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check out: Super cool 3D sidewalk chalk art. artifact:
Cherry tree branches.
photos:
| Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Thank you to those who left helpful comments on the last entry! I love that somebody always has experience in whatever I'm interested in. If I wrote that I was going to start breeding fainting goats, I bet at least one of you could give me some solid tips on the subject. (Oh please someone prove me right, that would be so freaking cool.) I asked about Riley's pre-sleep habits because it's definitely been on my mind lately. He almost never just falls asleep on his own anymore, unless he's being pushed in the stroller or riding in the carseat. When he gets tired, he gets fussy - a progressively obnoxious downward slope from "whiny" to "filled with a white-rage capable of melting nearby plastic objects". Every day before he takes a nap or goes to sleep for the night we have to spend a varying amount of time dealing with the fussiness and trying to get him to I used to rock Riley to sleep, which I enjoyed. It was nice to have that quiet time together, and there's something magically delicious about holding a baby who's warm and comfortable and drowsy, listening to the sound of their breathing become slow and steady and feeling their body relax into yours. Now, however, he is not happy with being rocked. At all. Rocking him will still eventually put him to sleep, but you have to be willing to endure twenty-plus minutes of high volume screaming and arched-back fishflopping until he finally passes out from sheer exhaustion. So I typically push him around the living room in his stroller. Some nights JB does the rocking chair thing, and emerges pale and twitchy and covered in snot and drool, and some nights I wear a path in the carpet and push Riley back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until I feel like a deranged zoo tiger. It's like he just fights off sleep with everything he has, until something - some combination of movement or noise or mystical alignment of the planets - helps him give in. This doesn't seem ideal, and not only because it drains us of our will to live on a daily basis. Shouldn't he be able to sleep without getting so traumatized beforehand? And what if we're traveling somewhere without a stroller? MY GOD, WHAT IF I'M TRAPPED ON A PLANE WITH A TIRED BABY? (Seriously, taking Riley on a long flight? I would rather eat a handful of fire ants. Licorice-flavored fire ants.) You know, it seems like caring for a baby would be a series of no-brainer moves: feed them, don't allow them to become coated with filth, keep the wild dingos from devouring their tasty flesh. It seems like the murky parenting issues - how to discourage your teenager from spending their spare time carving up 2-liters of 7-Up into gravity bongs, for instance - should only come later in life, after you've had some time to practice. Instead, starting from birth you have to make choices about how to raise your child. Which is...kind of terrifying? I mean, I have killed houseplants, people. Like more than once. (Everything's all controversial and shit, too. Use cloth diapers or you're killing the planet! Don't use diapers at all so you bond with your baby through obsessive monitoring of their bowel-moving cues! Put your kids in daycare or you're turning your back on feminism! Stay home with your kids or you're going to raise tiny serial killers! Dude, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum. I mean, everybody's got a special kinda story. Don't make me keep singing the Diff'rent Strokes theme song over here.) So far I think we've been sailing along pretty well - there have been things I couldn't do (breastfeeding), things I didn't want to do (co-sleeping), and things that just seemed obvious (plopping him inches from the TV to goggle openmouthed at Ryan Seacrest, oh, and giving him love). This is the first issue that's been kind of a challenge for us to figure out, where I'm reading books and looking online and generally at a loss for what to do with a baby who gets angry about going to sleep. Anyway, the plan is to try establishing a nightly routine of soothing, ready-for-bed activities earlier in the evening - like many of you suggested - and then put him in his crib and let him fuss for a while. We'll see how it goes. Next up: as secular parents, how to best provide a child with the information and freedom to make their own choices about religion! I mean, as long as I'm having to think about stuff. Also, dingo-proofing the household. :::
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