The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

Does this sound familiar to you? You’re breastfeeding your 8 week old when your 2 1/2 year old screams for help from the bathroom. Of course, without thinking twice, you run to the bathroom with your boob hanging out (passing all the open blinds on your windows, and giving your mailman a treat) with your baby, uh, still latched on.  You get to the bathroom only to find that your toddler has smeared poop across the toilet seat as she tried to shimmy off of it.

Or, maybe this scenario? You’re breastfeeding your baby (because really, that’s all you ever do) when your toddler jumps at your face and begs you to play blocks with her.  She asks relentlessly until you’re forced to slither off the couch with….you guessed it, your baby attached to your breast and you build a Lego tower (aka, “Fairy House”) with one hand.

Or, maybe you’ve experienced this one before? You finally cave under the incessant begging of your toddler for a piggyback ride. You awkwardly kneel to the ground, because of course, you’re holding your nursing baby against your chest with one arm, and you use the other arm to hoist your toddler onto your tired back. You find yourself neighing and galloping – sending ripples of disdain through your muffin top.

If you can relate, then you’ll totally appreciate DJ’s latest game, which happens to be the best game ever. It’s the “Nap Game.” At any given time of the day, DJ will insist that I take a nap. It’s awesome.

She’ll enthusiastically lead me into her room and make me lay down in her bed, ensuring my head is resting on a fluffed pillow.  Once I’m all tucked in, she will “read” me a book, then close her blackout shades, turn on her white noise machine, and tell me to “sleep all night, I be so proud of you.” And then, get this, she walks out of her room, shutting the door behind her.

Then, I close my eyes. Breathe. Enjoy. Breastfeed Z quietly, without interruption. Every few minutes, I’ll call out something like, “Mommy, I’m scared,” or “Mommy, I want to sleep in your bed,” partially because I feel obligated to engage with her in this fabulous game, but mostly because I want to ensure she’s not smearing poop across our toilet seat.

Aside from the fleeting reprieve that this game gives me (which, have I mentioned, is awesome?), I have to admit that I find the whole role-playing thing pretty entertaining….and terrifying. DJ is absolutely absorbing our every word, and she’s carefully matching them with accompanying actions. Not only do we have to be careful with what we say and do, but how we say and do them.

The other night, DJ put my husband in a timeout for not listening to her. I’m pleased to say that she did it sternly, but lovingly.  She explained what he did wrong, set a timer for a few minutes and then encouraged him to offer her an apology in order to be dismissed from timeout. While we giggled behind her back after the whole episode, we also recognized the gravity of this particular developmental stage.

DJ is learning how to treat others by the way we treat her. She is accepting that what we say and do is, indeed, just how it’s done. This means that she’ll be taking her lessons from home to her school, her grandparent’s house, and eventually her friends’ houses.  Seeing her pretend to be us keeps us accountable to respectful and appropriate actions and behaviors. In other words, she’s kind of airing our dirty laundry by mimicking us – which means, we had better clean it up!

It’s no wonder why she’s started breastfeeding her dolls, right?

About 10 days after Z was born, we had our dear friend and professional photographer, Anne, over to photograph our family (insert shameless plug here: www.dragonflyannie.com). Of course, DJ chose to crash our four hour newborn session with relentless whining, absolute defiance and pretty much all things über bratty.  Fortunately for us, Anne is not only a mother to a three year old, but because of her photography business, quite accustomed to the unpredictable nature of kids.

As we were trying to pose Z in an adorable, hand-made sock monkey costume – DJ was pleading for my attention.  “Mommy, play with me!” “Mommy, come outside with me.” “Mommy, build these blocks with me.” We were sitting in the middle of DJ’s playroom – the walls lined door to door with her toys….dolls, crayons, motorized cars and walking, barking (annoying!) dogs.  Elmo was giggling away, repeating something about being tickled, and my blood pressure was rising.  In a room full of potential for distraction, all DJ wanted was me.  Anne seemed genuinely unaffected by the chaos of pink plastic surrounding us, but I was embarrassed and stressed out.

And then, the dreaded question came floating gracefully out of Anne’s kind mouth, “How is DJ at playing alone?” I laughed nervously as I assumed this was Anne’s nonjudgmental way of saying “DJ is INSANE!” and then I bluntly said, “Terrible.” I mean, wasn’t that obvious?  Much to my relief, Anne and I then launched into a long discussion about how both of our girls (hooray, her toddler wasn’t perfect either!) were not so great at entertaining themselves.  And then, we did what all good moms do (said sarcastically), we took the blame for it.  We accepted that as a result of our well-intended, undivided attention, our daughters had learned to depend on us for their needs – and their play.

I immediately thought of another dear friend of mine, who, early on, instituted daily “alone play” with her daughter who is the same age as DJ.  If I recall correctly, my friend would place her daughter in her playpen after they both woke up and would have her play alone (supervised, of course) for an hour a day. Brilliant! At the time, I couldn’t imagine DJ cooperating with such a plan – and now I realize that it is, in fact, a learned skill that would’ve (of course) been met with resistance at first.  However, like any other disciplined twist in the daily routine, would yield positive results.  Oh man, I had failed at a drug-free birth with DJ, had failed at producing enough milk to breastfeed her past 4 months, had failed at training her how to sleep through the night – and now, had failed at teaching her how to play independently.

Had I robbed her of her imagination, too?  Had I never forced (gently, of course) her to explore the world of imaginary friends and fantasy-lands? Had I stunted her ability to focus, to self-soothe, to color her thoughts vibrantly enough to keep herself entertained?

Perhaps, of all these fears – my biggest was that I had put the kibosh on her budding imagination.  I mean, if she was always counting on me for play, could I be sure I wasn’t influencing her make-believe world?  You know, the world where she’s in charge, and has the creative freedom to concoct whatever rules and scenarios she wants?  The world that will essentially foster her confidence as she explores order and charge and expression of opinion?  Yeah, that world – had I trampled it with my adult-conditioned experiences?  My subconscious thoughts of what can and can’t actually be? Had I robbed DJ of the Neighborhood of Make Believe because I played in the Real World with her too much?

The other night, after story time with her daddy and Baby Z – per usual, I crawled into DJ’s bed, laying beside her. We have started “telling” one story per night after reading our two bedtime stories. DJ asked, “Can you tell me a story,” to which I replied, “Which animal?” Our ritual has been to choose an animal, followed by a narration about this animal enduring some sort of real-life experience that DJ can relate to….a squirrel whose daddy goes to work everyday, a puppy who has a new baby sister, etc. On this particular night, she exclaimed, “Kitties!”

I began, “This is the story of a little girl kitty.  She lived with her mommy kitty, her daddy kitty, and her baby sister kitty…” “What their names are?” DJ interrupted. “Hmm, great question.  What shall we name them?” DJ thought for a while, and decided that the mommy kitty should be “Maka,” the Baby kitty as “Caca” (still hoping that wasn’t some sort of subconscious reference to a baby eliciting thoughts of poop), the older kitty sister would be “Kiki” and the daddy, “Titi.” We giggled as I tried to keep the names straight throughout the story, and DJ nodded off to sleep as I whispered “The End.”

I laid there, in her Princess big-girl bed, covered in sheer pink netting, for a few extra minutes.  I breathed a cleansing sigh of relief and self-forgiveness.  And then I laughed out loud as I asked, “Maka?” I could stop worrying that I had imprisoned her imagination by playing alongside her.  Once I got to really thinking, I could agree that, most of the time, we are playing in her world, by her rules. A world where daddy is a kitty-dog and ants are her friends who inspire her to make up songs about them sitting together on the side of the road.

I am, however, also making a concerted effort not to interrupt her when I do find her entertaining herself.  (This is mostly inspired by my need to survive with a 4 week old baby now also requiring my attention). When the house gets really quiet, instead of belting out my usual question of “What are you doing, DJ?” – I am now spying on her as she checks her dollies for “protein,” and assures them that their bellies will be ok after “drinking their yogi (yogurt) too fast.”

I think we’re gonna be alright, after-all.