Acts of kindness, going out on the town

I read a post today on a friend’s FB page that reminded me of something that happened when I was pretty far along in my pregnancy with the twins. I’d gone out to dinner by myself, to my favorite Indian restaurant. When it came time to pay my bill, the server told me that a guy who’d been at the next table with his family celebrating his daughter’s 21st birthday had paid my bill. Seeing me there had made him think about her birth and his wife, and he wanted to make the gesture. They had left the restaurant by the time I was paying my bill, and so gave me the space to just have a nice meal without having to even thank them in person. I was so touched. It was so generous.

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Tonight Ted and I went to the first half of a concert on which a friend was playing a concerto. It was nice to get out, and we ran into a musician friend of mine with whom I was able to make some silly musician jokes and giggle. That is good for the soul. I felt quite a bit lighter when we came home.

As we mounted the stairs, I heard crying. Our babysitter had accidentally broken Hazel-protocol and opened the lid of the gummi-vitamins ALL THE WAY instead of just loosening it for her to open the rest of the way. Tragedy and tears ensued. And seeing us, she burst into tears even more passionately. However, after a few hugs I came downstairs to feed the babies and chat with our babysitter, and Ted put Hazel to bed. It went smoothly. And apparently the twins both ate quite a bit of food tonight. We have learned that Joanna likes banana, and Emily likes avocado. They both ate a half of their respective fruit. Maybe that means they’ll sleep longer tonight. One can always hope.

It is amazing how much more inner bandwidth I had to deal with Hazel’s feelings, given a short night out. We left at 7:15 and returned just two hours later, but that was enough to give me energy and help me feel sufficiently centered that I could see Hazel crying and feel compassion for her, but not take it personally or let it stress me out. Time off is good!

What’s important here?

I think I need to hang a sign around my neck, or print a message on the insides of my eyelids, a reminder to me to ask myself all through the day as I encounter the sorts of situations one does with kids: WHAT IS IMPORTANT HERE? This evening I yet again focused on the wrong thing. The scenario is as follows.

I returned from a lovely couple of hours of writing in company with my friends;
I heard at least two children crying when I came into the living room;
I went upstairs to investigate and learned that Hazel was crying because Ted had accidentally bumped into her, and Emily was crying because she was hungry;
I needed go use the bathroom;
I needed to feed the twins;
I needed to retain the thoughts that’d been swirling around in my brain about my book on the walk home;
our babysitter needed to leave;
Hazel needed to be comforted;
Joanna started crying, possibly in sympathy;
Ted said, “I’m just glad I didn’t knock her down the stairs.”

So, I sat down on the bed and hugged Hazel and heard her tale of woe. Then, I said that I needed to go the bathroom. Hazel came with me, chatting to me in an instantly and fundamentally altered chirpy tone of voice.
“I switched the laundry!” she said. I thought, Oh, our wonderful babysitter somehow had some time on her hands, and moved our laundry along and Hazel helped.
“All by myself!” Oh, I thought, our babysitter was really nice and let Hazel move most of the clothes.
“And that was a surprise to me,” said our babysitter. Oh, I thought. I walked into the laundry room. I had left the next load of dirty clothes in a pile on the floor. It was much bigger now, and included clothes that I knew had been in the dryer. Damn, I thought. Will I have to re-wash all these clothes? More work, I don’t have time for more work! And I just want to go to the bathroom, and do some more writing. Wah!!!
“Hazel, did you put the clothes from the dryer on the floor?”
“No.”
“Hazel, please tell me the truth. I know you put the clothes on the floor, and I want you to admit it to me.” Internal shame. Why am I asking her this? I am being mean. Crap, I am the worst mother ever. But I can’t stop now, I must be consistent!
“Hazel, you have just made more work for your daddy and me. You have to ask before you do the laundry. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” sad face. More internal shame. I knew I wasn’t on the right track. Why didn’t I just stop?? I just scolded my daughter for DOING THE LAUNDRY. I get today’s Missing The Forest For The Trees award.

Next time perhaps I will say, “Wow, Hazel, it was so wonderful of you to move the laundry along. I love how helpful you are. Do you think you could help me put these clothes in the basket so I can add them to the pile of clean laundry on the table?”

I never understood how much creative quick-thinking parenthood would demand. I am humbled every day.

Sleep training at almost-4

After many conversations and tries at various things, Ted and I have decided to set and hold a line with Hazel at bedtime that she really, really, REALLY doesn’t like. So, tonight I took her upstairs for teeth brushing and storytime, and then after spending 10 minutes reading in bed with her and an additional 20 minutes lying down in the dark, I got up to go downstairs. I had a conversation earlier with her about how Daddy and I need some adult time, so I’d spend some time with her upstairs but then I’d need to leave. She agreed, as she always does. When I left she was ok. But I congratulated myself too soon. A few minutes later, as Ted was out walking the twins, Hazel started crying. I made myself wait it out, and eventually she came downstairs. So, I took her upstairs again, explaining that Daddy and I need some adult time, and it’s her bedtime. Once in her room, I turned on her nightlight and asked her if she wanted the story CD or the music CD. She chose the story CD. I gave her a long hug, and left again. She was crying before I was out the door. I went downstairs. She continued to cry. She came downstairs again. I took her upstairs. This time she said she didn’t like the story CD. I changed it to the music one, gave her another hug, and went downstairs. She kept crying. She came downstairs again. I took her back upstairs. This time I didn’t say anything, just got her back in bed and left. She keep crying. Ted came back and we had some conversation while reassuring each other that we’re not terrible monsters or heartless bastards. Hazel came downstairs. Ted took her back upstairs. This happened twice. The second time, it was close to when we were going to go up with the twins, so we came up shortly after Ted had come back down. She was quiet! I fed the twins, and when Ted took them in to go to sleep, Hazel was asleep.

One thing that convinced me of the wisdom of trying this new approach is a comment by one of our babysitters that if Hazel was really extremely upset, she wouldn’t be able to switch instantly into a regular voice in the middle of it, as she sometimes does. She did so tonight; I dropped something during one of the times I was up in her room, and practically mid-gulp she stopped and asked, cheerfully, “Oh, what was that?” I said, “Daddy’s phone.” She said, “I can get it!” I said, “Don’t worry, I got it already.” She said, “Oh.” Then it was back to her reguarly scheduled programming.

We were totally against this method when Hazel was a baby. She couldn’t understand then. And when she was a baby there was no such thing as a fake cry. When she cried as a baby she had a reason. And we wanted her always to feel and know that she was loved and cared for. So, it felt wrong to us for our family, and so we didn’t do it. However, now it seems different to us now that she’s almost four years old. When Hazel wants to convince me to give her a cough drop, if I say no, that’s she’s not sick, sometimes she’ll do this hilariously obvious fake cough. I just laugh. And she usually laughs with me. She’s clearly capable of trying various tactics in order to get what she wants. And she has learned that crying gets her what she wants with this issue. But we have needs and wants too, and we need a better balance between ours and hers. We are positing that setting a good boundary around bedtime will actually serve her better in the long run.

The difference now, also, is that after having had some really good conversations and support from our pediatrician, other parents, and friends, we were able to approach tonight not from a place of anger or frustration, but more with a sense of calm determination. That helped us to survive all the crying and hold the line. And I think it also allowed us to be loving while we were also being firm. So, we’re going to try this for ten days (good advice from one book) and see how it goes. Here’s hoping it will work! With luck, we’ll wind up with some time for conversation at night, as well as a chance to do the dishes and clean the cat litter. A win-win, all around.

Transitions

There’s nothing like seeing a baby start smiling and salivating profusely upon sight of you to make you feel needed. It’s pretty funny:  the expression on Joanna’s face tells me that I’m being seen as “Mommy/food!” But it’s also, “Mommy/comfort”. Very sweet. Looking over from my chair, they are both smiling at me, making that “You really want to feed us again, you know you do!” face. Almost impossible to resist.

After last night’s difficulties, we’re going to try something new. Ted is going to take Emily for a walk to see if he can calm her down before attempting to get her down to sleep. We’ll see… Ok, that didn’t work. Now he’s out with both of them (after a further feeding session). They’re very upset. We’re in that difficult transition between the old pattern that worked beautifully, and the new pattern, which hasn’t come together yet, but will hopefully settle soon! Come to think of it, maybe that’s why the babies are wanting to nurse all the time. Transitions are hard for everyone.

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Today when Hazel got home from her aunt’s house, she came over to hug the babies and said, “I missed Emily. I missed the babies.” She really loves her little sisters.

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Tonight we got to go through bags and boxes of hand-me-downs from our generous neighbors. I really appreciate our village. Hazel’s wearing awesome fuzzy yellow pj’s tonight.

Balancing needs

Hazel is upstairs, awake, and was crying. I am downstairs, finally free of being immediately physically needed by either babies or cats, and in some pretty serious need of a few minutes of unencumbered time. I encouraged her to use a regular voice, to work on calming down, and told her I’d be up in a few minutes (through the monitor we have). Ted and I need to have time to keep the house in some marginal state of organization and cleanliness. The babies need to be settled and possibly fed again. I think Ted and I do need to have another talk about our schedule and how to handle bedtime, but one thing I have to keep remembering is that Hazel is only 3.5; she will resist the things she doesn’t want in the ways she knows how. Tonight, I am proud of her for calming down enough to tell me in a voice I could understand that she didn’t want to be alone. That gave me the opportunity to tell her that I heard her, that I knew she didn’t like being alone, and that I was sorry it was necessary, but that Ted and I had things we had to do. It gave us the opportunity for conversation, which, even though it doesn’t change the outcome (I still can’t come up right now), did change the process. I have to remember that a successful evening is not one in which Hazel doesn’t cry, but rather, one in which we can all communicate, support each other, and set loving but effective boundaries. I don’t expect the babies not to cry when they need to. I really shouldn’t expect Hazel not to, either. I can choose my response, and by choosing not to view her every sad communication as DefCon 5, I can moderate my own internal response sufficiently to respond to her in a more adult, and less critical way. And then it’s easier to help her find her ability to make choices about how and what she communicates. Everybody wins.

The logistics of activities with twins

Logistics are definitely becoming more complicated. I would love to get Hazel into swimming lessons this year. Figuring out how to do that while also attending to the twins’ nourishment needs is a bit challenging. Maybe in the new year. I’ve told her about snorkeling, and that we can’t do that together until she learns how to swim, so she’s pretty up for it. A good inducement. On the flip side, I’d love to get the twins into the water once they’re a bit older, but I can’t take them and Hazel to the pool with just me, or even with the nanny and me. We have to have one adult per kid. So, pool visits have necessarily slowed to almost nothing. We’ll figure it out. I am so glad that we can have a part-time nanny. Really, a couple part-time nannies who work different shifts. All of the people who are involved in caring for our children are wonderful. They help our whole family.

Mozartiana is running through my head. Very nice.

But now, the cries of the babies have started up. This is their current routine: I feed them for a while, they’re definitely not hungry; Ted changes their diapers and lies down with them. They cry. I go back and top them up. They sleep. It’s odd; I just finished feeding them 20 minutes ago. Ah well, here I go….