Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Crazy Eye and Other Happy Tales

Have you ever seen a 16-month old bow up on a 28-year-old man? Well, I have. Let me give you a little bit of background. It appears that my son has inherited a lot of qualities from me – my obsession with television, my quick temper, and my impatience to name a few. But one thing that he has unquestionably inherited from his father is the crazy eye.

At this point, you might be asking, what’s the crazy eye, Kate? Well, I’ll tell you. The crazy eye is the look that Sutton gives me right before he blows up in an angry rage. Now, I don’t want to make him seem like a violent man, so let me explain that the crazy eye is something that the O’Neal household sees, at most, twice a year. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of nagger…and by bit of, I mean hell of. I nag 24/7, from dawn until dusk, 365 days a year (I like to take leap day off). It’s a talent that I’ve cultivated over the entirety of our relationship, and second to my eye for expensive clothing and weak work ethic, it’s one of my proudest accomplishments. You see, it’s hard to keep a good nag going. Take the trash for instance. You can’t just make a blameless remark that the trash needs to be taken out and be done with it. No. You have to say it twice within 30 minutes with an accusatory twinkle in your eye and then again at the hour mark. After that, you have to start leaving post-its in opportune places, like on the bottle of his depression medicine or the car steering wheel for when he’s almost got up the nerve to leave you. It takes dedication and a total disregard for the feelings of the nagged.

And ninety-nine times out of hundred, the trash ends up in the can, and we move on to the next naggable offense. But that one-hundredth time is where the crazy eye comes out. It’s a look that all at once says, “Stop right there…I’ve had enough… and I wonder what your head would look like stuffed and mounted.” When I see the crazy eye, I know that I have two options: the first is to give up and walk away (which never happens), and the second is the haymaker of every woman’s arsenal…I cry and blame it on hormones.

So the other day, Sutton, Suttie, and I were hanging out in the playroom. We had a Mickey DVD in because, to my one-year-old, Mickey is Nirvana. As we’re watching, Suttie saunters up to the DVD player and starts pushing buttons. So naturally, Sutton firmly tells him “No” and bats his little hand away. And this is the point where sh*t got real. Suttie squares up his shoulders so that he is standing face to face with his dad and bows up at him, as if to say, “Do you want some of this?” And of course, pasted on his formerly angelic face is the crazy eye. At this point, Sutton and I are doing everything we can to keep from laughing because the visual is priceless in its hilarity. But at the same time, we’re trying not to condone this street-fighter behavior. Suddenly, Suttie reaches his hand up slowly toward Sutton's face, and we're thinking "Is he going for the eyes or the throat?" He lets his chubby hand get about an inch from his dad's nose and then he swats it ever-so-gently, as if he was flicking away a fly. Luckily, that was the only damage done that day, because, at that moment, Suttie saw a cracker remnant in the corner of the room. That Wheat Thin may have saved his father’s life; I guess we’ll never know.

So, what’s the moral of this particular post? There isn’t one. I’m just telling you that if we have a play date, my kid’s using prison rules so try not to get shanked.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

A cavity is really the least of our problems

My blog is the only spontaneous thing in my life. Just when you started to be thankful that you no longer had to politely read about Suttie’s first pudding cup and other mundance adventures—BAM! You see a link on Facebook and can’t help but to slide your mouse toward the abyss to see if I’m finally writing about something interesting. Well, the joke’s on you because this latest and greatest post is about Suttie’s first trip to the dentist…not exactly Stephanie Meyer material. Although there was a certain life-sucking quality to the experience, with Suttie shaving off a few more of my golden years.

When we arrived, I had to fill out new patient forms at the front desk. So, I introduced Suttie to the nearby play area and started handing over our insurance information. A minute and twenty-four seconds later, I saw Suttie out of the corner of my eye as he dashed toward a pane of glass that looked into one of the employee’s offices. Before I could get there and yank him away, Suttie had placed two greasy hands and his lips on the window and was in the process of blowing a giant raspberry at the unfortunate soul inside.

After de-suctioning my little bottom-feeder and wiping off, or rather smearing around, his spit with my hand, I escorted him back to the play center, which was shaped like a school bus and had an activity table attached to the front. In the two seconds that it took me to set down my purse and turn back around, Suttie had managed to climb on top of this table, where he was now calmly sitting Indian-style and blocking the toys from the other children. I don’t mean to brag, but I smell a future military strategist because it was one of the most effective blockades I’ve ever seen.

At this point, a woman came out and called his name, giving us a providential exit from a sticky situation. Unfortunately, she only needed him for about five minutes to take a picture. It would have taken one minute, but the first two times that I set him in front of the camera, he started running as soon as his feet hit the ground. For the final attempt, I held him in place by both arms, and the end result was a mug shot in front of a celestial background. They gave us a photo magnet to remember the occasion, and I asked for some drugs to help me forget. The nurse laughed. I didn’t.

So back to the waiting area we went…with lots of little and big eyes following us as the children clutched their toys closer and the moms put down their copies of In Touch Weekly, ready to intervene if a fight broke out. Thankfully, Suttie’s interest was captivated by a large wooden bead maze that he proceeded to carry across the room. I have a feeling that it’s easier to parent when you’re stronger than your child is. I wouldn’t know.

During his trek from one end of the room to the other, Suttie fell approximately eighty-seven times. Every time, the parents and people working at the desk would look down and say, “Oooohhhh…is he okay?” At which point, Suttie would look up at me and give a deep goofy laugh. I told them that he was fine and that his shins were mostly callouses by now.

Finally…and by finally, I mean after ten minutes that seemed like ten years, we were called back to see the dentist. The hygenist was extremely friendly, even when Suttie tried to grab the overhead light and rubbed a slobbery toothbrush down her arm. For the most part, he was fairly reserved, looking curiously around at all of the children who were laying on their backs with their mouths wide open. But when it was his turn to lay horizontal, he got the most hiliarousily horrified look on his face that I had to laugh out loud. With his brow furrowed and his mouth in a kind of petrified “O,” he looked from me to the hygenist to the dentist as if he was trying to figure out a way to take down all three of us at once. When the dentist started to poke and prod at his teeth, he moved on to Plan B, which was to scream bloody murder.

The exam was quick. In fact, I’m pretty sure they rushed through it so that he would stop terrifying the other children, which was fine with me because I’d been ready to go since the beginning of his Bronx cheer in the waiting room. He snagged a new toothbrush and a rubber snake, and I snagged him and made double-time for the parking lot. However, the experience was not without merit because I learned some important things, like space between baby teeth is good because it gives them room to grow and the highest rate of decay comes from putting a baby to bed with a bottle…Oh, and daddies should be in charge of all future dental appointments. I wrote that one down.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Where can I find a white baby wig and star-spangled pants?

It seems like Suttie has a new trick every day. Some of them are cuter than others. Clicking his tongue was cool; feeding the dog food off his tray was less cool. The most recent addition to his resume is pointing. But not just simple, exploratory pointing; it’s pointing in a way that makes the person on the other end of the finger feel about 8 inches tall. It’s demand pointing, and, man, is it effective.

At his last checkup in March, Dr. Stewart asked if he was pointing yet. As I stood there blank-faced, trying to remember what exactly he did and did not do, Suttie started to reach his hand toward the doctor, who immediately said, “Yes, that right there…that’s pointing.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my klepto-kid was just trying to snag his stethoscope, so I kept my mouth shut as he marked down “pointing” on his developmental progress sheet.

But a couple of weeks ago, Suttie started to point – real, honest-to-God, finger-extended pointing…and now it’s all he does. He sees the dog; he points at him. He watches TV; he points at it. He hears a plane; he points at the sky and says “booo” (your guess is as good as mine). This has become such an everyday thing that he’s starting to remind me of a tiny Uncle Sam recruiting for WWII soldiers. He even wears the same scowl and furrowed brow as that stern icon and points as if he’s saying, “I WANT YOU…to give me a cookie” or “I WANT YOU…to change my diaper; it’s rank.”

So, while my child does a daily impression of the evil monkey from Family Guy, I have to just sit back and laugh because, between you and me, that kid gets cooler by the minute.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

"Son, if you want to mow that badly, we can make it happen..."

I’m not even going to comment on how long it’s been since I’ve posted to my blog. In fact, forget that you read that first sentence. Instead, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that I discovered recently…I have no idea how to parent. Not the providing food and shelter and love part or the spending an hour passing a ball back and forth part or even the changing dirty, steaming diapers part. No, my parenting weakness lies in the making him a well-mannered citizen of the world part. So, no biggie, right?

This realization was brought about by my son’s first real tantrum. I thought that I had at least 8 more months until the terrible twos, but if Suttie was going to pick anything to be precocious about, it was this. When he turned a year old, my mom got him a toy lawnmower, but since he wasn’t quite walking yet, we stored it until he got some balance. Now that he’s vertical, I decided that we’d give it a go. Luckily, he loved it! In fact, he loved it so much that he would freak out if I tried to touch it or play with it in anyway. At one point, he got it stuck in a corner, so I reached in to help. And this is where things went south. As I wheeled the mower around, Suttie sank to his knees, in full sob, and fell forward onto his face (on purpose). Then he started kicking his feet and screaming. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but, if there’s one thing that I do know about disciplining a child, it’s to not laugh.

So, I’m looking at my 14-month old son, who is now in a full hysterical fit, trying to decide what to do. I’ve tried mild spanks before – more like what I would call love taps – and he either just looks at me or giggles. Plus, at this age, I don’t think he has the ability to connect the misdeed with the spank. Instead, I decided to go with a good old-fashioned time out. I placed him in his toddler seat, held him there so that he’d stay, and said in a firm, loud voice, “You are in time out.” I’d like to say that he stopped crying, totally understood the situation, and learned a valuable lesson. But he actually wailed louder, tried to hit me in the face, and at the end of it, he still didn’t want me touching that mower.

And now it’s clear to me that I have no clue how to teach him right from wrong. Of course, I’ll try…..and fail….and try again, and in the mean time, I’ve c onstructed a Plan B that involves watching a whole lot of Sprout.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

That's one small step for a boy; one giant leap for his milestones calendar

Now that we’re almost two weeks out, I think that it’s an appropriate time to blog about Easter because two weeks after an event is usually the first spare minute that I have to write about it (and it usually involves Suttie sitting in his baby cage with a sleeve of cookies). The Easter egg hunting went well. Suttie saw an egg, he picked up the egg, and he put the egg in his basket, mastering the basic concept in a matter of minutes. Repeat about 30 times, and you’ve got our Easter experience. He also scored a major haul of foil-wrapped candies. Reason #12 to have kids: they’re excellent candy bait. When they’re young, all the candy goes to you because they’re toothless. When they get older, you have to be craftier, like telling them that a few pieces of their Halloween candy looked “suspect” or that not sharing their Christmas candy “makes Jesus sad.” Either way, kids are the gateway to the candy that you can’t openly buy for yourself. Except when some people (Mom) wisen up and give him raisins (Mom) so that we won’t steal his stuff (Mom).

So Easter was a calm, enjoyable day, but the real magic happened a week later when…wait for it…Suttie took his first real steps. Nope, that’s not a typo; the child can walk! It started off as any normal attempt to get him to walk in which we place him on his feet, he stands there, an hour passes, then we get bored and take him inside. But this time, when we put him on his feet and stepped back, he started stepping, too. Sutton and I were both in a state of honest disbelief. After months of unsuccessful goading and bribing, Suttie was incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing, heading toward Sutton like he’d been walking (albeit unsteadily) for years. Apparently the key was to put him in an environment where he didn’t want to crawl, i.e., the spiky grass. He repeated this feat several times that day – reaching a personal best of 16 steps in a row. Since then, he’s walked some, but not a lot. He’s started to figure out that blades of grass really aren’t barbs designed for his special torment, so he’s reverted to crawling mostly. But he takes a few steps a day, which, for now, is more than enough. As a dear friend pointed out, the important thing is that, at his next checkup, when the doctor asks if he’s walking yet, I can just smile and nod.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"Now, if we could get him to chew gum at the same time..."

It’s no secret that Sutton and I are both fairly anxious for our son to start walking – although our motivations are slightly different. Sutton’s afraid, like any working mom or dad, that he won’t be here to see it, so he practices walking with him every night and on the weekends in the hopes that he’ll get to witness those first few elusive steps. In fact, he’s instructed me to push Suttie down every time he tries to stand up during the day. My motivations are slightly less honorable. Do I want him reach important milestones? Sure. But what I really want is to not have to shop in the men’s big and tall section this time next year. There’s a rumor afloat that, when children start to walk, they shed some of those extra baby pounds. We’re looking to lose about twelve.

In all seriousness, it is hard to buy clothes for a child that has consistently reached the 98th percentile in height and the 99th percentile in weight. He just turned one and is currently rocking a size 3T (requiring the pants to be hemmed up about a foot). So, we’ve been working on the walking thing as the only alternative to making his clothes, and, if they can’t be put together with a hot-glue gun, then it ain’t happening. Now, we’ve gotten lots of advice on the subject (some solicited, some not), and so far, nothing has worked. We tried the most obvious choice first – bribing him with food. First, we get him to stand up using one of his play tables, and then one of us holds out a cracker or cookie just in front of him and high enough that he can’t reach it sitting down. We wait with bated breath as he rises onto his toes and shifts his weight…and that’s when he starts to scream. As he stands there, wailing for whatever Gerber bait we have, his feet remain cemented to the floor. We’ve tried this several times, all of which end with zero steps taken and Suttie eating the cookie.

The next trick was to position ourselves so close to each other that he wouldn’t have room to go down into a crawling stance. So, he’d be forced to walk, right? Wrong. Instead of walking from his dad into my waiting arms, he just fell forward, straight into my lap, since the distance was short enough that he could fall and still reach me. The kid’s vertically impaired, but he ain’t no dummy.

We’ve worked on the walking thing every day for at least a month, and a few days ago, I was certain that I’d be carrying him into kindergarten. But yesterday, the unexpected happened. We were in the playroom – Suttie was moving from toy to toy and I was on the elliptical, trying to set a good fitness example for him because, at the rate we’re going, he’ll need it. He pulled up at his activity table, something he's done a million times at least, and then he noticed a Mother Goose book that he wanted, laying a foot or so in front of him. So, he let go of the table, took a single step, realized what he was doing, and quickly plopped down onto his butt.

Here I was, on the elliptical, not in front of him coaxing him along or dangling treats. There he was, not in his Stride Rite shoes, which I thought were crucial to moving those feet, but in a one-piece sleeper with legs that were too long and footies that didn’t quite fit – taking his very first step. I got him to do it once more immediately after that, but not since. And while he may be Easter egg hunting on all fours this year, I have a renewed sense of hope that, by the end of the summer, he’ll be running away from me in public.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

"Bailey, you have to sign the ballot or else it's no good..."

Naptime Update: Well, Operation 2 Naps to 1 has failed. Suttie still requires a morning nap unless we all want to be miserable until 1:00pm. Bailey (our dog) and I have both voted, and the morning nap has been reinstated (let the band play and the confetti fly). At first, I thought that we were taking a step back, but then I realized that we never really took a step forward. He wasn’t ready to move to one nap a day; instead, his schedule just got out of whack for a week. But that’s okay. I’m happy to be a passive observer as my son decides for himself when and if he’s going to do certain things. Take walking for instance. When I say “we never really took a step forward,” I mean that literally. Sure, he has the capability to walk, but he’s figured out that being carried around all day isn’t a bad gig. I mean, why else would we have Hoverounds, with their bad-ass commercials, or Segways. If anything, it just shows that, while his language-development is on the low end of “poor,” his manipulation skills are hitting genius level. And say, in a year, he totally rejects potty training as a matter of principle. That’s cool, too. So what if he doesn’t conform to a society of lemmings bent on disposing of waste properly? While your kids are eagerly waving their hands for the bathroom pass, trying to hold it in, Suttie will calmly look them in the eye and crap his pants with authority. And when his father and I get that call telling us that he needs yet another change of clothes, we’ll be proud of our little individual...completely mortified….but proud.