It's not you, it's me

Jett is a fussy kid who is hard to keep entertained and likes to whine and act clingy around mommy. That's established. But that's Jett, being a baby. He's doing what he's supposed to be doing at this age. And it's ME who has the problem.

I've no patience for this. But I'm mom, and parents are supposed to just hang in there and deal with his crying and sleeplessness and everything else that drives me crazy like all other parents before us. One of my issues is a weird sense of entitlement. I feel like we ought to get a break; we DESERVE a break, and when one doesn't come, I just feel pissed off that this just keeps coming and coming and coming. And the rare breather periods we do get in between ear infections and teething and schedule change consequences, I get pissed off when we have to deal with something crappy we've already dealt with a thousand times. Like, oh, fantastic, Jett's not sleeping through the night again after sleeping through the night for two weeks!! Pisses me off. I can't help but fill up with hope that we've moved forward when I see such consistent patterns, and then I'm devastated and frustrated when Jett exercises his right to continue behaving or sleeping like a kid under 2. Irritating, but only because I don't process this well.

Ideally, moms and dads would be the most flexible of people. I almost thought I was, but then I had a kid and dispelled that thought... Outwardly, I think I'm flexible. Internally, my brain and the anxiety that rules it is a mess of second-guessing and polar opposites. I think some mothers out there (myself included) would benefit from the rational part of their brain being shut off. It would be a lot easier to pick up and soothe a wailing child who's been belaboring the bedtime process for two hours if the rational part of my brain were temporarily disabled. The rational part wants to drop that difficult kid off at the fire station and see if they can get him to sleep. Instead, I sit rocking him in his chair trying to calm him for 20 minutes, clutching him to my chest and stroking his cheek, while my blood boils and I'm about to have an aneurism I'm so frustrated. I don't think I ever read about blinding rage in the baby books...

And again, it's me. It's me trying to process these emotions related to dealing with a child. Tonight, Jett cried in the car for the duration of our 45 minute drive home. And I had a decent day and was fairly unaffected, initially. And on the few times at the end of the trip where I was a half second away from all-out screaming at him or crying myself, I tried to remind myself that it's just a baby, crying, and nothing more. I can ignore that, just like I can ignore a car alarm (though 45 minutes of a car alarm would probably start to piss me off...). But a car alarm does not both beckon and repel me, like my child's cry does. Stupid evolutionary hard-wiring...

I will most likely look back at this and shake my head out how naive I was in writing this sentence but....I really think life will be easier when: A. Jett no longer cries (as a baby) since it's this small action that incites such emotional turmoil within, and B. Jett is a reliable sleeper (I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have a sleeper by year 2...) since bedtime is such a HUGE source of anxiety and never consistent. That's my current wish list. I'm sure when I get those check boxes checked, they'll be replaced with Jett's abusive and constant use of "no," and hitting or something. Or whatever. It'll be something. But it'll be different. And I just need a change.

Back to Jett though - it is amazing all the stuff he can do. He's sharing somewhat consistently, he's usually very gentle with Cash and other pets, he's really loving to his kitty and other stuffed animals, he's learning to open and close doors (not that this is a skill we're prepared yet to deal with...), he's speaking (maybe 10 words), pays attention to TV (we're categorizing this as a good thing for now), purses his lips and gives proper kisses and hugs when prompted, is learning to use a fork (insists on fork usage), learning to drink from a regular cup, and is becoming an excellent dancer :) There's probably a thousand other things that I'm neglecting to list but he's seriously incredible. Having a year-and-a-half old is my favorite age thus far - he's still young enough to be babied and has the baby mannerisms and is still such a little guy, but he's old enough to really understand us and follow directions and ask for help when he can't figure something out on his own.

I really enjoy spending time with him because he's literally just fun to be around. He likes to laugh and loves it when I'm being silly and hiding from him or chasing him or building blocks with him. I can actually do things with him and he's a willing participant! We went to Petsmart this weekend and we could have easily stayed for an hour, just surveying and discovering all of the animals in the building. And he helped me clean, and LOVED it. And loved the car wash. We have so much fun together, when he's good on sleep, well-fed, not teething or suffering from any other ailment, and otherwise contented.

Let's hope I get more flexible in my old age (30 is fast approaching...) so I can more easily overlook the bad and relish the good, and deal with the next 18 months!

Are we there yet?

Let me preface this with the fact that I'm prone to blog only when things are crappy. It's the reason so many negative reviews get written - the motivation is considerable when you've got a complaint to log.

That said, let me log my complaint. I'm getting impatient. I want the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'd settle for seeing the rainbow. It's been almost 18 months and we're STILL dealing with this ridiculously resilient fussiness. I haven't hung out with that many other parents with their babies for full days to see how their kids cope with being awake. BUT, of the parents with babies that I do know, they don't seem to want to leave their children as much as we do. This leads me to the conclusion that either Jett is especially difficult, or we're just total pansies. My bets are that it's the former.

The thing is, with a kid, we have a family now. And ideally, we'd like to go out with our child, and do things together as a family. But Jett is really clingy and really sensitive to the word "no" right now and easily tired and often fussy and it's rather demotivating to go out and do anything longer than a trip to the grocery store. I took him out to Target this weekend and after twenty minutes, he was crying to be held. So here I am, pushing a cart and carrying my child at the same time. Stupid. And I'm not one to typically give in to Jett. No, you can sit. But when we're in public, it's rather hard to just let him cry it out as I tend to give in to the (perceived) peer pressure of the dirty looks from other patrons. And tonight, we tried to go out to dinner. We were eating by the time his normal dinner would be served, and were home thirty minutes before normal bedtime. And he was a mess. I don't know if he's teething or what's going on (we're well-recovered from hand-foot-and-mouth disease this week) but he's just so, so trying. Kenny and I are grateful that he's at an age now where he can effectively communicate with us, with the head-nodding and shaking and whatnot, and almost speaking! But we still can't reason with him...obviously...he's only a year-and-a-half old. It's just hard though because he understands what we're asking him, and can accommodate requests, but at the same time, he's developing this personality and can choose NOT to accommodate requests, and doesn't understand the reasons why we say no when we say no. If the answer is no, he just loses his shit. End of story. And that just makes us sigh. I'm soooooooooooooooooo over hearing a child scream.

This morning, we let the nanny come pick Jett up, and I promptly climbed right back into bed and went to sleep. And while sleeping in, without a care in the world, I woke up having thought I'd heard a baby cry, twice. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO annoying. I can't even get sleep when there isn't a baby in the house. Point of this story is that I'm ready (and Kenny is right there with me) to be out of this whole baby mode. Some people love it, and there are super cute things that I will miss, but I'm quite ready to move on to the next stage. For even while the next stage might not be better (there's no guarantee that older = better, and with our luck, it's never the case), but it will at least be different. He'll be a little bit better able to deal with "no" and a little bit better able to sleep, and understand what's expected in a public outing...

To keep it all in perspective, Jett's still a great son and I think he's going to be a super cool kid. It could just be easier. But it could be worse. He could be sick. Really sick. Or he could be 3 months old again....at least we're not there anymore! It's just discouraging that at 18 months, I'm already having visions of Jett going off to college. I think it's just two extremes colliding - I'm rather lazy and like my do-nothing time, and Jett is rather needy and likes to take up every minute of my former do-nothing time...I really look forward to the days when he plays by himself - which is nonexistent now. And the time we do get to ourselves, during naptime or on a day like today where we're home and he's in school or with the nanny, we get caught up on house chores. Kenny finished up some home improvement projects and I disinfected every single toy in the house and playroom. We should have gone out to lunch and seen a movie as a re-do of our anniversary last weekend.

As if to confirm our troubles, the nanny commented that he had a random 30-minute break-down today, where he just non-stop cried for seemingly no reason. And we get to come home to this every night...I think we're just in a slump and need to sort of reset. Or just push ahead and wait for what the next stage brings. Currently, this parenting gig is 80% tedious, and 20% fun with this kid. I'm looking forward to 20/80, but would settle for even just 50/50. Here's to what's next!!

I blame my ovaries for this

I need to blog more. It's really cathartic, and cheaper than a therapist! (only half kidding...) I do want to run down a few things that have developed as we enter the new year:

1. Jett responds to questions now with a head shake or nod. This is the most amazing development yet. He can also mimic Cash, the dog, in howling. It is really quite precious to hear. He will also give hugs on request (and kisses, if he's feeling up for it). He also brings over the dish towel (when prompted) and rubs it around in any spill he's made on the floor. And he still loves to throw things away. Almost forgot: he's on the verge of speaking. He's trying to repeat certain words we say, like sticker, and kitty. Amazing.

2. Jett is still a sick-prone kid who needs a crap-ton of sleep and who rather rapidly turns into this tantrumy, terrible, whiny monster of a kid when he's running low on energy. Which is often. It's as though he's not yet acquired the energy stores for all the energy he's attempting to spend daily and is always in the red. Always. This kid is not pleasant to deal with between the hours of 4 and 7. And many hours in between. Not that being sick helps. Add an illness into the mix (current illness? Hand, foot and mouth disease...) and he's even more irritable and less able to stay awake for even briefer periods of the day.

3. 2012 will not be the year Jett gets a sibling. Or 2013-2017, per my IUD timeline. I love my baby, but he's all we can handle, and I don't feel like taking chances (or acquiescing, yet, to Kenny's request for a vasectomy).

4. Jett's a nanny'd kid again. We pulled him about of daycare not because we thought he'd get sick there, but because he'll get sick anywhere and his being sick is inevitable and I didn't want to stress about rearranging work schedules to be home with him when he was infectious and couldn't be around other kids. The new nanny is practically a second mom, with her own 1-year-old, and Jett is still getting to hang out with at least one peer. It's been a great relationship thus far, and we'll probably send him back to regular school once winter, and the height of the cold and flu season, is over at the end of March.

5. Kenny and I still take turns being the patient one with Jett, and being the frazzled, frustrated, close-to-losing-our-shit parent that Jett so easily brings out in us. But we have this perfect tango down, perhaps because we've been performing this routine for just shy of a year and a half now. Kenny ends up with the demeanor of a saint with Jett on those days that I come home and can't even kick my shoes off without shouting. And vice versa. I'm Calm Mom on those nights that Kenny's at wit's end. There are nights, like tonight, when Jett can start to fry even the calm one's nerves, but that's usually when bedtime hits and all is good with order restored again.

This kid is amazing in all the things he's learning right now. But he sure does make us appreciate the precious downtime hours we get when he's asleep.