Full of Pasta

One of my parenting hacks is “put that crab in water.” As in, when they were grumpy babies I put my kids in the bath and now as grumpy grouches on rainy weekends, I take my kids to the pool.

Last weekend I asked Poppy to go get dressed for the pool and as she walked out of her bedroom wearing last summer’s bikini, she cupped her bare stomach in her palms and sighed, “look at my belly.”

I felt every muscle in my body tense and my breath became shallow and I managed to squeak out a (fake) breezy “oh?”

“It’s full of pasta,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“It’s full of pasta!” I replied (my other parenting hack: when I don’t know what to say, I just repeat what they said to buy myself some time. I have yet to be called out on using this strategy.)

“I am going to get so strong!” And with that my six-year-old showed me (yet again) that she knows more than I do.

{image: instagram.com/photographerbrittnicole}

Goodnight Sleep Tight

Poppy has always had a tenuous relationship with sleep. Over the years she has successfully sleep-trained me into being an anxious, jumpy mess about bedtime. Once she’s actually asleep she’s a pretty great sleeper but getting her to sleep is another story. It involves a precise routine featuring various lotions and essential oil pillow sprays and a specific number of stories read in an exact order and a gently heated unicorn heating pad and an army of stuffies lined up in a certain order on the end of her bed. The light needs to be on but not too bright. She needs a back rub and an arm tickle and don’t you dare confuse the two. She needs a parent with her until she’s in a deep sleep and if you try to sneak away while she’s sleeping lightly she will instantly wake up and yell at you and you’ll be back at square one.

I wish I was exaggerating.

Listen, sleep is a very personal thing and people make choices that maybe you wouldn’t make for your family and that’s okay. I’m not complaining about Poppy and her sleep habits, I’m just trying to set the scene.

Another thing you should know is that Poppy loves sleeping in our bed and hates her bed. A few weeks (months? What is time?) ago Shawn and I decided to start walking her back to her bed whenever she crawled into our bed in the hopes that it would break her of her midnight habit and maybe our sleep would improve. We have a king-sized bed but we’re not small people and having Poppy crawl between us to sleep horizontally in a soul-crushing “H” formation was starting to impact our happiness. We had a plan and good intentions and Poppy is doing whatever she can to break our spirits. We thought it would take a few nights of dedicated, firm, loving boundaries to get her sleeping through the night in her bed but we’re many nights into this exercise and the end is nowhere in sight.

Which brings us to last night. Last night Poppy crawled into our bed over and over until finally I ended up sleeping on the floor beside her bed as the only compromise she would accept. I thought it would take half an hour or so before she was sleeping deeply enough for me to sneak back into my bed so I grabbed a pillow and a blanket and settled in on the carpet. I woke up hours later, twisted and sore. I was cold and had somehow managed to end up wedged between the doorframe and the bed. I tried to coax my stiff body upright when I heard Poppy shift beside me in her bed. I stopped, terrified that I would wake her up and have to re-start the bedtime routine at 3am. I moved delicately, inch by inch, holding my breath and freezing whenever I heard her move, until what felt like an hour later I was finally un-pretzeled and could stand. I gingerly made my way over to my side of the bed, pulled back the blankets, and found Poppy fast asleep.

My brain quickly cycled through a series of emotions (frustration, confusion, delirium, etc.) and landed on perplexed. I walked back to Poppy’s bed, sure I had lost my mind, wondering if I’d accidentally been sleeping on one of her books and the noises I’d heard weren’t from Poppy shifting in her bed but from the pages rubbing together. I lifted her blanket and found our dog, our sweet but oh so stupid senior dog curled up in her spot, his head on her pillow, her stuffed unicorn spooning his back. I had spent a not-insignificant amount of time using my best evasive maneuvers to creep away from Poppy’s bed so as to not wake my dog while Poppy slept comfortably in my bed.

So anyway, that’s the story of why I can’t move my neck properly today but my child and my dog are both extremely well-rested.

Four

Penelope Bloom, today you are four years old. The first thing you said this morning, your voice still slow and sweet with sleep, was: “am I four yet?” You have been waiting to be four for a while. You can’t wait to grow up and go to school and drive a car and be a vet and have a cat and live in a castle and and and. You talk all day long, from the minute you wake up until the minute you fall asleep (and while you sleep too, sometimes). I love to hear your chatter. Your brain and your vocabulary are magnificent.

You are the boss of our home but I will never call you bossy. A few months ago you were ordering us all around and Grady told you that you’re not the boss. You shrugged your shoulders and said, “I’m a powerful woman.” You are, baby girl, and I hope you never forget that.

You requested birthday “beesketti” (spaghetti) instead of cake and you wished for a scooter like Grady’s so you can race (but in morning pink, of course) (“morning pink” is what you call light pink because it’s light in the morning, obviously). You know what you want and you can’t be swayed. You are confident and sure and forceful and I want to be like you when I grow up.

Sometimes, very rarely, I see glimmers of your babyhood. Like how you still say “gotfor” instead of “forgot” or when you crawl up into my lap and request “mama love” when you’re sleepy. But mostly I see the amazing kid you are now, and the powerful woman you’ll continue to be as you grow. You’re a lot like your dad - you want to go faster, higher, louder, bigger, bolder. I am delighted by your indomitable spirit and a tiny bit terrified that you’re going to hop on a city bus one day and end up in another city.

Poppy Doodle Bug, I am so excited to see what you do next. Happy birthday. Love, Mama

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Yes

I’m listening to The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child on audiobook and I have to say, I never thought I’d be the parent who turns to books and experts to try to find her way out of parenting pickles, but to be honest, I never thought I’d be the parent whose kid called their daycare provider an idiot either.

And yet, here we are.

Parenting isn’t much fun these days. I know it’s a season of life, and probably (hopefully!) not a very long one, but the challenge is crushing my spirit a little bit. I don’t want to take Poppy out of the house because when things go pear-shaped, they go quickly and loudly and without warning. I have drag-carried her out of every grocery store, coffee shop, gas station, etc. in the last couple of months. My back is so sore. I am so tired.

So! The Yes Brain. It turns out I find listening to parenting experts talk about the chaos of a toddler’s brain extremely soothing (I’m not alone! This is normal! Poppy doesn’t actually hate me!) My next read will be No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind but I’d love to hear suggestions for what to read after that. I’ve asked on Instagram and Facebook, and I’m building my list. We’re going to get through this.

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