Monthly Archives: February 2011

February 25, 2011 · 4:54 pm

Moon Moon Moon

For all the unpredictability in our house, we have a very predictable bedtime routine.  The boys get a fresh diaper or pull-up, they brush their teeth, we read a story, we sing a song, I say “Happy, happy sleep and sweet, sweet dreams” and then it’s over.  G’nite.

When Mike sings, he usually does old rock songs, and the boys love it.  When I sing, I sing one song over and over – “Moon Moon Moon” by Lorrie Berkner.  After all the Mommy & Me and Music Together classes I’ve endured, this is the only song I have in my repertoire for bed.  Thankfully, the boys love it, too.

A few weeks ago, Mike was on bedtime duty because I was cooking dinner and had lost my patience with the kids big time.  I don’t even remember what sent me over the edge.  It was just one of those days.  Anyway, Mike came in the kitchen and said the boys wanted to hear the moon song, so I sang while cooking and Mike recorded it on his iPhone.  We thought it would be fun for them, and it was.  According to Mike, it put them in some kind of trance.  They were in awe that my voice was coming from the phone, and Riley kept pointing at it and saying, “Mommy? Mommy?” 

We played the recording the next night while I was in the room, and it was amazing to see them respond so genuinely to my voice.  It was also unbearable.  It made me think that if something ever happened to me, they would have this one short recording of me singing “Moon Moon Moon” and it made me want to cry.  But I digress.

My bedtime routine is as follows: brush teeth, floss (if I remember), watch “Anderson Cooper 360” until I start dozing and tell Mike to roll over when he snores.   The tell Mike to roll over part pretty much continues on and off all night.  So do tossing and turning because my bed is so old and uncomfortable that my neck, hips and back hurt the minute I get in the bed.  Somewhere around 4am, Harry, who at nearly six years old still needs to pee in the middle of the night, will wake one of us to let him out.  By the time I fall back asleep from that interruption, it’s usually time for Riley to wake up screaming around 5am.

But all of this – the good and bad – is going to change tonight.  We finally bought a new bed for our room (a King!) and it’s being delivered this afternoon.  Our old bed is going into Riley’s old room, which we’re using as a guest room/office/junk yard.  And the twin bed that has been collecting dust in Riley’s old room is going into Riley and Dylan’s room to…drum roll…replace Riley’s crib.  Yes, Riley will sleep in a big boy bed for the first time tonight.  It’s either the best or worst idea we’ve ever had, but I’m so ready to be done with the crib (and we have too many beds and too little space to store them!).  

Bedtime will be nuts tonight, I’m sure.  If we can get Riley to stay in his new bed, I know I’ll sleep like a baby in mine…until Harry wakes me up to pee, Mike wakes me up with his snoring and Riley inevitably wanders into our room in the middle of the night to say hello because he can.  At least we’ll still have “Moon Moon Moon.”

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February 17, 2011 · 9:19 pm

Gut Check

When Dylan was born, I was absolutely terrified.  He came early and unexpectedly and by c-section, and, needless to say, nothing went as planned. His diaper was the first diaper I ever changed…ever.   I had no idea what I was doing, and I had this idiotic notion that someone was going to walk into my hospital room and teach me how to be a mother.  It was at the end of my second postpartum day that I realized no one was coming.  I took a deep breath, brought Dylan home and waited for my “mommy” instinct to kick in.  Eventually, it did.

My best and most successful parenting decisions have come from a deep, instinctual place.  I may not always get the outcome I want, but when I use my instinct as a compass, I feel comfortable about the direction I’m headed.  Conversely, when I don’t trust my gut, I feel anxious and tend to drink too much Pino Grigio with my dinner.
Speaking of dinner…
Dylan sees an occupational therapist (OT) once per week at school to work on his fine motor skills (he has a weak grip).  The OT has also been helping us evaluate whether or not some of Dylan’s quirks, like his struggle to wear long-sleeves and pants, fear of loud noises and refusal to try new foods are sensory processing issues.   So far, she feels pretty strongly that his food issues are behavioral.  She’s suggested we get tougher at mealtime, meaning that we put food in front of him and he either eats it or doesn’t eat at all.  
This is good, solid advice, and I know it works for some parents and some kids, but the thought of doing it with Dylan was unsettling to say the least.  I wasn’t mentally prepared to do anything that night at dinner, but after a good night of sleep I gave it a try at breakfast. 
I presented Dylan with a waffle and half a banana, neither of which were “new” foods, but the waffle was a different brand – Kashi instead of our usual Van’s. Both were round and whole grain, but the Kashi waffle was a slightly different shade of brown.  Not surprisingly, he refused to eat it.  I very calmly told him that was his breakfast and he could choose not to eat it but he would get nothing else.  I told him the waffle was going to be delicious, just like all the waffles I’ve made him, and I told him I would never give him food that wasn’t yummy.  Blah blah blah.  He cried and whined, and I stood my ground…until an hour later when he begged me for a breakfast bar if he ate his banana.  Under duress, I said yes. 
I spent the rest of the day beating myself up for not following through, for letting him – in the end – control the situation, and for starting the whole damn thing in the first place.  It was a colossal mess…over a waffle!  Bottom line:  I made mealtime a negative and punitive experience, and I veered far – very far – from my intuitive path.  I basically swerved off the road and wrapped myself around a tree.  The only good thing that came out of the breakfast debacle was that it forced me to think about how to conquer Dylan’s food issues without fear and coercion. 
I came up with a plan to make color themed dinners.  Dylan is obsessed with colors lately.  He asks me at least 20 times a day what my favorite color is (yellow, by the way).  We started yesterday with red, Dylan’s favorite color, and called it a “Red Celebration.”  We set the dining room table with red spoons and forks, red cups and a vase full of red roses (from Valentine’s Day), and Dylan invited all of his red toys to join us at the table.  Here was the menu:
strawberries and watermelon
strawberry yogurt
Babybel cheese circles wrapped in red wax
whole wheat rigatoni with red tomato sauce
red Annie’s Gummies
raspberry sorbet
The yogurt and cheese were safe bets, but I decided to consider any food consumption a success.  Riley tried everything.  He’s a pretty good eater, but he’d never eaten tomato sauce before so I was happy.  Dylan wouldn’t eat the watermelon, but he had two pieces of strawberry (a huge step for him), the cheese and a few good spoonfuls of yogurt, and even though he wouldn’t eat the tomato sauce, he ate a bowl of plain rigatoni with Parmesan cheese on top.  He hasn’t eaten pasta in months!  I was so proud of all the different foods they both ate, and the best part was that mealtime was a hugely positive experience (special thanks to the sorbet!).  There were no tears and no guilt.
I’ve schlepped to the market three times in the last two days for this rainbow experiment, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get Dylan (and Riley, too) excited about food.  Dylan chose green for tonight’s dinner.  It should be interesting.  I bought green flowers for the table, and the menu includes:
green apple slices and green melon
edamame
kiwi yogurt smoothies
green scrambled eggs (all natural food coloring)
spinach penne with Parmesan cheese
green veggie chips
mint chocolate chip ice cream
I have some good ideas for orange and yellow, but I’m going to need some input for the blue and purple menus.  Besides blueberries, I’m stumped.  Let me know if you have any ideas! 

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Filed under food, parenting, sensory processing disorder