Making the Terrible Twos Really Terrific (Part 2)

If you missed part one of my tips and tricks for making the terrible twos terrific, you can check it out here.

 

• 1) SAY YES
  This is a huge mommy mantra right now and I really love it. I really make an effort to let my son call the shots as often as possible.

  I can already feel the more control-oriented parents bristling as they read this. But I am not saying my son is allowed to be a dictator. If I am a pushover and he is cruel that ultimately there was no point in parenting him at all. Everyone in the family has legitimate needs which means everyone in the family has to take one for the team occasionally.

  But it’s not going to kill me if my son wants to run around the park an extra ten minutes after I say I’m ready to go. Actually, since he’s getting fresh air and sunshine, it’s better for him than sitting in the car or playing indoors at home. If he wants to strip down to his diaper and play in a fountain, I can dry him off before I put him in the car. There are so many worse toddler wishes (running full speed toward a busy road, for example) that if I can say yes, I try to. The added bonus is that 90% of potential tantrums can be completely circumvented which is a win-win.

• 2) Recognize that your toddler is a WHOLE person who has legitimate needs and deserves to be heard and respected.

  This could be a whole blog post in itself and maybe it should be but I’ll cover the three things that have the biggest positive impact on my son.

  Lots of rest
  Considering the fact that we would literally die without it, most people don’t take sleep very seriously! Toddlers are unique just like adults, so keep in mind that just because an expert in a book says your kid needs X number of hours per night doesn’t make it necessarily so. Some kids need more than recommended guidelines, some kids need less.

  If it’s three hours past lunch and two hours past naptime and I’m dragging him around the supermarket, I discipline him for throwing a fit but that will only make him more upset and more prone to acting out. If it’s two hours past his bedtime and he starts terrorizing a friend’s home, that’s on me. Not him.

  

  Healthy, balanced meals
  Other than sleep, I think this is probably the single biggest influencer in my son’s day to day behavior. It’s shocking how a few days of less than stellar food choices can turn him into a toddler terror.

  Something else to keep in mind is just because the government recommends it doesn’t mean it’s the ideal diet for your kiddo. Depending on the severity of behavior problems, experiment with ditching diary, grains, processed foods, low quality meat, (there are a bunch of elimination diets out there you can try!) as well as asking your pediatrician about heavy metals testing. If you don’t feel good it’s really difficult to be on good behavior and food has a huge impact on how we feel.

  Respectful communication
  This is a huge struggle for me. I daily catch myself saying “It’s ok” to my son when he’s upset about something or another when, from his two year old perspective, things are definitely NOT ok. It’s a struggle for me to remember that feelings aren’t inherently good or bad and that toddlers frequently have very strong feelings with no way to communicate them other than yelling, flailing, throwing things or biting their brother.

  Gah! It makes me feel strong feelings just thinking about strong toddler feelings! How much more frustrating must it be when no one understands what you’re trying to say or how to help you?!

  And there’s so much more…
  He needs to be allowed to run around for a good portion of the day. He needs to know that when he’s upset there are adults in his life who are safe places to vent. He has no control over his environment and almost no control over his emotions, especially when he’s tired, hungry, feeling unsafe, confused or disconnected.

  I’m under no delusions! My son is not always a perfect angel, nor is he a constant joy to be around. (Helpful hint: neither are you.) We all have needs that have to be met before we start going into survival mode.

  I need to wrap this up because it’s way too long already. But these are the things I am focusing on in order to make toddler life a JOY and not a burden. For both of us. I’m sure my list will be different when our second comes along, this is what is working for right now where we happen to be in our lives and journey. Hope it helps someone out there!

  

Mothering Whole People With My Whole Heart

The past few days I’ve been mentally kicking around my motherhood philosophy.

I think I’ve pretty much got it hammered down.

Mothering whole people with a whole heart.

There are so many layers to this, it’s difficult to unpack even for me.
But I am going to because I know it will resonate with someone out there.

You see, I’ve been slightly obsessed with motherhood since I was a child. More specifically, improving motherhood. Maybe even idealized motherhood. The pursuit of motherhood perfection. Because tiny me did not understand that motherhood perfection simply could not be achieved. That by the time we become mothers ourselves, most of us are so bruised and battered -emotionally, physically, spiritually – that we limp along, doing the best we can with the resources we have leftover.

If I dwell on this thought for too long I begin to sink under the weight of it all…

Because the sweet but deathly naive ghost of my childhood doesn’t want to mother with the left overs.
I want to mother with a whole heart.
I want to thrive, so my children can thrive.

My children.

If there is anything I could gift them, it would be a childhood that doesn’t leave them trying to scrape together the pieces when they themselves become fathers.

But the world is flawed.

And I don’t have control over every aspect of their little lives.
There are bullies, bandits, broken people intent on breaking others to contend with for all of us. There is no avoiding it.

And again, it’s all too easy sink beneath the heaviness of this harsh reality.

Hence the term whole people.

Children are afforded precious little dignity in our culture.

It starts in the womb — a child in the womb has no value to this society whatsoever.

And it hardly improves with birth. Attorneys regularly refuse to take infant death lawsuits because infants have so little monetary value (from the perspective of litigation) it’s not worth their time to pursue mistreatment and abusive or improperly trained doctors.

You can keep going. It’s normal for American toddlers to be hit hundreds and, yes, even thousands of times a year for the “crime” of failing to have the cognitive and mental development of an elementary school child.

Believe me. Physical wounds can and do leave emotional scars, long after the crying and bruising has faded.

I know the world is a broken and shitty place yet that doesn’t stop my heart from grieving for the unprotected little ones who, as fate or providence would have it, wind up here.

How do we navigate this culture of harshness and complete disrespect for children? The task of raising whole children in this environment seems almost impossible.

But when I search a little deeper, I know that it’s certainly not impossible. And that a valiant effort is worth far more to my children than throwing in the towel and going with the flow.

So my perspective in motherhood has become this… I am not raising a toddler. I am raising a whole person. Men who will start school and graduate. Men who will walk down the aisle to take a wife. Men who will work hard to provide for their families. Men who will some day grow old with their grandchildren around them.

No I am not raising a disobedient toddler.
I investing in an entire lifetime.
I am investing in a legacy.
I am curating an entire childhood of memories, for better or for worse, that will stay with a whole person until the day they die.
It will affect how they parent.
How they respond to people.
If they treat the bullies with empathy or respond with brutality.

I am not the dictator.
I am not trying to mold little humans into my image.
I will do everything in my power to ensure they remain whole until they reach the other side.
I am shielding them from the harshness of life until they are old enough and skilled enough to carry the shield themselves.

I am mothering whole people with my whole heart.

And there is simply no calling greater than this.

How To Make The Terrible Twos Really Terrific (Part 1)

It is hard to go a day without hearing about some toddler horror story from a mama or dad. Screaming, not listening, running away, throwing themselves on the floor (??!?). The list is endless and the line of frazzled parents is almost as long. There’s plenty we just can’t control, either. Teething, bad days (toddlers are allowed to have them too), missed naps, sickness, our child’s temperament.

So what’s a mom or dad to do? This is a short list (that turned long) of things I do to capitalize on making two a really enjoyable age. Part two coming soon.

• 1) Limit forced participation.
  There’s a host of things you can sign your toddler up for that they don’t even know exist. Classes, sports, story time, Tot School, Sunday school, exclusive preschools. Heck, I didn’t even know some of this stuff existed!  It doesn’t help that when we read about all these educational and competitive opportunities and wonder if we are failing our kids by not jumping in and taking advantage. But truthfully, I intentionally avoid most of it for a whole bunch of reasons — I’ll just share the main two.First, all sorts of new research shows that play time where children can choose what they want to do is extremely important. It provides them with a sense of autonomy (something toddlers don’t get much of in this society anyway) and is in itself a learning experience.Secondly, none of those above mentioned events are going measurably raise my son’s IQ, help him get into an Ivy League school, compete in the Olympics or increase his future earning power. Seriously. If it’s not important in the long run, and he can have fun and learn while spending time in a context where he is comfortable and free to be wholly himself (at home!), what’s the point? And if he actually hates it? Then we’re both making ourselves miserable for no reason.
• 2) 20 minutes of daily one on one time.
  I admit this is a work in progress for me and I’ll write a post (hopefully soon) about how I work on parenting goals without feeling overwhelmed. But I’m listing it because it is a priority, even if we don’t necessarily hit the 20 minute mark every day.This doesn’t mean me sitting distractedly on my phone or the computer. It means 20 minutes of undivided attention, eye contact, letting my son call the shots. We do what he wants. It is hugely helpful in improving behavior for parents all over the world and I really can’t recommend it enough.
• 3) Weekly day date!
  This is pretty straightforward. We go out for fries or to the park and my phone stays put. My son has actually had really great ideas for what we can do for our weekly date, like going to visit a farm! So I do my best to incorporate his suggestions too. And, I’ll just be honest, sometimes we have a fun little date more than once a week. And why not? If you love spending time with your toddler, who wouldn’t want to sneak in some extra quality time?So what’s a mom or dad to do?

Making toddlerhood enjoyable for your child and yourself isn’t a complicated endeavor. In fact, to the contrary, the easier you make life for yourself and your toddler, the more you can spend time enjoying being together.

Later in the week, I’ll talk about even more things you can use to help make toddler-parenting a breeze, or at the very least, a little more fun for both of you.

Love,

Good Night, Little Man

8:16 pm

That’s what time it was when we shut off the lights.

I snuggled down under the comforter next to my little mister like I do every night.

Apparently he has reflux.
He spent the next 25 minutes chewing and swallowing nonstop.
In my ear.

I tried to breathe deeply.
I tried to meditate.
I will blame it on ADHD that my meditation was punctured by vivid images of throwing a rock through a window and how good that would feel.
Not my window.
Maybe our neighbors’?
Pretty sure our next doors neighbors are Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.
They wouldn’t be terribly surprised if a rock landed in their kitchen, would they?

More chewing.

Sigh.

Can’t I dump him in his crib just this once?

I need a freaking break man.
They should recommend wine during pregnancy.

But no, the crib will only extend my misery. And multiply his.

Why am I doing this anyway?
Spending between 10 and 60 minutes every.single.night helping my little guy fall asleep?
What difference will it make?
He’s not going to remember it.

And then I think back to when I was two or three. And all the nights I fell asleep…

Maybe he won’t be able to recall any of this. But his little heart will definitely remember.

I can’t explain why – except, perhaps, that he is his mother’s son – but he has made it very clear that he needs this.
Sure you can argue that toddlers can’t tell their needs from their wants and that’s true. But my rule is an emotional need is always a legitimate need. It holds more weight in our hearts and minds than even our physical needs.

I need to reread that last sentence.

Someday when he’s in his own bed, I’m going to miss this.

I will spend several nights blubbering and looking at pictures from when he was two.

He won’t need me forever. There may come a day when he won’t need me at all.

For now this what I can give: a soft, warm bed and lots of hugs and a mom who sticks with you even when it kind of sucks and you’re both exhausted.

Good night, little man.
I love you more than I can say.