Dear Toddler,

There is a relationship between how much you scream and how much I don't give a toss.  It is not linear.  It is exponential.

Sincerely yours,

Your Loving Mama

Signs Your Toddler Is Ready For The Potty, But You Are Not

I:

• Loathe mopping with a burning, burning passion
• Am uncomfortable bending over repeatedly
• Do not wish to pay for toddler underwear
• Am a cranky, cranky pregnant lady

He:

• Repeatedly asks to go to the potty
• Promptly does his toddler business
• Usually has a dry diaper when he asks
• Asks for a clean diaper when necessary
• Insists on wearing the MATER THE TOW TRUCK!!! underwear
• Thinks the entire thing is awesome

Oh, save me from the peed-upon floors.  (I know, I know.  My toddler is asking to be potty-trained, and I'm complaining???  Insert obligatory smack.)

Wait For It

Spouse to me:

"Do you want some more coffee?"  (After he has poured it all into his cup, with milk, to which I am deathly allergic.)

"Can you watch Bug for a few minutes while I put this away? [Door slam.]"  (While I am in the kitchen, covered to the wrists in gooey dinner-making.)

"Is it okay if he has raisin bran for dinner?" (After he has already offered it to Bug.)

"Do you want me to clean that up?"  (Something which he has not cleaned up, every night for three weeks.)

In related news, my patience has taken off for parts unknown, perhaps in search of sunny weather. 

Conditioning

"Stimulus, response!  Stimulus, response!  Don't you ever think?"

My parents, who both have degrees in psychology (among other things), were trained by a bunch of Skinnerians.  It's not entirely surprising that I have, to some extent, operant-conditioned my child.

However!  I have used my powers for good.  Bug says please and thank you, mostly unprompted, because he is lavishly praised for being polite, plus he gets what he wants.  I ignore him when he's annoying me, and sometimes it even works.  He asks to go pee in the potty (because he gets a yogurt raisin).  And he stopped biting me in the nipple, around six months old, after about the tenth time I screamed and flicked him in the cheek. 

But my favorite of all is now bedtime.  Now, remember that I nursed this child to sleep every single night for 23 months.  It took about two hours every night, and sometimes longer.  It took four months to re-condition him.  Through a long series of replacing nursing with other things, we now: Read a book, hand him teddy, put a blanket over him, sing one verse of a song, pat him on the back, say "Night-night, sweetie-pie, I love you" and close the door.  It takes five minutes.  He goes to sleep and wakes up when his light comes on in the morning (it's on a timer).  There was a lot of screaming, and wailing, and unhappiness, but oh.  my.  goodness.  It was worth it.

I don't think every child can be conditioned in the same way, with the same stimuli - but I do think behavior, especially within the normal-small-child range, can be modified by conditioning.  After all, what else is a time-out for?*  Or praise, or rewards for good behavior.

(I'm not so sure about the whole homunculus thing though.)

*Aside from "get out of my hair before I sell you to the circus."

Very Random

Now with completely incidental re-coloring so I could fix my HTML code!  Anyhow.

1) Pregnancy.  Ouch.  Whomp whomp.  Ouch.

2) Thomas the Fricking Tank Engine gave my toddler a nightmare.  Apparently there was a "scary owl! In a tree! Scary!  No watch Thomas!"

3) Starting to panic about the Endless List Of Summer Home Improvements.  Included: fix 2000 small things, polyurethane everything we haven't polyurethaned yet, and do something complicated so the roof won't drip in the winter.  PANIC!!!!

This One's For Mary

RSS comment testing. If you get a comment (in your feed), it's working.

Also: Per Bionic, if you have other complaints about my code, now's the time. :)

Skepticism

The point of the elevator/door story is, of course, that scientists are trained skeptics.

It never fails to amaze me when people just take their doctor's word for something insane. I could give examples all day ("Your kid won't use a fork! He must have something wrong with him!!" Or... he's two). Or when they simply believe something insane (vaccines cause autism! sinus infections are contagious! homeopathy is not the placebo effect!) that is contrary to all evidence.

I know that I spent ten years being trained to evaluate evidence. I know that my already-high level of skepticism is now at the top of the scale, and that respect for authority, including medical, is ingrained in kindergarten, along with standing-in-line.*

But I always think of that line from The Wizard of Oz: "But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma."

*Such a truly American thing, our patient and orderly line-forming. Or possibly, legacy of British Empire.

Scientists

I used to work in a tall-ish building with hot, dim, smelly stairs, entirely filled with labs and scientists. (Everyone took the elevator.) So Dr. S and I have a long-running not-quite-joke: A scientist is someone who, seeing N people standing in front of the elevator, will still go push the "up" button.* Independent observations are key!

The other day Dr. S and a colleague went to a seminar. Two guys were standing outside. "It's locked," one said.

The colleague walked up and tried the door handle. It opened.** Dr. S laughed, and the other guys looked miffed.

A scientist is totally someone who will push the button again. Just in case.


*To be fair, the light was broken. But also, if ten people were waiting for the elevator, the 11th person would still push the button.
**Turns out they remotely unlock the doors right before the seminars. Anyhow.

Minor Irritations

Every time someone makes a comment to imply that I don't look Jewish, there's a tiny part of me that screams.

Of course, I'm blonde and middle-height and have an Anglo-Saxon last name, and no, I don't look Jewish. And our congregation has both an Indian-American gentleman (and blonde wife, and two children) and an African-American family, and a lovely redheaded lady who, I'm pretty sure, is transgendered and converted*, and I'm sure they get even more annoyed. Still.

Your irritation of the week? Don't be shy, now.


*Converts, rather poetically, take the Hebrew name of "son/daughter of Abraham and Sarah".

Miss Manners

My mother's all-time favorite Miss Manners column, republished in one of her books, runs something like this:

Q: Someone else's child is doing something intolerable and dangerous to persons or property, and the parent is either physically or mentally absent. How can I politely discourage this dreadful behaviour?

A: Grab the child by the arm and say, "Now, dear, you really don't want to do that. Someone might get hurt." And give a gentle pinch so that the child is in no doubt about exactly who might get hurt, and by whom.

This week at the library, someone's wretched seven-year-old was drop-kicking foot-long plastic blocks towards the babies. (For fifteen minutes, while her father ignored it.) And I did. I grabbed her arm and said, "This is not a soccer field, this is a library. That is not safe. [PINCH.]"

You know what? I didn't do her any lasting harm. And she stopped. She may even think twice next time.

Academics Can Be Real Jerks

Not you, dear reader. Dr. S's boss. She epitomizes the petty-fiefdom ideal, complete with serfs of varying castes.

Dr. S has just departed for a week-long conference. In general, his boss refuses to pay cab fare. But! She will pay for parking at the airport!

We have one car. So:

1) I drive 3 hours, with angry toddler, to and from the airport. My gas, time, and annoyance are not recompensed. I must leave the house at, respectively, 5 AM on a Sunday and 8 PM on a Friday, which is Shabbat, when I don't !@#$ing roll.

2) We park the car at the airport all week, leaving me on foot, or by deeply-inconvenient bus. (It takes a bus hour to go 15 minutes away. Don't even ask.) I can walk to: the drugstore, the library, the gas station, and the hardware store. I cannot walk to: anywhere useful.

3) Dr. S takes the bus. For 3 hours. Each way.

4) Dr. S, his luggage, and his poster ride his bike 14 miles. Each way. At 4:30 AM, and then back in the dark.

Or, what we actually did:

5) He takes a damn taxi anyways, and harasses his boss until she pays him back. And if she doesn't like it, SHE can a) lend me a car all week or b) take my spouse to the airport herself.

This is so amazingly unprofessional. How do academics get away with this? (No, I know. It is rhetorical.)

And How Was Your Morning?

It was every bit as awesome as it looks. My house smells like a citronella bush exploded inside a geranium.

And I yelled at the poor little guy ("NO CUDDLE! Mama has to wash the floor! NOT a good plan! You made a REALLY BIG MESS!!") and now I feel really, really, really terrible about it.

Bug probably feels not as terrible: he's enjoying the sleep of the righteously exhausted toddler while I sob in my bed alone.

Edge

I am seriously considering poisoning the neighbor's dogs. (All right: half-seriously.) I can only be woken at 2:30 so many times before really losing it. I can also only tell them to keep their dogs inside at night so many times (every other month for a year).

What I have already done, however, is programmed the police number into speed-dial. I hope the cops wake them every night that I call. Maybe after three or four times of being woken by the police, in person, in the middle of the night, they'll get the message.

Of course, they are dumb as ROCKS, so maybe not.

Insubstantial

I have decided: I will stop feeling guilty about having Dr. S watch Bug so I can sew. I rarely sew anything just for fun: I make Bug clothes because he needs them, I mend pants, I make myself maternity clothes so we don't have to spend money.

This is my contribution to the household economy. This is part of the work that I am doing so that we can afford to live the way we do (nice house, one parent at home, healthy food, car that runs, !@#$ expensive dentistry). I make dinner, I economize mightily, I sew.

To wit: I have made the following in the last 2.5 months:

Wedding present for lovely SIL


Birthday present for one of Bug's tot friends


Maternity skirts, made from other skirts


Maternity shorts, courtesy of the local thrift store + some fabric


A frickin' lot of diapers. I still have 7 more to sew.

Plus three pairs of toddler shorts, two pairs of toddler pants, two aprons, and a complicated harness (these last three items on commission, in exchange for babysitting). No wonder I'm tired of sewing.

Crankiness of Trouserage

Our household is suffering from an excess of cranky, cranky pants.

Dr. S is cranky because his boss is a manipulative, petty tyrant; because he is going to a meeting he does not want to attend ("Why did you agree to go?" I asked); because the academic job market sucks and is depressing; and because someone keeps scheduling consecutive 36-hour runs on the MS. Which is a jerk thing to do.

Bug is cranky because he is two. Every time I tell him no, he makes a noise like a fire siren. Yesterday he drove his toy bus into the street, and then screamed his head off when I removed him. Sometimes he is cranky because the sun is shining.

I am cranky because I fucking hate being pregnant. No matter how grateful one is for the child, please don't try to tell me (MOTHER-IN-LAW) that it's then required to love being nauseous, hypoglycemic, exhausted, hormonal, and sleepless. And in constant pain. Also I am cranky because I am about to have a week all alone with my surly toddler. If I had any money, I'd go visit someone. But I don't, so I'm screwed. And, did I mention, CRANKY?