Kid Amnesiac

When Matt and I first wanted to help Simon learn to fall asleep on his own, I brought home Richard Ferber’s Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. I vividly recall reading the introductory section of the chapter on night terrors and thinking to myself, “Well, that sounds dreadful. I’m glad it’s rare and I won’t have to deal with it.”

I may have spoken too soon, because I’m almost certain Simon had an episode Sunday night, and if I’m right, he’s had one or two others besides.

The good news is that he would not remember a night terror and so has no fear of going to bed; the bad news is that they are truly awful to observe and there isn’t much to be done to prevent them besides keeping your child well rested and on a predictable schedule.

Here’s what happened Sunday night: I came home from our Passover seder at around 8:00 p.m. to put Simon down for the night. He jabbered away happily as I changed his diaper and put on his pajamas, he settled into my lap for story-time, and he was ready and eager to go to sleep when I put him in his crib at 8:30-a bit later than normal, but not terribly so. After I left his room, I didn’t hear a peep as he fell asleep.

At around midnight, Matt and I heard some fussing. More nights than not, Simon cries a bit at around 11:30 – 11:45 p.m. He usually settles back down on his own, and it’s so common we jokingly call it “the midnight squawk.” Only Sunday night he didn’t settle down. He seemed to grow more agitated over time, and when Matt entered the room and tried to soothe him, it escalated.

When this happened that I can remember in the past, I noticed that Simon had his eyes open, but didn’t seem to see or recognize me. And as soon as I touched him to pick him up, he arched away from me and thrashed wildly. Honestly, he looked possessed, and I was confused and worried that my attempts to soothe him only made things worse. Once Matt tip-toed into the room during a milder episdode to see what Simon was up to and described his motion as “swimming” in his crib.

Sunday night it took a good 20-30 minutes before Simon went back to sleep, a situation that sent me straight to the literature last night. Ferber described Simon’s behavior to a tee. Those midnight squawks? Those are mild confusional arousals when Simon gets “stuck” between his second deep sleep cycle and the lighter one that follows it. Most babies will awake briefly, roll over or shift in bed, and go back to sleep quickly at this juncture. But Simon gets a bit confused, and so often takes 1-5 minutes to fall back asleep, during which time he appears awake but isn’t.

And Sunday night? That was a more severe confusional arousal, and quite possibly a night terror. Despite the name, Simon wasn’t dreaming or terrified of anything. He was simply stuck in an odd physiological state made worse by our interfering with it. Here’s what one online source has to say about “helping” with a night terror:

Of course, your first instinct will be to comfort him, but your efforts will most likely be futile (remember, he’s not really awake and he’s not aware of your presence). You just have to wait it out and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Don’t speak to him or try to soothe him, and don’t try to shake or startle him awake or physically restrain him – all of which could lead to more frantic behavior. In 15 to 20 minutes, your child should calm down, curl up, and fall into a deep sleep again.

Our new goal is to try an ounce of prevention. From now on, we need to keep the house quiet after 11:00 (no getting ready for bed and pacing over squeaky floor-boards then), and we really need to get Simon to bed before he’s totally shot. Household noise or interruptions can make it difficult for a child to transition from deep sleep to lighter sleep, and being over-tired to begin with contributes to children fighting the shift to lighter sleep during the night and therefore getting “stuck:” between cycles.

Finally, if things don’t improve, we may need to wean Simon off of his pacifier, as searching for it is his nighttime “job” and another possible contributor to his confusional arousals. I’m optimistic it won’t come to that as last night Simon went to bed on time, we tucked in ourselves at 10:30, and so far as I know our house was silent all night.

Tonight was our second ever Passover seder with Simon. I had hoped he’d behave well so I could spend my time and attention directing the Passover seder and so he could play baby Moses to my Yocheved* in our first-ever family Passover play. Given that Simon was coming off a busy weekend that already featured brunch with friends, a trip to their house afterwards, and a family birthday dinner for my nephew last night, continued peace was probably too much to ask.

But Stink-Pot delivered in a huge way! He sat at the table for ages, he tried all sorts of new foods, and he genuinely seemed to have a good time. During our play, he climbed out of the Moses basket, but that was spontaneous comic relief. And when it came time to “cast” plagues in act two of our play, he really got into it. Watching the big kids throw bugs, lice, hail, and frogs entertained him, but his absolute favorite was picking up afterward.

The little guy, bless his heart, was mesmerized by the pom-poms we used to represent hail. He sat in my mom’s family room and picked them out from among the fake lice, frogs, and bugs lying about and put them into a basket. Then he sat in the dining room, took them out again one by one, and replaced them in the basket. Had I not felt the need to take him home and put him to bed, I half-way think he’d still be there playing with the hail.

Tonight’s pom-pom obsession was part and parcel of a new behavior I’ve spotted lately: Simon is beginning to understand cleaning up, and he wants to help me do it. The two of us were sitting in the living room Friday afternoon when I noticed he was playing with his nesting boxes in a new way. Instead of stacking them, he nested them inside one another. He displayed quite a bit of patience, too. If one box was too big to sit inside the other, he’d take it out and look for the right fit. Once he had about five blocks nestled, he tried to put the entire stack in their carrying case and close the lid. I could hardly believe my eyes, and I’m still not sure if this was an example of simple container play or if he was imitating me. Regardless, I thought it super-adorable.

Which kind of sums Simon up for the past week. He’s been super social, super sweet, and super lovable. I know the era of tantrums has arrived and isn’t going away, but I’m beginning to suspect that the biggest trigger for last week’s fits was jet-lag and general fatigue.

* We had a bit of stunt-casting in our play. Yocheved was Moses’ mother. It also happens to be my Hebrew name, one I’ve complained about ever since I was about 9 and realized that it lacked the lilt of my friends’ names Leah, Renah, Hanna, Chava, Peninah, etc. Tonight, at long last, it seemed quite appropriate.

Goodness, I’ve been crabby lately. I looked over my recent posts yesterday and all I saw was moaning and griping. Who is that sour-puss? The fact is it’s not all bad over here. In fact, the last few days have been wonderful: Simon has been an active, happy little boy and I am delighting in some of his recent advances.

Sometime about two and a half weeks ago, a switch flipped. My happy-to-sit-for-hours baby got tired of sitting. Once he discovered how easy it was to pull up, he started pulling up all the time, and more adventurous cruising followed shortly.

Since we’ve come back from our trip, I’ve hardly seen Simon sit at all. He spends nearly all day, every day standing, squatting, and cruising. He typically sits only long enough to eat, splash in the tub, or have a position to pull himself back up from. Often when he’s not standing, he’s experimenting with crawling (we’re seeing more of this lately) and trying to get up by pushing off of the floor with his hands. If he’s having a quiet moment, he’s more likely to kneel than sit. The only thing Simon likes better than standing or cruising is climbing stairs or kicking a ball.

At eighteen months, Simon has finally decided that he wants to walk, and he’s pouring all his attention and energy into it. While I cannot state what the initial trigger was, we are both reaping immediate rewards from this shift. Simon giggles every time he kicks a ball, and he giggles and grunts every time he ascends or descends a staircase. He’s laughed himself into a fit of hiccups more than once this week.

These developments confer several advantages on me. At the most basic level, I’m less worried about him now. He’s behind, sure, but he’s also developing at a rapid clip. I’ve been referred to a group called First Steps that helps children with developmental delays, but I halfway think he’ll be walking before they complete their evaluation. What’s more, I think any therapy Simon does receive will be welcomed by him now that he wants to progress himself. Before, I worried as much about the intervention as the delay behind it. After all, we can’t want him to succeed more than he does….

There’s a strong aesthetic component to this, too. It sounds silly, but seeing Simon move in new ways is a thrill. He looks adorable when he sticks out his right foot (always the right) to kick a ball, and I love seeing little-boy feet tucked under his bottom when he kneels. Yesterday I helped him walk barefoot across grass, and I was reminded of a similar happy time a year ago when Simon first touched grass with his hands.

In fact, a part of me wonders if Simon deliberately held out until spring, when the rewards all the greater. It certainly is not lost on me that Simon is blossoming at the same time as the world around him.

Begun 4/5/2008

There are days when this parenthood thing seems pretty easy and when I marvel at all the modern conveniences we have at our disposal, and days when the whole thing just tires me out and makes me feel spectacularly inept. The day I traveled to San Francisco and the day I returned home would be examples of the latter.

As I typed the first part of this, Matt was sitting next to me trying to get Simon to take a nap:

Simon is shot, having endured a bumpy and delayed first leg and now a bumpy, similarly delayed second one. If we were home, he’d be in bed in a half hour. As it stands, we’ll be doing good to get him in bed by midnight Eastern. [Note, we got him to bed at 2:00 a.m. Eastern.]

The thing is, on paper, we did everything right. We packed meals. We packed videos to watch on my laptop. We’ve got dirty dog and Pat the Bunny Sleepy Bunny. This trip, he’s in his own (expensive) seat, comfortably settled in his regular car seat. But none of this is making up for a very long day of tedium and restraint.

I have done a great job organizing us for this trip, and Matt is doing a spectacular job of attending to Simon now that we are en route, what are we doing wrong to have this fussy, miserable kid? And if the answer is “nothing”, then I have some questions.

Namely, how the he** have others pulled this off? Theoretically, entire peoples live on the road for much of their lives. The Himba do. The Wodaabe do. I think some Beduin still do. Entire peoples have also faced long relocations. Some are known to have been awful, like the Cherokee march to Oklahoma. But what about all those pioneers who headed West in the US with all that they owned crammed into a wagon? What about my own family, which came from Eastern Europe to the U.S. on a boat and with kids in tow? How did they do it? Did their babies wail the whole way?

I can’t help but think that we’ve either lost touch with how to do more with less or that airline travel offers a perfect storm of misery. Whichever it is, I’ll be happy when this particular journey is over.

I’m now back from the return trip, and not much has changed. We got lucky with better flights on the return, but it was still really hard. As we sat in the terminal at SFO, Simon threw a colossal fit that only constant walking in the stroller could abate. On the plane, he indulged his game of “do!” until I thought my back would break. To make matters worse, we accidentally packed up all his books, so he had little to do other than read Do Princesses Count ? (the one and only board book available for purchase our side of security) and throw stuff. Worst of all, we seem to have missed one launching of dirty dog and came home without him. [Two replacements arrived via Amazon today. Welcome back, dirty dog!]

I was amazed and angered by how ill-designed airports can be. To get from the rental car return to our gate at SFO, for example, we had to take 5 (five!) elevators. We were so crammed on the plane that Simon’s carseat blocked the seat tray from coming down. The proffered food was negligible and disgusting. And, holy cow, both our planes heading to SFO lacked changing tables in the lavatory. Matt had to change a poopy diaper with Simon sitting on his lap. If there’s a medal of honor for parenting, he gets it for that one!

This trip was all about the destination, and very little about the journey, I tell ya.

I think this week my baby became a toddler. I’m basing this assessment on the fact that Matt and I have both seen Simon grow increasingly frustrated by things he cannot say and cannot do, and also by the fact that we’ve witnessed two full-blown temper tantrums in the past three days.

I had honestly hoped that somehow I’d be able to watch a tantrum in action, recall what I’ve learned about them from books like What to Expect: The Toddler Years, Touchpoints, or Raising the Emotionally Intelligent Child and be able to understand their cause, appreciate their value, lesson their intensity, and keep my cool. Well, I’ve managed the second point OK, but have not been as successful with the rest.

Sunday night saw the first tantrum. Simon awoke from a late and long nap about an hour before dinner was planned. I gave him a snack to hold him over, and the minute I went to remove him from the high-chair, he began to cry. That crying quickly escalated into screaming, bending over in half, writhing on the floor, and violently resisting any attempts of mine to hold him or comfort him. I left the room for a while to no avail, then eventually got him to calm down a little by going outside and sitting on the porch swing. Once we came back inside, after the tantrum had lasted over 20 minutes, he was still upset but ready to begin calming down.

That night, the Monday morning quarterbacking began. Did he cry because he was still hungry? Did he cry because he was not feeling well? Was I not understanding him? Was he trying to tell me something or do something? I settled on the hunger theory and resolved that this fit was the result of a basic and fixable parenting error.

Then Monday happened. Simon awoke from a long and regularly scheduled afternoon nap and appeared to be in a fabulous mood. He handled his diaper change better than usual, and I got lots of smiles and giggles from him when I changed his clothes and brought him down for a snack. We were a full two hours away from dinner, so I had no reason to think he was terribly hungry. And yet, the minute I tried to play with him in the living room, he went berserk. Didn’t want to play with the ball. Or the stacking boxes. Or his animal train. Didn’t want to be picked up. Or left down. Or sit in my lap.

Mild crying quickly escalated into a violent fit. As I was feeling better (I’ve been battling a but since my SF trip), I was less angry about the whole thing, but I’m not sure if I was any more effective for it. First, I tried to distract him with new toys and new rooms. That failed. Then I told him I was leaving him alone for a bit, but would be back in a few minutes to check on him. That also failed. Finally, I told him that he would perhaps feel better in his room, took him upstairs, and left him in his crib. When I went back in to check on him about three minutes later, he seemed upset but willing to be helped to calm down. We snuggled for a bit, he cried out the rest of his frustration, and calm resumed 30 minutes after the fit began.

I spent the rest of the evening a bit fried, constantly concerned that the littlest thing would set him off, knowing I was feeling well enough to survive one fit but not two, and remembering well how I felt when Simon had colic.

I’m hoping that if I settle into a routine of how I handle fits, that we can lessen their severity and length. Thanks to the reading I’ve done so far, I also understand how frustrated Simon must feel by his physical and linguistic limitations, and I have genuine empathy for the tumult within.

But selfishly, I am also feeling a bit sorry for myself. For fifteen months I had a loving, compliant, happy baby who lived to love, be loved, and please. The contrast with this new person, this eighteen-month old boy who is learning to separate from his mother and is completely torn over the process, could not be more striking. I am also deeply aware of how this plays into my own limitations as a parent, for I have endless more energy and stamina for the physical intensity of early parenting that patience and wisdom for the rest. Fortunately, the empathy is there; I’m counting on my ability to harness that, dig deep, and grow right along with Simon. But I still want my baby back!

Footnote: Last night, shortly after I wrote this entry, I put Simon to bed and headed out to the grocery. When I came home, a frazzled Matt greeted me at the door. He was on a work call, and Simon had suddenly awakened shrieking about 20 minutes earlier. I ran upstairs a bit worried that Simon would react to my attempts to calm him from his nightmare the same way he had done during his tantrums. Instead, he immediately calmed down when I picked him up and positively melted when I glided in the chair with him. Twenty minutes later I was able to put a sleepy and serene Simon back in his crib, where he slumbered away for the rest of the night without event. It was gratifying to see that this new stage of his does not render all of my current parenting skills obsolete.

Written 4/10/2008

I’m ashamed to admit that Matt and I engaged in some text-book bad parenting on the first half of our trip to San Francisco. Between travel delays, long layovers, and a three-hour time difference, Simon did not arrive at our hosts’ house until around 11:00 p.m. EDT the day we flew to California.

We expected him to crash the minute we go the house, but once he saw everyone at Ian and Christine’s, had toys to play with, and had space to move around in, he got his second wind and was ready to enjoy the scene. As he seemed so happy, we let Simon continue until a wave of fatigue hit. He went to bed that night at nearly 2:00 a.m. EDT.

The next day, Simon was in a good mood, but was also clearly jet-lagged. We failed to get him to take a decent nap, but he happily if groggily carried on in good spirits and enjoyed periodic bursts of activeness when surrounded by new people or sights.

Day two was much the same. Simon was again sleepy, but he always fell asleep in a car or stroller, he always awoke if we tried to transfer to him a crib, and he could never fall back asleep once awakened.

By the time our third day arrived, we should have known that the poor little guy was a ticking time bomb. But again, he seemed pretty happy for most of the time and he had a great day in the Montclair park. I deluded myself into thinking that a 45-minute nap taken in a stroller would make up for short nights and missing naps for three consecutive days, and then Matt and I were very late getting our bags together and heading into the city to check into our San Francisco hotel for the second part of our trip. We hated to leave our friends, and we had this idea that Simon could “rally” indefinitely to suit our desires.

Simon fell asleep in the car, and awoke crying at the hotel when we arrived at around 9:30 p.m. We hustled him upstairs and immediately set to getting him to bed, but it was much too little far too late. The combination of skipped or shortened naps, jet-lag, and sensory overload finally hit, and Simon threw a fit in the room the likes of which I have not seen since he was a colicky newborn.

It was, frankly, scary, heart-breaking, and guilt-inducing in equal measures. He didn’t just cry, his entire body trembled and shook. His fists were balled up, his arms were twitching, and his legs kicked outside his control. No measure of comfort seemed to help until we could rig the crib aquarium, give him his paci and dirty dog, and lay him down for the night. Thankfully, he fell asleep quicky and slept well.

That was the last day we pushed things. For the next three days, while I was out working my conference, Matt was extremely careful to make sure daytime activities were timed to allow for ample napping in the hotel. And we were both careful to eat early dinners within walking distance to the hotel to ensure an on-time bedtime. It’s just a shame, frankly, that we had to re-learn this pretty basic lesson at such a high cost to Simon.

A quick explanatory note: The next few posts were written on the road. Matt and I just returned last night from a trip to the Bay Area to visit friends in the East Bay and then for me to attend a conference in the city. I didn’t post any of these while I was away, as it occurred to me that doing so was tantamount to rolling out the welcome mat for would-be intruders.

Originally written 4/10/2008

I love San Francisco. I miss San Francisco. A part of me will always think of San Francisco as my spiritual home. I’ve never lived somewhere I found so beautiful and so in-tune with my values, and I consider myself fortunate beyond belief that I got to live here for eight years.

But man alive is this place tough to have a baby in! When we decided to move back, we honestly thought San Francisco was not a place we could have a family in because we could not afford a house, the public schools are troubled, and our families are far away. And we were right. What I didn’t know is all the little ways the city is tough for kids.

I’m sure it’s different and better-at least somewhat-in the neighborhoods, but schlepping a baby around downtown is hard work. Take all those steep and storied streets the city is famous for. I used to love climbing a small mountain to get to Pacific Heights or North Beach. But when you are pushing a stroller, the charm wears thin after a while, and when the sidewalks turn into long staircases the going gets very tough indeed. (A possible solution, I realize, is to use a carrier, but we unfortunately forgot to pack our Ergo for this trip. Also, older babies do get pretty heavy after a while.)

There is also a matter of the wind. It’s always windy here. I got used to it when I lived here and didn’t think much of it. I remember pretty clearly Simon struggling to breathe in the wind when we brought him out to the avenues on our trip last spring. He didn’t struggle so much this year, but I do think he was cold much of the time.

Then there is transportation. Getting around SF with a baby is challenging for many reasons: Hauling a stroller on and off of a bus is difficult. On some busses-the standing-room-only ones I squeezed myself on with annoyance when I lived here-you can’t get on at all. BART elevators stink of urine and are frequently out of service. Driving is made difficult by the shortage of parking everywhere. Traffic snarls ensure that by the time you get from one point to another you will likely have a crabby baby in the back seat.

Eating out here is hard due to the number of restaurants with long waits and no high chairs. Our first night in San Francisco, Matt and I got lucky on our second try. Our second night, we tried three or four places before settling on a diner we don’t even like because they had a high chair and no wait. And our third night we had immediate success only because I employed a free-lance concierge with spy-like connections who assured me that if I named my cuisine, he’d find a spot that within walking distance to my hotel that would seat me and could arrange to have a high-chair delivered if necessary.

And that, more than anything, sums up my stay in the city: I needed a high-priced concierge (Admittedly free to me; I was availed to his services via a work connection. Thank you Fortify Software!) to eat dinner without struggling. With unlimited funds and such a person at my service, having a baby in the city maybe wouldn’t be so hard. But that’s one heck of a conditional.

The East Bay is an entirely different story, and our days there were much easier and warmer. But the thing is, as much as I appreciate all the East Bay has to offer and understand why our friends live there, it’s not where I left my heart. Even as I (well, mostly Matt as I was working during the day) struggled with the logistics, I was thrilled to have Simon here, thrilled to hear about his adventures out with Matt, and I just can’t wait until he’s old enough to take in more of the magic on offer.

Several months ago-I don’t remember exactly when-Simon began to play the baby game of drop the X off the high chair tray. All babies do it (I think), and it’s kind of funny to watch them figure out how gravity works and how to manipulate mom and dad all at one time.

The dropping game has lately evolved into a new form that Matt and I are finding harder to find charming. It’s called “do” (pronounced “doe”), as in “throw.” A week ago we weren’t entirely sure what “do” meant, but by now we have no question at all, because Simon says it loud and clear just before launching his cup, cracker, cheerio, spoon, pacifier, or what-have-you across the room. He’s pretty good at this “do” game, too, having mastered the overhand throw at a tender age, thereby giving him many months to perfect his aim and put a bit more muscle behind it.

Inevitably, the “do” game begins just as the adults sit down to eat. More times than not, as I am finishing a meal or we are waiting for a restaurant to deliver our food, Simon gets hungry and we get something out to “tide him over.” A fruit bar, crackers, and/or applesauce with milk later, Simon is then pretty full just in time to join the real dinner festivities. As he is no longer burdened with appetite, he is free to taste the adult offerings, play with them a bit, and then begin launching them wantonly.

In the past week, I have had to scoop up the detritus of nearly every meal we’ve had. I’ve bend over to get spoons until I thought my back would break, chased down sippy cups from across entire rooms, rescued pacifiers before the cats could get to them, and scraped up the remains of spinach, ravioli, pancakes, tempura, sushi, tortilla chips, black beans, toast, cheese, and even guacamole from floors. When eating out, I feel pretty bad about the mess left behind and so have adopted a friend’s strategy of going to places sufficiently cheap that I can afford to tip extravagantly. It’s safe to say I no longer consider a 25%-30% tip out of the question.

I’m hoping that Matt and I can beat Simon down by recognizing the “look of do” in his eye and taking away objects before they are launched. It’s a plan, anyway. But more realistically, I think I’m stuck with this until he moves on to his next game. I just hope the next game doesn’t make me long for the current one once it arrives.