It's too early for the terrible twos, isn't it?

My charming, cheerful, giggly 13-month old turned into a terrible two-year old - overnight!

She had a full-on temper tantrum this morning, complete with screaming, crying, and general theatrics. When it was finally over and we were on our way to day care, I bumped into a neighbour who lives behind us and 5-6 houses down the street. When I told her about the tanrum, she said "Oh! So it was H that I heard!" (Let me tell you, that kid can YELL.)

Anyway. The reason I'm giving myself a gold star is that I think I handled it quite well, all things considered. I was reading just the other day about the phrase "when you do X, I'll know you're ready for Y." So I tried it - "when you stop screaming, I'll know you're ready for a hug." I kept a discreet eye on her to make sure she wasn't hurting herself, then went about my business getting ready for work.

Every few minutes, I repeated the same phrase, then when she did stop screaming, I picked her up and gave her a hug. I had to repeat it a couple of times, because I had to keep putting her back on the floor (can't blowdry my hair while holding her, for example!). But on the whole, I think I did pretty well - at least I laid the groundwork for "screaming is not an acceptable way to get Mummy's attention."

Ohhh, it's going to be a long two years, though! :)

My smart girl

Clearly, I have the smartest little one-year-old in the world (with apologies to all the moms who have the second-smartest!)

We have a little wooden book of farm animals, with a chicken and a magnet attached - there's a little piece of metal on each page to stick the magnet to. We were reading the book yesterday, and I showed her how to use the magnet, and she got it! That is, she knew that if she just put the chicken on the page, it should slide off. And she knew that something was weird, when I put it on the metal bit and it *didn't* slide off!

Yay, for clever girls who figure things out! :)

Everybody's talking about...being a bad parent

I put the day care story (in 140 characters or less) on my Twitter that morning, and that led to a whole series of conversations with other moms, about "good vs bad" parenting.

Earlier that day, I had been reading @phdinparenting's thoughts on the subject, here: http://bit.ly/X0qT The gist of that article is that you are not a perfect parent, but you should be a confident one.

So the next day, when I was Tweeting about my adventures, I referenced @phdinparenting, and told her that I had "very confidently" left DD at daycare. (I amuse myself, if no one else...)

She referred me to this post by @kgranju, who had done the same thing, and blogged about it: http://bit.ly/jQKQi . She had some interesting thoughts about the idea of "bad" parenting, namely that people who blog about their parenting mistakes are in a special position, as their readers will generally jump on board and assure them that yes, everyone does things like this, and no, they are not bad parents.

But just because the blogosphere says so, does that make it true? In her case, and in mine, we were lucky that we had left our kids in safe places, and there were no negative consequences other than our own embarrassment and some logistical hassles. But even good parents can be catastrophically unlucky, and it's often a very thin line between "good" parents and "bad" ones.

Then a timely article in the Toronto Star about how we are using the label "bad" as a backlash against the idea of the "perfect" parent. This is where I, and most of my friends, fall when we use the term.

We tend to mean it sort of semi-ironically, as a tip of the hat to the idea of the “perfect” mother. The “what would the neighbours think,” or “gasp - that’s not what it says in the baby book!” kind of thing.

For example, my girlfriend was teasing me about being a “bad” mom the other day because I was letting my DD (1 yr) feed herself dried cranberries and sunflower seeds. Because They Say that kids shouldn’t have small foods like that until they’re 2, or 4, or whatever age. We laughed, and agreed that yes, I’m clearly a Bad Mom.

But the thing is, she would never tease me about the things that she genuinely disagrees with. For example, we still go in to DD when she cries in the night. She does sleep through occasionally, but not regularly, and we’re fine with that for now. My friend was a big proponent of the cry-it-out method, and tells me that her girls were sleeping through the night quite young.

But we don’t ever talk about those differences in terms of “good” or “bad” parenting. In fact, we hardly talk about it at all. We sort of dance around the topic if it comes up, but then go back to safer ground.

So for us, we only use the label “bad” when it’s quite clear that we don’t mean it. If there’s any chance at all that we could be seen as judging each other’s choices, or that we really do think the other one is doing something wrong, we steer clear entirely.

I find that part especially interesting - that we only really talk about aspects of parenting that we agree about, and ignore areas where we disagree. Shouldn't it be the other way around? If we really agree on something, or at least agree that it doesn't matter all that much, shouldn't that be the bit that we talk about the least? As mothers, we're all in this game together, and we should be supporting each other and each other's choices (to the extent that our children's health and safety is not at stake, of course) But I find this happens a lot - we just don't talk about things that we really don't agree with. So rather than listening to other people's point of view, and learning from them, we tend to clam up and do our own thing anyway. And we hide behind the "Bad Mom" label when we don't really mean it, even if we're thinking it quietly to ourselves when we do.

Finally, @phdinparenting weighs in again, saying

I’m going to reserve the term “bad mother” for those that are truly abusive or neglectful. That isn’t to say that I’m lining up to give “mother of the year” awards to every other type I’ve described, but I don’t think that it is helpful for me or anyone else to label someone as a bad mother if they are doing their best. Instead I think we should stop glamourizing “bad”, we should offer a helping hand to those that are struggling, we should be confident in our own parenting, and we should continue to think about how we could improve.

And that's where we stand now. None of us is a perfect parent, by any means. And I like to assume that even those who are abusing or neglecting their kids are not necessarily bad parents, or bad people. They're also doing the best they can with what they have, and maybe they just need more help than some of the rest of us? There are very, very few parents in the world who can truly be labelled "bad." Most of us are just less than perfect...just like everyone else.

June 5, 2009 - Parent of the year award, right here

I forgot to pick up DD from day care last night!

DH normally picks her up, but he had his bike in for repairs and was going to get that instead after work. I knew that, but somehow forgot to translate it in my head to "it's my turn to pick up DD."

So I left work at the usual time, wandered around the grocery store for a bit, enjoyed the weather, and got home at 6:30. And nobody was home. I thought that was a bit unusual, and a bit annoying considering her bedtime is 7:00 and she still has to have dinner if they're out for a walk somewhere.

Then, the lightbulb went off.

So I phoned the DCP, told her I was on my way, and left the house in a tearing hurry. It was almost 7:00 by the time I got there...oops!!

DD was fine, of course, and the DCP was really nice about it. I offered to pay her for her time, and she said no - so I'll take her a bottle of wine on Monday to thank her instead.

And the best part, is that another friend of mine forgot to pick up her kid from day care as well yesterday, so I was giggling a bit at her Facebook status before I left work!

Ah, parenting...not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. :)

May 25, 2009 - Have you ever tried to shower with a baby?

I had to shower with one hand this morning, because I was holding DD with the other.

It went like this:

I childproofed, took off her PJ's, changed her diaper, gave her a bottle and a cookie, and got into the shower. She followed me into the bathroom, as she always does.

Now that she's cruising, she pulls up on anything that will hold her weight, including the side of the bathtub. So she was standing there, trying to climb in to the tub, dropping soggy cookie crumbs all over the place, and flinging the (wet!) shower curtain around.

I thought, hey, maybe she would like to sit at the end of the tub and play with some of her bathtub toys while I have a shower. It'll be inconvenient for me to have her sitting there, but at least there won't be water all over the bathroom.

So I took off her diaper, grabbed some toys, and set her up at the end of the tub.

She did NOT think this was a good idea. She howled, and cried, and tried to climb up my legs, and carried on as if it was the end of the world. So I picked her up, and of course she stopped crying and tried to play with the water coming out of the shower.

Problem is, I was in mid-shower, both of us were naked and wet, and there was no good way of getting out to get her back into her diaper. And I didn't want her peeing on the bathroom floor.

I couldn't put her out of the shower, and she wouldn't stay on the floor in the shower, so the only option was for me to hold her with one hand, and do all my shampooing etc with the other.

Have you ever tried to shower while holding a baby? It's not easy, I can tell you. But I did it! Now all I have to do is explain to my boss why I was late for work this morning...

January 7, 2009 - first day back to work

(There's going to be a lot of backdating going on here, as I sort through all the stuff that I've written but not posted over the past few months. Bear with me...)

Like a lot of moms, I had mixed emotions about going back to work after my mat leave. I was a little bit sad to be losing my time alone with DD, and a little bit excited to be getting back to the world of adults again. The good news was that DH was beginning two months paternity leave of his own, so at least we didn't have day care to add to the angst.

Even better news is that DH turned out to be a much better stay-at-home parent than I am, so I really did have nothing to worry about.

I wasn't on Twitter at the time, but I was certainly thinking in terms of Facebook statuses (stati?). In fact, I ended up narrating my entire first day of work to myself in that format! So here we go...

Megan:

...is wondering if it hurts to loosen the apron strings.

...thinks DD knows that something is up.

...is wearing a REAL BRA!

...is cleverly disguised as a fully functional human being.

...thinks that her gloves would be more effective if she actually put them on her hands.

...had forgotten how many people there are in the world, and how many of them can fit onto a subway car at rush hour.

...is glad that her office has direct access to the subway.

...has a spiffy new desk with a window. But no computer, phone, boss, or colleagues in the same department.

...is wondering what to do with herself.

...now has a computer, and is proceeding to deal with 665 new emails.

...really hates automatic soap dispensers.

...still loves her new bra!

...still doesn't have a phone, and is thinking of going home early.

JMegan has left the building

But not for long, because I never can keep my opinions to myself!

I've been missing blogging lately, due in no small part to my addiction to Twitter. Getting the word out there is great, but sometimes 140 characters just isn't enough for me. (Okay, most of the time. That's why I'm here, right?)

So why not revive my original blog, and keep going from there? I thought about it, but decided against it. I've shared a lot of personal information on that blog, including full names, pictures, and other details of myself and my family. And the more I think about it, the more I've decided I'm just not comfortable with that. It was fine (~ish) when I was blogging entirely about adults, but now that I have a daughter, I have a whole new perspective on the world of online information sharing.

And here we are. I'll still talk about my family, and parenting, and my work, and feminism, and all the other things that interest me. But I will leave off names and identifying details, and ask any commenters who know me to do the same.

More to come this weekend - I have a couple of posts lined up already! Looking forward to being out there in the world again...

~JMegan