parenting

Reading Where the Wild Things Are as a Parent

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 8 Comments

"Re-Reading Where the Wild Things Are as a Parent" Some books resonate with you as a child and then again in a totally different way as an adult. (Photo: Young man reading Where the Wild Things Are to a baby under a baby gym.)

When my husband was three, my mother-in-law was convinced he could read. After all, he flipped through the pages of Where the Wild Things Are as he spoke the words out loud with perfect timing. But it just happened that he loved it so much that he memorized the entire thing, word for word.

While I never memorized it myself, Where the Wild Things Are too holds a special place in my literary canon. As a teenager, I remembered it fondly, along with Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland.

But then a series of events illuminated how much the book still speaks to me, especially since I’ve become a parent.

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Home for the Holidays

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Sprout at both of our parents’ houses, full of warmth, good food, family togetherness, and presents. His favorite part appeared to be ripping apart the wrapping paper, although he preferred to eat it than notice what was inside the boxes. He also enjoyed both sets of his grandparents fawning over him, staring at the glittering Christmas trees, and grabbing at my mother-in-law’s animatronic, waddling Charlie Brown toy. Even if he didn’t get enough presents to spoil multiple children, he’d still be so blessed by the number of people who love him. Of course, that means Chris and I are as well, for which we are very thankful.

We also had the good fortune of being able to attend the wedding of my sister-in-law and her new husband. There’s nothing more wonderful than being able to welcome someone you love into the family!

Unfortunately, I think this next week might be a bit of a let-down for Sprout, as there will no longer be relatives endlessly eager to entertain him or sparkly lights. New Years is going to be a very low-key affair for us – we’ve never had anyone look after him who isn’t directly related to us and it’s certainly too late to find a babysitter. But I’m not going to complain about a nice, chill day off.

How were your holidays, whether you celebrated Christmas or not? What do you look forward to for the New Year?

Six Months Gone By

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 10 Comments

We celebrated Sprout’s half-year birthday on Monday. If one minute with your hand on a hot stove feels an hour and an hour with an attractive person feels like a minute, then six months with an infant breaks the space-time continuum. The time before he was born feels like a different person’s life. These past six months really have been a whole life – his life so far – packed into a small slice of time.

Some people say that a child’s babyhood flies for the parent. Perhaps I’ll feel that way in the future, but now every day is so densely packed with experiences and emotions that it seems longer than it is.

I’ve never learned so much in such a short period of time. I had zero experience with newborns and little with babies before Sprout was born. Worrying about exams in graduate school is nothing compared to the potential for screwing up a tiny life. Also, learning-by-doing isn’t my forte. While I read stacks of parenting tomes beforehand, nothing teaches you the rhythms of your child like hands-on experience. He couldn’t tell me what was wrong, so I had to listen, experiment, and sometimes struggle. Chris and I shared stories, tips, and observations, building a better partnership than even before. But until recently, I didn’t realize how much confidence I’d gained. The other day, I picked How To Rock Your Baby off of our bookshelf, just to see if there was anything in their list of simple tips I had forgotten. Except for a couple of craft ideas, I kept thinking, “Nope, I know how to do that,” in response to every chapter.

In these past months, I’ve also cycled through so many intense emotions. Pain and joy and fear during the birth. After bringing him home, there was uncertainty if he was eating enough, fear of bumping his head, terror at the thought of health problems, exhaustion in the middle of the night, desperation at his constant crying, adoration when I watched him sleep, and amazement when I considered his very existence. I’ve never felt so many conflicting feelings, piling up like so many stacks of baby clothes threatening to topple over. Before, I could go through entire days with little change in my emotional state. Now, I may cycle through several before I even step out the door.

My schedule has gone through a complete upheaval too. I stayed home for the first three months of Sprout’s life. Full-time child care and housework is the opposite of my “regular” job, which involves a lot of meetings and writing on a computer. Then, when I went back to work, Chris quit his fine dining job. When you’ve hardly seen your husband on weekday nights for the past few years, it’s a welcome change to have him home. While most people spend less time with their spouse when a baby comes, I fortunately ended up with much more.

And of course, Sprout himself has gone through huge changes in his first six months. He started as a fragile, squirming little being who either cried or watched passively. Now, he’s a sturdy, even squirmier little person who has his own personality and preferences. I’ve particularly enjoyed watching him develop facial expressions and abilities in the past three months. As newborns don’t smile, it was so fulfilling to watch him learn to smile hesitantly at first and then whole-heartedly. It was even wonderful watching him learn to frown. When he’s displeased, he turns down his entire mouth in a cartoon half-O. Around the same time, he started babbling, making a variety of grunts, coos, whines, and gibberish. He also started laughing, a high-pitched, burbly giggle. In contrast to our initial interaction that was limited to “crying” or “not crying,” we started being able to truly engage with him.

Over the highs and lows of the last months, my favorite part has been getting to know him as a little person. I can’t wait to learn even more.

Tis the Season for Family Traditions

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Every family that celebrates Christmas has its own traditions. So far, Chris and I haven’t had much of a chance to create our own – he’s had to work during Christmas Day the last several years. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be the year to set our own either.

One of the most beloved traditions of Chris’s family – or at least his dad – is “executing the tree” at a tree farm that shares his name. My father-in-law adores tromping out to the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as “west of Saratoga Springs, New York”), picking out, and cutting down his very own Christmas tree. Invariably, it is always brutally cold. And yet, they still have the annual pilgrimage. Of course, this year, Granddad wanted to bring his beloved grandson along over Thanksgiving break. What’s a family tradition if it doesn’t include the newest member of the family? Because I wanted to spend as much time as possible with both sides of the family, I also invited my parents along.

So we all piled on layer over layer of clothing and drove out to the boonies. We dressed Sprout in his brand-new snowsuit, which makes him look like a cross between the Michelin Man and the little brother in A Christmas Story. He gazed at us in puzzlement, wondering what this bizarre swaddle was. Between the suit, the fact that we stuffed him in the baby carrier (not his favorite), and the fact that it was the coldest weather he’s ever experienced, he was utterly befuddled. He wasn’t the only one – much of the time, my mom was wondering why she was there too. She enjoys spending time with my in-laws, but there’s a reason my parents stopped cutting down their own tree a decade ago. Fortunately, we caught the tractor-drawn wagon on the way back to the parking lot after cutting down the tree. After inching along to avoid falling on ice with my baby strapped to me, my back was quite relieved.

The best thing about the cold is getting out of it. Fortunately, the tree farm has a little lodge, where we drunk hot chocolate, ate grilled cheese, and listened to a guitarist sing James Taylor. It almost made stomping back and forth across the frozen earth worth it. Seeing the farm’s adorable snow-white reindeer was also a little magical.

If “executing the tree” is all about North Country-style stubbornness against the weather, my family’s big tradition was all about child-focused coziness. It was actually a whole bunch of traditions combined into one big one – the advent calendar. My mom – who is absurdly crafty – sewed me a frilly, red-and-green fabric advent calendar when I was a little girl. Starting on December 1, I would run downstairs every morning and pull a little piece of paper out of that day’s pocket. Each card had a little clue on it, teasing a different surprise each day, either an activity like seeing the Christmas lights in the park or a little present like a Christmas pencil. Pulling out that card was the highlight of my December days. On Christmas morning, I shuttled back and forth between the calendar and the kitchen, waiting for my dad to finish making coffee so I could pull out the final card and open my presents. When Chris and I started talking about Christmas traditions a few years ago, I was very insistent on doing an advent calendar for our child.

Now, I’m rethinking my principled stand. I have no idea how on earth my mom managed to come up with 25 different clues and surprises. Thinking about it, I have trouble coming up for seven things for one week! I may resort to a modified version of the calendar, where we have clues with activities for the weekends and something simpler for the weekdays. At least I’m reassured knowing that even my mom improvised a little. Since then, she’s confessed that she regularly switched the cards around when she didn’t have something ready for the next day.

Considering all of the effort our families put in for Christmas, I feel rather ashamed of our accomplishments this year – not many at all. I’ve finished most of my shopping and we have a wreath on our front door, which we bought from one of my favorite charities, H.O.M.E. But inside? Nothing. When we realized that we would only be home for two weekends in all of December, we even decide to not get a tree. Dragging Sprout out in the cold, pulling out all of the ornaments, and putting them all away just seemed like way too much time spent for not enough enjoyment. Even when I had a snow day off from work, we spent it playing with Sprout and building a snowman.

Fortunately, Sprout doesn’t care about our lack of decorations except perhaps that he won’t have all of these lovely, delicate things to stick in his mouth. We’ll definitely need to raise our standards in the future, but for now, the most important thing is not to stress out about more than we need to. With a new baby, we have plenty of other things to worry about.

Giving Thanks for New Foods

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Thanksgiving week was a week of milestones – besides the holiday, Sprout ate “real” food for the first time.

The pediatrician recommended that we start him on solid foods at the fifth month, beginning with rice cereal to get him used to eating from a spoon. We’d been doing that for the past week, but it was providing more entertainment value for us than nutrition for him.

But the day before Thanksgiving was Sprout’s introduction to the wide world of vegetables. While I was never super-keen on a wide array of veggies as a kid, I’ve grown to love them as an adult. I eat very little meat and am an avid gardener, with an almost exclusive focus on edible plants. So I was particularly excited that the first real food we fed him was one that we grew ourselves.

Of our crop of root vegetables, we chose sweet potatoes. They are sweet for veggies, so he would have a relatively pleasant experience. In addition, they’re packed full of nutrients, so even though he wouldn’t be getting many calories, they’d provide a lot more value than the rice cereal. The night before, Chris chopped them up, steamed them, and blended in ice cubes to create a puree. (In his “past life,” he was a professional cook, so his experience making purees for fine dining translated well to baby food – just leave out all of the ingredients like salt and oil that make it tasty for adults.)

The momentous time arrived – just as we were trying to get out the door to drive home for Thanksgiving. So much for taking time to savor the wonders of childhood. Nonetheless, we tried to make it meaningful, including the requisite videotaping.

Despite our enthusiasm, Sprout was more confused than anything else. He’d open his mouth, take the spoon in, close his lips, and then roll the food around until it either ended up on his face or down his throat. He was making a face like he wasn’t enjoying it, but kept opening his mouth back up. Chris thinks that every mouthful, he thought, “Maybe it’s milk this time?” and then, “Oh, I guess not. How disappointing.” Fortunately, babies don’t have strong deduction skills.

It’s probably the best reception we could expect. While the rice cereal was half-milk, the sweet potatoes were far different from anything Sprout had ever eaten. While I know there are zero guarantees, I’m hoping that by starting him on fresh vegetables from the beginning and progressing to tastier ways of cooking them that he’ll grow to love them. I’m a big believer in having kids trying foods multiple times, especially when combined with a “no thank you” taste policy. My mom always had me take at least one taste and I’m a pretty adventurous eater now.

The best part of introducing Sprout to sweet potatoes was that he could actually eat with us at Thanksgiving dinner. Before he was able to sit with minimal support, we either had to put him in his pack-and-play or trade him off between us as the other person ate. Meals were inevitably rushed. Now that he’s able to sit in his high chair at dinner, he feels much more like a member of the family. The fact that he was actually eating something similar to what we were – albeit without seasoning – just reinforced that feeling.

Having Sprout with us was even more significant because it was the first time that Chris and I were able to make it home for Thanksgiving in years. Chris always had to work on Thanksgiving, so he couldn’t even have a “real” Thanksgiving dinner, much less be able to go home. Being able to all eat together – my parents, his parents, and us with Sprout – filled me with so much thankfulness for our family. Sprout’s constant smile and joy at being with his grandparents was just the whipped cream on the Thanksgiving pie.

Who Needs Sleep?

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

“Who needs sleep?
Well, you’re never going to get it
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what that’s for
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you’re getting
There’s a guy whose been awake since the Second World War.”
– Barenaked Ladies, Who Needs Sleep?

I used to think my baby was a good sleeper. Now? I take back anything I ever said to that extent – I was clearly jinxing myself.

Sprout has never slept much during the day. Even in his first month, he slept no more than 12 or 13 hours daily, when the average baby sleeps at least 16 hours. Although I was nervous, our pediatrician reassured us that some kids just need less sleep than others. Nothing to worry about, especially because he’s a particularly chill kid.

Unfortunately, when he did sleep during the day, it tended only to be on my lap. When I tried to put him in his crib, he would open his eyes just before his head touched the mattress. I ended up stuck on the couch in “baby jail” quite a bit.

But things started getting better in month three, when I returned to work. Sprout was waking up only once during the night and rousing for the day around 7 AM. My husband, Chris, who is a stay-at-home-dad even figured out how to put him down for naps twice a day.

At month four, we decided to start a gentle form of “sleep training.” First, I would start rocking Sprout to sleep during bedtime rather than nursing him to sleep, so we had multiple options for sleep inducement. Then, rocking him to sleep, I would slowly decrease the amount of time between when he closed his eyes and when I put him in his crib. By stretching this period out over months, it would in theory teach him to fall asleep on his own without resorting to “cry it out” methods. Despite getting off-course when he caught his first cold and having one night of cranky annoyance, I was able to rock him to sleep in less than 10 minutes by the end of last week.

Then this weekend came and went in a blurry disaster. For three days straight, he has woken up every two hours for no apparent reason. I want to start moaning “braaainssss.” Potentially, this might be a brief phase. After all, this post from Pregnant Chicken points out “babies are constantly changing” and this other post from Sweet Madeline says, “There is no rhyme or reason or explanation!” But there’s also the fact that my mom recently informed me that I woke up every night every two hours for the first two years of my life. Even considering that possibility nearly brings me to a Darth Vader-type despair.

But my sleep-addled mind has come to two conclusions.

First, that you cannot treat a baby like a project. Babies refuse to follow Gantt charts or timetables. This is logically obvious – I know my son is a little person with his own little personality – but very difficult to accept, especially at 3 AM. I’m a planner by nature; I love crossing things off my to-do lists. But Sprout does and will continue to do things on his own time and I have to respect that. While establishing schedules is good, I have to make space and not rush the natural unpredictability of childhood.

Perhaps more importantly, I’m already learning that I can’t protect him from everything, even now. Although being sleepless myself is terrible, watching him toss and turn is even worse. Much of the time, he’s crying in his sleep, which then causes him to wake up. Watching him strikes fear into my own heart because I personally suffer from terrible, vivid nightmares. Although I don’t remember them consciously, I had night terrors as a toddler. I think I sometimes unconsciously deprive myself of sleep so that I don’t remember my dreams. Even though I have no idea what’s going on in his head, I worry that his imagination is causing pain rather than joy. And if it is, now or in the future, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. All I can do is hold him and tell him how much I love him, and accept that it’s enough.

We’re All Stories in the End

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Today is the 50th anniversary of two of my favorite pop culture icons: Where the Wild Things Are and Doctor Who. What I love about both of these creations is their intense cultivation of wonder without shying away from its dangers. Because of this dualism, they capture the experience both of being a child and being a parent.

I came to the two properties from opposite ends. Where the Wild Things Are has been a favorite of mine since I was a child, which I then rediscovered as an adult. I remembered it fondly, but never really understood how insightful it was until I recently reread it to my newborn son. Like most Americans, I came to Doctor Who as an adult, already in my late 20s. While I didn’t find the first few episodes compelling, I fell in love half-way through watching the first season of the new series. Since then, I’ve been a head-over-heels fan. Between one of my favorite blogs, TARDIS Eruditorum, and other critical analysis, I’ve also found depths that I would have never guessed upon the first viewing of the episodes.

Somehow, both of them communicate eternal truths in a package appropriate for children. They both express a combination of fear and beauty, anger and creativity, hurting and healing. They are both about creating worlds in your imagination and the people who help you save this one. Perhaps most importantly, both are about the radical power of stories, the ones we tell about ourselves and others.

While my five-month-old son (nicknamed Sprout) is too young to understand one and too young to experience the other at all, I know that this book and show both embrace values that I want to pass on to him. That philosophy of awe and love in the context of parenting (and sometimes pop culture) and how that plays out is what this blog is about.

One of these stories is about a time-traveling madman in a box. The other is about a child who creates entire worlds full of magical creatures but returns home to his mother. And they’re both the same – they’re about us.