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2012-03-28

No one understands this vicious dog

Wow I need to blog more to keep this site alive. Skool's been keeping me busy.

I suppose I'll announce it here first--I have a real live official website now. It's not perfect, and I want to change lots of things, but I'm at least ready to show it to the public.

I broke up with Born Without Blood about halfway thru last quarter. Until that point, my class project was going to be a BWB website. After the breakup, the way to go was clear--make it about me, and my music. It was seriously like clouds parted and the light of the Lord shone thru. I was so happy to have the opportunity to do this.

As a result, Hevvy Time Records has made an establishing mark on the world. And that is fucking kewl.

I'm not sure if it's more about me, or my music, but it's definitely there.

The older music is embarrassing to hear, but I'm keeping it up there. It's all me, after all.
***
In other news, Lucy lost her pacifier again! That's blogworthy. This time she's been taking it a lot better.

The loss wasn't met without much relief on my part. During spring break, last week, Megan fell ill, poor dear. One of those nights she sprung to bed early and I put the older one down. When she was searching for her pacifier, she came up empty-handed. I know it's somewhere in the apartment, because she had had it in her mouth not an hour prior.

Of course dada searched too, with medium effort. Under pillows and blankets, furniture, on top of bookshelves, etc. She was a bit upset.

At one point I told her, probably too cruelly, but with an intention of helping, that it's just a piece of rubber, nothing more, and a piece of rubber in one's mouth is not necessary for sleeping. After that, she just kinda stopped and stared at me, mouth agape, gears turning hard, crushing the dead rat clogging them up. It gave her perspective.

I love those moments, when something I say to her visibly sinks in. Seldom as they are.

SOOoooo, it's been about four days now w/o pacifier, and she's been sleeping with more or less the same regularity. It's really hard to put her down when she hasn't been outside during the day, but that was the same before losing pacifier. 

I'm proud of my little girl for weathering this storm. I feel that it's a big, lifelong change for her. Also I don't think she realizes how grown up she's being about the whole thing, even though she still asks for it sometimes, knowing full well it's not coming back. Unless it's randomly found one day. I pray that it's Megan or I, so we can throw that dirty thing away before she sees it.
***

Her sleep schedule and routine is an ever-changing, morphing thing. Globulous. Ha, I like that word. Globulous. Her sleep patterns are globulous.

One other important aspect has recently changed--she's stopped wanting to grip onto, over and over and over again, with her pointer finger and thumb tips, my thumb whilst nodding off.

It was the weirdest habit. Probably cause I'm her dad. Yeah. Anyhow, I usually lay in her bed with her after her teeth have been brushed for the daytime nap. This is pretty much because I like cuddling with her. Also, I believe she expects it, since, for her entire existence, I have always stayed with her until she falls asleep. And for that plentitude of naps, she would always hold my thumb.

It had to be my thumb, too--didn't like the other fingers. Something about how thick they are or how they feel or their shape or something. As a littler child, her little hands would hold on tight to my thumbs, until her eyes gently closed, always to her chagrin. (BB holds my fingers the same way, the little cutie)

When Lucy got older, she switched it up--both hands grasping one of my thumbs, and she wasn't just holding on anymore. She was digging her nails in, in a constant grip-and-release pattern.

It wouldn't really hurt until she'd been doing it for a while. It's always been a weird sort of semi-struggle to keep her from tearing my thumb off during naptime.

In the past year or so, her hands have gotten fucking big (compared to baby size), and her fingers stronger. She'd still want my thumb. So, lying next to her in her big-girl Ikea bed, I would bend my arm up and towards her chest, at an angle that I had to get used to lest my shoulder cramped up, just so she could work my thumb like a miniature flesh-composed stress ball.

Around the time she lost her pacifier, a few days on either side to my recollection, I was laying with her for a pre-nap get-sleepy sesh. She was going at my fucking thumb like there was no tomorrow, holding it by the base with one hand, and digging in with the other. 

And it wasn't the first time I'd said it, but when I said, "Stop digging your nails into my thumb, okay? That hurts," it sunk in. Since then, she doesn't want to anymore. But she's also pissed about the pacifier being gone, which makes her shun me a bit.

Another naptime hurdle has been the inclusion of BB in the room while I'm laying with Lucy. She's 10 months old now, so she's crawling everywhere and babbling and pointing and discovering, like, everything, and being a really cute sweetiepie. Just a beautiful little thing, she is. Makes my heart melt. Lucy, too. My little girls. They'll never be rid of me.

YOU HEAR THAT, GIRLS? Hear my voice over the textwaves. Read this blog entry in the future and know that from day one, March 11, 2009, Judgement Day, I was dedicated to you. Tooth. And. Nail.

Oh yeah, anyway so it's really hard for Lucy to relax and fall asleep when BB's in the room, crawling around and playing with Lucy's toys, a few of which make noise and sing songs and shit, which is really distracting when you're trying to sleep, ya heard, 'rents?

Also Lucy does suffer from a bit of the bite of jealousy, it's a vicious dog that bites when one is a child, especially of older siblings. As a teenager, I went through this phase where I absolutely would not, simply out of principle and the right to flex my proprietary muscles, let my brother read my Nintendo Power magazines.

My parents did not understand it. My brother did not understand it. I did not understand it. But I was making a stand. My friend Brad Wilburg's older brother did it, which was where I got my inspiration. I don't think I've ever told anyone that before.

Anyway, for a year or more it went on, I think. Maybe less. But after so long, I started to realize the futility and the stupidity of being so selfish with awesome magazines that are made to be shared and read by as many eyeballs as possible.

So I'm not surprised that Lucy, try as she may, and I can tell she's trying, suffers from jealousy when BB sees her awesome cool toys and makes a crawling beeline (B-line! ha!) for them, full-stop. And when I say that Lucy's trying, I mean that it's crossing her mind, whilst she's taking her toys away from BB, that Dada wants her to share, and that maybe it's the right thing to do.

Anyway, when BB's in the room during naptimes these days, Lucy's started saying, "Can you take BB out of here?"

The thing is, I can't! The only thing I could do is put her in her crib, but I don't want to confuse her! She'd just think it's nap time and I was being a dick and leaving her in there. I've tried sitting her in front of the tv; doesn't work. She always crawls in the room to be with Dada and Sister, the little sweetie.

We don't have any gates up, either. Maybe I should barricade her in the living room or something. Genius!

Oh, and contrary to my last post, in case you couldn't tell already, daytime naps are not over. They're still necessary, but sometimes I think they're skippable.

Perhaps, today I should have skipped the nap. I have trouble thinking rationally in the mornings these days, applying discipline to both my kids, trying to contain my temper which tends to flare and scare my kids, and keep my coffee intake to just the amount I need, not more. It's all so much to deal with. Plus there's school to think about, and the fucking nightmare of potty training. That shit makes me mad. Oooh, that shit makes me mad when she poops in her diaper and doesn't tell me and leaves it in there long enough to dry on to her ass and I have to fucking scrape it off and there's crying, and anger, and all this shit talk, and shit everyfucking where, and the SMELL!! But I can't get mad. It's not right. I struggle with this every day. Even today, I got too mad, about this very issue, and I smacked her inner thigh when she was laying down, and I feel bad about it now.

But today I apologized to her for that, and said that dada should never smack Lucy, that she never deserves to be smacked, and that hitting is wrong. Then she goes, "Yeah, dada. We have to be nice."

I was humbled. Wanted to cry. Sort of want to cry now just typing this.
***
Ok, one last thing.

There's something I'm not clear on -- how do I wipe my kid's ass when she's sitting on that Ikea kid's toilet? You know the one, right? A little plastic thing, one solid color, no pictures or nothin, circular, with a splash guard in front? Do I have her lean forward, or backward?

Always wipe away from the vag--I already know that.

My friend's kid Pthalo had some kinda saying, like, "Down, and drop," referring to how she takes the t.p., starts at the top of her cooch and works her way down, between the legs, and then drops said t.p., now soiled, into the toilet. She showed me and made a big deal about showing me. It was cute.

See ya next time kidz! Buh-bye! (swirl downwards / camera swipe to transition scene)

2012-03-20

Dada's relaxing daytime during child naps threatened

If one kid's not taking it out of you, the other kid's taking her place.

I used to think BB was demanding. But the older she gets, the less I'm required to do to make sure she's happy. Lately she's been a real peach, and the cutest little big baby I've ever seen. A real good-mood girl. She's quick to smile and make the baby babble.

She's even anticipating things that I'll need to do for her. When it's time to get wiped up in the high chair, she now extends her hand before I have to grab it. When it's time to get dressed, she prepares for me to pull the shirt over her head by tensing her neck and looking down, and moves her own arms up into the shirt to put them thru the sleeves.

Her mood's been lightening up, which coincided directly with her increased ability to explore.

Her body is lengthening, getting longer and less baby-shaped. I can see the young woman that's gonna come out of her, eventually. It's trippy, man.

This very day, Megan and I were both sure that she had visibly grown during either her sleep last night, or her nap during the day today. Her face looked leaner and older. Like there was a shining new person slowly coming out of that babyness.

She's flipping beautiful, I don't know what else to say.

But Lucy, who is freshly 3, is turning into a real turd. A sassafrass. Can she ever create drama whence there was nothing--NOTHING!--happening.

She's sleeping less, too. If she takes a nap during the day, she's typically up for a good while at night, crawling into bed with us and walking around and being weird. If she doesn't have a daytime nap, she'll actually sleep thru the night. And of course she never wants to take a nap, and of course she won't fall asleep unless I wait till like fucking 2 p.m. to put her down, which always gets her sleeping until 4:30 or 5 unless we wake her up.

This all leads me, begrudgingly, to one conclusion:

Daytime naps are fucking over. Did it have to be so soon?

(I'll gladly take arguments for me keeping Lucy on a daily nap schedule, if you've got them. How long do kids need to nap? Till 5 years? 4? I realize every kid is different)