Mommy Talk

The bewilderment cry

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:47:10 GMT

Sometimes in our house, you'll hear this forlorn yee-owww. Over and over again, one of our cats makes this noise. It sounds like she's stuck somewhere. Trapped. About to die.

But spend a few minutes looking for her, and you'll find she's sitting in the basement - unstuck and unharmed - big cat eyes staring back. As soon as she sees a person, she breaks out of her cat-trance and trots upstairs.

Now, we don't even look for her anymore. We just holler her name from wherever we are, and she quiets down and comes upstairs.

We call it the bewilderment cry. It's like she's forgotten that she knows this place, that it's all OK, and that if she just went up the stairs, everything would be as it should.

This morning, Henry gave us a bewilderment cry. Like the cat, it sounded like he was in serious trouble.

He woke up at 5 a.m. (too early, by my clock). I tried to give him his pacifier to get him back to sleep, but it didn't work. So I got him out of his crib and cuddled with him in my bed. I didn't want to be awake and moving around just yet, and was hoping he'd give me some quiet time to fully wake up.

About 20 minutes later it was obvious that he wasn't interested in quiet time. He was far more excited by the cat (who was also no longer interested in sleeping) walking back and forth.

So we got up. I nursed him, changed his diaper and put his clothes on. We played for a while, and then he started getting sleepy.

I gave him his pacifier and put him in his crib, turned the mobile on, and left him there. When I checked on him he was flat on his back, fists near his ears, staring into space. So tired.

Five minutes later, he was out.

That gave me time to sit down for breakfast - a vanilla latte, banana bread and cherries - before heading off to work.

As I was getting ready to go, I heard this horrible cry.

It sounded like a cartoon baby's cry: "Waaaaaaaaa!"

Just one big awful noise. No breath, no repeat. I got to him before it was even done.

And he was fine.

Like the cat, he had no problem. He'd just woken up and flipped out. Maybe it was because the mobile had stopped, or his pacifier fell out, or that he was alone. I'll never know.

But, just like when we holler "Catinca!" to make the cat stop her kitty freak-out, it only took a quick cuddle to right Henry's world.

That's the power of parenting: I am all he needs. At least right now. Give me 16 years. Then I'll be the one making the bewilderment cry.

Favorite family vacation destinations? Plus, Chicago on the cheap

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:23:45 GMT

Winter weekends I waste. I hibernate inside, grumbling about the cold, grousing about the snow. But summer weekends? Summer weekends fill fast for our family. We try to squeeze every drop of summer-y, sunshine-y goodness out of the 12 weekends we get.

So two weekends ago, we went to Chicago for a spur-of-the-moment overnight stay. (Thank you, Expedia, for our fabulously cheap hotel.) We had such a great time that I’m now going to give you six reasons to hop a train and get your family to the Windy City:

1 – Weekend passes on the Metra. Ride as often as you want Saturday and Sunday, and it will only cost you $5 per adult. Kids 11 and younger ride free. That means it only cost $10 for our family to get to and from Ogilvie Station in Downtown Chicago. No traffic. No tolls. No parking garages charging $50/day. (Just make sure you check the train schedule; only a few trains leave from and return to Kenosha each day.) Cost: $10.

2 – Free trolleys. Chicago is so courteous to its tourists. We hopped a free downtown trolley with the intent of traveling quickly to Millennium Park. We ended up skipping our stop and riding the trolley on its full loop around the city, just to see the sights. It was like one of those double-decker bus tours without the fee or the facts – which, when you’re riding with two young children, you probably wouldn’t get to hear anyway. Cost: $0.

The lure of luxury

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:24:34 GMT

Is there anything more tempting than a high-priced, well-designed baby product?

I don't think so.

It's so easy to get sucked in by the slogans. Buy our high chair and have a better relationship with your child! Buy our modern stroller and take modern walks with your modern baby! Your little princess will have the sleep of her life in this amazing crib!

I gave in twice. We registered for the Baby Bjorn because we'd heard other, cheaper brands weren't as comfortable. It was great for a few months, but by the time Henry was 3 months old, I was sick of it. It hurt my back and I couldn't do important household chores (like cooking) with it on, because he would have been in serious danger.

So I shopped around and wound up spending almost twice as much as the Baby Bjorn initially cost to get a Beco Baby Carrier. This time, I was thrilled with it. This puppy's amazing. And, it's cute! I recommend it to anyone who's looking for a carrier, despite its $150 price tag.

We've been taking Henry for lots of walks. We got one of those travel systems that come with a car seat and stroller. I've got no real problem with it. Stroller works great, car seat works great.

But when I see something like this, I get stroller envy.

Now this is a stroller. It's got a seat that adjusts in height, that you can flip to face front or back, that can even be used as a high chair when you're out to eat.

Heck, it was even in the Sex and the City movie. Which I haven't seen.

There's something about a product that touts its design as a way to boost my ability to interact with Henry that wants me to snatch it up, no matter the cost.

The price tags for the items I've written about so far?

Beco Baby Carrier: $150

Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair: $230

Bugaboo strollers: $530-$800

Princess Carriage Crib: $14,995

Stokke Xplory stroller: $780

Granted, I don't want the crib. Not in a million years (even if I'd had a girl) would I have wanted that confection in my house. It cost almost as much as my current car. Even if I had a million dollars, I think I could find a far better way to spend $15,000 on my kid.

I find I have the same mental battles over toys. Henry loves pushing buttons. The remote and our cell phones have become incredibly interesting to him.

I think about getting him some toy with buttons on it that he could hold and smash and make noise with. But I don't want to. I've got some serious toy snobbery going on.

It's the opposite of my luxury stroller envy. I want his toys to be simple. When I pick out a toy for him, it's got no batteries and is made out of wood. His books don't pop up or play music. They're just books.

I've been hunting around for something that would satisfy his desire for buttons and mine to keep his room filled with toys that don't do all the work for him.

Maybe I need to find the Octotunes, or the NooBoo Pound-A-Sound.

Or I could just get the darn piano tuned. Then he'll have 88 no-battery-required buttons to push.

It won't satisfy my fancy-schmancy stroller desire, but it would keep me and the baby busy.

Maybe then I won't have time to fantasize about blowing our mortgage payment on a stroller.

The first people ever? Well, Odd and Eve, of course ….

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:50:55 GMT

So it’s a typical Tuesday and I’m eavesdropping on my kids. I love to do this. It’s why I haven’t gotten rid of our baby monitor yet. As usual this morning, my 6-year-old is instructing my 4-year-old on the wonders of the world. The 6-year-old is using her "teacher voice," as I call it — her very calm, very patient, very s-l-o-w voice that makes it clear that she’s about to explain something incredibly important and complicated to her less-educated little sister. Today’s lesson: The first people ever.

"The first people ever were a man and a woman," the 6-year-old instructs. "And they were made by God. And their names were Odd and Eve."

Get it? Tee hee.

She, of course, knows somewhere in her brain that it’s actually Adam and Eve. But because she’s 6, and because she’s absorbing hundreds of new facts every single week, if not every day, things get a little mixed up sometimes. And I love, love, love how my children can completely mix things up.

My 4-year-old horrified herself at bedtime one night a few months ago: I kissed her all over her face during a particularly enthusiastic rendition of The Brady Bunch theme song. (We sing whatever we want at bedtime, lullaby or not). She was elated at this silly display of affection and exclaimed, "Now I’ve got nipples! — Oh! I mean dimples!" And of course, since "nipples" is on the list of Funniest Words Ever for kids, the giggles that ensued were uncontrollable. Bedtime was pushed back a full 15 minutes while we all calmed down.

Be careful, they're watching

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:26:10 GMT

So I was trying to get our family of five ready for our annual week-long trip to my parents' cabin in Northern Wisconsin.

Do you know how hard it is to pack for all those people, especially when one of them is a baby? I had to organize and stack everything from bibs and diapers to life vests and beach towels, enough underwear for everyone and extra socks.

And since the weather in that neck of the woods can range anywhere from 56 degrees and raining to 84 degrees and sweating, I also had to pack clothing for the seemingly impossible to predict range of elements.

Then I had to figure out how I was going to stuff all of us, our suitcases, the big fat stroller, the cooler, the Pack N' Play and cases of soda and water into the back of the minivan.

In the midst of my packing fervor, the boys alternately decided to color with markers, spray each other with the hose, fight over Battleship (sending small game pieces all over the kitchen floor for my 14-month-old to pick up), dig out their favorite T-shirts from my careful stacks, spill juice and tromp sand in the kitchen.

What else could I do? I exploded. I used the word pissed.

About four hours later my husband came home to find us all crabby. And the first words out of my 4-year-old's mouth were: "Daddy, what's pissed?"

He looked at me.

Guilty as charged. "He learned it from me," I admitted.

But it's not just the words we use, I've come to see. Our kids watch us intently. They see the way we cope with frustration, the way we treat people we're supposed to love and respect, the dedication we have to our jobs and homes, even the way we take care of our stuff.

As much as it irritates me when my husband leaves dirty socks in the middle of the bedroom floor, I dislike it even more when I see my sons have followed his example.

In my experience, the phrase, "Do as I say and not as I do," just doesn't work.

Leading by example is probably the best possible way to get your children to use good table manners, apply themselves in school and everything in between.

It makes sense that kids with no parental guidance, whatever their socio-economic status might be, often wind up in trouble. They have no one to emulate, or they choose their own role models, who often don't point them in the right direction.

But for many of us, it almost comes naturally as a parent, doesn't it? A lot of us stop swearing, smoking and spending money on foolish stuff once we have kids. We start going to church again, clip coupons and trade in Saturday nights at the bar for Saturday afternoons at the soccer field.

I've watched myself become more careful, and I keep striving to become a more worthy role model for my three children.

You should have heard my heart sing when my 6-year-old asked me the other day if a movie he wanted to watch was "appropriate" for his age. It almost made up for my teaching his younger brother the word pissed.

Have you noticed your children mimicking you? Have you ever felt like they were holding a mirror up to your face when they said or did something?

What's the best summer activity for your family?

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:42:19 GMT

Henry's 8 months old now, and I'd love to do things with him as his interest in the world increases.

What things did you do with your babies in the warm weather? How about as they got older? What are the best things to do in the area now that it's nice out?

What gets your family talking?

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:36:14 GMT

"Any fire drills, Daddy?"
"Nope, not today."
"Any fire drills, Mommy?"
"No, not for me."
"Any fire drills, Sophie?"
"No, we didn’t have a fire drill today," my 6-year-old answers her little sister. "But in summer school, guess what. We played a new game ..."

And so it begins: Our daily after-school, after-day care, after-work, dinner table wrap-up. My husband and I learned back in September that getting our daughters to talk about their school day wasn’t going to be easy. "How was school today?" we’d ask. "Fine," said one. "Fine," said the other.

"What did you learn?" we’d ask.

"I dunno." "I dunno."

With one daughter in kindergarten at a new school and the other in a new preschool class, we wanted details: Whom did they sit with at lunch? Whom did they play with at recess? What books did they read, what songs did they sing, how high did they count? We wanted an accounting of every minute, from 7:40 a.m. when we dropped them off, to 3:45 p.m. when I picked them up.

Instead we got "fine" and "I dunno." I’ve been a reporter for 11 years, and those conversations with my children early in the school year were among the toughest interviews I’ve done. In my efforts to be an involved parent, I felt like I was interrogating them every evening.

Until one day when someone had a fire drill. I’m pretty sure it was Sophie — her first fire drill in kindergarten. She announced the big news at dinner and the conversation took off. From fire drills we got to classroom jobs (She was the line leader! Isabel got to feed the fish!). From classroom jobs, we got to lunch. And from lunch we got to recess and rest time, science and story time.

The next day — smarter now — we launched the conversation the same way: "Any fire drills today?"