The Cheeseblog

I used to have a card, I think it was a birthday card someone gave me, that said, “Everything I need to know I learned from my dog.” Maybe you know the one. “Smell everything that interests you.” “Eat and sleep and play all the time.” “Look for cuddles.” I don’t remember if it said, “Lick your own butt” too. Anyway, it was cute. Here’s my version: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from my Toddler.

Lesson one: If you say “I WANT” something enough, maybe you’ll get it. So keep trying.
Lesson two: If “I WANT” doesn’t work, try rephrasing the question. Try, “I would like,” or even, “Would you like?” as variations on “I WANT.” The phrasing is not as important as the repetition.
Lesson three: Get up early and go to bed late. That way you will have more hours in the day to try and get the thing you want.
Lesson four: If you love something, think about it all the time. Talk about it all the time. Make it so much a part of your world that you are inseparable from it and it from you. You are one.
Lesson five: Fear nothing until it has actually hurt you.

I have been watching Trombone lately and reframing his irritating behavior, see above, so that it is positive. That way I want to run away less. (Of course, it is positive and perfectly normal, it is helping him learn, it’s just that right now, sometimes, I am finding it irritating.) Anyway, I have decided that if I were to follow his example, in a less strident way, I might also get the ice cream sandwich. As it were.

You see, he most often applies his tenacious toddler technique (except for lesson five) to treats - ice cream sandwiches of late - but I could apply them to things less tangible. Fulfilling career. A little chunk of the day to write in. That’s all I can think of right now. As follows, for example:

Lesson one: I WANT 15 minutes a day to write. I WANT 15 minutes a day to WRITE. I want FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY to write.
Lesson two: I would like 15 minutes a day to write. Would YOU like 15 minutes a day to write? Would you like to do this? I would. Me. I WANT IT.
Lesson three is taken care of. In spades.
Lesson four: working on it, with my spare 17 brain cells.
Lesson five: constant work in progress.

As my laptop has bitten the big, green wiener (thank you, SA’s family, for this eloquent expression) and won’t boot right now, I am going to practise this focus. If a two-year-old can do it, I can, right? Without my constant computer companion to dull (and sometimes stimulate) my brain, I will attempt to carve out that 15 minutes. A day. To write. That I would like. To write in. Just 15 minutes. Me. Me want! Please give me my 15 minutes! Please, would you?

See? Annoying isn’t it. But it will help me grow. Or go off the deep end once and for all. Stay tuned.

Well, first I would find someone qualified to fill in for me when I went on vacation. Not my second cousin who happens to be in Vancouver and needs something to do during the day. But since that didn’t seem to be an option for my doctor here’s my advice to the second cousin. Who didn’t introduce himself.

First, I would greet people with “hello, how are you,” not “so, what’s wrong with the baby?”

Then, I would make sure the scale where babies get weighed is not full of pamphlets, cotton swabs and assorted other crap. In a family practice / pediatrician’s office.

Before any of that, though, I would look at the patient’s chart. Then it wouldn’t come as a surprise to me that the patient requires immunizations.

And having reviewed the chart, I would have the needles prepared before the patient arrived.

I would also replace the paper on the exam table before the (next) patient arrived. Am I being a fuss-budget?

Now ideally, I would have been given a set of protocols to follow by my second cousin the doctor so that I would know to a) weigh the baby, b) measure the baby’s length c) do a visual inspection of the baby d) make sure the parent is informed about the procedure so that she can give her informed consent, usually involving some kind of fact sheet about the immunization being given and the polite, often redundant “do you have any questions?” f) advise the parent about after-care beyond “you can give him some tylenol. would you like some tylenol?” g) allow the parent to hold - or even breastfeed - the 12 week old infant while you give it the shot h) encourage the parent to comfort the infant, and no, “hold his leg down he’s really jumpy” doesn’t count i) refrain from small talk of the following nature, “gee, he’s hyperactive. my son was like that, til he was 20. I was so mad at my wife for letting him sleep in her bed until he was 12″ because WTF? j) at least acknowledge the other person in the room, you know, the two year old who is hollering “givehimthemedicine!” at the top of his lungs k) when you are done jabbing the infant with needles, be sure to place the round bandage over the needleprick or else the infant will bleed l)come on m)did you seriously go to med school? n)because I ain’t buying it

We had all Trombone’s shots done at the public health clinic because we didn’t have a family doctor - at least not one who would do shots - and boy, it’s a good thing because if Fresco had been my first child and yesterday was my first exposure to vaccinations? I’d be one of those non-vaccinating people. Not only did the stand-in doctor actually not perform any of the protocols I list above without my prompting, Fresco had a screamy, freaked out reaction at about 5 pm that had me - good old, relaxed me - terrified enough to call the nurseline (does everyone know about the nurse line? free, registered nursey advice 24 hours a day? good.) which turned out to be just the thing as she chatted with me while Fresco’s tylenol kicked in so that I didn’t lose my mind. I couldn’t believe I didn’t have a fact sheet to refer to. When we went to public health we were lousy with the fact sheets. The first time Trombone got shots, the nurse read the fact sheet out loud to me. I was bored. But now I am grateful. At least there is someone out there providing quality health care while so many others are not.

I searched my own ‘blog yesterday to find out how much Trombone weighed at 12 weeks old. We weighed Fresco and he’s 17 lbs and that seemed really big to everyone, even though he doesn’t look big (he does look bigger once you know he’s 17 lbs). I found a post I wrote when Trombone was 12 weeks, a little retrospective of his accomplishments and wow, have I ever not been keeping track of Fresco’s accomplishments. I’ve been a little preoccupied with Surviving At All Costs!

So it was Fresco’s 12 week-i-versary yesterday and as it turns out, he is a few pounds heavier than his brother was at this age, something that is hard to believe because he doesn’t look as chubby as Trombone did but then again, that’s my body type right there. I am a spacious individual and I probably weigh more than you think. Assuming you ever think about how much I weigh.

My new, totally original theory about why the second child looks more like the mother is because the mother needs a really compelling reason to love the second child given that its arrival throws her perfect relationship with the first child into total chaos.

(Am I making it up or is it one of those things we all agree on that the first child looks like the father so that, caveman-thinking-wise, the father will see proof of paternity in the baby’s sly smile and stick around to hunt and gather?)

The first child, assuming it’s born into a welcoming environment, where it is wanted and loved, is the best thing ever. It’s totally new and amazing and life-altering. No matter how much of a pain in the ass it is as an infant, you keep it alive because instinct tells you to. Then you are greatly rewarded when it becomes older and more interesting. And you love it dearly and can’t imagine life without it. Sunshine shoots out its butt. Rainbows out its nose. It can do no wrong.

(I shouldn’t generalize as though this is about everyone. It’s about me. Other people might fall in love with their newborns at first sight but I do not. It took a while for me to really appreciate Trombone and to love him as a person instead of as an appendage.)

Here comes the second born, then, and it’s miraculous and beautiful but it’s not new in that same way and the ways that it alters your life are considerably more logistically wracking than the first. No, you don’t have to adjust to being a parent for the first time because you already did that. But you do have to adjust to being a parent ALL THE TIME because with two children you effectively cut your free time in half again and it was at 50% already. Emotionally it’s not as much of a complete clusterfuck, I’m sorry I can’t think of a better word right now. But what emotional turmoil is not endured on the second go-round is made up for in spades by the full body (including mind) exhaustion that comes from moving and talking and disciplining and comforting and feeding and cleaning up seemingly all the time.

Not to mention the laundry. Holy cats.

You know from having the first one that this second baby will become awesome in its own special way and in a few months you will love it immensely, without compare, like you love air and water and of course, it will all become easier (in some ways) but you need something to tide you over till then. The most efficient way of doing this is for genetics to make it like a little mirror of the primary caregiver so that she sees herself in it and doesn’t leave it in the laundry room while she goes to play blocks with her perfect firstborn.

(It helps too if the perfect firstborn turns two and gets a sibling at the same time thus becoming a bit more of a

airquotes challenging personality end airquotes

so that hanging out with the infant is preferable some days.)

So while Fresco looks enough like Trombone to be identifiable as his brother, he also looks enough like me that I feel, on a semi-conscious level, as though I have fulfilled my imperative to make a copy of myself and feel, on a fully conscious level, that I ought to keep him breathing and growing because I am awesome and there should be more people like me in the world.

At 12 weeks, he is a big-time babbler. He loves light, shadow, opera and having his head stroked. He is a tummy sleeper so he has good control of his neck and he can pretty much crawl already. I’m dead serious. He is also a prolific roller. I put him in the middle of the crib last week, stretched short-wise and when I went up to check on him, he was at the far right. He’d done three full revolutions in his sleep.

It is nice to be relaxed about his development, actually. I was pretty relaxed with Trombone too but I’m really relaxed about Fresco. (I am proportionally as relaxed as my abdominal muscles. Har!) I just want to nuzzle his head all day. I should probably be handing him rattles to see if he’ll grab them - when I read on Trombone’s list of 12 week accomplishments that he could rattle things, I gulped guiltily because I don’t think I’ve even offered Fresco a rattle, poor thing - but I just can’t be bothered, in a way. He’s healthy and happy and adorable and I know the rest will come. It’s uphill from here, even if I’m doing most of the climbing.

Is it like this the more children you have? You just constantly wonder what the hell you were doing all the time when you had no kids / just one kid / just two kids / just 16 kids? Luckily I don’t have to wonder, I have this ‘blog to remind me what crazy trivial things I had to think about before I had only 10 minutes a day to myself. Which is not a “oh now that I’m a mother I only think about my precious children because they are the future and everything else is trivial” thing but more a “I don’t have the time or energy to think about anything that doesn’t directly involve the things that are right in front of me demanding all my time and energy” thing.

Thank goodness in my former work life I was a fairly skilled administrative assistant. This means that when I suddenly find myself in the glorious environment that is My House with Only Me and One Other Child In It because the first child has gone out with its father I waste no time prioritizing the things I want to do and then getting right down to doing them. I make a game of it. It’s like a more trivial form of “what would you do now if you knew you would die tomorrow.” “What would you do now if you knew your sleeping infant could wake up at any moment.” Sometimes I hum the Chariots of Fire theme song to help myself stay focused.

1. shower. first time in three days. oh dear me.
2. check on sleeping infant, who is now awake but not unhappy, just listening to the opera on the CBC French FM. make mental note to be flabbergasted by this later.
3. tell infant I will be right back to pick him up after I comb my hair
4. in the time it takes to comb hair (approx 10 minutes) decide to get a haircut. TODAY.
5. check on awake infant, who has, miraculously, gone back to sleep. make mental note to buy infant a beer someday when he’s old enough.
6. eat some pizza
7. finish coffee
8. start some laundry
9. check on sleeping infant, who is still sleeping
10. call mother and chat
11. eat more pizza while staring at sleeping infant, who starts waking up
12. feed infant. he goes back to sleep.
13. decide not to risk waking him by changing his diaper. prioritize myself over child’s wet bum. do not stop to berate self for this. will buy him two beers when he’s old enough to make up for this terribly lax parenting.
14. check email and ‘blog
15. remember laundry which drying should come next. de-prioritize that until after finished ‘blog entry.

Long-time readers of this ‘blog will remember that almost two years ago I got a monumental haircut. It was during the November festival that is National Blog Posting Month so I was posting an entry to this blog every day and I milked the haircut for I think three or four daily entries. Now it is July and I really don’t need to write any more about my hair. I just need it to be shorter because a) it is very hot b) it doesn’t look like I am going to get to shower every day for another two months c) it is coming out in big handfuls and I don’t have time to comb my hair for that long d) this is boring and you’ve heard it all before. Look you’ve all gone to sleep in your little chairs!

This afternoon, infant gods willing, I am going to walk to the closest place that will cut my hair. Luckily I live in the Mizzle, where there are more places that cut hair than there are places that sell groceries so I am sure to have success. Where success = less hair. Style mileage may vary.

No time to edit! Must put laundry in dryer and then remove toenail polish from the pedicure I got 3 months ago!

Whoever came up with the t-shirt in size 2T (that’s “2-Toddler”) with a picture of a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex, caption below the picture:

Tyrant Lizard King

has a great sense of humour, in my book.

(Hell hath no fury like a lizard king scorned, adds the tyrant’s mother at a mere 7:40 am.)