Tag Archives: Catie

Bratty kid, or parenting fail?

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When we were at the pool on Sunday, I noticed this stark contrast in child behaviors.

First, we met a little girl named Sophia. She’s 4 1/2, and apparently this is her first year taking swimming lessons. Her dad was in the water with her (along with her big brother, but he was 8 or 9 years old, and off in the deeper part of the pool with his friends), and she was practicing putting her face in the water and kicking. She came over to Catie and the two girls shyly introduced themselves. Sophia said to Catie, “I like your name,” which made me melt because I’m sure that an adult told her that’s a nice thing to say to make friends, but it was so sweet. I knew Catie wouldn’t know how to respond, so I said, “Well, I think Sophia is a beautiful name.”

She and Catie played together for a while, she showed Catie how she could put her face in the water, and Catie was duly impressed. Her dad was friendly and chatted with Dave and me while the girls played, and it was great. Soon they had to head home, and that was that.

Here comes the contrast.

Right as Sophia and her family were leaving, a new family showed up at the pool. Again, it was a dad (it seems the moms in our neighborhood get the day off on Sundays; I wish I’d gotten that memo), and there was an older brother and a little sister, but this time, the dad parked himself on a chaise lounge in the shade and started talking with another dad. The older boy jumped in and started playing with the older kids, and the little girl came over to me. Not Catie, just to me. She told me her name was Sarah, and that she was 4 years old. I did a kid introduction, “Hey Catie, this is Sarah. Sarah, this is Catie.” And I thought that maybe they’d play together nicely like Catie had just done with Sophia.

Um… not so much.

It became apparent pretty quickly that Sarah was in dire need of parental attention, and since her dad never once even glanced in the direction of the swimming pool to make sure that his kids weren’t drowning, she latched on to me. It started with her asking me a million questions and making me feel like I was in that Monty Python sketch about “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” Then she wanted me to watch her while she did all kinds of pool stunts… which, oooookay, but shouldn’t your dad be watching you?

Also, I don’t know what the heck this kid does in her off-time, but she clearly is not supervised nearly enough, because she was covered in band-aids, which kept coming off in the water. Every time one did, I’d point it out to her and ask her to please go put it in the trash can (which she did). Then I’d look at Dave and make gagging faces. Band-aids floating in a pool is just about one of the grossest things ever. And this is why Dave and I started referring to her (after we left the pool) as Open Wound Sarah.

Then she started to get a little obnoxious. She and her brother had brought a ton of pool toys with them, but every. single. item. warranted this high-pitched, eardrum-piercing “THAT’S MINE!!!” shriek from her – and I’m not even talking about Catie, I’m talking about when her brother tried to use the toys. Even the things they’d brought two of (like, say, beach balls or pool noodles), she insisted that they were both hers, she didn’t want her brother to touch any of them. And I think it’s worth noting that none of her shrieking fits warranted even a glance from her dad, who was still engrossed in his conversation.

Next, she turned her attention back to us. Catie was playing with her inflatable pirate ship, putting her toys in it and pushing it out to Dave and me in the pool. Sarah asked if she could ride in the pirate ship. I said sure, if she wanted to share one of her toys with Catie. She gave Catie a beach ball (which Catie was happy to play with), and we let Sarah play with the pirate ship for a while. That’s fair, right?

About ten minutes later, Catie decided that she didn’t want the beach ball anymore, she wanted her pirate boat back. Sarah refused to give it back. I kind of stumbled with that one while Catie gave me this, “WTF, Mom?” look. I honestly wasn’t sure how to handle it at first. Then I decided that you know what? These are not communal toys, we are not on a playdate, and this kid has about a bajillion things of her own to play with. So I said, “Sarah, you know, Catie brought this pirate boat to the pool, so it’s hers. And if she wants to play with it, she should be able to play with it. You have a lot of your own toys here, so maybe you should go play with them instead.” Sarah gave back the pirate boat, then turned around and kicked the water to splash both me and Catie in the face. I said, sharply (and loudly), “Ok, that’s not nice, we don’t do that.” Her dad? Yeah, he still didn’t notice.

Sarah took off for the chaise lounge where her dad was sitting, rummaged around in their bag o’ pool junk, and came back with one of those Super Soaker water guns. I looked at Dave and muttered, “Great. Now she’s armed.”

And as I predicted, she spent the next few minutes filling up the water gun and spraying it into the air so it would come down on Catie’s head (which, hello, I barely got the kid to go down to the 2nd step, don’t get her head wet or she might freak and never come back). I told her to stop a couple of times, then finally said very loudly, “Ok, Sarah, that’s enough!” Apparently that was loud enough to get her dad’s attention, and he looked over just in time to see me making a face at Dave that probably indicated I was about to throttle his kid. He called for her to come put away the water gun. Finally. But that was basically his only parenting contribution for the hour that we were there.

But she still wouldn’t leave us alone, she kept trying to boss Catie around and take her pirate boat away from her, and it was just aggravating. Finally I said, “You know, I think it’s time to go home for lunch!” By that point, all three of us, even Catie, were happy to leave just to get the heck away from that kid.

I still can’t decide, though. Is Sarah just a bratty kid? Or is this her parents’ fault for not paying enough attention to her, and causing her to seek attention in negative ways? I was only around the kid for an hour, so I probably don’t know enough to judge, but I’m leaning toward the latter.

I just really hope we can avoid that family at the pool in the future. I have a feeling I’ll end up snapping and yelling at the dad to pay attention to his children if we have to go through that again.

toes in the water

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We had a really lovely weekend, the perfect mix of fun stuff and chill-out time. Saturday night, we had my cousin & her family (plus her parents, my aunt & uncle, who happen to be visiting) over for dinner, which was a ton of fun. I think it’s pretty rare that you can have two 3 year-olds and a 1 year-old in the same house for hours and not have any major tantrums or tears, so we’ll call that a raging success. (There was a slight issue at the end when Catie refused to help clean up & had to go sit in time-out, but still. Overall it was great.)

Then, Sunday happened.

First of all, it’s rare that we have a day with absolutely nothing on the agenda. So I decided ok, this is it, the time is now for us to work on Catie’s fear of the water. I told her that we were going to go swimming today. She said no, I said yes.

She said: “I can’t want to go anywhere, I just stay home all day.”
I said: Ok then, no TV all day.
She said: Fine.

Damn. I hate it when she calls my bluff.

I said: I know you’re scared of the pool, but I want to show you that it’s a lot of fun and not scary at all. And! If you come with me to the pool? I’ll let you have a cookie with your breakfast.
She said: No.

I said: How about a new toy as a prize for going swimming?
She said: No.

But you know what? This kid inherited her stubbornness from me. If she thinks she can out-stubborn me, she’s dead wrong. This is when I dug my heels in (and made Dave raise his eyebrows).

I said: Ok, that’s it, until you decide to put on your swimsuit and go to the pool? You can go sit in your room and not come out.
She said: Well, she said nothing. She lay on the floor of her bedroom for 20 minutes and didn’t make a peep. No tantrum, just silent refusal to cooperate. Child is STRONG. WILLED.

About to give up, I said: Ok, how about if you don’t go swimming, but you come to the pool and just put your feet in the water?
She said: Oh. Ok!

Finally! So, the 3 of us set off for the pool. We brought her floaty pirate ship, and a couple of plastic toys with us for good measure. And you know what? She did great. I mean, I didn’t expect much, I thought we’d be there for ten minutes and she’d be ready to leave, but she started playing with some other kids there who were close to her age, and she had fun. She wouldn’t go all the way in the water, but she made it to the second step where the water came up to her knees, and she sat on the top step and got her tush wet, so it’s something, right? It was certainly more than I thought she’d do. We were there for over an hour – long enough for me to realize too late that I had forgotten to put sunscreen on my shoulders. Oops. (Catie’s fine. Apparently I’m better at remembering to put sunscreen on her than I am with myself.) And she wouldn’t ride in her pirate boat, but she thought it was funny to put her toys in it and then push it “out to sea” – where either Dave or I would rescue it and push it back to her.

And as promised, after we got home and changed clothes, we went to the store to pick out a toy. She chose a Barbie doll, which has already been completely discarded because all Catie really wanted were the 3 plastic puppies that came with her. And no, she does not know that you can give the puppies real water and that it’ll make them “pee.” I’m not telling her that part. That is some additional mess that I do not need in my life.

Oh, and this entry is getting way too long as it is, but tomorrow? I have to tell y’all about my run-in with possibly the most obnoxious kid I’ve ever encountered IN MY LIFE. Stay tuned for that.

routines

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I’m guessing that most families with two working parents settle into some sort of a routine. It took us a pretty long time of floundering, but I think we’ve finally found our groove.

Dave goes to work really early in the morning – like, crazy early. I think he leaves around 6 a.m.? Maybe earlier? I don’t really know because I’m always asleep. He gives me a kiss goodbye – on the forehead, because I’m usually sleeping with my mouth open, such a sexy little minx am I. And I try to wake up and say a proper goodbye, but it usually comes out like this:

Mmmrrph? Bye, haff a good d… *honk* *pshew*…

What can I say? I’m a heavy sleeper.

Anyway, Dave likes going to work early because he’s the first one there and he can get at least a solid couple hours’ worth of work done before everybody else gets there. Honestly, the extra productivity wouldn’t be worth the early wake-up call for me, but I’ve never been an early bird type.

Meanwhile, Catie and I usually get up around 7:30 on average. We snuggle on the couch and watch cartoons for a little while, then I get her dressed and we set off for daycare. I usually get her there around 9:15 a.m. Then I come back home and get to work.

The perk of Dave heading in so early, is that he can leave work around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon, and pick Catie up from daycare on his way home. He helps me out with the childcare stuff in the evenings (dinner, bathtime), but then he goes to bed around 8 p.m. so he can get up early the next day. Catie doesn’t go to bed until about 9:00 p.m., so I usually handle bedtime on my own. I suppose this means that overall, I do more of the childcare “work” than he does (getting her dressed in the morning, the bedtime routine at night), but he makes up for it by getting up with her on the weekends and letting me sleep in, so that trade-off is fine with me. There was a point, sometime when Catie was 2 years old, that I thought I would never be able to sleep past 9 a.m. again, ever, for the rest of my life. I now often sleep until at least 10 on Saturdays. Which, for the record, is freaking awesome.

I suppose it wouldn’t work for some people – the fact that we all have different bedtimes and wake-up times – but it’s fine for us. Yes, I’m a little jealous of the people whose kids go to bed at 7 p.m. and sleep peacefully all night, and who get to hang out watching prime-time TV with their spouses. But that’s just not how we roll. And that’s ok, we make this work for us.

Still, there are some mornings when Catie wakes up, and she wants her Daddy. And I tell her that sorry babe, he’s already gone to work. She looks out the front window into the driveway, sees that his car is gone, and then she cries that she wants her Daddy. Talk about heart-breaking.

Catie seriously working on the iPad

Dave had some insomnia last night so he slept late this morning. Catie was so excited that he was still here when she woke up, she climbed into our bed between us and snuggled up next to him with her head on his pillow. It was so sweet.

Dave got up to shower and get dressed for work, and I told Catie that if she wanted Daddy to take her to school instead of Mommy, she was going to have to hurry and get dressed in the next 5 minutes, or else Daddy was going to have to leave without her. And my normally sleepy-headed child who takes forever to get ready in the morning was dressed with her sneakers on and pigtails up in a heartbeat.

She went to daycare over an hour earlier than usual, and she was delighted to do so, because her Daddy was the one taking her. She kissed me good-bye, and with a “Love you, Mommy, have a good day!”, she was off. The house was completely empty and quiet by 8:00 a.m. That never happens. I actually got to exercise before starting work for the day. That’s a pretty rare occurrence too.

Since Dave was later than usual getting to work, he’s going to have to stay later this afternoon, so I’m going to be picking Catie up from daycare. I already can’t wait to see her. Sometimes a little change in the routine is just what we need.

oh that's right, I have a blog

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While I’m trying to get my head together and think of something funny or profound or, hell, I don’t know, anything to write about, here are my favorite pictures from our 4th of July.

Catie & Elizabeth pose for me
Catie and her cousin Elizabeth. Those girls know how to work the camera.

Elizabeth & Catie, ready to see the fireworks on the 4th of July
The look on Catie’s face here cracks me up. She’s smiling, but there’s also a “what the heck is she doing back there? Is she touching me? Make her stop touching me!” kind of vibe.

the one halfway-cool looking picture of fireworks that I took
Pretty much the only cool fireworks picture that I was able to get. I need to figure out the manual settings on my awesome camera someday, because most of them were, uh, awful.

Hope everyone is having a great week. I’ll be back soon with something more.

First Dentist Trip

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I have been procrastinating about Catie’s first trip to the dentist for ages. I know how she freaks out when presented with something new and unfamiliar, and I was dreading it. But we’ve been talking about it for a while – how the dentist cleans your teeth and makes sure they’re strong and healthy, and there are NO BOO-BOOS (read: shots) at the dentist, so it’s great! fun! times! Yaaaay, dentists!!!

She didn’t buy it. I can’t say I blamed her. I hate the dentist myself. But she should’ve had her first dentist appointment ages ago, so I finally sucked it up and made the appointment.

We talked about it a lot ahead of time. I told her that she’d get a prize afterward if she was good – I remembered that her cousin’s dentist had a treasure chest of prizes to choose from, and I assumed that our pediatric dentist would be similarly hooked up. And then afterward, we’d go out for a special Mommy & Catie lunch, just the two of us, and then she could go to daycare and tell all the kids about her exciting morning. She seemed sort of cautiously ok with that plan.

I have to say, I think we had the nicest dental hygienist on earth, and I will praise them to the skies just for this one lady alone. She was great with Catie, showed her all of her tools ahead of time and explained what each one did and reassured her that nothing was going to hurt. I kept waiting for Catie’s freak-out, and it never happened. She lay down in the chair, she wore the little light-blocking sunglasses, she opened her mouth like a good little patient, and she giggled through most of the appointment. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.

The hygienist did her thing, the dentist checked her out and said she looked great, and they sent us on our way. And that’s the one part of the trip where things started to fall apart. Catie wanted to see the prize chest. There wasn’t one. There were some dinky 10-cent plastic rings and some funny pencils, but that was about it. Catie was not happy. I whispered to her to just say “no thank you” and that I’d take her to the store to get a prize when we left. I mean, seriously, it’s my own fault for talking up the prize aspect so much, I felt like I had to follow through on my end of the bargain.

There’s a Wal-Mart down the street from the dentist’s office. We headed over there, made a beeline for the exact toy that I knew Catie wanted (for those of you who’ve seen Toy Story 3, she’s been asking for Buttercup, the unicorn, ever since we saw the movie), and I bought it for her on the spot.

Out for pizza after her first trip to the dentist
I love this picture of her because she was trying to show off both her unicorn and her “pretty white teeth!”, but the lighting is horrible because the sun was behind her & the iPhone doesn’t have a flash. Sigh.

Then, since she’d asked for pizza for our Special Mommy & Catie Lunch Date, I saw that there was a pizzeria a couple of doors down from Wal-Mart. We walked over, bought 2 slices, and had a lovely lunch.

Out for pizza after her first trip to the dentist

She was so excited to go to daycare afterward to tell all the kids about the dentist. I tell you, that girl never ceases to amaze me.

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Total non-sequitur conversation in the parking lot after her dentist visit. (This doesn’t relate to anything, I just think it’s hilarious.)

Me: …blah-blah-blah’ing about what a good job she did and how brave she was and how I’m so, so proud of her…

Catie: Yeah. [pause] Pop-Pop is my friend.

Me: [kind of thrown by the change of topic, but ooookay] Yes, sweetie, Pop-Pop is your friend, and he loves you very, very much.

Catie: Pop-Pop and Mimi are gonna come to our house.

Me: Well, I hope they can come to our house for a visit soon. That’d be nice. And you know, hopefully soon, they’ll sell their house in Mississippi and move up here, and then we’ll be able to see them a lot more often. That’ll be great when that happens, huh?

Catie: Yeah! Maybe we can share with them!

Me: [confused] Share what with them, babe?

Catie: We can share our house with them!

Me: [thinking: yeah, except then your Daddy will divorce me] Well, you know, sweetie, Mimi & Pop-Pop have a lot of stuff, and I don’t think all their stuff would fit into our house with all of our stuff, so they probably need to have their own house.

Catie: Oh. Ok.

Hopefully that’ll settle the issue of my parents moving in with us, because as much as I love them, and I really really do… no. Just no.

why I do that

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My allergies are still giving me grief, so I’ve been skipping out on running and doing the 30 Day Shred instead. That whole “holy crap I can’t breathe” feeling isn’t quite as awful during the Shred, I guess because the exercises are constantly changing and hurting you in different ways, as opposed to running where you’re just doing the same painful thing for 25 minutes.

And it’s weird, I like them both for different reasons. With running, I get this weird sort of endorphin head rush of, “f*ck yeah, I’m a RUNNER, man. I’m strong! I’m empowered! I can conquer ANYTHING in the WORLD!” So, apparently running gives me delusions of grandeur, because seriously, all I did was run barely 2 miles. We’re hardly talking Marathon Woman over here. But whatever, it’s fun.

Meanwhile, with the Shred, I don’t necessarily get the same rush, but I feel sore all over afterward, which I like because then I feel like, “ooh, I’m toning up these muscles, and these, and these…” So they each have their own perks.

Last night, I did the Shred after Catie got home from daycare, but before dinner. Catie said she wanted to work out with me, so she grabbed my 1-pound weights and jumped in (I’ve upgraded to the 5-pound weights, which make the workout infinitely harder). It’s hilarious because she doesn’t really do any of the moves correctly, but she was so excited that she was doing it with me, and she kept saying, “Mommy, look at me! Look at me!” It actually made the workout harder because I couldn’t stop laughing.

It’s funny, she’s done the Shred with me a few times, but she doesn’t really have the attention span to do the whole video. She does the warm-up, then she wanders off to play with her toys, then she sees me doing something that she thinks looks like fun (i.e., what Jillian calls “squat thrusts” and what Catie calls “frog jumps” – I think Catie’s term is probably more accurate), and she’ll run back over and join in again for a couple of minutes, then she’s off and playing again. Lather rinse repeat.

But last night, when she first got home from daycare & I was putting on my workout clothes, I told her I was going to work out, and she said, “Why you do that?” I have been VERY careful about not saying anything disparaging about my body in front of her, because I don’t want her to take on any of my body image issues as her own. In fact, when she’s jumping around doing the Shred with me, I get really annoyed with Jillian Michaels for talking about burning fat and losing weight – like, SHUT UP, I don’t want those thoughts getting into her head.

So when she asked me, “Why you do that?” I paused for a second to think about it. And I said, “Well, you know how we eat healthy foods like fruits and vegetables so we’ll be healthy and strong? I exercise for the same reason. I need to be strong, so that I can still pick you up and carry you, even now that you’re a big girl.”

She seemed to like that answer. She said, “Yeah, and I am getting sooo big! Right, Mommy?” I agreed with her, and I was feeling all proud of myself and sort of smug, like haha, take THAT, stupid American standards that beauty = thinness! Boo-yah!

Then Catie continued: “Yeah, Mommy. And you getting HUGE!”

Nice. Thanks a lot, kid. Jeez.

stuff swirling around in my head, none of which is enough to make a single coherent post

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We saw “Toy Story 3” on Saturday. I cried. And Dave didn’t even make fun of me that much (which means he must’ve thought it was sad too, because normally he mocks me when I cry during movies). Catie is obsessed with the first and second Toy Story movies, and she loved this one, but we had to talk about it a lot afterward. I think some parts of the movie might be upsetting for little kids. But otherwise, the three of us gave it a combined total of six thumbs up.

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I noticed a lot of people did Father’s Day posts, and I felt bad that it didn’t even occur to me. So, happy late Father’s Day to Dave. Catie and I love you to pieces.

I have to say, Sunday was a pretty great day. To celebrate Father’s Day, we went out for breakfast (IHOP, yum), then Dave went home to chill out and have some downtime while I took Catie out to run errands with me. We went to Best Buy to buy Dave’s Father’s Day gift, then we hit Toys R Us to look for a “Slinky Dog” toy from Toy Story. Catie had filled up her reward chart and she said that was the thing she wanted (actually, no, she said she “needed” a Slinky Dog). Of course, Toys R Us was sold out, and I worried she’d have a huge meltdown, so I said, “Hey, they’re out of Slinky Dog here, so let’s go see if another store has it. Come on!” And she… my child… left Toys R Us willingly and without a meltdown. I couldn’t believe it. Reward charts FTW!

Also? Thank the heavens above for Wal-Mart (something I never thought I’d say), because we got the LAST Slinky Dog on the shelf. Catie was so happy that she was an angel for the rest of the day.

We got groceries, brought them home, and then since Catie was too hyper to nap, she came back out with me again to shop for new workout clothes. She sat patiently in the dressing room and told me if she did or didn’t like the clothes I had tried on. (I was only supposed to be looking for workout clothes, but I actually thought this dress looked kind of cute on me and I was thinking about getting it for BlogHer, but Catie said, “No, Mommy. Try something else.” Thanks, kiddo! Way to keep me focused on the task at hand.) It was awesome. We wandered all over the mall and she was the best shopping buddy I could’ve asked for.

And Dave got to play video games all day and take a nap, so I think it was a pretty great Father’s Day for him too.

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In the category of exercise/fitness stuff: A little over a week ago, I ran 20 minutes without stopping for the first time in my life. And it was awesome. But since then, my workouts have been feeling progressively more difficult. On Saturday I tried to run 25 minutes without stopping (which, yeah, that’s hard, but I ran 20 minutes, right? So not THAT much harder!) and I had to stop to catch my breath around minute 15. Ok, no big deal. Then I tried to do that 25-minute run again yesterday and I had to stop to catch my breath 4 different times. WTF? Then this morning I woke up with a nasty cough. Ah, allergies, you evil b*tch. That probably explains my diminished lung capacity. I guess I should maybe pop an extra antihistamine an hour or so before my workout.

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I made these brownies (thanks, Grace!), which sound horrifying, but are actually pretty good. Only, um, the combination of ingredients does lead to some, *ahem*, digestive issues. Let’s just leave it at that, ok? But they ARE yummy and a lot healthier than regular brownies, so… ? Judge for yourself, I suppose. They really taste nothing like the ingredients would have you think.

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I signed Catie up for swimming lessons at the YMCA (our gym), and the classes start in mid-July. But every time we talk about it, she says, “Noooooo! I can’t want to go swimming!” She won’t go to the neighborhood pool with me on the weekends, she won’t wear her swimsuit to daycare on “Water Play Day” (which is basically just playing in the sprinklers, they don’t have a pool). She is terrified of all things water-related, except the bathtub, and she’s not even a big fan of that.

So, I was thinking about withdrawing her from swimming lessons this year. There’s a bunch of kids on the wait list who I know would be happy to take her place, and I haven’t paid for it yet so I won’t lose any money. I’m just not sure if it’s worth putting her through it when she’s clearly so scared and unwilling to try it. Maybe we could try it next year and it’d be easier for her. I do think that learning to swim is one of those basic survival skills that everyone needs. I’m just not sure if she needs it at 3 years old. If any of y’all have any opinions on this, I’d love to hear them. I honestly don’t know what to do.