humor

The Saga of Transitioning from a Crib to a Toddler Bed

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 8 Comments
The Saga of Transitioning from a Crib to a Toddler Bed
Most three-year-olds are not still in cribs, having transitioned to toddler beds long ago. But in this case, Sprout is not “most kids.” He’s never tried to climb out of his crib, uneasy with scrambling down where there isn’t obvious hand and foot-holds. Because there was no great need, we put off the transition as long as possible. But with his third birthday passed, a potty-training blitz coming up, and preschool approaching, we figured it was time. It was only slightly more chaotic than we expected.

Continue reading →

Things My Older Son Does as a Big Brother that are both Adorable and Annoying

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments
Things My Older Son Does as a Big Brother that ar Adorable and Annoying

Nope, these aren’t my kids. I don’t like sharing photos of them, so stock random boys it is!

Returning to work, one of the first questions people ask is, “How is [Sprout] doing?” And my answer is consistently, “He really loves his brother. But he’s a bit aggressively affectionate.” While I’m grateful that he adores his brother, sometimes the ways he shows it aren’t very appropriate. Oddly, even though we’re freaking out, Little Bird hardly ever seems to mind.

Here are a few of the things he does that are sometimes adorable, sometimes a Very Bad Idea and most often, both.

Continue reading →

Things My Newborn Has Reminded Me Of, None of Which Are Babies

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Things My Newborn Has Reminded Me Of

When a baby is born, all of the adults gather around, ooohing and ahhhhing. Inevitably one of them says to the parents, “Oh, they look just like you!” This is obviously not true. Babies look far more like each other than their own parents. In fact, my baby has actually reminded me of a variety of animals far more than me or my husband. With Little Bird having recently moved out of the newborn stage, here’s an inventory of things he reminded me of:

Continue reading →

Visiting the Park with a Toddler and Newborn: A Play in 3 Acts

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Visiting the Park with a Newborn and a Toddler: A Play in 3 Acts. (Photo: A sidewalk with shadows of an adult and child)

Ever feel like you’re stuck in an absurdist play as a parent? Waiting for Godot with diapers and sippy cups. Goodnight Moon come to life.

This was especially true when for some reason, I felt the need to go to the park with my newborn and toddler a week after the baby was born. I’m not sure if severe sleep deprivation was getting to me or the air in our house was just that stifling, but I must have been suffering from some delusions to think it was a good idea…

Characters

Shannon: an overconfident mom of two
Chris: Her husband
Sprout, Shannon and Chris’s almost three-year-old
Little Bird, Shannon and Chris’s week-old newborn
Fellow park-goers

Act 1: Getting to the Park

Shannon and Chris are sitting on the couch, with Shannon holding Little Bird. Sprout is lying on the floor.
Shannon: Let’s go to the park!
Sprout continues to lie on the floor.
Shannon: Don’t you want to go to the park? We’ll bring Little Bird!
Sprout pushes his toy school bus across the floor.
Sprout: Pee pee poo poo, mommy.
Shannon: We’re putting your shoes on in 5. 1-2-3-4-5.
Shannon walks over to Sprout, grabs his hands and tries to get him to stand up. He goes limp, then stands up very slowly and mosies over to the couch. Shannon hauls Sprout up on her lap and put his sneakers on. Chris straps Little Bird into his car seat, who immediately starts crying.
Shannon: Do you think he’s hungry? I fed him less than an hour ago.
Chris (carrying the car seat out the door and snapping it into the stroller): He’s fine. Just go.
Shannon and Sprout walk outside. Shannon begins to push the stroller.
Sprout: No no no no no!
Shannon: What’s wrong? Please use words.
Sprout: I WANT TO DO IT!
Shannon: Do what?
Sprout reaches for the stroller’s handle.
Sprout: Want to push!
Shannon: Ah. Thank you for being so helpful!
Sprout and Shannon push the stroller for two feet, then Sprout stops and pushes on the foot brake.
Shannon: The stroller can’t move if the brake is on.
Sprout runs to the side of the stroller and peers in. He then runs to the back, takes off the brake, pushes for another two feet, and puts the brake on again.
Shannon: Seriously, what are you doing?
Sprout (looks into the stroller): Hi, Little Bird!
Shannon: You want to see him, but can’t from the back, can you?
Sprout runs back, takes off the brake, pushes the stroller and then repeats the whole process.
Shannon: You aren’t going to do this every two feet, are you?

Continue reading →

Guest Post on Pregnant Chicken: The Seven Stages of Picking a Name for Your Baby

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

While the physical discomfort was bad, the most stressful thing for me about pregnancy was picking a freaking name for the baby. (Especially this time around, when Little Bird’s labor was bizarrely quick. But that’s a story for another time.) As I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with this, I wrote a guest post called the Seven Stages of Picking a Name for Your Baby for Pregnant Chicken.

Besides labor, picking a name is one of the hardest things about having a baby. It’s rumored that there are couples who have a name for each gender picked out before conception. But for the rest of us, it’s a process fraught with uncertainty, frustration and confusion. We also kind of hope those prepared parents’ kid changes their name during a quarter-life crisis. While not everyone goes through these, here are seven common stages of naming a baby:

Read the rest at Pregnant Chicken!

A Day in the Life During the Third Trimester

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Life is very different in the third trimester of pregnancy than it is during any other time in life. Here’s a bit of insight into how a normal day has been going for me:

A Day in the Life During the Third Trimester1:00 AM: Wake up to go to the bathroom.

3:00 AM: Wake up again to go to the bathroom. Scoop water into my mouth with my eyes closed because I’m inordinately thirsty.

6:35 AM: Alarm blares. Attempt to turn over. Eventually flop onto back, then wiggle onto my right side and lurch my legs over the side of the bed.

6:43 AM: Catch a glimpse of my hands. Realize that my left hand is currently three times fatter than the right. Stupid fluid retention.

6:45 AM: Get in the shower. Thank God for solitude and hot water.

7:05 AM: A little voice cries “Mommy mommy mommy!” After checking to see if Sprout’s pajamas are damp (this child does 90% of his peeing at night), lift him up and change his diaper. Send him into our bedroom to wake up my husband.

7:10 AM: Peek into the bedroom to see them snuggling in bed. Climb under the sheets for a few moments of wiggly bliss.

Continue reading →

A Few Recommendations for Interacting with Me While Pregnant

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

I wrote this a while back, but haven’t been able to post it until now. Fortunately, a couple of these no longer apply – the doctor lifted my restrictions about a month ago, thank goodness.

Maybe it’s my badass attitude. Or maybe it’s the fact that I obviously respond with my lunch order when you ask “Do you know what you’re having?” Either way, I typically haven’t had a lot of strangers interact with me during my first or current pregnancy. Nonetheless, if you run into me, here are some rules for dealing with me while pregnant. While these rules aren’t universal, I’m pretty sure they apply widely beyond my personal situation.

1) No comments on the size of a woman’s feet. During my first pregnancy, I had some serious fluid retention. Towards the end, there was a single pair of stretchy shoes I could wear, which my feet overflowed out of like muffin tops at the end of each leg. If someone’s feet are twice as big as usual, believe me, she already knows it.

2) No saying “Oh, you’ll have your hands full!” Personally, I’ll respond poorly if you comment about how two boys will be so difficult for me to handle. For one, I’m not the primary caregiver – my husband is – so he’ll be the one juggling it the most. Secondly, my kid is the toddler version of Mr. Rogers; he loves button-down sweaters, enjoys quietly looking at books, and actually shares with other kids. Rather than having my bubble burst, I’d prefer to delude myself that our second kid will have a similarly calm demeanor. Similarly, no one else wants to hear about how their life is going to be a living hell – that’s what “You’ll have your hands full!” is the nice version of.

3) No donations of maternity clothes unless requested. I deeply appreciate the generosity of the many women who passed on maternity clothes during my first pregnancy. I appreciated the actual styles of said clothes far less. While they may have been attractive on some pregnant woman somewhere, they certainly weren’t on me.

4) No touching. This is pretty much a gimme, and yet some people just don’t seem to know (or acknowledge) it. Friends and family are an exception, but only if if they ask first. The only person who’s totally exempt from this rule is my toddler son and even I’ve yelled at him a bunch of times not to sit on / hit / squish / climb on his future brother. Good advice for life, really.

5) No horror stories. During my first pregnancy, I was a bit of a Smug Pregnant Lady at times. While I was nervous about becoming a mom, my pregnancy was pretty damn easy, all things considered. But this time around is different. Due to some heavy bleeding that sent me to the ER early on, I’m more wound up than a yo-yo on Adderall. I know a number of women for whom things went Very Badly and am perfectly capable of coming up with plenty more horrifying scenarios myself. And I know I’m not the only one. Neither I or any other pregnant women need your idle comments to feed our nightmares.

6) No saying “But it’s for the best” or “It’s all worth it” when we describe our restrictions. Due to said bleeding, I have some substantial restrictions on activities. Whereas during my first pregnancy, I walked a mile to the train every day, biked into my first trimester and was a yoga die-hard, this time I’m not allowed to walk for more than 10 minutes without sitting down. Taking away my main form of stress relief was awesome. In addition, I’m not allowed to lift my two-year-old (too heavy), which is super exciting when he plays the “I’m going to lie on the floor like a dead fish game” when I’m trying to put him in bed. Of course, following the doctor’s orders is for the best – I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise! But that doesn’t negate the fact that the restrictions still suck. I know plenty of women who have much more severe restrictions. If I or any other pregnant woman is complaining, please just sympathize.

7) Don’t treat us as some special category, but just people who will be having a baby in a couple of months. (Except for giving up your seats on the subway – that you can still do, thanks.)

My Best of Twitter 2015

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I know I’m behind the curve posting my best-of yearly posts the second week of January, but we had a surprisingly busy two-weeks off Christmas holiday. All of that gift-wrapping, food eating, museum visiting, and Internet browsing doesn’t just do itself. As you may have noticed, from the sidebar, I’m on Twitter, posting @storiteller. Most of the time I post links to articles on social justice, bicycling, and other political issues, with a smattering of parenting commentary. However, as not everyone is on Twitter and there’s just so much traffic, I wanted to highlight some of my favorite tweets about parenting this year. (Yes, it only goes back to June – I guess I tweeted so much that Twitter cuts off by that point.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ridiculous Moments in Parenting: Last Week Edition

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Last week, I wasn’t even at home and yet the shenanigans were even more absurd than usual. Because I was at a work conference all week, Chris had to play stay-at-home single parent to a two-year-old, an exceptionally challenging job. Here were just a few of the ridiculous things that happened.

– Sprout declaring that Kraft macaroni and cheese was “delicious,” a complement much higher than that he usually bestows on any food: This is despite the fact that Chris was a professional cook in a very expensive restaurant before leaving to stay home. Now, Sprout eats way more vegetables than the average toddler (hurray!), but the fact that Kraft Mac and Cheese was the height of culinary prowess according to him was rather horrifying and funny. No accounting for taste.

– Doing the Hokey Pokey by myself in a hotel room: Keeping the attention of a toddler over FaceTime is challenging at best. To try to keep Sprout from wandering off, I started listing off songs he might want me to sing. After asking about “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” “10 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,” and “House at Pooh Corner,” I finally scored with the Hokey Pokey. Which led to me sticking my right foot in and right foot out and turning all about by myself next to my hotel bed and holding out an iPhone trying not to trip.

– Spout taking a giant bite out of a hat: Chris is a big Green Bay Packers fan, so one of our baby shower gifts was a kid-sized cheese hat. Chris happened to find it in Sprout’s closet and showed it to him, commenting “This is a cheese hat.” Sprout replied, “Cheese hat?” and then “chomp.” He managed to get a good chunk out of it before Chris could wrest it away from him and explain it was “play cheese!”

– Experiencing our first hysterically funny toddler tantrum: The other day, Sprout was really upset for no apparent reason. The answer to every question we asked was “no.” The epitome was him running in place like he was in the world’s worst gym class, flailing his arms like a rabid chicken. I always thought that parents taking photos of their kids crying was kind of mean, but I finally understood as I tried to contain my laughter.

– Chasing after a toddler mid-puke holding out a Tupperware container: For some reason, Sprout often gets sick when I go out of town. Luckily for Chris, he waited until the day after I got back to do so this time. Fortunately for everyone, the bout only lasted three hours and he was fine by the afternoon.

– Going on a bicycle ride by myself on my own bike: While this used to be an extremely common occurrence, it definitely felt like a personal accomplishment in the same sense that Beth Woolsey of Five Kids is a Lot of Kids describes being able to clip her nails. I ride back and forth to the Metro every day, but that’s on clunky, heavy Capital Bikeshare bikes. When I do have the luxury of using my own well-loved Bianchi hybrid, it’s almost always dragging an extra 50 pounds between the trailer and the growing toddler. Being able to go on a ride and worry about no one else besides myself was truly glorious, especially because I rode through the well-shaded Rock Creek Park.

– Bike grease making its way onto my child’s face and very most likely, inside his mouth: Later the same day, we took a very short ride to our little downtown area. As I was putting my bike away, Sprout started running his fingers over the chain, despite my protests. Then, because he’s teething his molars in and the simple fact that he’s two, he promptly put his hand in his mouth. (At least I’m assuming he did – I didn’t actually see it, but he did have grease on the side of his mouth.) As I know bike grease is definitely not non-toxic, that was a super awesome parenting fail. Hopefully, he won’t be puking again tomorrow.

What were some of the most ridiculous things that happened to you this week?

The Three Stages of FaceTime with a Toddler

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments
Text: "The Three Stages of FaceTime with a Toddler / We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So" Photo: Screenshot of the FaceTime program with a woman smiling into the camera
As I travel very rarely for work, my two-year-old son isn’t very used to the idea of it. The last time I was gone for more than a night was in December, which I suspect he doesn’t even remember. So I don’t think my goodbye really sunk in when I left on a four day work trip last week. To keep in touch, we FaceTimed every night and went through a very distinct stage each time:

Continue reading →