BrooklynGirl

You Be The Party Host, Resolved

Yeah, I pretty much did C, D, and E (but minus the bloody Mary as I was getting over the stomach flu).  I might have been more brazen (who am I kidding) if I had extended more energy cleaning up before people arrived.

I am not a tidy person, and I don't particularly care about a mess, as clearly, one must count on the generation of quite a bit of mess when there are tiny humans around, but this just seemed like a particularly brazen act of (non?)parenting.

Earlier this week I was running a tiresome but important errand with The Girl (also known as She Who Will Not Be Contained), and the only thing that would calm her down was a box of raisins.  When she had the box, she was happy: she opened and closed the box, she ate some raisins, she chewed on the box, she showed off the box to anyone who looked vaguely in her direction.  As a result, a fair number of raisins hit the floor (of a large box store).  I dutifully picked up the ones I could find and would have apologized to the janitorial staff had there been any around.

After witnessing the display in my own home, though, I wonder if I'm being overly concerned.  How much mess generation is acceptable for the 3 and under crowd?

 

You Be the Party Host

You are throwing a small Sunday brunch for some friends of your husband's and their families.  It is an extremely casual affair--bagels, lox, some bloody Marys if you happen to have the ingredients on hand to make them.  You don't know these friends particularly well, but you feel generally positive toward them, and you're excited that they're bringing their kids, which will give your kids someone to play with.  Huzzah.

The friends arrive with their 3 year old daughter carrying an open, full size bag of Goldfish.  Now, you are a fan of Goldfish, but owing to their capacity to crumble and scatter, you give them to your own kids a handful at a time that are consumed primarily at the kitchen table. 

Within moments, the Goldfish are spilling out of the bag and onto the floor where they are being ground into your carpet as the kids scurry to play with one another.  The child's mother appears to notice this, but makes no move to pick up the renegade Goldfish or suggest her daughter be more careful with the bag.  You are looking askance at the whole situation when the child's mother catches your expression: "You know how it is at the holidays, all the rules go out the window!"

Do you:

A) Say, "Not the rules of common decency, I hope!"

B) Laugh collegially and say, "Well, I'm the stick in the mud enforcing the rules in this house--no Goldfish in the living room!"

C) Suggest the child share her Goldfish with your kids and offer them bowls in which to keep their 'fish at the kitchen table.

D) Say nothing and alternately seethe and attempt to pick up Goldfish before they are ground into the carpet.

E) Pour yourself a bloody Mary and worry about the mess later.

You Be the Parent: Head Injury Edition, Resolved

Wow.  The near unanimity is striking.

Of course, I did A, and that, friends, is why I remain strictly junior varsity when it comes to parenting.  Here are the mitigating factors: The Boy had fallen at school the day before and hit his head and the teacher made a fuss over him (even calling at home in the evening to check on him), and just moments before impact, a neighbor stopped by to witness the whole event and she kept volunteering to watch The Girl if I wanted to take The Boy to the ER.

More than that, though, The Boy (who is fine, by the way--this happened last week) was on my last nerve that morning, and my first thought when he fell was not, "Oh my God, I hope he's okay," but "Oh my God, I hope he can go to school."  That seemed to invite such bad juju upon The Boy that I just couldn't bring him to school.

So, be honest, am I just a little crazier that you thought I was before you read this post? 

You Be the Parent: Head Injury Edition

You are whiling away a cold and rainy morning doing the Hokey Pokey.  Your 3 year old son has been very enthusiastically shaking it all about, so much so that he has collided with the corner of the coffee table mere minutes before you are to take him to school.  A large goose egg has risen on his brow, but (despite some initial tears), he is otherwise unscathed and begging and pleading to go to school.  Do you:

A)  Keep him home from school with an ice pack on his head, just to keep an eye on things;

B)  Keep an ice pack on his head for a little while and bring him to school late if he seems okay (even though the school frowns on late arrivals and this change in schedule will render your daughter's nap FUBAR);

C) Not understand the question because you have padded all hard edges in your home and would never experience shoddy parenting such as this;

D) Not have time to answer the question because you are already speeding to the emergency room;

E)  Send him to school as usual and ask the teacher to keep an eye on him. (Thanks to swampy for remembering this option.)

I look forward to your response.

You Be The Parent, Potty Training Issue Resolved

Wow.  The unanimity is overwhelming.  Tree peeing seems pretty reasonable to me--and in this particular park there are many spots that are out of the way (where dogs also pee freely)--but before I was even contemplating potty training, I came across some anti tree peeing screeds that scared the bejeezus out of me.*

Fearing the retribution of those less enamored of toileting in the great outdoors, most of the time, I have a portable potty in my bag (or thrown in the bottom of the stroller).  The Boy has had some limited exposure to tree peeing, but he is already a big fan--such a big fan that (as many of you cautioned) that is often his preferred potty venue.  This can be embarrassing when he very loudly insists that he must drop trou in front of his pre-school (which is housed in a quaint, white-steepled church).  Thus, I try not to reinforce tree peeing unless there truly are no other options.

*The particulars that started those "discussions" are pretty different from the scenario I presented, but nonetheless, the venom directed toward the outdoor pee-ers (and their charges) is pretty striking.

You Be the Parent, Potty Training Edition

After an arduous morning at home, you have persuaded your children to get in the stroller and go to the playground.  Minutes after you arrive, your underpants-wearing three year old announces that he has to pee.  There are no restrooms on site.

The playground is a 5-minute walk from your house and is abutted by public woods.  

Do you:

A) Pile everyone back into the stroller and double time it home;

B) Escort your son to a nearby tree (@ 50 feet away from the playground) and encourage him to drop trou;

C) Whip out the portable potty you always have on hand for such an occasion; or

D) Knock on the door of the house closest to the playground that is inhabited by a mother who seemed nice the one time you met her previously.

As always, I eagerly await your reply.

You Be The (Suburban) Parent--Resolved

Well, this was very educational, thanks.  

To be honest, I thought A and B were gimmes.  The Boy and The Girl are rarely asleep at the same time so I've only had the luxury of doing A once.  Some variation of B occurs several times a week as The Boy tends to crash on his way home from pre-school, and The Girl and I use that time to make dinner.  I felt pretty confident in B--the car is about 25 steps from the furthest point in the kitchen--but perhaps that confidence is foolhardy.

I dream about C.  It's funny that so many of us agree that it's probably okay but worry what people might think.

*****

Anyway, here are two more suburban mysteries:

1)  Spiders.  There are spiders EVERYWHERE.  In the house.  On the playground.  In the car.  Is this just the way things are out in "nature" or is there some kind of arachnid invasion going on that I should know about?

2)  Balloons tied on mailboxes.  I've seen these before--the painfully gleeful "It's a girl!" balloons from the dark, infertile days--but this town has a thing for its balloons.  There are balloons touting high school pride, college pride, and other things that I haven't figured out yet.  Are balloons a common form of communication?  

You Be the (Suburban) Parent

Under which of the following circumstances is it acceptable to leave a sleeping child in a car alone (assume the weather is temperate and the car is parked in the shade):

A) The car is parked in your driveway, and you are seated on the grass beside it, sipping a Diet Coke and reading the newspaper;

B) The car is parked in your driveway, and you are in the kitchen that has a large window that looks into the car allowing you to see said sleeping child;

C) At your quiet neighborhood dry cleaner, where the car is parked directly in front of the entrance and both car and child are in your view for the entire 3 minutes that you are out of the car;

D)  All of the above;

E) None of the above, and I have already reported you to the authorities for even asking. 

A Hypothetical

Your 20 month old son has not  been sleeping well for weeks.  Your husband has been working his ass off at work and, as if that weren't crazy enough, grand jury duty.  You are 32 weeks pregnant.

If The Boy wakes up in the middle of the night, your husband is able to get him back to sleep after as much as an hour of singing and rocking.   You cannot get The Boy to go back to sleep unless you take him back to bed with you, and if you do that, you will not sleep well.

Tonight, your husband got home from work at almost 9.  He has an important presentation to give tomorrow.    You are not working tomorrow, but you worked today and you are exhausted.

The Boy wakes up at 2 am.  His cries cannot be ignored.

What do you do?

You Be the Party Host--Resolution

I went with a combination of A and B.  I kept nursing and rocking and singing (we went through his lullaby CD twice), and he would conk out in my arms but start screaming whenever I tried to put him in the crib.

Finally, he seemed to settle down, but about 5 minutes after I left his room he started to cry.  It's funny how many of you mentioned that a screaming baby would clear out a party: either The Boy doesn't scream as loudly as I think he does, or my friends are deaf because the crying didn't seem to alter their behavior in the slightest.  Although later, when he did stop crying and I returned from peeking on him to be sure he was asleep, the party broke up of its own accord, and the the guests kindly tiptoed past The Boy's room.

Phew.