Parenting Catch-all

Maq wrote:

Here's a thought that just occurred: Having your first child involves so much mental, physical, and emotional upheaval and rewiring it's like voluntarily re-entering puberty.

Maybe, but it's like going into puberty as a 30 year old. Hopefully less of a clueless moron than your average 13 year old.

Jonman wrote:
Maq wrote:

Here's a thought that just occurred: Having your first child involves so much mental, physical, and emotional upheaval and rewiring it's like voluntarily re-entering puberty.

Maybe, but it's like going into puberty as a 30 year old. Hopefully less of a clueless moron than your average 13 year old.

Just less energy and more likelihood your back will give out.

Two most vivid memories when our first (pictured age 2 in my profile pic) was born.

The midwife shading my daughter's eyes, as my daughter was lying on my wife's chest for the first moments of her life, and my daughter blinking and slowly opening her eyes.

Carrying my daughter in her little car seat from the hospital to the car, there was a guy on the sidewalk who wouldn't get out of our way, and I needed the room to carry her safely. As protective as I was of my pregnant wife (including clocking a guy at the airport, knocking him down onto a row of chairs as he tried to push my wife out of the way...he couldn't see she was 6 months pregnant from behind), I knew in that moment that the best way to lie bleeding, unconscious at my feet was to mess with my little girl. And I'm...a total choir boy, poetry reading, non-sport watching, non-macho *nice* guy. Unless you mess with my kids.

So yeah, having a kid fundamentally changes you. My wife was worried (at 7 months pregnant and not always so very coherent) that I would have to love her less, to make room for loving our baby. I assured her (and it is absolutely true) that my heart would simply get much, much bigger, and that I would keep loving her more and more.

As much as people say "ah, but you've blocked out those late nights of bleary-eyed pacing the hallway trying to get your 2 month old child back to sleep at 3am...". Nope. I remember. How totally worth it all of that was.

I'm actually in agreement with Maq, but regarding pregnancy. I definitely felt like each pregnancy was like going through a puberty all over again. Your body changes and you feel a complete disconnect with it. Not so much with parenthood itself but with the changes linked to housing a small being inside your body.

Having done it recently, I agree with Maq on that description of becoming a first time parent. Except for me it felt like much more change than puberty, even! Rewiring is a good word.

Yep, I'm a different person than I was 3 months ago.

Interesting. I've always been like this.

On the one hand, I'm absolutely not going to bat for my kid if they already know how. They can very well bat for themselves, TYVM! On the other hand, if they're in over their heads, I'm all in - but I'm like that with all my extended family. Blood is thicker than water.

I wouldn't just clock a guy, though. At least, not when I'm not armed with something more substantial than a long stick. No sense in provoking gunfire around the kids.

Eleima wrote:

I'm actually in agreement with Maq, but regarding pregnancy. I definitely felt like each pregnancy was like going through a puberty all over again. Your body changes and you feel a complete disconnect with it. Not so much with parenthood itself but with the changes linked to housing a small being inside your body.

Watching my wife go through the first pregnancy was such a helpless feeling. It felt much less (to me) like I was watching her go through puberty and more like her whole...plumbing, insides, the whole works were getting almost violently...I don't even know the right word. Major construction. Re-construction. I think I had something like survivor's guilt...through no good deeds of my own I escaped the physical craziness she went through, and making her fruit smoothies, propping up the right pillows, and renting DVDs didn't exactly lessen my guilt/helplessness.

What did help immensely was my wife, with her hand on her belly, tranquil love vibes radiating like she was wrapping our child in a cocoon of just that. I don't mean "she glowed because she was pregnant." I mean she purposefully blocked out drama, stress, fear, and just gave her best vibes 24/7 the whole pregnancy. I really credit her with our kids being born happy, non-fussy kids.

That last part is pretty awesome, Roo, and it did feel like that for the most part. But I'm pretty sure all women go through "omg, holy flying crap, what the eff is happening to me?" phases. Remind me to tell you about how I broke down crying in changing booth because I was pregnant and couldn't find a bra that fit. Or not.

It's good that you had empathy though. That's something I keep berating my husband about, he's pretty much in denial about the woes of pregnancy as long as you aren't on bed rest like his sister was. I was super sick for our second and had to get up each night to pee as well. His reasoning was that the baby was so tiny, there was no reason for it to impact me that much. The "it's all in your head" remark still kinda stings.

Wow. See, a guy here who acts like that and says that kind of stuff promptly gets his ass kicked to the curb by his wife.

You have my sympathies, Eleima. And my admiration for your restraint.

Eleima wrote:

I'm actually in agreement with Maq, but regarding pregnancy. I definitely felt like each pregnancy was like going through a puberty all over again. Your body changes and you feel a complete disconnect with it. Not so much with parenthood itself but with the changes linked to housing a small being inside your body.

Yeah, for the fathers the rewiring comes after the birth.

Eleima wrote:

...It's good that you had empathy though. That's something I keep berating my husband about, he's pretty much in denial about the woes of pregnancy as long as you aren't on bed rest like his sister was. I was super sick for our second and had to get up each night to pee as well. His reasoning was that the baby was so tiny, there was no reason for it to impact me that much. The "it's all in your head" remark still kinda stings. :(

O_o Okay, I guess there was a perk to vomiting 4-5 times a day for six months straight. My husband would get me anything I wanted and kept saying I was doing an awesome job.

Oh, and the "you'll forget the bad stuff" is total bullsh**. Our kid had acid reflux so bad for the first year she couldn't nap at all, screamed all day from pain until we finally got the right prescription combination, and projectile puked so much every day that we had to replace the carpets and some of the furniture. On the plus side, it makes the occasional toddler tantrum look downright cute.

I feel you ladies SO HARD. Between hyperemesis (my rather violent morning sickness never went away and eventually had to be controlled with meds), digestive/bowel problems, panic attacks, pre-partum depression, and more (so much, much more), pregnancy has been without a doubt the most difficult physical trial of my life. I mean, I guess it's like puberty, in the same way that rearranging a vase of flowers is the same thing as burning the Amazon rainforest to the ground. At this point, I'm pretty certain that even labor can't be as bad as the last nine months of my life have been. What, 8-10 hours of excruciating pain? Yeah, sure, fine, sign me up -- just, please, for the love of god, please don't make me throw up one more time.

Literally the only thing keeping me going through the worst of it was DrunkenSleipnir. If I didn't have him, I'm truly not sure I would have made it this far.

The worst part is, whenever I try to talk about how I'm feeling, many of my friends and family members have tried to handwave away or dismiss how miserable I've been, probably because it's really uncomfortable for people to see a pregnant woman in distress. Your misery makes them feel bad, and so they'd much rather cling to the illusion that pregnancy makes you "radiant" and "glowing" and other crunchy-hippie crap. Then they tell you, oh, it can't be that bad, or that "this too shall pass", or that you should just "focus on your beautiful baby", blah blah blah. Not only is such advice completely useless, but it often makes you feel worse, like you're not doing pregnancy right, because no matter how hard you try you just can't look past the pain.

The only advice I got that ever made me feel better was: "It's okay to hate the process of making a baby. It doesn't mean you hate your baby too." I can't tell you how profoundly helpful hearing that was.

MyLadyGrey wrote:

Oh, and the "you'll forget the bad stuff" is total bullsh**. Our kid had acid reflux so bad for the first year she couldn't nap at all, screamed all day from pain until we finally got the right prescription combination, and projectile puked so much every day that we had to replace the carpets and some of the furniture. On the plus side, it makes the occasional toddler tantrum look downright cute.

Yeah, we had similar, but it was silent reflux so we never saw the evidence, he just screamed in pain all day plus we could never put him to sleep on his back which meant that every nurse basically refused to deal with us because we were apparently killing our child.

So, I've yet to have the "I feel like a different person" moment.

In fact, the wife and I were just talking about how different being parents isnt[i]. Sure, the minutiae of our day-to-day life looks very different, but it doesn't feel like WE are any different.

OK, serious question.

What is the first videogame you let your kid play, and when?

Jonman wrote:

What is the first videogame you let your kid play, and when?

My daughters have been playing angry birds on idevices since they were old enough to not throw the device when they failed at a alevel. They have also been playing Just Dance (and clones) and Fruit Ninja Kinect since they were old enough to not hit each other too often in the head with flailing arms.

So Angry Birds at about 4, and Kinect games at about 5.

KaterinLHC wrote:

I feel you ladies SO HARD. Between hyperemesis (my rather violent morning sickness never went away and eventually had to be controlled with meds), digestive/bowel problems, panic attacks, pre-partum depression, and more (so much, much more), pregnancy has been without a doubt the most difficult physical trial of my life. I mean, I guess it's like puberty, in the same way that rearranging a vase of flowers is the same thing as burning the Amazon rainforest to the ground. At this point, I'm pretty certain that even labor can't be as bad as the last nine months of my life have been. What, 8-10 hours of excruciating pain? Yeah, sure, fine, sign me up -- just, please, for the love of god, please don't make me throw up one more time.

Literally the only thing keeping me going through the worst of it was DrunkenSleipnir. If I didn't have him, I'm truly not sure I would have made it this far.

The worst part is, whenever I try to talk about how I'm feeling, many of my friends and family members have tried to handwave away or dismiss how miserable I've been, probably because it's really uncomfortable for people to see a pregnant woman in distress. Your misery makes them feel bad, and so they'd much rather cling to the illusion that pregnancy makes you "radiant" and "glowing" and other crunchy-hippie crap. Then they tell you, oh, it can't be that bad, or that "this too shall pass", or that you should just "focus on your beautiful baby", blah blah blah. Not only is such advice completely useless, but it often makes you feel worse, like you're not doing pregnancy right, because no matter how hard you try you just can't look past the pain.

The only advice I got that ever made me feel better was: "It's okay to hate the process of making a baby. It doesn't mean you hate your baby too." I can't tell you how profoundly helpful hearing that was.

My wife had a similarly rough pregnancy and was so frustrated by the combination of hand-waving and "Oh I totally know, I had a rough pregnancy too, I threw up every morning for 2 weeks" when my wife was bedridden all day for many months.

Jonman wrote:

What is the first videogame you let your kid play, and when?

Define videogame. The kids have been playing games on my iPhone since they were, I dunno, 1 1/2 (Tozzle, and anything by Toca Boca or Sago Mini are a good start). The first "real" videogames they played were Need for Speed, LEGO Star Wars, Costume Quest, and Dustforce, in that order, and it isn't until age 4-5 that they're really able to make the thing on the screen do what they want most of the time. Controllers are really big for little kids anyway.

One thing I really wish is for more kid videogames to have a no-fail mode. Like Sonic Racing, for example. If there were a setting that made it so you couldn't get turned around or hung up on obstacles my kids would love it, but the game as designed is too frustrating for them to play even though they like the way it looks.

By comparison, combat is pretty well-designed in Costume Quest so you can usually make it through a battle without using any of the timing-based attack and defense modifiers, but I wish I could make it just a tiny bit easier. My oldest loves Halloween and so the theme of the game is great, and I just read / act out the dialog as she plays.

My oldest can navigate platforming games just fine so long as there isn't some obstacle that will kill her if she touches it. Dustforce turned out to be pretty good for having levels without those obstacles, and she was completing them all on her own at around age 5. But most of those games have monsters and spiked pits and stuff right from the start. To really get through those games for real, a kid probably has to be closer to 7.

So... I'm probably pretty lenient when it comes to playing video games. So long as it's something they actually want to try and isn't gross, scary, or have a violent theme I'll pretty much let them try it. For the iPhone games, Tozzle is basically a super fancy wood block puzzle, and the others are interactive in other ways.

LarryC wrote:

Wow. See, a guy here who acts like that and says that kind of stuff promptly gets his ass kicked to the curb by his wife.

You have my sympathies, Eleima. And my admiration for your restraint.

Likewise. I'd like to have a magic wand that automatically made a person who says something like that 7 months pregnant.

Jonman wrote:

What is the first videogame you let your kid play, and when?

We're going to start Leila's first "grown up" video game this summer with Mario Kart on the Wii U (she's almost 7 years old). She's only really played around with games on phones or touch devices. She's a big fan of Temple Run.

concentric wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Wow. See, a guy here who acts like that and says that kind of stuff promptly gets his ass kicked to the curb by his wife.

You have my sympathies, Eleima. And my admiration for your restraint.

Likewise. I'd like to have a magic wand that automatically made a person who says something like that 7 months pregnant.

So would I, but I'd totally abuse it. Anyone who asks when I'm having another kid? *bam!* Anyone who suggests the best spacing between kids without even considering whether I want another kid? ba-boom! Twins!

concentric wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Wow. See, a guy here who acts like that and says that kind of stuff promptly gets his ass kicked to the curb by his wife.

You have my sympathies, Eleima. And my admiration for your restraint.

Likewise. I'd like to have a magic wand that automatically made a person who says something like that 7 months pregnant.

So, a penis and some patience?

Thanks for the gift m0nk3yboy, made my morning.

We got our update from the geneticist. He said that they had tested all 17 genes known to be linked with connective tissue disorders but hadn't found anything, so they were running a second round of tests for any false negatives as the reason the testing had taken so long was because they were using new techniques and equipment and there had been some complications with it. In the meantime the best advise he could give was to keep taking the boy to the cardiologist every 6 months for an echo to keep an eye on his heart and if nothing came up after testing for false negatives to wait and see as maybe in a few years they would know of a few more genes linked to connective tissue disorders. They worst part is having no information. If we knew what it was and what the spectrum of severity was we could make a bit more of an informed decision about future children (it is literally 50/50 whether any future children will get the same thing). The other really scary part is that the big danger with connective tissue disorder is that depending on what it is and the severity... which as I said we don't know and have no information on one day his heart could just tear apart like wet tissue paper. I get to think about that every day when I look at this guy.

IMAGE(http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/apspittles/Mobile%20Uploads/2014-06/20140601_175031_zpsfaqnzyob.jpg)

A while back after a movie we were heading back to the car and my oldest daughter took off across the parking lot. She was directly behind a massive jacked-up pickup truck when it started to back out. I yelled and both her and the truck froze, but it was a really scary moment. If the driver didn't have her window open or happen to stop just because I yelled I'd have had a dead kid.

I guess what I'm saying is that all you can do is love your kid as much as possible and hope things work out. However long you get will never be enough, no matter how long that is. Prozac, I really hope your kid's prognosis is soon and turns out to be benign.

Prozac wrote:

I get to think about that every day when I look at this guy.

Nope, that's not going to do either of you any good.

complexmath wrote:

I guess what I'm saying is that all you can do is love your kid as much as possible and hope things work out. However long you get will never be enough, no matter how long that is.

Yes, and double yes.

So, P, this 'information they had', was it that they had no information? WTF? Making you wait, dangling the carrot, then nothing?

You can't see it, but right now I am giving my monitor a giant man hug, hope some of it filters on through to your side.

Yeah. It does. I finally cracked and broke down at work yesterday and had a bit of a cry. The trigger was listening to a kid on the radio in a spot about raising money for the children's hospital. Lost it a bit at work and my afternoon was a write off. When I got home I finally admitted to Mrs P. that I had been struggling, up to this point I'd been the 'strong' one as I know everything I'm going through is worse for her as she has feelings of guilt on top of everything else because he got the defective gene from her. (oh yeah, She has all sorts of fun health issues and I get to worry about her heart exploding too, good times.)

Admitting it seems to have helped a bit and made her feel better, because she was down on herself feeling the way she was when I appeared to be coping and doing everythong I could to keep the family afloat.

Prozac - that is really rough. I'm sorry you are facing tough challenges.

Things have been rough with one of my kids this year and I totally sympathize with the feeling that you had to be the strong one. Don't. You, your wife, and your kid are all strong and I'm sure will do the best they can but I'm learning there are a lot of things we may not be equipped to deal with on our own. Take advantage of getting some help for yourself too if you need it.

Sending good vibes your way.

If it's any consolation, Prozac, I worry constantly about the lottery of sh*tty genetics my daughter has to contend with. Between her Mom's bipolar and chronic autoimmune issues and my congenital heart problem, it's a mess of wondering what sh*t we've saddled her with.

I'm so sorry to hear what's going on, Prozac. I really hope that you get some answers quickly.
And about the phone call, I know it's frustrating but it's a tough line for them to straddle. They don't want to alarm you but they don't want you to brush it off and not come in either. There's no perfect solution.

So I'm curious about TV.

We've started letting the kid watch more now that she's turned three. While she was two we limited it to very short stuff - we'd let her watch an episode of Dora the Explorer, for example.

Last month, though, we let her watch Frozen, and it's kind of dominated her brain ever since. We've now let her watch it maybe three times - it's great as a babysitter (on the plane, etc), but I don't know that she's really learning anything from it.

For more regular viewing, I'd like to find some good educational shows. I generally like Dora and have been happy with her watching it, but it's really basic, and other than the odd Spanish word I don't feel like she's learning anything from it any more. I think she's ready to step up to a more advanced show with bigger concepts.

We've shown her some modern-ish Sesame Streets, and she seems OK with it, but I'm not very impressed personally.

Anyway, does anybody have any recommendations? It seems like she needs some help recognizing letters and forming words (she can recognize some letters and knows the sounds a few make, but that needs to be expanded upon and reinforced). She's also probably ready to look at addition and recognition of numerals (she can count to 29 presently but doesn't readily recognize written numbers).