One of those mom posts.
Tavian is crawling. It took him longer to figure it out than I thought it would, but here's there. In the last two days he's gotten better and better, such that the only issue he's having is crawling on slippery floor wearing longies. He ends up on his belly, slithering around and whining a lot.
As I suspected, the crawling mostly only enables him to crawl to my legs and grab on to my pants to pull himself up.
Tay says Ayla. It was his first word. "Aya". I didn't believe Ben when he told me it was happening, but there is no mistaking it now. If she walks out of the room he starts hollering it at her, and when she comes back he giggles and says it over and over with glee as he watches her. My friends heard him do it yesterday, so I have witnesses. Lots of his babbling noises sound like Ayla, too, but I can tell a distinct difference.
He also says "dada". He's picked up on the fact that I can call Ben at work and Ben will talk to him, so when he picks up the phone he starts yelling "dadadada!". I pick up the phone and start to dial and he starts laughing and smiling and kicking his feet. When Ben starts talking to him he squeals "dadadada!" and has a cute little conversation. When Ben gets home at night, Tay insists on being held by him. If Ben walks out of the room, he cries. When Ben picks him up, he smiles. It's so adorable I can barely stand it.
Ayla started talking at 8 months (first words were "vacuum" and "baby"). Tay is 9 months today. Ayla was significantly less physically capable, though. She just lay on her back, happily talking to the ceiling until she was almost a year old. Tay's been crawling across our laps for months now, even if he just barely figured out the logistics of moving across the floor.
I was really hoping "mama" would be his first word. In a sense, I feel like I'm failing this month. I'm overwhelmed with... being overwhelmed, I guess. I'm shocked at how much space I'm needing. I'm upset that I sometimes feel resentful of his need for me. I'm devastated that I find myself wishing away the time. "He'll be one in xxx months and then maybe I can make him stop nursing at night so I can have a night off"
I think it's because he nurses alllll night long still, refuses to take pumped milk or eat food for satisfaction, and wants me to be holding his 22 pound self all day long as he squirms around in my arms. When I had Ayla, I left for brief periods on a regular basis. To the gym, to the grocery store, out with Ben because we lived with my parents and they could just listen for her. She slept for a long period right after falling asleep, but Tay wakes after only an hour and WILL NOT go back to sleep unless I nurse him.
The point is that I started out intending to be So Attached, and now that he is So So So Attached, I'm suffocating. And still, he didn't say mama! What a huge crock. I adore the child, though, with every breath I have in me. Some days I just feel like running away, but I always know that I'd never make a decision that I felt would harm him. What a commitment, this job of mine..
Ayla has been exceptionally sensitive, whiny and irrationally shy lately. Even with people she knows. Her friends try and play with her and she cowers and whines at them. Of course, this eggs on the more forceful of them, and then they want to attack her to make her laugh and she just gets more and more whiny. (which makes mom crabby, which then encourages the whining and.. I need to deal with it better)
In my attempt to not be judged as a Coddling Parent, I tell her to shrug it off. "Oh Ayla, you're fine" Gah I'm so sick of Parent Politics.
Ayla and I had a chat the other day when she was going to be playing on the Treehouse at the mall. We talked about how she gets so shy and whiny. I said, "You need to just have fun!" She told me that she gets shy with her friends because they always want to take the toys she's playing with even if she had them first, and that they push her out of the way and tell her what to do and it makes her feel scared. I need to remember that she's just a sensitive soul, and that's okay. So what if the other parents think she's weird or whiny? I need to make sure I'm not throwing water on her personality fire. If this is how she is, I need to make sure she knows I love every bit of it.
However, I did suggest that if someone takes her toy or tries to push her she say in a loud voice, "Hey! I'm playing with that! Find something else, please!" or, "Excuse me! Please don't push me! It's my turn!"
It backfired on me yesterday, though. It's difficult with friends that are younger than her, as I don't think she understands that we have to be more passive when it comes to them because they don't understand as much. She had an issue with her friend Lily (who is two). I wasn't in the room as we sent Lily's mom to handle it when we heard Lily screaming. I was annoyed at Ayla even without talking to her, because she'd apparently been trying to horde toys and not share. I was grumpy with Ayla for the rest of the afternoon, as her behavior deteriorated rapidly after that incident. By the time we got home I was ready to pull my hair out with frustration at her.
Before she went to bed, I sat her on my lap and talked to her. I asked why she'd been mean to her friends. She told me that she was trying all day to play nicely (true or not? no idea), and that she told Lily in a loud voice (I encourage that because her shyness makes her talk softly, and then the kids can't hear her protests), "I'm playing with those, please find something else!" just like I'd told her to. The problem had come when Lily wanted one of something Ayla had two of, and friend rules mean she has to share one of them if there are multiples. When Lily cried and Ayla got in trouble for not sharing, I think it confused her. I'd told her to do something, she'd tried, and it had backfired on her.
I don't know. How do you teach a four year old that you have to behave differently with different children? Or different aged children? I don't think you can. How do you say, "You have to share if there is more than one, but you don't have to share if you have it first and there is only one? ... unless it's a toy that belongs to that child, or if the child is younger than you, in which case just do what they say?" We have these same problems when she plays on the playground with the younger kids. It's such a complex situation for such a small little mind. And.. in my people pleasing way, I'm always wanting parents to think well of my child and.. who can think well of a child that is whiny and shy or who makes their kid cry??
So.. I don't know. I was able to talk about it with her. She's too honest for her own good (if she doesn't want to tell me she was naughty she says "i dont' want to tell you" rather than lying about it. heh. I'll enjoy that while I can), so I tend to listen more when she tells me things. She seems genuinely upset that she doesn't know when to stand up for herself, and when doing that is considered being mean. I think the confusion is what caused her behavior to go so rapidly downhill. What an evening.
I don't know what to tell her. I just don't have the answers. She's such a good kid, she really is. This morning she has been so lovely. Quiet but happy, sweet and playful with her brother, affectionate and liberal with "i love you"s. She's wearing long, warm pants and an adorable long sleeved shirt I bought her a few weeks ago. Her hair is so messy. She looks so small to me, today. I want to eat her. Bottle her. Being a parent is hard work.