Kid Amnesiac

Heaven help us. I think Simon has toddler colic, and it’s not a bit more fun than the newborn variety was.

The issue at hand is that Simon is displaying increasing fits of temper, and the kid is just ear-splittingly loud. I realized a few months after I moved to Louisville from San Francisco that, while I adored SF, I suffered from the regular onslaught of city noise. It turns out that I’m pretty sensitive to loudness, and the constant drone of sirens, traffic, car alarms, etc. put me on edge.

I enjoyed a year or so of peace, and then Simon arrived, hit the two-week mark, and started wailing. We joked that the baby had an amazing set of lungs, and Matt swears that Simon’s colic gave him tinnitus. I’m not sure how I survived the volume back then. I think the answer is twofold: (1) I knew it would be short-lived; and (2) I’ve forgotten how stressed out I really was.

Well, hello reminder! Now two, Simon is beginning to exert his independence more often. Sometimes these displays involve messes like tumped over glasses of milk or messy baths, and other times they involve passive resistance like sitting down in a parking lot, but more often they involve screaming. And much like Nigel Tufnel’s Marshall amp in This Is Spinal Tap, Simon goes to 11.

I am honestly finding his loudness to be a deterrent to good parenting. During Sunday night’s (hour +) tantrum, I wanted to check in on him and offer to help calm him down, but my nerves were so shot I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him. Frankly, at the thirty minute mark I lost all sympathy for him and, had the weather been better, would have escaped to my deck.  

Part of the problem now stems from Simon’s TV addiction. We got in the habit of watching Curious George in the morning right about when school began. Then, between illness, cold weather, shorter days, and a general increase in habit, we found ourselves watching Curious George, Thomas and Friends, or Sesame Street quite often. Too often.

Tuesday night, when I put dinner in front of Simon, he had other plans. He got up from the table, walked to the living room, and asked for “tee” (that’s TV), Matt and I drew a line in the sand. No TV. Not before dinner. Not during dinner. And on that night, at least, probably not after dinner either. Simon made us pay dearly for that choice; he screamed and cried at the top of his lungs for nearly an hour.

Again, self preservation got in the way of better parenting. I didn’t offer to console him very often, I only tried to distract him a couple of times, and I was mad at him even though the fit is/was largely my fault. It’s like being angry at a crack baby in withdrawal, I know, but I couldn’t help it. It’s not just that the screaming gets on my nerves, it’s that it takes less of it to do so each time; there’s a cumulative effect going on. I’m reaching the point where any time he begins to cry my back stiffens and my thoughts turn to “Oh, please, not this again” crossed with “What am I going to do with this little monster?”

I’m not going to lay a hand on him and I’m trying very hard not to yell at him (I’ve slipped up once or twice in the yelling department and felt tremendous guilt afterwards), so until I develop a better strategy, that leaves withdrawal. You won’t find this in any of the baby manuals, though, so I’m working on some coping strategies. Matt has a stash of ear plugs to use, and I’m hoping that getting more regular exercise will also provide a toddler-friendly way to blow off steam. I’ve gotten his attention by whispering once or twice, too.

Lest this sound like it’s all drama all the time, let me also state for the record that these fits regularly occur between Simon’s waking from his afternoon nap and about 6:30 p.m. It’s the old colic “happy hour”, just moved up an hour or so. And Simon’s consistently sweetest, funniest, most loving time of the day is between this difficult time and bed-time. This means that, thankfully, by bedtime I’m totally charmed by Simon and even the worst days end well.

Then there are days like Wednesday and Thursday, when Simon has been such a sweet-heart and in such a good mood all day that I (almost) feel bad for ever getting angry at him.

Hm. I’ve read that all toddlers have an obsessive-compulsive streak to them, and I sure hope that’s the case. Because really, what else could be the explanation for this?

I, rainbow stacker of diapers, nightly inventory taker of toys, and expert folder of socks and undies, did not create this tidy line-up of Thomas engines and cars. Simon did. And he does things like this all the time. On any given night, we will find Simon rushing back and forth from one room to another to line up toy cars, train parts, or stuffed animals on a table, chair, or any other available horizontal surface.

Frequently, the bits are lined up by color, by size, or by both. On the one hand, awesome! Simon is learning to sort by size and color, and if he keeps this up, he’ll be a great help with laundry and tidying up down the road. On the other hand, regular displays of such fastidiousness could be a signal that, to quote a friend talking about me, Simon is wound a bit tight. And while I’d love it dearly if Simon ends up wound a bit tighter than his dad (I seriously don’t know how I could cope with two Matts when it comes to clutter and cleanliness), I sure as heck don’t want Simon to end up as tightly wound as I am.

Not that there’s anything wrong with me, mind you. I think I’m just fine. I just don’t want to live with myself, either! The goal here, as with our desire for Simon’s chin, was for him to strike a happy medium between the extremes of his parents. The fact that Simon also will not eat a cracker or cookie that is broken, that he says “mess” and takes off his bib once it gets too dirty, and that he freaks out if he finds a hair floating in his bath water does not bode well for my hoped for personality compromise.

On a lighter note, if they actually did have a day like this, here’s what it would look like over at our house.

Simon was scheduled for his two-year check-up Friday, and I decided to move ahead with it despite his ineligibility for getting the hepatitis and flu vaccine that should accompany the visit. After our last, disastrous, trip to the urgent care center last October, I vowed to follow up any subsequent trip with my regular pediatrician at the earliest opportunity.

Turns out that was very wise, but we’ll get there in a minute. First, the stats:

• Height: 35 ¾ inches. Simon has grown three inches in six months. He’s a tiny ¼ of an inch away from being in the 3T range and has zoomed up to the 75^th percentile. This explains why some of his new pants seem suddenly short.
• Weight: At 27 ½ pounds, Simon has at last reached the 18-24 month range in size charts and remains in the 40^th percentile. Pants with non-adjustable waists do not enter our house.
• Head circumference. No surprises here. We had to cut him out of his Halloween shirt for cryin’ out loud, and I have to toss all but one of his tees that don’t have buttons on the neck. Simon remains in the 95^th percentile. That puts him in the 3-4T range for hats!

During the interview, we found that Simon has missed two milestones (he can’t jump, and he still prefers crawing up stairs to walking), is right on track for all the verbal milestones (lots of words, some sentences, can be understood half of the time), and hit the fine motor milestones a year ago (stacking blocks and holding a crayon). In fact, the first thing Simon said to me Friday morning was a very clear “I need a drink of water” (that’s “Ah need dink-a-wawa” phonetically).

On the medical front. Dr. Newstadt does not believe that Simon has an ear infection. He explained to me that Simon’s ears looked fine to him and that, even if they were red Thursday, red ears from fever and crying reflect light differently than red ears from infection do. I can’t even tell you how much I love the fact that Dr. Newstadt will take the time to explain things like this to me. We’ve got the right doctor for our family, that’s for sure.

He suspects Simon has strep, and he wishes he could have seen him Thanksgiving. To which I silently replied, “Careful what you wish for, doc, I’m sure I could find your house using Google maps.” Friday’s strep test was negative, but Simon had already had a dose of an antibiotic and his throat was very raw. We’re keeping him on five days of an antibiotic just to be on the safe side, and we are hoping-really, really hoping-that the next time Simon falls ill (Christmas?) it will be on a non-holiday weekday at around 11:00 a.m.

Especially when you aren’t feeling well. We were at the Whitworths’ for Thanksgiving last night, where the entire family plus several friends put the count at 12 people. Normally, that’s a fine number for Simon: enough to keep him stimulated without overwhelming him. But last night, Simon wasn’t his normal self, and the whole thing was just too much for him.

He hung on pretty well, but at 7:00 p.m. he was tired, didn’t feel well, and wanted to go home. I know this because at 7:00 p.m. he took my hand, said “walk,” walked me to the front door, looked out it wistfully, then turned to me and said, “home.” It was a poignant moment, made more so by the fact that he normally cries when we leave his grandparents’ house and by the fact that he’s never said “home” before.

His usual word is “house.” As in, “house” for his play house in the back yard and “Mommy house” or “Daddy house” for the house we all live in. I think we’ve heard “Bubbie house” before, too. So he clearly understands what a house is. And last night, he let me know in unmistakable terms that he understands the difference between “house” and “home.” There may be lots of the former, but there is only one of the latter, and it’s where he wanted to be.

When I sat at my kitchen island yesterday to ponder my third annual Thanksgiving post, I had a laundry list of things in my mind for which I find myself especially thankful in 2008. I am thankful for First Steps and Simon’s finally walking and running; I am thankful for Keneseth Israel Preschool and all the funny, creative things they do with the kids every day; and I am thankful for the everyday miracle of language acquisition, about which I posted last night.

Today, however, I find myself thankful above all for Cefdinir, the generic of Omnicef, an antibiotic commonly used to treat middle ear infections. And also, for 24-hour pediatric clinics. And also, for 24-hour pharmacies.

See, yesterday was a totally uneventful day. Simon spent much of the day with his Bubbie, which made it a perfect day in his eyes, and watched new Curious George episodes with us after dinner. Then he started to get wriggly on the couch. A quick touch to his head confirmed my worst fear: he was feverish.

I gulped hard, gave him Tylenol, and put him down for the night. Maybe, just maybe, I thought to myself, this was a fluke and he’ll awake good as ever tomorrow morning. Nope. Simon awoke this morning right on schedule, but in an unusually fussy mood. One quick touch to his head confirmed that reality had intruded into my fantasy; he was hot again. Not the omigod 107 degrees hot that so terrified me in October, but a solid call-the-pediatrician 102 degrees hot.

Déjà vu all over again. Back to the immediate care center. Seriously, do kids ever get sick at 10:00 a.m. on non-holiday weekdays? Ever? Back in the same examining room with the same supply of Toddler magazines and the creepy, slightly off Snow White theme we spent over an hour in the last time. And back with the same diagnosis: a budding ear infection.

This time, though, a few key things were different. For starters, I didn’t wait until the fever got really high to call the doctor. I called this morning, about 12 hours after Simon’s fever first began. Second, we got a different doc this time, so we were not prescribed the azythromycin that did nothing for Simon the last time. We got a cousin of the antibiotic that worked so well last month. And thirdly, if Simon still has a fever by Friday night or otherwise seems off, we will back in our regular pediatrician’s office Saturday morning. No how, no way, will I sit up with Simon three nights straight while he suffers this time. I know better.

I may be a rookie at this parenting stuff, but I am also (I hope!) a quick study. So this year and this Thanksgiving, I am thankful most of all for being teachable. Assuming the medication takes effect soon, Simon will second that.

These days Simon strikes me as something of an apprentice wizard, possessed of the skills and tools that he needs to master his universe, but still unsure of how to use them all. He’s using all of his senses to explore this world. He touches things to tell me if they are hot or not, and he is making increasing use of his tippy-toes to grab objects formerly outside of his reach. For the most part, though, his primary exploration is verbal.

We’ve honestly lost count of all of Simon’s words. We still don’t get much in the way of sentences, but each day he almost casually pops up with a word we’ve never heard before. Last night it was “ladder,” as in the yellow ladder on his toy fire engine, “robe,” as in the little terry bathrobe that used to be his cousin Ben’s that he loves to wear,  and “walk,” as in when he takes my hand and wants to lead me around the house.

He’s also combining words more often. He’ll tell us, for example if he’s wearing a “boo day-pu” (blue diaper), “dee-dee day-pu” (red diaper, long story), or “pupul day-pu” (purple diaper). He knows which car belongs to which person, and will helpfully point out “Daddy Car” or “Bubbie Car.” We’re even getting some prepositions these days, mainly “up” when he wants to be picked up, “down” when he wants, well, down, and “of” as in “cu-wawa”, which is Simonese for “cup of water.” The “of” is implied, I assure you.

Whenever Simon uses a new word, he gets an impish grin on his face and then, if we comment on it, he smiles widely and sometimes even claps. It is clear to me that Simon regards language as a sign of power over his world and as an entrée into society. You can see his delight in realizing that he can use words to explain things, show us things, and ask for things.

Needless to say, this delight is mutual. Every day that Simon says or understands more is a day that we can understand him better, explain things to him better, and teach him more. Some of these things are pretty prosaic, like the names of our cats or the Thomas and Friends engines. (It’s handy for him that Percy is the name of an engine and of one of our cats.) Other things are more profound. He’s just started to say his own name, for example, and yesterday he counted “one, two” for the first time. And still other things are just fun, like when he supplies the word “spider” at the right time during “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” or when I sing “Shabbat Shalom” and he replies with a quick, high-pitched “hey!”

Most of all, Simon’s chatterboxiness just makes me supremely grateful. Linguistically, he is right on track. He’s not like his classmate Greta, who one day greeted Simon at the door with an enthusiastic, “Good morning, Simon. I made coffee!” But neither is he worryingly silent. He’s probably about average, but when you consider how much understanding and development goes into language acquisition, average is nothing short of amazing.

Two nights ago, I fussed-really fussed-at Simon for the first time. Matt was out at a concert, and the two of us were spending the evening together. He had had a quasi-tantrum (the first and only in a delightful two week stretch) earlier in the day, during which I had been the picture of compassion and patience.

But this behavior was markedly different from that unwelcome encore. I sensed in Simon a desire to be negative and irritating for its own sake. He wasn’t struggling within, he was fighting with me, and I was having none of it. I wanted us to share a nice, playful evening, and he was being contrary. I’d turn on some music to enjoy; he’d immediately turn it off. If I blocked his access to the controls, he fussed. If I suggested that we play ball, his idea of “playing” was to put the ball somewhere he couldn’t reach (like under a chair or behind the toilet) and then wait for me fetch it for him. I finally blew my stack when he begged for a cup of water and then wanted nothing to do with it once I gave it to him.

I’m not sure how much he understood, but I laid it all out for him. He was being difficult. I was getting irritated. If he wanted to play the same game 100 times over, that was fine. But he had to play with me in a collaborative sense, not in a make-Mommy-his-servent/dog sense. At the end of my little speech, delivered in a tone he is not used to hearing, he sucked in his lower lip and howled. I told him he needn’t cry; he simply needed to behave better.

That made him briefly howl even more, but then he got the message. We enjoyed the rest of our night, had smiles and giggles during story time, and when I tucked him into bed I looked forward to tucking myself in early as well, as I was still getting over a bug that arrived with a 101-degree fever Thursday morning.

Instead, Simon awoke at 10:30 p.m. throwing up. He continued to throw up until around 1:00 a.m., slept until 3:00, awoke to throw up some more, and then endured dry heaves and stomach cramps until about 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Between the hours of 11:00 p.m and 5:00 a.m., I did three loads of laundry, changed two beds, and cleaned our couch. Simon himself had one full bath, several partial baths, and SEVEN changes of clothing.

Yes, seven. It’s cold right now, so lying around in only a diaper was not an option. Kid needed PJs. He puked on his original PJs, the spider PJs and robe he wore after that, and the GAP candy-striped “sleepy” PJs he wore next. He then vomited on the two sets of regular clothing I put him in after I ran out of clean PJs-and the newly clean PJs from the first emergency load of laundry I did in the middle of the night.

I feel like I’m quoting Tudor history when I report that the seventh clothing change survived Simon. He spent all of yesterday recovering in those same clothes. I spent the day in the clothes I changed into sometime during the night as well, when my original clothes became collateral damage to Simon’s illness.

In fact, we all spent the whole of Sunday in a disorganized state, wearing a combination of night and day clothes-robes over sweaters and sweaters over PJs–befitting our very confused biological states. We didn’t eat normal meals at normal times, nor were we entirely sure what time it was or what the proper meal would be. I realize now that very much like the first days with a newborn, having a sick child puts you in a twilight zone divorced from the world around you.

The difference is that the first days with a newborn put you in a happy daze, while the sick-kid daze has no hidden upside. Of course, the other difference is that last night Simon slept for 13 hours straight and woke up hungry and cheery this morning, whereas the newborn fog lasts much longer.