I've been in the trenches for WEEKS as each of my children have been working at achieving a milestone and I words can't even describe how much this has felt like war! Cal was trying to learn to ride a bike on two wheels, Ben to pee and poop in the potty, and Seth to chew and swallow morsels of food at some acceptable rate of speed. I'd love to say that I've had a great time and it was all SO easy but it's been hot out, my back kills from holding the bike, and if I hear "Mom, I need to go pee!" one more time my children might be finding themselves locked out of the house for a few hours...or so it might have ended before last weekend. We'll start with Cal first:
I'm not really sure why we decided that it was time for Cal to ride a bike without training wheels anymore but we did and we were hell-bent on getting it done. I'm a cautious person by nature and sometimes I feel like my anxiety to try new things might be rubbing off on my children...my MALE children...and while it shouldn't matter what gender they are (and maybe I would feel similarly if I had a girl but I don't so I can't comment)...I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice to turn them into wimps. I'm learning as a parent that things don't necessarily get easier just because the kids get older (as I naively thought it might). Yes, there's no more diapers and fewer naps, they become less needy physically but emotionally they're needier than ever and this is the one place where parents REALLY don't want to fuck up. How far do you push your child to try something new even if they're "scared" or don't want to do it?!? It's a fine line we tread and, as we all know, it's different for each child. What works for one doesn't always work on the next.
First let me comment that we don't have the optimal driveway to practice riding a bike for the first time. We tried at a nearby field but to trek 3 kids down the street and then have Cal give up after 2 tries was NOT happening. Ideally, it would have been great for Eric to be there the first time he took those momentous pedals all by himself but again, there just wasn't enough time to consistently practice with daddy so the job fell to me. We practiced on the front lawn at our house. Instantly, I hated it. I hated the constant tango-ing it required. If you do this....I'll do x, y, or z. Luckily, my first-born son is a prime candidate for politics because he can very artfully con me into a bigger and better bribe. What first started out as a popsicle later became pancakes for dinner AND an ice cream sundae which after became "you can go to the store and pick out a new bike!" Anything to get this child to TRY. Finally, after a couple weeks of start, stop, start, stop, start, stop and back-breaking effort on my part it was late Friday afternoon and I had had enough. "That's it!", I screamed, "either you pedal all the way to home base (a base I'd put down 30 yards away) or I'm done, we're going inside!" Apparently, he was ready. He started pedaling and didn't stop. He even turned and made a J before putting his feet down. It was a triumphant moment. There was few seconds of silence before I starting screaming "You did it! You really did it!!" and there was much jumping up and down and squealing by Cal, Ben, and myself. Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke though we tried it a second time and away he went pedaling again making mom proud. He's had a chance to practice over the weekend at the huge FedEx parking lot near Grammy Pat's and has been able to make a lot of progress steering, using his breaks, and starting on his own! Hurray for Cal! To top it off he also started jumping into the pool from the side (previously he was too afraid) AND swimming underwater. I can hardly believe it!
On to Ben: I had no warm, fuzzy illusions of potty-training. I KNOW how hard this is and I know that Ben is pretty stubborn and not prone to let a mere bribe sway him. In fact, I even had a hard time coming up with treats and rewards to give him! As frustrating as it was to teach Cal to ride a bike, potty training still makes my #1 rated thankless job as a parent. You're not really happy or proud of them when they learn to go, you're just glad it's over. With a few setbacks we locked in the peeing early on. I had him sit to go at first but once I realized he really would rather stand we just went with that and it seemed to help. The problem, there in, was the pooping. I finally figured out after one excruciating day that multiple requests of "I have to go pee" and then not going pee was code for "I have to poop, mom, and I would rather not go in the potty". On this one particular day, he was driving me insane! I was trying to get Seth fed and Ben was badgering me to go to the bathroom literally every 2 mins. I didn't want to discourage him so I kept taking him even as my frustration built. It became clear that he was trying to hold it in when he was sitting on the edge of his chair at lunch and complaining that "his belly hurt or his bum hurt". I tried to calmly explain if he was just go poop he'd feel a lot better. We tried sitting on the potty and playing games, singing songs, reading stories...anything to draw attention away from the actual act to no avail. I used bribes - cookies, cake, candy, and even a backpack for preschool and threats - "You won't be able to go to preschool!" - but nothing was registering. For weeks, he wait for nap or bedtime and then unload in his diaper. I'd actually just given up, figuring in my head that if he won't go and can actually hold it, that he can still go to preschool since it's not likely he'd have an accident. And really that he go to preschool in September is MY only goal...haha....and then today he started in again with having to go pee and not going...after 3 or 4 times he finally sat there and as I went to go get a cookie so he could actually see it in front of him he pooped! Now I'm just hoping we can have a repeat performance! Ben has also made some other strides - he began to pedal his little trike! This is HUGE for Ben since previously I couldn't even get the child to SIT on the damn thing. At Grammy's this weekend I finally just sat him on it, took hold of his feet and started making him pedal. He screamed and shook like he was afraid....of what I don't know but he seemed to calm down after he saw it was fine. He even pedaled on his own today. Last week I got him to sit on a swing for the first time since he was 18 months old too! The stars must be aligned for us this week for all these things to be happening at once!
Seth: This is less exciting news...mostly I have been able to continue to feed him baby food (except peas) while letting him venture out and try table food. He's slowly but surely getting more adept at chewing AND swallowing instead of holding the food in his mouth and adding more and more to the point where he chokes. It seems to me that he has an unusually hard time swallowing but I might just be making that up. I'm more aware of potential eating problems since I was asked about that a lot when Ben was getting his speech therapy so I think I'm just overthinking it. Seth was drinking from a straw and them mostly just spitting the water out but this week has started swallowing more and more of it so he's making progress too! He's also more eager to stand now and lets go. He can stand for a couple seconds before falling...oh and he can climb stairs now too :)
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