Left Coast Mama » parenting mistakes

Just Put Your Shoes On

Gwen — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:42:11 +0000

I think that I might be going crazy. Am I really asking the boys to do something horrible? Or am I asking them to put their toys away? Did I really just ask the boys at least 30 times to put on their shoes? Did I really need to ask them to put on their jackets?

Quinlan is going through a very bad case of the threes. Everything is a fight with him. He is frustrating and frustrated. He is refusing to toilet train. He screams all the time. He throws things. He hit his brother. But when he smiles and hugs you you have a very hard time staying angry at him.

I am trying to set limits on Quinlan for the bad behaviour that hurt people and things. I am trying to let go of the things that are not hurting anyone. I am trying to give Quinlan the opportunity to decide when he is ready to get rid of the pull-ups and actually go to the toilet all the time. I think we are in for a rough ride for a while until he figures out that the bad behaviour is not as satisfying as good behaviour. As stubborn as he is, the toilet training thing will only happen when he is ready. Anthony and I just need to let go of the thought of having less than 7 (or more) full years of butt wiping duty. Related, how on earth do you get a child to stay in time out? Putting in his room just resulted in him pulling off more of the wallpaper border.

Signed,

Frustrated in Vancouver

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: discipline, goals, parenting, parenting mistakes, Quinlan, Toilet Training.

Parenting Fail or Am I Overeacting?

Gwen — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:19:51 +0000

As I wrote yesterday Aidan’s school had a Halloween carnival on Friday night. There was a ton of fun for all ages and there were kids from babies to grade 7′s there. Most of the costumes on both the kids and adults were great. There were a bunch of animals, fairies, character, knights and some blood, but not too much. Most of the older kids were great and didn’t get in the little kids way, or go out of there way to scare the little ones. Some even were taking little siblings around. All great.

The three kids who did make me and Anthony really uncomfortable were a group of three boys around grade three age. These three boys were wearing fatigues, balaclavas over their faces and pretend machine guns. Everytime they passed us and bumped into someone I looked, paused and thought how inappropriate are these costumes?

In a time where kids have shot kids at schools, how appropriate is it for kids to carry fake guns while their faces are covered in a balaclava? Is it any more inappropriate than kids dressed at a Jedi or a Transformer? What about a vampire or a zombie? Why did these costumes give me such a creepy bad feeling? Why did it make me so uncomfortable?

When Anthony and I posted about the costumes on twitter the response was a little divided. Most thought that if it hadn’t been Halloween the guns, pretend or not, wouldn’t have been allowed at school. Some thought that the kids were just playing a role that they have been playing for thousands of years. That stuck with me and I thought, well, is that part of the human race’s problem? If we let violence and aggression be play time, it is healthy or harmful? Is this why we have so many bullies in schools?

I guess that is what made me most uncomfortable about the costumes that these boys were wearing. Yes the costumes themselves weren’t a good idea in my opinion, but the way the boys were acting in the costumes was worse. The pointing of the guns and the aggressive way they were pushing into lines and going around the school really bothered me. Having them pretend to shoot my sons and the kids around gave me a sick feeling.

I am not saying that these particular kids are bad kids or aggressive kids on the playground, but if we let kids behave this way when masked, what are we modeling for them?

This issue is something I struggle with raising my boys. Aidan loves police officers and he has a police helmet, but he does NOT have a pretend gun. We don’t even have water guns and while I let Aidan play with them at his grandparents I have mixed feelings on whether or not it is a good idea.

Are toy guns of any ilk approprite toys in your opinion? Are toy swords different?

Where is a Sleep Guru When You Need One?

Gwen — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:54:06 +0000

When my now 10 month old was only 2 months old he slept like nobody’s business. He would go to sleep around 11 pm and not wake until 5 am, nurse for a bit and go back to sleep for another few hours. I still like between 8 and 9 hours of solid sleep myself, but it was doable. Then somewhere between 5 and 6 months Quinlan decided (well at least his body decided) that it was time to actually start pushing out some teeth. They take forever and come in 1 at a time. They must also hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. At least this is my inference because of the waking and general crankiness. Just so you know, the waking happens between every 1.5 to 3 hours. Quinlan usually gets his biggest chunk of sleep from 7:30 pm till somewhere between 11 pm to 2 am. Unfortunately I hardly get to sleep before 11 pm at the earliest. It is usually closer to 11:30 or midnight.

Quinlan is still not much of a napper unless he is attached to the breast, in the stroller (moving), in the car (also moving) or lying on my lap on the nursing pillow. This is not a good thing either. About the only good thing I took away from the Weissbluth book was figuring out your child’s tiredness signals. At least with this Quinlan shows them much better than Aidan ever did. These signals are what told us that Quinlan needs to be going down to bed at around 6:45-7:00 pm. If we push the time it is harder to get him to nurse to sleep, though Anthony can usually lie down with him and get him over the edge to sleep.

The Good Old Sleeping Days

So with Quinlan waking so many time during the night now Anthony and I are incredibly sleep deprived. I have a hard time getting back to sleep especially if I get up to soothe, feed and generally move Quinlan back to sleep in his crib. I will do this for the first session but after a while Quinlan ends up in the bed with us. Neither Anthony or I sleep well with Quinlan in the bed. He doesn’t sleep for longer periods, we just don’t need to have the extra step of going into the boys’ room to get him. He has started shunning the soother (in the wee hours) and will cry when Anthony tries to soothe him. I am at my wit’s end.

Before we get any comments about this, we don’t want to keep co-sleeping and we have no intention of ever trying Cry It Out ever again. It was horrific for everyone when we tried it the Weissbluth way and didn’t work except to make it that much harder to get Aidan to sleep at all. We will not try it for Quinlan and because we need to have the boys share a room it isn’t something that is at all practical either.

I will be checking out a number of sleep books from the library and some twitter friends have promised to lend me some as well. Watch the blog for updates and reviews of the sleep books and training methods. Maybe there is something we can do with the child who stands up the nanosecond he stirs.

© 2009 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | 4 comments
Related: Bed Time, My Boys, parenting mistakes, Quinlan, sleep, teething.

Darwin Award or Why I Shouldn’t Have Left the House Today

Gwen — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:31:42 +0000

I almost won a Darwin award today. Ok well maybe not a Darwin award, but an award for being stupid and needing new glasses. After I dropped Aidan off for preschool, Quinlan and I went to Riley park to check out the Solarium where we will have Aidan’s birthday party on Sunday. That was fine, but after we were heading to Oakridge through the mess that is Cambie street. While a lot of the road is back to normal there is still a ton of road construction happening. Around Oakridge there is a maze of construction making the entrance to Oakridge very difficult to navigate. It is because of this that I took a wrong turn and got into trouble.

At first I didn’t realize I had got myself into trouble. As soon as the gate went down I had an inkling, but I still thought that even though I was in a private parking garage I would be able to get out. I turned the car around when I figured out that I was really in the wrong place. I drove to the gate and then . . . nothing. The gate did not go up. That was when I started to panic a bit, but I figured there had to be a button or something to let me out. I parked the car, got out and checked all around the gate. There was nothing except an emergency number to call. Remember that I had the baby in the car and I had to pick up Aidan from preschool in about 50 minutes. I called the number and I told them that I was stuck in a parking garage that I had entered by accident. The woman on the line said there was nothing they could actually do. It was after this call that I called Anthony at work. I needed someone to calm down the panic that was forming even more. I am glad my blood pressure isn’t a problem because the adrenalin was flowing. When I called Anthony was unable to answer the phone, so I was in this alone.

***

Luckily for me and Quinlan, just as I was about to call the police and see what they could do for me, an old lady came into the garage, berated me for being where I wasn’t supposed to be, and let me out. I apologized quickly and got myself out of there.

***

All told it was only about 15 minutes and Quinlan slept right through. After the drama I decided that as long as I could find parking I could return the sweater I bought for Anthony last week. Good parking karma (well all my karma today) wasn’t with me so I decided to go to Safeway, grab a Starbucks and then pick up Aidan. I got to Safeway and the Starbucks reader wasn’t working and I had no cash. Thank god the debit machine was working because I needed some sugar and caffeine. To top everything off, my cup was leaking. I swear, days like this I am amazed I make it through at all.

***

Actual pickup went uneventfully and I was able to get the rest of the invitations out and talk to a few of the parents. Aidan played with his friend Mac and had a half hour to run off his energy. Lets hope the rest of the day is uneventful.

Mighty Machines

Gwen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:29:01 +0000

The boy has a new obsession and it is called “Mighty Machines.” To this end we started to record them on MYTH. (A linux based PVR.) I just discovered a huge mistake we made when setting them up to record three weeks ago. This conversation is quoted verbatim from a chat Anthony and I just had.

Gwen says:
I just realized you made a big mistake with mighty machines
Anthony says:
why?
Gwen says:
you had an episode limit
Anthony says:
OHNO
Gwen says:
you erased 3 episodes
Anthony says:
OHNO
Gwen says:
including the recycling episode
Anthony says:
OH NO
Gwen says:
i just changed it
Anthony says:
OH NO
Gwen says:
I think I am copying this for the blog
Anthony says:
OH NO
Gwen says:

Anthony says:
I wonder if there’s some where we can d/l them
Anthony says:
or something
Gwen says:
I don’t know
Gwen says:
right now he is watching “Trucks, Trucks, Trucks”

Anthony says:
the good news is that they’re mostly on DVD
Gwen says:
really?
Gwen says:
the bad?
Anthony says:
the bad news is that zip has “all about recycling” “on order”
Gwen says:
shit
Anthony says:
might be worth a walk to Blockbuster if the weather clears up
Anthony says:

Gwen says:
lol
Anthony says:
released July 07 …. might even have it at TRU, but it’ll be expensive for only 28 min of episode…
Anthony says:
wow, go to zip, they have tonnes
Anthony says:
ok, well, good that you caught that. sucks about the recycling episode. ah well. back to work…
Gwen says:
k, thanks

And there you have it, we don’t have Aidan’s favourite episode of “Mighty Machines” otherwise known as the NEW toddler crack. So I guess grandparents now have an idea for the birthday.