken right before a big melt-down. You can see the tears starting to form.

In fact, really, my wife and I have had to tell them several times to "Hold it in."  Now, that sounds bad, but let me tell you, there needs to be some restraint sometimes. As the rivers of emotion and feeling flow forth, they need to learn to bottle some of it up. It seems like sometimes the more they express their feelings and emotions, the more it seems to control them.

Sometimes when having a temper tantrum, they blat on and on (if you are not familiar with the "blat" it's kind of like a yell-cry and it's amazingly grating on the nerves), and sometimes they do little dances with their bodies or thrash around on the floor.

Who knew that a first haircut would elicit such dramatic crying?

They're kind of like a fairy, if you've read Peter Pan (or watched it, for that matter).  The anger/hurt/strong feeling overtakes them and they can't think or feel anything else. Most of the time, you just have to leave them alone for a bit and then they are fine.

We were at a parade, having fun. I know, I know. Hard to tell from this pic.

I think the crux of the matter is that kids need individualized parenting. There really is no generic "CHILD" that every parent gets. I have to say, it's easy to think, oh, I have four daughters, so I'm home-free by the fourth one!  Piece of cake, walk in the park, phone it in! But, it's not like that. The differences may not be as glaring as perhaps the ones between my girls and my nephews, but they are there all the same.

See, that's the tricky part of parenting. Figuring out what your kid needs. And then, just like everyone else, just when you think you've done it, they go and change on you! It's the nature of life, I guess.

Childbirth... From MY Perspective

(See what I did there with the title? I specifically narrowed this down to JUST ME. That way, no one can accuse me of speaking for anyone else out there.)

So, we have four kids… And, my wife has given birth to each one. And, I was there too. Involved. Working. Doing my part. In my Father’s generation, I don’t think much was expected from the Husband during labor and delivery, if he was even invited in the room. 

Not so anymore. Just in case there are any non-Fathers out there right now reading this post, let me tell you, you will NOT be able to just sit back and relax while your child is being guided into this world. No, more than likely you will NOT be able to read a magazine, play Angry Birds on your phone, or watch Judge Judy re-runs while your wife and the Nurses are coaxing your progeny “to the light” as it were. Just a warning.

I have to say that just like every child is different, so is every birth, I would imagine. Our four certainly were. Two of those births were medicated, one was induced, one came right on her due date, one was turned the wrong way and almost had to have a C-section, one delivery required very little pushing, two of them required a whole lot, and one had some complications (the umbilical cord snapped off). For two of them I was able to cut the cord, and during last one, the midwife had to sort of yell at my wife “No biting!” because, well, it looked like she was going to bite my hand.

This statement by the midwife made my wife sort of mad. I, however, was grateful.

Anyway, I feel like I can kind of speak from experience about childbirth. Here are some thoughts that I have about it (and most of these will likely be the exact opposite of what you will read on childbirth blogs):

1. I personally would advocate all women to utilize whatever pain relief they can. In other words, I say “get the drugs!” My wife got epidurals for the first two and opted not to for the third child. (Personally, I thought she was nuts!) The reasons she decided this were to hopefully shorten labor and pushing (the first two were both really long) and to try to get her milk to come in sooner for breastfeeding (both times before it took 5 days, even with “doing all the right things”). Well, for this third child, she pushed for 2-3 hours (even longer than the first two – the baby was turned the wrong way) and her milk STILL took 5 days to come in. So, then she decided for the fourth child that she definitely wanted an epidural, but she got to the hospital too late and the baby came very quickly, fast and furious. 

Katie, #1
(this was before we had a digital camera)

This leads me to the next thought that I have:

2. Get to the hospital later than you think for the first babies and earlier than you think for the later-borns. For the first baby, we got to the hospital (after my wife had had contractions for hours) and she was only dilated 2 or 3 centimeters. It was a long stay. But for the LAST baby, she was trying to do too much (although, I certainly did appreciate that awesome brownie that I ate en route to the hospital!) and we were only there a short, short time (too short to get an epidural) before her water broke and she entered the pushing phase of labor.

Annabelle, #2
(NICU baby, because of her umbilical cord problem)

3. The brownie reminds me of another thought… Men, eat when you can. I know that you will feel bad when your wife is not allowed, but this “guilt” will only last for baby number one (although she can have popsicles, so if you want to be really awesome, go find her one), but seriously, if you happen to have a long labor, you will need energy. It is quite a workout, especially when you find yourself fighting with your wife’s body (that’s another story). Those Labor and Delivery nurses know from experience how much work it is, so take their advice and go get a sandwich or a granola bar or something when you can. Trust me, they’ll tell you if you can’t. I guess the only time you wouldn’t want to do this is if your wife needs you. It would be more loving to wait for an opportune moment. That’s why I grabbed the brownie on the way to the hospital (and, I’m glad I did, because delivery #4 was intense. That was the delivery my wife was instructed not to bite me.)

Caroline, #3
(born right before Christmas, hence the hat)

4. Women, you should eat when you can too. Once you start having contractions, you need to go to 5 Guys Burgers and get a triple burger with a large order of fries and a Sprite. Because once you get to the hospital, they CUT YOU OFF. No food (unless your husband finds you a popsicle), only ice chips. (BTW, my wife tried to get me to give her a pretzel once, but I said no for the sake of her and our baby.)

Emily, #4
(My wife looks so serene, you would never imagine that she was going to bite my hand off just moments earlier.)

5. And, speaking of intense labor, be ready to go through the ride of your life. Childbirth is one of those times where you feel completely out of control, sort of like you are on a roller coaster minus the fun. So many things can go wrong, and there are so many variables that you just have to be strong and stay in the moment for the task at hand. Pray, and do what you can to encourage her. And wives, know that although you may be going through the pain, there’s almost nothing worse than seeing the person you love most in the world enduring it and knowing that you can do very little about it (which is why I wrote #1).

Like I stated earlier, this is just childbirth from my perspective. I’m not a midwife, doctor, nurse, childbirth educator, or doula. Just a husband with the births of four girls under his belt and the urge to write about it.

Baby Talk

My one year old is starting to communicate with us. In more ways than just crying, that is.  Last night I asked her if she was ready to go to bed, and she shook her head “no” and then ran away (she stuck her tongue out too, but I’d like to think that was coincidental).  She’s also giving us all the cute baby talk and saying words here and there.  She’s progressing, getting bigger, maturing.

The Baby, on her first birthday. That's my hand in the foreground.

You would think that I would be used to it by now, but no, I’m not. 

For one, the child before this one (Caroline) didn’t really talk at all until a couple of months after she turned two.  Oh, she made her wants and needs known, though.  No problems there. She would do this thing where she would basically make these “huh”-ing sounds in lieu of actual words.  Let me see, how can I explain it…

Have you ever played any of the Lego video games (not the recent Lord of the Rings ones, but the older ones, like Harry Potter or Star Wars)?  The characters would say things, not words, just sounds, but the inflections and expression made you understand everything.  Well, that’s kind of how it was.  It was also sort of like how the teacher on the Charlie Brown cartoons would speak.

It was so funny sometimes. Like when she would tattle on her sisters, it was so clear what she was trying to say. Or if she was passionate about something, she was as serious doing her little “Caroline talk” as if she were saying the actual words.

Caroline, two years ago, at the height of her non-talking stage.

We debated doing speech therapy, but it was obvious she understood everything that was going on and was communicating (in a way), so we just decided to wait until she turned two to see what would happen. 

Well, we waited, and sure enough, a few weeks after she turned two, the words started pouring out of her.  It was like they had always been there, but she couldn’t let them out.  But when she did… well, let’s just say that she hasn’t stopped progressing.

My wife has this theory (she read about it somewhere) that if a kid is developing in one aspect very rapidly, other skills may be delayed. In Caroline’s case, she grew physically very, very fast.  She started walking (and practically running) at 10 months, and her motor skills were amazing. She started putting duplo Legos together by 16 months (the other girls were older than two before they started doing that).  So, we kind of figured that eventually her speech would catch up, and it has.

Three years old now, talking like crazy!

So, back to the one-year old… She’s doing the normal thing now, and it’s so cool. It’s amazing how each of our kids is so different and yet they all come from the same gene pool.

Although, here they seem like they are of the same mind...

A friend once told me that each stage of a kid’s life is better than the last, and I agree.  And I think it’s because you are seeing a person emerge, and it’s fascinating. 

Attachment Parenting (Reluctantly)

Before we had children, I had a sleep disorder of sorts... as in I actually took sleep medicine for it (not Ambien, although I did take that once, but I stopped it after I had a conversation with a Frenchman while I was in the shower while under its "spell"). But, if I didn't take my sleep medicine, it was very difficult for me to go to sleep (my mind just won't quit sometimes).

Well, since our foray into parenthood, I haven't had to take my sleep medicine at all to go to sleep. It's a blessing, but I think it shows you what true exhaustion is like. It also is a testament to our children's inability to sleep well.

Ever heard of attachment parenting? Well, my wife knows more about this than I do, but it's kind of this idea that your baby is always attached to you... like, you "wear" your baby in a sling, there's something called "breastfeeding on demand" involved, and, <insert huge groan here> "co-sleeping."

Back when our first baby was born, we had already decided to keep the baby in the room with us (in a pack-n-play, I think), but she was a horrible sleeper and even though she would begin her evening of sleeping in her space, somehow she always managed to end up in ours. She would not transfer to her back to her little crib either - it was an immediate wake-up. We would even put a heating pad in her bed before we tried to put her back in it so that it would sort of fake her out, but she didn't buy it! So, we reluctantly became co-sleeping parents (I would end up just moving to the couch most nights). And there was a time that I actually set up a blow up bed in the living room knowing I would be out there at some point. But you know how it is, you are so sleep-deprived, you do anything and everything to get the baby to sleep so that you can too.

There's two out of the four hogging the bed.

Fast-forward a few more children and with the exception of our second-born (who gets the prize for best sleeper!) it's sort of been the same with the other ones. The last two have been even more difficult than the first, and so my wife has become a pro at nursing them in bed and sort of half-sleeping (she's probably chronically sleep-deprived, I'm sure).

So, that's fine and all, I guess, but now we have a problem. All of them want to sleep in our bed all of the time. We put a limit on it, definitely, but inevitably, we wake up to kids in our bed almost every single night. Then, we just take them back to their beds, and go back to sleep ourselves. One time, and I kid you not, they were ALL in our bed one early morning. They had wedged themselves all around and my wife and I were just hovering on the very edge of each side. I’ve been forced on many occasions to sleep in my daughter’s bottom bunk because my bed is so full (this actually has turned into a luxury – a bed to myself.)

The middle has never left.

There really isn't much of a point to this post, except to shake my fist in the air and then start the Donation Bucket for us to get a queen-sized bed. Yes, that's right, folks, we currently have a full-sized one, and that is not going to be big enough, since these kids will probably still be crawling into bed with us when they are teenagers.