At Kostyn’s recent 3-year checkup I heard these dreaded words: "Sometime between ages 3 and 4, most kids will give up their nap." I wonder if the pediatrician could hear the high-pitched wail in my head: "Nooooooooooooo!"
As a work-from-home mom, naptime is the only time of day I can reasonably count on having the kind of peace and quiet it takes to get work done. And as a stay-at-home mom, naptime is my sanctuary, my break, the time I need to recharge my batteries, check my e-mail, steal a sweet snack from the fridge, fold the laundry, call my sisters .... you get the idea. It’s a much-needed, very important part of the day.
"Well, Kostyn still takes a solid two-hour nap most days," I said with confidence. No end in sight to the nap for him, I thought happily. Maybe he’d be one of those kids who napped right up until their first day of school.
But then the pediatrician explained that when he’s ready to give up his nap, I wouldn’t notice him not being tired in the middle of the day, but at night. "He’ll probably still go down fine for a nap, but what you’ll see is him start to really push bedtime later and later. He just won’t be tired yet for bed."
Oh no, I thought. Oh God. He’s doing that RIGHT NOW!! Could he be ready to give up his nap??
Lately Kostyn’s bedtime routine has taken a serious dawdling turn toward Frustratingly Futile. Here’s a snapshot from a few nights ago:
9:04 pm: I talk about what we did that day, tuck him in, we say prayers and I turn out the light, as usual. Then I go into the next room and start rocking his little brother to sleep. Three minutes later, I hear him calling for me. "Mommy!" "Moooooommmmmmyyyy! Mommy, are you here??" What ensues is a test of my patience and his stamina. 9:05 pm: "Mommy, can you sing me a song?" (I do, reluctantly.) 9:08 pm: "Mommy, I have to go pee in the potty." (My son is still only potty-trained at bedtime, and he knows he has me on this one. So I accompany him, then back to bed we go.) 9:20 pm: "Mommy, I’m sad." "Why are you sad?" "I’m sad for Mommy." "Why are you sad for Mommy?" "I’m sad for Mommy because I’m sad." (I entertained this conversation for another 30 seconds before sternly telling him to close his eyes and go to sleep. And that I would not be coming back into his room.) 9:33 pm: "I can’t find Little Tiny Tiny Bear. He jumped off the bed." (OK, I did come back into the room for this, but only because his cries for Little Tiny Tiny Bear’s safe return were growing louder and louder, and I didn’t want him to wake his brother in the next room.) 9:34 pm: "Can you sing me another song?" (This one was met with a flat refusal from my perch on the couch in the living room.) 9:44 pm: "Moooommmmmmyyyyyyy." (My response: "I’M NOT COMING IN THERE KOSTYN! GO. TO. SLEEP!" Apparently I don’t think it’s possible for my screaming to wake his brother.) 9:45 pm: "I need my fan off. But I need it on. Because I need it off." (At this point he’s wearing me down. The fan stayed off.) 9:48 pm: "Mommy, Spot is all dirty. And Little Tiny Tiny Bear is hungry. We need something to eat." (And I need something to drink....) 10:04 pm: "Can I have a drink of water?" (No.)
So goes our nights lately. A couple days ago I decided to experiment, and allowed him to continue playing with his trains while his usual naptime came and went. He did fine without the nap until about 6 pm, when he melted into an overtired puddle and was asleep by 6:30 pm. At first I wondered how early he’d wake the next morning after such an early bedtime. Then I just relaxed and started to ease into an evening free of bedtime bargaining.
And then, at 7:30 pm, he woke up.
A funny thing happened when Kostyn turned 3: He became a boy. It’s like some fairy godmother fluttered down from the heavens and waved a sparkly wand over his head and *Poof!* my toddler disappeared, and in his place is this ... boy. This sometimes hyper, inquisitive, adamantly independent, increasingly daring little boy.
The whole thing has me a little freaked out.
This is a kid who was always afraid of the big slide, who would never attempt a somersault, who didn’t see much fun in climbing things. Now he’s climbing and jumping and sliding and testing his own limits at every turn, practicing his balance and strength and bravery all the time.
And he’s obsessed with big kids. He always wants to do what his older cousins are doing when we’re with family, and he follows random older boys around at the playground. “Hi, I’m Kostyn!” he’ll say as they race by in a kiddie train of sweat and sandbox dust, shoving each other and making up rules and barely noticing the little boy who suddenly thinks he’s big.
I am enjoying this new Kostyn. I love watching his confidence blossom and his imagination really start to soar. He’s developing his sense of humor, and exerting his control at every turn. (Every. Single. Turn.) The neatest thing to see is how he is treating Evan more like a playmate and less like a playtime prop. “We’re just playing Mommy. We’re playing with shoes and shirts,” Kostyn tells me when I peer into my bedroom and see them giggling, trying to walk in Daddy’s dress shoes. “We’re playing, Mommy.”
It’s all happening very fast. And though I love the little boy he is, whenever I look at pictures of him from a year ago, or even six months ago, I miss that little boy. A lot. I miss his pudgy cheeks and his tiny voice and even his toddler timidity.
So a few days ago while I was watching Kostyn whirling dervish his way around the house (that can totally be a verb) I scooped up Evan, partly to protect him from the chaos and partly to feel his baby-ness. I felt his small body and relished the way he still instinctively curls right into me for a hug. I patted his diapered bottom and ran my fingers through his baby-fine hair. He pulled his head off my shoulder and looked at me and I said, “Don’t you grow up too fast. You have to stay a baby for a little while longer, OK?”
And don’t ya know, that kid gave me his most devilish grin and signed, “All done!”
Today the boys and I had lunch with a dear friend I’d never met.
In the age of the Internet, it’s possible to become quite close to people you’ve never laid eyes on, and that’s just what I did when I became pregnant with my first son. It was way back in the fall of 2006, and I went searching online for someone to talk to. Sure, I had two sisters and several friends who were moms, and I often went to them for advice. But I also wanted to find others who were going through the same thing as me right then. So I found a group of women on babycenter.com who also were first-time moms all due within two weeks of one another (June 1-15, 2007). We began an online community of support and advice that saw us through morning sickness, weight gain, swollen feet and all the worries and preparations of impending motherhood.
We sent each other little gifts and passed around baby books through the mail. Through problems big and small, we rallied around one another with words of encouragement, nonjudgmental ears and lots of prayers. We celebrated when each one found out the sex of their baby, prayed each time someone had a complication or went into labor, and rejoiced with each delivery -- the first came almost two months early. We supported each other through postpartum depression, the overwhelming responsibilities of motherhood, the difficulties of breastfeeding, the heartbreak of having to go back to work, or the tough decision not to.
More than three years have gone by since that first birth, and the majority of us have had a second child. (Two of the moms have a third on the way!) These days we talk about tantrums, sleep issues, the growing pains of increasing independence and sibling rivalry.
We are of varied ages and religious and ethnic backgrounds. Some are well-off and others are just scraping by. Not every home-life situation is ideal; there is heartbreak among us, and some angst over the future. But there is much happiness. Overwhelming thankfulness. Laughter and joy. And we share it all with women we’ve never met but know very well.
Over these last few years there have been several meet-ups where two or three moms get to put a face to all the exchanged photos and messages, and they get to see their kids play together. Today was just such a day for me. I met with two of those moms and their kids, including one mom I’d never met face to face. It was surreal and magical to see our kids playing together, like old friends. And the conversation between us moms was as light and easy as if we were typing it across the miles.
Our 3-year-old has moved into the Stall Before Bed phase, which I’m told lasts pretty much until you have children of your own, at which time you become more than ready and eager to go to bed at the first and tiniest opportunity.
The usual excuses are part of his repertoire: “I’m hungry. My belly is not full,” and “I’m thirsty. Can I have some milk?” Also “Tell me a story,” “Sing me a song,” and “Read one more book, Daddy?” are now staples of his bedtime routine.
My personal favorite (typed with sarcasm dripping off my fingertips onto the keyboard) is “Mommy, I have to pee in the potty!” usually said too loudly right outside the room where I’m rocking his brother to sleep. The sarcasm about it being my favorite is because for the past week he has totally regressed in the potty training arena, refusing to do anything productive on the john, peeing and pooping at will in his pants all day long UNTIL it’s bedtime. Then, suddenly, the kid’s fully potty trained. Argh.
Anyway, before any of this bedtime nonsense starts, even before we say our prayers, find his aptly named Little Tiny Tiny Bear and turn out the light, he asks the same question. It’s the first question in his Stalling Tactics arsenal, but it’s the only one I don’t mind.
“What did we do today, Mommy?” he says, every night, as I’m tucking him in.
I think it started because we’d often mention at bedtime something he’d seen or done for the first time that day, or a relative or friend we’d visited with. But now it’s become a nightly ritual to give a rundown of the day’s events, the big, exciting things and the little everyday things. And sometimes — many times — there are no “big” things, only little.
But that’s why I like it. Because answering that question gives me a status check on where I am as a parent in terms of relating to my son and engaging with him in his discovery of the world. It makes me stop and think about what WE did that day, not just what housekeeping chores I accomplished or what toys HE played with, but what WE did as a family.
There are days when I find myself saying things like “...and then you and Evan played some more with your blocks while Mommy vacuumed...” or “Well, today we went to the store and the bank, and then we went to get the oil changed in the car, and .... let’s see ... you watched ‘Sesame Street’ and you played with your trains ... and then Mommy made dinner while you and Evan read books...” Those aren’t bad days; everybody has days like that. There are errands to run and carpets to vacuum and meals to make. But what I notice about days like that are what’s missing from the list — namely, the word “we.” I begin to realize the number of things WE did that day, together, focused on each other and the activity before us, is slim.
That’s not to say that every day is going to be a carnival of fun, or that I don’t think kids need time to play and learn and decompress on their own, or that I don’t think it’s healthy for them to see and help Mommy take care of things around the house. But when I list an entire day’s events and only use “we” a few times, I can hardly wait until the next day, to shift my focus back to what’s most important. To take the time to indulge his whims, whether he asks me to march around the house playing drums or sit in the sandbox with him and his brother, burying their knees. I think about how I'll dry my hands and leave the dishes for a little while at the exact moment he comes into the kitchen holding up a book, or merely asking me to hold him.
So yeah, I could do without the begging for one last drink, story, song or snack, but I love hearing “What did we do today?” Because it makes me think about all the great things we’ll do tomorrow.
The potty talk started about eight months ago. “Have you started potty training Kostyn yet?” I was asked over and over. I was asked so much that I thought I probably should (there’s that word again) be potty training him. So we went out and bought one of those ridiculous miniature potty chairs, which really is not all that practical for little boys, and we tried to get Kostyn excited about it. He sat in it a few times (fully clothed), and then it gathered dust in the bathroom. Eventually we got sick of tripping over it and shoved it in a closet upstairs. By the time he was 2 1/2, I’d say about 85 percent of the kids his age (or younger) were in the throes of potty training. Mothers were lamenting the process on Facebook left and right, posting daily status updates about the whereabouts of their child’s poop. I think every time I read a Facebook update giving us the “score” — “So far today Junior has peed twice in the potty, pooped once in his pants, and peed twice on the floor, but his Pullup was dry after nap!!!” — I became more determined to make sure potty training would not be stressful in our house.
Honestly, Kostyn’s lack of interest probably coincided with my lazy attitude toward the whole thing. I didn’t really want the hassle of it. Call me crazy, but diapers seemed a whole lot easier than racing to find a restroom wherever we go, or having to get up at 3 a.m. to help him pull down his pajama bottoms and pee.
Still, like a dutiful mom I kept playing up the potty thing, buying colorful big boy underwear for him, and reading books to him about the whole process. We bought a miniature potty seat that fits over the regular toilet seat, and if he was in the mood to read books he’d happily sit there for 20 or 30 minutes at a stretch. But he never did anything “productive” on the potty except read. I’d offer him a pair of underwear almost each morning, but he always politely refused. “No, I want a diaper,” he’d say, and if I couldn’t convince him with a smile, I didn’t push it.
This will not be stressful, I’d say to myself while fetching a clean diaper and putting away the tiny Fruit of the Looms. He’ll do it when he’s ready, I’d think, and sometimes I even believed it.
Before we knew it, he was turning 3 and seemingly all of his little friends were way beyond diapers. His Nana wrapped up two packages of big boy underwear for his birthday, in a not-so-subtle nod to what 3-year-olds wear.
And then, quite suddenly, he was game for the whole thing. “OK,” he said one morning when I offered the underwear, and I put it on him and tried not to look surprised. I didn’t set a timer, I didn’t offer bribes, I just encouraged him to tell me before he had to go potty. He nodded solemnly, and then an hour later he waddled over to me with soaked shorts and said, “I peed Mommy.” We did this for three mornings in a row, and then he got it. He made it to the potty before he peed, his face lighting up with pride at the miracle he’d just performed.
Just like that, he was all about the process. He would never “just try” to go because I asked, but was really pretty good about telling me when he had to go. He tiptoed into my room at 3 a.m. to whisper “Mommy I have to pee.” (And let me tell you, it took a decent amount of motherly selflessness to not answer groggily, “It’s OK, you have a Pullup on, just go back to bed.”) By the end of that week, he was occasionally heading into the bathroom without even telling me. One evening while I was in the kitchen making dinner he appeared before me, naked from the waist down, and declared with a huge smile, “Mommy I peed on the potty all by myself!”
We’re now a week and a half into the process — not counting the previous 8 months of “trying” — and we still have our fair share of “accidents,” (the amount of laundry that goes into potty training is absurd) but he’s so proud of his accomplishment, and so are we. It makes me glad I hung in there and let him lead the way instead of forcing the issue. I’m not posting this to pat myself on the back but to assure parents out there who might be feeling the pressure to potty train that it will happen when they are ready. You won’t be buying wipes and diapers for them forever. I promise.