Self-feeding and going to school

Posted on September 8, 2011 by admin

That’s it — I’m not really needed around here anymore. Liam can feed himself Cheerios. He can’t open the box, or get them from the store, yet, but really, that’s just a matter of time. He is delighted with his new ability, and I really don’t think there’s any turning back for him. From here, it’s on to catching, skinning and preparing his own meals. He’ll also be walking any day, and is quickly figuring out how to work Benjamin’s tricycle at the same time. He’ll probably be driving and looking for his own place by the end of the month.

On the other hand, Benjamin is having a hard time with his latest chapter of growing up. He tells me he loves school, and that he wants to keep going, but he wants me to be there. Tonight he told me that if we go to school tomorrow, and Liam & I leave, then he’ll “be all alone there”. And then he cried. My poor, sweet, little guy.

Liam is quickly progressing down the path which takes him to independence (as he should) while Benjamin resists his progress down the same path (also appropriate). Liam is too little to be worried about what things he might be giving up in order to gain some independence, and he doesn’t yet worry about losing the special things that come with being a baby. For Liam, progress is all positive. Benjamin revels in the “big kid” stuff he can do, like riding his bike, running really fast, eating ice cream on his own, reading his numbers and some letters or getting to sit on a “real seat” on the train. But, he’s also holding tight to things that make him feel like a baby: wearing diapers, drinking from bottles, staying home all day with me and Liam. He’s concerned, I think, that by making progress, some things are lost, and right now he’s unwilling to let go of those things. He wants to make sure he’s still my baby — that he’s still special and treasured and will be protected and kept safe.

I know, of course, that the love I have for my kids has nothing to do with their ages or maturity. Benjamin will learn that he doesn’t have to give up the comfort and security of “mom” and “family” by extending himself into the world. He will know that we will love him, and that he is special to us, regardless of how grown up he is. (Liam will learn that, too, but not for a while. It will never be the issue for him that it is for Benjamin, because he will have seen it happen with Benjamin and will understand, without having to experience it, that it will be true for him, too.)

Both of my boys are growing up. Liam is always trying to keep up with his big brother, but right now, Benjamin’s trying to go back to what Liam has. I love them both a phenomenal amount, and I want to do everything I can to give them the most happiness possible as they take this journey. Right now, Liam wants Cheerios. I think Benjamin wants hugs and cuddles. Luckily, I can provide both.

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Please come console your brokenhearted child

Posted on September 7, 2011 by admin

So, today, it happened. Just over an hour after I had left him, I got a phone call from one of the teachers, saying, “Ben is very upset and is crying a lot. We think you should come and get him sooner than we had planned.” (They all call him “Ben” all the time — it doesn’t bother me, but I’m surprised at the 100% assumption of using the nickname.) As I was only 15 minutes away, having coffee, I was happy to oblige. When I got there, he was hysterical — “Mommy! Mommy! I want my Mommy!” I could hear him in the hall. I walked in, Liam in my arms, and sat down on the floor in front of him and gathered him up in a huge hug, Liam and all. His face was wet, red and swollen from crying. My poor guy.

I asked him, and the teachers, what it was that had upset him so much, and they all said it wasn’t anything in particular. The teachers surmise that after watching a few kids have tearful goodbyes with their own parents, he decided he ought to find out where I was. He was happy immediately upon my arrival. A few minutes later, I asked him how his day had gone so far, and he smiled and said, “It was great!” I told him we were going to go home, and he wanted to stay. The teachers recommended that we go ahead and leave early today, and then come in later tomorrow (hopefully missing most of the tearful goodbyes between other kids and their parents) and keep it short. We’re also making sure to plan for his time tomorrow to coincide with outside playtime, which, so far, is his favorite thing.

My poor little guy. It breaks my heart that he wanted me and I wasn’t there. For my entire walk there, I kept thinking, “He needs me and I’m not there”, and I kept reminding myself, “No, he wants me, he doesn’t need me –he’s actually safe and fine.” I’m encouraged by the fact that he still characterized his day as “great” and that he wanted to stay. I asked him, later on this afternoon, whether he wanted to go to school tomorrow. He said yes. I told him that Liam & I would take him in the morning, and drop him off, and then come back a little while later. He didn’t like that — he wants us to stay.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the right thing for him. I see the way he desperately wants to play with the other kids, and I am happy to hear him tell me about the fun he has. But, he misses me. I know that, eventually, he’ll have to be without me, even if he misses me, but I wonder if he isn’t still a little too young for it to be forced on him. I do like the fact that he likes school, he just wants me to be there. For tomorrow, we go back to school. From there, we’ll see.

On his own

Posted on September 6, 2011 by admin

Today was the second day of school for Benjamin. Liam and I went with him and got him settled in, just like yesterday. But once he was set and playing happily (about 20 minutes after we got there) the teachers suggested that we say goodbye and leave him to play without us. I was nervous — I was sure he was going to fall apart when I said I was leaving. Nope. I went to tell him and I had to drag a hug and a kiss out of him before he turned around and headed for the “grocery store”. Sigh.

So, off we went. I met Dan at his office and joined him for coffee. Liam dozed off, Dan went back to work, and I sat. I was so certain I’d get the call on my phone — “Please come console your brokenhearted child”. Nope.

When I went to pick him up, a couple of hours (!) later, he was a happy camper — playing outside in the big yard with the other kids. Turns out, Benjamin cried twice today. The fiirst time was while I was away — when he jumped out and yelled “BOO!” at another kid and she yelled, “NO!!!!” right back at him (apparently, he fell apart and it took several minutes for him to calm down). The second time was when I showed up and told him we’d be leaving soon. He didn’t stop crying until I assured him that we’ll come back to school tomorrow and he’ll be able to stay and play.

While I was gone, he ate a snack, did an art project, played, cried, played some more. I’ve never been so glad to see him sad as when I told him it was time to come home. It would have been much worse if he’d been relieved — then I would really be questioning the decision for him to be at school. As it is, he’s having a good time — and as long as he is, I want him to be there. I do think he’s having experiences he wouldn’t get otherwise. (Even just learning that not everyone enjoys having “Boo!” shouted in their face is a good life lesson, and an easier one to learn now than later.)

I miss him when we’re not together. I may get to a point of enjoying the time — the ability to get things done, or to relax, or to spend one-on-one with Liam. But for now, I just miss him. The fact that he enjoys it makes it easier, but not a lot.

First day of school

Posted on September 5, 2011 by admin

Last night, after the kids were in bed, I completely fell apart. Heartbroken, sobbing. Wishing to be able to replay sections of the past 3 years of my life and make different choices — play more, cuddle more, read more, clean less, never be frustrated, irritable or too worn out to play. I don’t want to give up any time with Benjamin every day — not even 4 hours. I want to be with him. I want to be able to play with him, kiss his boo boos, read stories, do art projects, go out and see things. My sadness is almost completely selfish.

And, so far, completely unfounded. Benjamin’s first day of preschool/kindergarten was fun, short and without trauma. We even managed to arrive on time! He played (mostly by himself, but a little with the other kids), talked to the teachers and got nearly every toy in the place out to play with. His attention span was about 4 seconds long — every time he started doing something, he got distracted by something else. He literally gasped with joy over the puzzles with pictures of Lightning McQueen, as well as the grocery store section of the classroom, complete with pretend food and a shopping cart. He built train tracks, played with play dough (first time!) and started several art projects. I stayed with him, but he only checked in with me a few times. At one point, I left for a few minutes to feed Liam, and he was so busy playing that he didn’t care to hear where I was going and didn’t seem to notice my absence.

On the teacher’s advice, we kept things short — we only stayed for a few hours, with the intention of leaving him interested enough to look forward to coming back tomorrow. It seems to have worked. He wants to go back tomorrow, especially because he didn’t get a chance to play outside in the big playground.

The original plan was for us to repeat this pattern, of Liam and I going with Benjamin to school, every day for the rest of this week. The only downside to today going so well is that his teachers think he’s ready to move on to the next step (and I agree). Tomorrow, Liam and I will go with him and get him settled in the morning, and then we’ll go out for an hour and come back to join him for a while, before heading home.

Today, the hardest thing about being there was wrestling Liam (many of the toys and games had small parts that Liam wanted to, but shouldn’t, play with, so I had to keep him under close watch the whole time — not the idea of fun for an 11 month old). Tomorrow, I actually have to leave B at school for a little while. It’s going to be harder for me than for him, I expect.

Tomorrow, everything changes

Posted on September 4, 2011 by admin

For over three years, I’ve been a “stay at home” mom. Tomorrow, for the first time, one of my children will be in daycare. Sure, it’s more appropriately preschool (kindergarten, here) than daycare, and it’s only 4 hours a day, but it doesn’t change the reality of it. Benjamin starts school tomorrow. It’s not like I’ve been with them both 24/7 since their births: I did work a few hours a week at home, I go out and do things from time to time, I even came to Austria for 4 days when Benjamin was only 18 months old, and, of course, I was in the hospital when Liam was born (and for days after, since he was in the NICU) — and thus, away from Benjamin.

This feels so different. For 50% of his waking hours, five days a week, he will be in someone else’s care. That “someone else” isn’t my mom, or Dan, or a trusted friend. It isn’t for an hour, or for a special occasion. These people are strangers to us (although I know they won’t be for long) and this will be our every day routine. My baby is leaving the nest for the first time — he goes out in to the world to interact with its other inhabitants without my constant supervision. He will experience things I’ve protected him from and the flaws in my parenting will be exposed. The other kids may not be nice to him all the time, he may experience the pain of being left out, not liked or teased. Whatever manners and good behavior he has managed to pick up will show, as will the places I’ve not quite armed him with enough.

I know that this is just preschool, and that he isn’t expected to be perfectly polite or well behaved all the time. I also know that the hurts he receives from his classmates will not only be impermanent, but also come with important life lessons better to be learned at the age of 3 than at a later time. Mostly, it’s going to be a place for him to play and interact with kids his own age (which he’s been dying to do) and to learn German — I think that by the end of September, if not sooner, he’ll be the best German speaker in the house.

But still, he’s my baby, and I don’t think I’m ready to let go, even in this little way. But, I will, because it’s what is right for him. The good parts of this, as well as the challenges, are important for his journey in life. As with pretty much everything having to do with raising children, this just isn’t about me. (If he hates it, though, I’m bringing him straight home. Just saying.)

Soccer

Posted on September 3, 2011 by admin

On the recommendation of a coworker of Dan’s, we took the boys to a soccer gathering this morning. It was a set of games, plus registration for the fall soccer season. It was our first experience with organized sports for little kids, and we had fun, although our boys were too little to participate (it’s for 4 and over).

Benjamin kicked some soccer balls around with Dan, and then with me. We tried to get him to play with the other “too little” kids that were running around, but he was feeling shy. Liam crawled around on our picnic blanket and played with a little boy who is 5 days younger than he is — it was really funny to see how exactly alike they are, developmentally (although Mateo has more teeth — and likes to bite!).

The soccer lessons/games are conducted in English, so nearly everyone there spoke English very well (and many, if not most, seemed to be English speaking expatriates). A good time was had by all — it’s beautiful here in Vienna right now, and it was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

I was watching all of the kids play soccer and play with each other, and I’m amazed that some of them are less than a year older than Benjamin. Soon, that will be my little boy, out on the field, playing with the other kids, not needing my help or my direct supervision. This all happens so fast — from cooing infants to giggling crawlers to growling toddlers to screaming runners to very grown up soccer players, all in a few short years. I got to have a little peek into what we have in the years ahead of us, and it looks very fun, but very, very different than what we have now.

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New schedule

Posted on September 1, 2011 by admin

With Benjamin starting preschool next week, we need to reorganize our morning schedule. In order to get him there on time, we will have to leave the house half an hour before Dan’s supposed to be leaving now (and more often than not, we don’t make our current schedule, either). So, we need to start getting up at 5:30 in the morning. Ouch.

We decided to “practice” our morning schedule this week so that if we are totally off on how long everything will take, it won’t result in us being an hour late to school on Monday morning. Yesterday was our first practice day. It was a complete failure. We tried agian today. Fail again. For our practice days, we had decided that Dan & I would go through the motions of our usual routine, but that we wouldn’t actually get the kids up early if they weren’t up anyway (because there’s no reason to torture them, which would in turn torture us).

The result is, of course, that the kids didn’t get the memo about getting up early, and since we’ve decided not to wake them, it’s just about impossible to “practice” our morning routine with just Dan & I. Actually, just me: both yesterday and today, Dan has ended up dozing off while holding a sleeping Liam who doesn’t want to go back to bed, but isn’t really ready to get up, either. The whole “practicing” thing was a nice idea, but it isn’t working. We still have the weekend. I don’t know what’s the best course of action: to force the entire family to get up earlier than necessary in order to prove a concept, or let it go and risk being profoundly late to Benjamin’s first day of school on Monday.

I think we’re going to skip the practice and keep our fingers crossed for Monday.

Benjamin time

Posted on August 30, 2011 by admin

It’s inevitable: having an 11 month old who doesn’t nap means that I don’t have a lot of time to spend one-on-one with B. When Liam was very little, he napped for a few hours every day, and that gave Benjamin and I time to do things together: read, color, build things, play. As Liam has gotten older, his nap has gone away, and now much of my play time with Benjamin is now shared play time with Liam.

Much of the time, he doesn’t mind. I’ve gotten better at finding things for all of us to do together (like playing ball, which Liam is amazingly adept at) but I miss the one-on-one time with Benjamin, and I think he misses it, too. Sibling rivalry has started cropping up more and more, although he still loves Liam (he tells me so) and is still very affectionate and caring towards him. I’m grateful that our reduced playtime hasn’t turned him against Liam entirely, but I know it’s something I need to address before it creates larger resentment.

I’ve been trying, lately, to do just that. I’ve planned times for B & I to go out, to the park, to the movies (Dan & Liam ended up coming with us), or to stay in and play Wii — special things for he and I to do together where he can have my (relatively) undivided attention. I’ve been putting a lot of effort in, but frankly, it hasn’t been working out. It’s nice to spend that time with him, but it ends up feeling forced and even a little frustrating, sometimes, because it doesn’t go quite as I imagine.

This morning, Dan was putting Liam down for a nap and I was hanging out with B, who was watching tv. B wanted to go in his room to play, and wanted me to come, too. I was exhausted, and honestly felt like sitting and watching tv instead, but, I agreed to go with him. Once we got there, he wanted to set up his train tracks and play with his trains. For the first few minutes, I played along, without my heart really being in it, thinking about what I had to do today and feeling tired, but then I got caught up in his enthusiasm, and we put tracks together, switched trains around, had races, built tunnels, built bridges. We played for an hour or so while Dan got Liam down and then while Liam slept. It was fantastic: exactly what I’ve been looking for.

And then, it hit me: I don’t need to force this one-on-one time to happen. It’s fine for me to plan something “special” from time to time for us to do together, but it’s not the “specialness” of the activity that makes the time so valuable. B & I have lots of things we enjoy doing together: playing trains, playing ball, coloring with chalk, reading stories. All I have to do is make the space in my day for those things, which we already share, to happen. It isn’t what we do that’s important, it’s the fact that we have the chance to do it.

He starts preschool next week, and between being in school for half the day, coming home, having lunch and taking a nap, I feel like I’m hardly going to see him at all. I’m going to get less time with him, but it doesn’t mean we’re less important to each other. I have to make sure that I’m making time for us to spend together, because I don’t want to miss out on the precious moments of playing trains or coloring with chalk. That’s the most important part of my day.

Mountain!

Posted on August 28, 2011 by admin

We’ve been in Austria for nearly 5 months, and there’s been something lacking from our experience so far: mountains. Today, we rectified that omission.

We headed out this morning — we were trying for “first thing” this morning, but didn’t actually leave the house until nearly 11. As it always seems to happen with kids, the preparation and departure took far longer than expected. We took the U-bahn to the train station and boarded a train (a big, double decker one) that took us an hour and a half southwest of Vienna. We were a little concerned about two hours of train travel with the kids, but it actually went fine. The scenery was varied enough to keep B busy for a while, and Liam promptly fell asleep. I was planning on using my iPhone to entertain B if necessary, but I didn’t need to. The time passed really quickly. After we left Vienna, we were quickly in the countryside, and the hills and plains gave way to mountains and valleys — it was beautiful. The mountains in this area seem to be very large, green and steep . . . less rolling than the Blue Ridge at home, and bigger, too (I think).

Our train dropped us off at a tiny train station outside of a tiny town, and we hopped on a bus. The little town we rode through was beautiful. Surrounded by huge mountains, full of cute little Austrian houses with pink and purple flowers spilling out of the flower boxes, a crystal clear stream running through the town. I rode on the bus, looking foolish with my mouth popped open nearly the entire way.

After our short bus ride, we got out, climbed up a very steep set of steps and bought our tickets for our gondola ride up the mountain. We explained to Benjamin that it was kind of like a flying train car — which turned out to be quite apt. I’ve been on ski lifts before, so I expected this to be like that, only larger and enclosed. And, it was, roughly. But in a whole different league. This thing zoomed up the mountain, bumping and swaying. There are windows all around, so you can see gorgeous mountain views, all while being whisked up about a mile in just over 5 minutes. I had not really expected how high this mountain was — we just kept going up and up an up! The three hours in transit were almost worth the gondola ride alone.

But, then we got to the top and stepped out and were stunned by the views, by the feeling of the air, by everything. It was exactly what I wanted it to be — gorgeous, cool, crisp and fresh. The air felt and tasted like early spring and smelled like Christmas. Benjamin immediately requested his sweatshirt (which he shortly abandoned, once we started actually walking). We could see down into the valley we had just come out of, as well as look across at huge mountains we had been gazing up at from the valley floor just a few moments before.

After appreciating the vistas, we decided to go for a short hike. The trail map listed a loop that went from where we started, up a “moderate” slope, to a little cafe about 35 minutes walk away, and then back again (another 35 minutes). Not in a hurry, and 033-MOTION wanting to enjoy ourselves, we figured that even with Liam in the Ergo and Benjamin walking, we could probably do the walk in an hour or so. We set off, up the hill, through the meadows of mountain laurel and forests of perfect Christmas trees.. About 90 seconds into the hike, Benjamin was asking for a break. We continued a little further, found a picnic bench and took a break, and then continued on, still climbing. We actually climbed high enough that we realized, looking around, and looking across at the other mountains, that we had, apparently, reached the top of the tree line. We still had lots of ground plants and even a few stunted pine trees (pine bushes?) but no more trees. We walked and we walked, up and up.

There were two things wrong with our “hike to the cafe” plan. 1. The 35 minute walk that was described was estimated by an Austrian. They walk faster, and are generally in better shape than Americans. They take their walking, particularly mountain walking, very seriously. (It’s not uncommon to see people walking through Vienna — which is pretty flat — with what look like ski poles. It’s apparently called “nordic walking”. Up on the mountain, nearly everyone had these ski poles/walking sticks.) 2. The “moderate slope” bit was also, I imagine, described by an Austrian. We were not, at any point, in danger of falling to our deaths, and neither were we required to rappel up or down anything. So, I guess that means it’s moderate. (In their defence, there were a lot of people doing this walk who did appear to find it only moderate, including quite a few who were probably twice my age and at least one young man with an artificial leg. So, again, I suspect the issue is that my American idea of “moderate” does not match with an Austrian idea.)

It didn’t matter — we had a great time. We probably got about halfway to the cafe (we estimate) in about 45 minutes. We sat at another picnic table to rest, and to feed and change Liam, and decided not to go on any further. Benjamin had a great time playing on the mountainside. Dan and I enjoyed the views. Liam wanted to get down and crawl around (we limited his independent mountain exploration to the blanket we brought for him).

After soaking in the sun, the air and the sights, we decided to head back, and opted for an “off the trail” trail that we were sure would parallel and join up shortly with the well marked, well worn and well travelled trail we had come up on. It didn’t. We hadn’t gone far when we realized that instead of going steeply (sorry, “moderately”) downhill, as we should be, we were staying level . . . or maybe even climbing very slightly. Hmm. We came out from a wooded section of our trail, and my stomach did a little flip when I looked down, several hundred yards, to see the trail we had been aiming for, and no apparent way to get to where we wanted to be. We didn’t panic, but I admit to being a bit concerned and having pieces of episodes of “Survivorman” and “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” run through my head. We had our bearings, though, and continued on, choosing paths that brought us closer and closer to where we needed to be. We came out into another clearing (which actually turned out to be a cleared area under a ski lift) and found we were now only about 50 yards (of “moderate” slope, full of weeds and undergrowth but nothing too bad) above our path. Woo hoo!

We made it back and treated ourselves to ice cream (me and Benjamin) and coffee (me and Dan) before heading back down on the gondola. (Which goes down faster than it comes up, creating a definite roller coaster feeling of leaving your stomach behind).

It took us about twice as long to get there as we actually spent on the mountain, but it was totally worth it. We trekked out of Vienna, got up to the top (kind of) of the mountain, hiked around, got lost, found our way, and made it back home. Our kids are tired, but happy. That’s definitely a success. I also impressed myself (and probably Dan, too) by going with the flow. I actually let him make the travel plans, and I didn’t once stress about what time we had to be anywhere. This is very much unlike me, but I’m finding that the energy I spend trying to make things work out perfectly really gets in the way of having a good time, and doesn’t gain me much in terms of the experience. I’m discovering that it’s worth risking having to spend an hour standing around in a beautiful location because I didn’t optimize my train/bus connection if it means that I’m not watching the clock the entire time and stressing out about what’s supposed to happen next instead of enjoying what’s happening in the moment.

We had a great day. I don’t know if the hills are alive, but we really enjoyed them.

Baby teeth

Posted on August 26, 2011 by admin

Being a mom comes with an inexhaustible capacity for worry. It starts during pregnancy: in the beginning, you worry if everything is ok. Once you can feel the baby moving, you worry that he isn’t moving enough, or maybe too much. Every ache or pain causes concern — it’s the physical equivalent of being in a dark and creaky house after seeing a scary movie: everything is interpreted as a potential threat. As the nine months wind to a close you start to desperately wish for the baby to be born, in large part because you feel like it will be so much easier to know if they’re ok once they’re on the outside and you can see them and touch them.

But it’s a bit of a nasty trick: you don’t realize how safe and secure they were until they are on the outside. The first nights a new mother spends with her baby are sleepless. Not just because of baby’s need to eat so regularly, but because even when he is asleep, the mother will lie awake listening for each next breath, attentive to every sigh, every movement, every sound.

It gets a little better as the days, weeks and months go on, but the faith you begin to get that they will survive the night is replaced by other worries. You worry that they’ll get sick — or they do, and you worry about that. You worry that they aren’t sleeping enough, and then the one day they take a long nap, or sleep through the night, you wake them up just to make sure you can. You worry that they aren’t growing enough, or that they’re getting too big. You start to worry about development. There are milestones that you read in the books, on the websites, that your doctor provides. Anything that doesn’t quite “make the grade” will inhabit your mind and fester. You compare your child to the others you see, and try to figure out, constantly, if everything is ok.

I’m going through this with Liam right now. It’s his teeth. His first two teeth arrived “on time” (according to the books, websites and doctors) which was a relief. (Which really just means it allowed my mind to move on to worrying about the next thing on the list of required accomplishments.) A few weeks later, he started to get his next two teeth, also on schedule: hooray! But, a week or so ago, I noticed that those two top teeth aren’t where they’re supposed to be — they’re really far apart. I can’t tell whether his two front teeth are coming in really far apart, or if he hasn’t gotten his two front teeth at all, but rather the two that are located next to those.

So, worry, worry, worry. What does this mean? Will his teeth grow in properly? Will his two front teeth ever come in? What will we do if they don’t? Is there something “wrong” with him? (Because that’s the worry that is really always in the back of our minds — is there something WRONG. Which could mean any number of things, but generally means “something that will prevent his life or childhood from following a typical path and/or will make said path significantly more difficult than usual”.) Consult the books! To the internet! Ask the doctors!

Right now, I don’t know. The books and the internet tell me it could be that his teeth are coming into the wrong spot, or it could be that they’re coming in out of order (more likely). The doctor looked at him for about 15 seconds, said she thought they were coming into the wrong spot and shrugged (lots of help, thanks).

So, I’m going to keep worrying. What does this MEAN! What is going to happen? Where is my crystal ball when I need it?!?

I get the impression that this doesn’t ever end. There’s always something to worry about. And even though I know the energy spent worrying is wasted (it’s not like I could do anything about how his teeth are growing in) I can’ t help myself. I’m a mom.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Kids and Parenting