2011
July
26
Sam’s first month flew by. It felt much faster than Dash’s first month. With Dash, I had no distractions. Now, I have a rambunctious toddler to keep up with. I can’t spend every waking moment with Sam in my arms like I could with Dash when he was a newborn.
Some days, Dash consumes so much of my attention that I worry I’m going to forget about Sam.
I guess that’s just another way of saying that Sam is really easy. He sleeps most of the time. I nurse him every three or four hours and I change his diaper when he cries. He doesn’t need much.
The truth is, having two babies is not twice as hard. Have you heard the fable about the man who carried a calf every day until it was a full-grown cow? At the same rate that the calf grew, the man’s muscles became stronger and he was able to carry more weight. The point of the story was that you can’t take on a heavy task unless you’ve trained for it.
Raising kids is the same way. They start out easy and slowly introduce new challenges, one at a time. If I had to suddenly take care of two boys who have the same amount of energy as Dash, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’ll have to do it some day, but Sam will prepare me, month by month.
2011
July
23
A friend once told me that instead of the “terrible twos” or other year-long behavioral phases, her children go through rough patches lasting six months. With Dash, his disposition seems to fluctuate in three-month intervals.
The first time I admitted that caring for a baby was difficult was when Dash was nine months old. During the subsequent three months, he refused to sleep. We eventually realized that he wasn’t getting enough milk. As soon as we supplemented his diet with formula, he instantly slept through the night and all was well.
Reading my post about the three months that followed, months twelve through fifteen, I am reminded that Dash was very pleasant for a while. In contrast, months fifteen through eighteen – the second quarter of his second year, the months that this post is about – were some of the hardest. Yet as I write this, we are well into the third quarter and again, he is quite delightful.
What made this quarter difficult, I’m sure, was that I was approaching the end of my second pregnancy. It was especially exhausting chasing and wrangling a toddler in my physical state. There was even one week during which Eric was out of town and I had to take care of Dash alone. I don’t know how single mothers do it! My inability to keep my shit together really had me questioning if I could handle two babies, let alone the six that I always talk about wanting.
Dash conquered me, literally and figuratively.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Since these were his last few months as an only child, I made an effort to have more fun with him. And fun we had! Looking through my photos, I would say that the theme of this quarter was playgrounds.
I also continued to take him to a gym class at Romp n’ Roll once a week, and we took a swimming class together at the YMCA. He loves the water.
Before Sam was born, Dash and I had picnics on the back deck and we went on dates to Starbucks – just the two of us. He won’t remember these special times, but I like to think that the bonding we did contributed to his ever-pleasant and loving demeanor. I have so much fun with him!
We travelled a lot this past spring. It’s been a relief to have a few weeks at home with our newborn. We visited a zoo in Pennsylvania on our way to New York for a friend’s wedding, and we camped near Charlottesville for another couple’s wedding. We camped again at Virginia Beach with our friends, and we also went to Virginia Beach with all of Dash’s grandparents for Easter. Here are just a few snapshots of the many events that I have neglected to blog about.
Another exciting milestone was that Dash started preschool!
At sixteen months, some people thought that Dash was too young to attend preschool. Even I questioned my merit as a mother by enrolling him in a program for three days each week. Did paying other women to care for him mean that I didn’t want him? Did it mean that I couldn’t handle him? These were the worries that ran through my head.
On the contrary, I wanted him in preschool for the benefits that it would bring to him rather than the conveniences that it would provide to me. Specifically, we wanted him to start talking. A friend of ours claimed that her daughter’s vocabulary exploded once she began attending preschool. We were worried that Dash was speech-delayed. At home, he could use sign language to get what he wanted because Eric and I understood his gestures and jabbering. I thought that surrounding him with other children and adults who weren’t as in tune with him as I was would force him to talk.
His pediatrician wanted him to know at least ten words by his eighteen month check-up. We struggled with communication as he slowly learned how to express himself. He would get so frustrated when he couldn’t convey his thoughts to us! Preschool wasn’t the magic solution, but it definitely helped. These were some of his first words:
Since he began attending preschool, his vocabulary did indeed grow. He would mimic new words at least once, though he was embarrassingly unreliable when we asked him to repeat the words in front of friends and family.
Separation anxiety, as it affected both Dash and I, was the most trying thing we experienced this quarter. Every morning, he cried when I left him at preschool. I cried once or twice, too. But he even cried upon my arrival to pick him up! He was overwhelmed with emotion. Admittedly, I was overjoyed that he loved me so much.
Which is why it got harder for me to handle when he overcame his separation anxiety. After one month, he stopped crying. Some days, it even seemed like he was having such a good time at school that he didn’t want to leave! This killed me.
As a health conscious mother, feeding a toddler became a nightmare. Getting Dash to not only eat but to eat healthy food was the most frustrating. The boy who used to eat healthy veggies like avocados, tomatoes, and carrots suddenly refused to eat anything except crackers and cereal. He would not try new food and he even stopped eating his old favorites. To make matters worse, he developed a habit of throwing his food and utensils.
The mess I can handle, but I mourned the wasted food and the time I spent preparing it. I also worried that he wasn’t getting enough nutrition. I was almost so desperate that I considered abandoning my commitment to raise him as a vegetarian just so that he would eat something, anything!
Gratefully, we are now past the picky eater stage. In fact, his appetite as well as his willingness to try new food have both grown immensely. I attribute this positive change entirely to Eric’s suggestion that we simply not have crackers in the house. He insisted that Dash would get hungry enough to eat healthy food if we stop offering snacks to him. It was so simple, and it worked!
Despite the things that tested my patience during this quarter, Dash remained a very affectionate boy. He also started to love looking at books. Combine these characteristics and we had – and still have – the best cuddle sessions reading books together just before bed. He makes my heart melt. Moments like these make the difficult aspects of raising a toddler completely worth it.
