sleep

Camping: Take Two (Year Old) – Harper’s Ferry and Brunswick Family Campground

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

I think I’m turning into the dad from Calvin and Hobbes. Except instead of our adventures “building character” for my kid, they are doing it for me! In our second camping trip, some things went very right compared to last time, but others went very, very wrong.

I tried hard to learn from last time, bringing both lower expectations and a few extra pieces of gear. Unfortunately, I repeated the very first mistake – look up where the campground itself is, not just the national park! As it turned out, the campground was literally two states over from our destination, Harper’s Ferry. As Harper’s Ferry sits on the intersection between West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia, thankfully it worked out to only a 20 minute detour.

My other efforts were more productive. We arrived there earlier, packed the car more efficiently, and set up faster than last time. We even had time the first day to head into town, eat ice cream, and gaze out over the meeting of Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, dotted with colorful inflatable rafts and tubes.

Shenendoah River with tubes and rafts

Burnt out alleyway in Harper's Ferry, WV

Not everything was quite so cheery though. Only two weeks ago, a fire ripped through several of the town’s historical wood and stone buildings. (Check out their GoFundMe page if you want to help.) A whole chunk of the block was black, charred and disintegrating, right in the middle of their tourist season. Rather than ignore it, we explained to Sprout both what happened and how people were helping each other recover. In particular, we connected it with the theme of LeVar Burton’s book The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm, which has the theme of how friends can help each other heal after traumatic situations. While I don’t think he really understood the magnitude of what happened, it was good practice for future conversations like this.

Other parts of the trip also reminded me of both the value as well as the challenges of neighbors. Camping creates an easy intimacy, with everyone sharing the twisted perspective that it’s a really awesome idea to sleep on the ground protected only by a little fabric.

This camaraderie was doubly-intense in this particular campground, which didn’t have assigned campsites, only a shared space under a grove of trees with a scattering of picnic tables and fire pits. Sprout was an immediate point of connection, with fellow campers commenting on his cuteness and encouraging him to pet their dogs. A kayaking instructor putting boats into the river even chimed into my conversation with Sprout, saying that he started bringing his son with him in the boat when he was only 6 months old. But despite his encouragement, we were content with watching dogs fetching balls, wading in up to our knees, examining clam and snail shells, and spotting tiny fish darting about.

But not all of our interactions were quite so pleasant. It started with our neighbors on one side blasting Southern rock deep into the night, with a call out about every 15 minutes to “Turn it up!” I didn’t bother getting Sprout to bed until quiet hours were supposed to start at 10 pm. All the white noise in the world wasn’t going to drown that out.

At 10 pm, I held out hope when it paused momentarily, then lost it again when it started back up a few minutes later. When those people finally went to bed at 11, our neighbors on the other side picked up the slack with an enthusiastic game of beer pong and multiple rounds of the Happy Birthday song.

Normally, I’d be mildly annoyed but understanding. However, I was sharing a tent with a two-year-old who wanted to join in the fun and knew there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop him. Not long after I put him down and left the tent, Chris commented, “Well, there’s not much he can do but sit in there and play with his toys. At least until he finds the zipper.” Literally seconds after the words left his mouth, we heard a zip and saw a little blond head sticking out. So much for that plan.

I headed in there to lie down with him, to no avail. Chris eventually got bored and joined me, but all we got for our efforts was a toddler climbing on us like it was his own personal bounce house. Across the tent, over Chris’s legs, up his chest, plowing into my head, back to his own sleeping bag and around again. And again and again. It was a toddler rave, complete with uncoordinated movements and the drug of severe sleep deprivation. But I couldn’t blame Sprout for his shenanigans – after all, they were clearly having a good time outside! Unlike last time, when I nearly melted down myself, I just shrugged and laughed. (Even when Sprout imitated my tendency to call out to my husband in whiny frustration – he yelled “Chrisssss!” at the door. Of course, Chris thought it was hysterical.)

Once the party finally calmed down at 12:30, Sprout was still way too wound to calm down voluntarily, so Chris stuck him in the car and drove around until he finally passed out.

Camping should be celebratory – of nature and people – but I do hope it’s not quite that celebratory in the future.

The Night We Finally Did Cry-it-Out

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

So far, this winter has been absolutely bonkers. Coming off of hosting Thanksgiving for both sets of parents, we drove to Pittsburgh for my work, and then the week after, I was off to Denver on another work trip. In between, we had two kids’ birthday parties and a puppet show. Needless to say, this seriously messed with Sprout’s schedule and head. Unfortunately, it had the worst consequences at night.

In September, I truly believed our sleep problems had come and gone. After the chaotic schedule that was our vacation, we had settled into a regular rhythm. We had one tough week where I would let him cry for five or six minutes at night, go in his room, hug him for a few minutes, put him down, and repeat until he fell asleep. But once that week ended, he’d curl up in bed clutching his stuffed Figment and sleep through until the morning.

Then came the molars. Known as the most painful, unpleasant of all teething, the resulting headaches prevented him from falling asleep on his own. When the Oragel wore off four hours after his bedtime – always around my bedtime – he would wake up screaming. Hating that my baby was in pain, I’d pick him up and cradle him on the big chair in his room.

Of course, now that I had broken the routine (again), I was doomed to repeat history. Even when his teeth weren’t bothering him, he’d wail like a banshee when I tried to put him in his crib. I tried the “every five minutes” tactic, but he just got angrier each time. I’d finally acquiesce, settling down in the chair so he could fall asleep on my lap. In the middle of the night, he would wake up and expect me to hold him on my lap, just like at bedtime. Waking up once a night soon turned into waking up twice and soon enough we were back to the hellish schedule we had months ago.

I tried different tactics to varying degrees of success. We slept on the couch, which worked once. One night, I brought him into our bed. That worked twice before he decided it was more fun to crawl on our heads than sleep between us. Unlike kids that just want a parent in close proximity, he specifically wanted me to hold him in my arms sitting up. (It seems like Lydia over at Rants from Mommyland had the same problem.) Despite the absurdity, I was willing to put up with it until December’s chaos was done. We would start over in January.

Then I left on my Denver trip and it really went to hell. Sprout was very unhappy about daddy putting him to bed, even with my mom visiting as back-up. One night, he woke up at 3 AM and screamed whenever they tried to put him down – for more than two whole hours. Unfortunately, my return didn’t improve the situation. One weekday, I had to go to the office the next morning after being up in the middle of the night for two hours.

At that point, Chris declared the situation unsustainable and unacceptable. Sprout was no longer an infant. He had the capability to fall asleep independently – he had previously and still did during naptime. He even had some comprehension of other people’s needs and the fact that we need to avoid hurting people. We needed to set some boundaries and teach him that mommy is not his personal pillow.

Unfortunately, we only saw one choice – cry-it-out. While variations on the Sleep Lady technique had worked previously, they just pissed him off now. If possible, we wanted to avoid him degenerating into angry rabid honey badger mode. He would certainly be angry if we ignored him, but at least he wouldn’t think we were taunting him.

I hate, hate, hate the idea of cry-it-out. I had sworn that I would never, ever do that to my child. That I couldn’t possibly listen to him cry like he was in pain. That I wouldn’t let him stand there like an abandoned orphan.

But then I did – and it was terrible.

Even though I could hear him through our walls, I still kept the monitor on at night. I cringed at every cry. I wept into my pillow, asking Chris, “Why are we doing this? He’s scared, he’s sad, he’s lonely!” He’d reassure me that we were doing the right thing, we had tried everything else, Sprout was choosing not to sleep and he was just throwing a major hissy fit. Most importantly, he told me that Sprout still loved me and that I loved him.

The first few nights were the worst, with him yelling on and off for more than an hour at times. All of us were strung out on sleeplessness and stress. It took about a week – with part of it away from our house – before we restored our previous status. The first night he went down with minimal fussing, I released a huge breath. The worst was over and we would all be the better for it.

Every night is a new challenge, a new opportunity. I know there are some nights he’ll still wake up. Once he’s consistently sleeping through the night, I’ll go in to comfort him without making a routine of it. Once he switches to a toddler bed, I can definitely see him climbing into our queen-sized bed and squishing us. But I am never ever using that chair as a bed again.

Why Toddlers Are Better than Newborns

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Why Toddlers Are Better than Newborns (Picture: Chart describing differences in showing affection, receiving affection, communication, play, sleep and independence)

During Sprout’s first few months, every time someone said, “Oh, take advantage of this time while you can,” I wanted to smack them. I was strung out with sleeplessness, lonely, isolated as hell, and emotionally frayed. I loved my son and was amazed by his very presence, but was also terrified that I’d break him. Those first few months were definitely the hardest of my parenting experience and some of the hardest of my entire life.

In contrast, hardly ever anyone says that now that I have a toddler, even though I believe it would be much more appropriate. While Sprout certainly doesn’t lack his challenging moments, I enjoy my time with him so much more now than I did when he was first born. Toddlers get a bad rap.

Here are just a few of the ways in which for me, I find toddlers better than newborns:

Continue reading →

Figment the Magic Sleep Dragon

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Peter Pan may ask us to believe in fairies, but I’m putting all my bets on Figment, Epcot’s purple symbol of imagination. Because he truly can do magic. And not the cutesy, fluffy stuff – real magic, with real impact in the world. Because Figment made it possible for my kid to sleep.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Sprout was not a good sleeper. Far from the worst, but past his first birthday, he was still fighting bedtime with all his might and waking up multiple times in the middle of the night. At 10 months, he could fall asleep on his own when we left the room, but then that all went to hell when I went on a trip for work. At 14 months, sleeping through the night was still an occassion to be celebrated.

These habits started to worsen as we approached our Disney trip. While he had taken to sleeping on his stomach, he also needed me in the middle of the night to hold him. With his increasing height, these two requirements were often in conflict, resulting in random nights when it would take more than two hours to get him back to sleep. Out of desperation, I tried pulling him in bed with us, but he just took that as an opportunity to climb on Chris’s head. I was getting increasingly desperate, especially after he acted like a rabid raccoon and we had to resort to cry-it-out at my grandmother’s house.

When we returned from vacation, we had to address the issue for the sake of everyone’s mental health. I restarted sleep training, instituting a version of the Sleep Lady’s solution. While I think she seriously over-promises on results, the basic technique makes some level of sense. Every few nights, I moved further away from his crib, from the armchair to the doorway to the hallway before finally just leaving the room. I would comfort him every few minutes, but not allow him to fall asleep in my arms.

But unlike the first time I did this technique in the spring, he was still upset when I left the room. I’d be back in there comforting him every three to five minutes over and over again. We had a similar situation in the middle of the night. That was particularly rough because it was so tempting to let him fall asleep in my arms. While I could have made those intervals longer, I wanted to minimize the pain of transition as much as possible for both him and me.

This is when Figment worked his magic. I assumed a lovey was a lost cause, as we had tried a couple and he just ignored them. The Sleep Turtle had been helpful, but that helped calm him down rather than comfort him. But I noticed Figment was the first stuffed animal Sprout really showed affection towards. He hugged and even carried him around, a hilarious sight considering that Figment is about half Sprout’s height. Perhaps if he loved Figment during the day, he would help him go to sleep. The worst that could happen is that he’d ignore the toy and I still wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

Needless to say, my random hunch was far more right than I ever would have expected. The first night I gave Sprout Figment, he hugged him and closed his eyes. Just like that. There was no standing up and yelling, no angry protest, just peace. I might have gone in once to comfort him, but it was minor compared to what it had been.

Since then, Sprout has been both going to bed easily and sleeping through the night consistently. Even when he’s totally wound, he immediately relaxes when he hugs that dragon. He still wakes up once in a while if there’s a specific reason, like his leg being sore after he got his vaccinations. But those are rare and his schedule returns to usual once they are over.

Of course, this isn’t perfect. Since I started writing this blog post yesterday, he had a lot of trouble getting to sleep the last two nights. But even this is different – he was attempting to get to sleep and just wasn’t been able to. Before, he’d start wailing before I left the room; now he’ll be quiet for about five minutes and then complain once he realizes he’s having problems. The last few nights, we think it’s been teething, as he passed out almost as soon as I gave him Ora-gel.

While I can’t completely explain Figment’s magic, I have a couple of guesses. I think there’s a certain amount of newness that Sprout’s other stuffed animals don’t have. He’s seen most of those since he was born, so they became background furniture. In contrast, we got Figment just around the age where he was starting to hug stuffed animals. There’s also his size. Because we were worried about suffocation, our previous lovies were relatively small. In contrast, Figment is big enough that Sprout can wrap his really arms around him. Lastly, there’s just something in the power of imagination. I knew if I imagined hard enough, he would someday sleep. I just didn’t know I needed a mascot to do it!

Now, I’m in the recovery stage. I’m still waking up in the middle of the night even though there isn’t any reason to do so. It’s like someone who had a fire alarm go off every single night for a year. While you aren’t exactly afraid, you’re so used to being hyper-aware that it just becomes second-nature. My body is still recovering as well. The first few nights I got a lot of sleep, I was staggeringly tired. The adrenaline of the first year was wearing off and I had nothing to run on anymore. I’ve finally started catching up in the last week, allowing me to cut down from two cups to one cup a tea a day.

My little purple dragon friend, thank you for the sleep that you have returned to my life.

Walt Disney World Week: What I Learned About My Family

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

Last week, we returned from Sprout’s first trip to Walt Disney World. Normally, I wouldn’t bring a kid that young, but my in-laws are hard-core into it and volunteered to pay for the entire trip. So off we went to see the Mouse.

Now, I’ve been to Disney World as an adult, but nothing could prepare me for visiting with a small child. It becomes an entirely different experience, rife with its own set of joys and frustrations.

Here are a few of the things I learned about my own family along the way:

1) How little sleep my son can survive on.

One of my main areas of concern was getting Sprout back to the hotel for a daily nap and his normal bedtime. Due to extenuating circumstances, that plan went out the window almost immediately. While we managed some lengthy stroller naps – one was a full two hours – most days had very short naps and a bedtime at least an hour past the norm. But despite this shift, Sprout was mostly good-tempered. As long as he had something to look at (which there almost always was, being Disney World), and had enough time to walk around, he was pretty chipper.

2) The difference between listening to someone complain about the challenges of bedtime and experiencing them firsthand.

Sprout is not a good sleeper. He hates going to sleep and bedtime can end up being 45 minutes of him yelling at me in Baby. I’ve explained this to my in-laws, but I don’t think it set in until the night they put him to bed. While they had put him to bed at our house before, vacation radically upped the excitement level. From patting on the back to classical music, they tried every trick they knew of, only to be foiled by a loud whine the second they closed the door. They finally got him to sleep after nearly an hour. While I felt bad for them, it was a relief to see that it’s not just us he’s pain about when it comes to bedtime.

3) Sometimes folks need more comprehensive instructions than you would expect.

My father-in-law volunteered to put Sprout to bed one night so the rest of the adults could go out to dinner at a restaurant he didn’t like. As Chris and his sister came out pretty great, I figured he had the basic baby wrangling skills covered. Unfortunately, it had been far too long since he had changed a diaper. As such, he didn’t recall Cardinal Rule #1 of diaper changing – have everything ready before taking the diaper off. Even though he strongly suspected there were poops present, he failed to get the wipes out beforehand, leaving him without the needed resources. Instead, he said something hand wavy about “rinsing him off in the tub” and left it at that. Ewwww.

4) Don’t read the news while you’re on vacation.

While we were relaxing in the room, I happened to read a post on local news blog Greater Greater Washington. Unfortunately, this particular post mentioned that there had been torrential rain at Baltimore National Airport. In fact, a number of vehicles swamped and became totalled – in the parking lot we parked in. So I spent the whole week worrying that we might not be able to start our car when we got home. As it turned out, nothing was wrong. I wouldn’t have even known there was a problem if I hadn’t read the news post.

5) How rewarding it is for your kid to enjoy something you remember fondly from your own childhood.

Being a giant nerd, EPCOT was one of my favorite parks as a kid. I really loved the Journey into Imagination ride and its mascot, the purple dragon, Figment. I had a little stuffed version of him that was worn out from hugging. So I was thrilled when Sprout enjoyed the Journey into Imagination ride, looking around at the bright colors and funny sounds. He was also really engaged by the activities afterwards, from the squares that played instrument noises when you jumped on them to the machine that changes tone when you wave your arms. And perhaps most importantly, his face totally lit up when I bought him his very own Figment.

6) Respecting your kid means sometimes giving them something they want even when you know they won’t like it.

I’ve believed in this as part of my overall philosophy of respecting my kid as a person, but never had the chance to put it into practice. So when Sprout pointed to my curry noodle soup, I hesitated over giving it to him. It was a little too spicy for me, so he certainly wouldn’t like it. And he didn’t – he spit it out and batted at his tongue with his hand. But you know what? Maybe he would have loved it!

7) How much a kid can grow up in 10 days.

I’ve believed for a long time that travel can help lead to incredible personal growth. It exposes you to new cultures, natural and crafted beauty, and challenging situations. However, I would have never guessed that it would be true for a kid as little as Sprout. But it certainly seems like our trip sparked that growth in him.

The first full day at Disney, he decided he no longer wanted to hold my hand when he walked, motivating me to buy a “toddler tether.” The rest of the trip, he wandered around with Chris or me in tow.

In addition to mobility, he also wanted to do things that mommy and daddy do. Suddenly, he decided he wanted to push his own stroller instead of ride in it. A few days later, he kept whining and pushing his plate away, so we thought he was done eating. We finally figured out he was still hungry – he just wanted to eat the whole tacos, not the cut-up ones. Now, whenever he’s complaining and I can’t figure out why, I just start to think, “Is this something ‘grown-up’ that he wants?”

But perhaps his social growth has been the greatest. Sprout has been charming folks at restaurants now for a while, but we hadn’t seen the extent of his ongoing nature until this trip. He waved and said hi to almost everyone around us in line, on the bus, and at restaurants. He even walked up to people in the airport in the middle of conversations and would start jabbering away at them as if he was a natural participant – even though he isn’t speaking many recognizable words yet!

You Know You’re a Sleep Deprived Parent When…

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

My son is not what you would call a good sleeper. He’s far from the worst, thank God, but I’ve spent a fair number of hours in his room in the middle of the night. My night vision has gotten substantially better over the last year from practice. I scowl at those lucky bastards who say, “My child slept through the night at six weeks.” At 13 months old, we still consider it a good night when he wakes up once and falls back asleep within 10 minutes. So I know of which I speak when I talk about lacking sleep. In fact, every single one of these has happened to me!

You know you’re a sleep-deprived parent when:

  • You dream about not being able to sleep.
  • You sleep more soundly on the train into work than in your own bed.
  • You consider it a major accomplishment to have only a single caffeinated beverage during the day.
  • You know how to (kind of) sleep sitting up on the couch with a toddler sprawled out on you.
  • You find it hard to sleep without white noise because you’re so used to hearing it over the baby monitor.
  • You can apply oral-gel with your eyes closed – literally.
  • You have a justified fear of falling asleep on your feet and toppling over.
  • Sleeping until 8 am sounds scandalously luxurious.
  • 4 am seems like a perfectly normal time to be awake.
  • You are just So Damn Tired!

Two is Sometimes Better than One

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

I never babysat as a kid, so taking care of someone else’s children is rather foreign to me. Nonetheless, I accepted the challenge when my friend suggested a baby swap between Sprout and their daughter. Basically, we’d babysit their four-month old one afternoon while they went out and they’d do the same for us a few weeks later. While I was happy for the offer of free babysitting, I was actually more pleased to have the opportunity to help them out. They’re moving out of the area soon and I wanted to give them some downtime, something already in short supply when you’re a new parent.

So two weekends ago, we were in charge of the care and feeding of not just one, but two kids. From our previous conversations, we knew their daughter was a much better sleeper than Sprout was at that age, able to nap in places other than someone’s arms. We also knew that she’s a pretty easy-going baby, but as 4-month-olds don’t have a lot of specific personality traits, not much else. They left us with milk, diapers, a few tidbits of advice, and well-wishes.

Even though we’ve been through this stage recently, it’s so easy to forget how much knowledge you lose and how fast kids change. I now feel bad mocking my parents (even though it was gentle) for not remembering certain things about babies. I was less than a year on and I already felt lost!

Not long after our friends left, we promptly remembered that barely-beyond newborns communicate everything through crying – loud, high-pitched crying. While Sprout’s vocabulary is still limited to “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Hi,” he has variations in his sounds and other ways to communicate. Even his cries vary, from an annoyed whine to a distressed wail. Although our friends said they could tell the difference between their daughter’s cries – short indicated being tired, long indicated hunger – we were at a total loss. When you hear your own kid constantly, you hear all of the little variations, but to us it sounded like one long waaaah.

We were also reminded that baby girls will definitively let you know when they need their diaper changed. In contrast, Sprout could be wet forever and not care. He’s only just now starting to communicate when he’s poopy. Usually, we just check him on a regular basis and watch his facial expressions. But our little visitor certainly let us know – loudly – when she needed to be changed. Although our friends had packed several diapers, we went through them quickly!

We also ran through her milk faster than anticipated. Our friend had packed three bottles, saying, “I think she’ll only drink two. If she drinks all three, call us and we’ll hurry back.” She drank all three by 5:30 pm, even though they weren’t due to be back until 7! On one hand, we didn’t want the baby to be hungry, but on the other we didn’t want to interrupt their dinner. To avoid rushing them too much but still let them know about the situate, we decided to wait until 6 to call.

Her sleep schedule turned out to be just as unpredictable as her eating. Sprout has had a specific nap schedule for months, so we’ve lost some familiarity with the randomness of near-newborn sleep. Much like me, Sprout would nap forever if we let him, but he would also be up all night – not an optimal situation. Even when Sprout slept at random times, he would only fall asleep nursing or on the bottle. In contrast, our friends’ baby didn’t typically fall asleep on the bottle, forcing us to guess when she was tired, as opposed to hungry. So my rocking and singing skills returned again as I struggled to remember the introduction to House at Pooh Corner.

But not everything was feeding and napping. The times when she was awake and not crying were quite delightful, as we watched the two kids interact. We pursue opportunities for Sprout to play with with other kids, but most of the time, they’re older than he is. He’s the youngest baby at our church and most of the kids at our neighborhood park are much older. This was the first time he’s interacted with a kid substantially younger than he is. At first, he was curious. We’ve already taught him how to be gentle when he touches others, so he wasn’t too rough. (And when he seemed to be going in that direction, we quickly separated them.) He seemed to realize that she’s smaller and more helpless than he is and didn’t expect much of her as a result. Chris and I have a theory that although toddlers see babies, they think of them more like moving toys than people. Sprout did get a little jealous when I was holding her at first, but was reassured as soon as Chris started playing with him. Once he investigated the situation and realized she couldn’t play with him, he got bored.

Taking care of both of the babies at the same time gave us a taste of what having two children would be like. While we could never have two kids so close in age unless we had twins, we do hope to have another kid while Sprout is still a toddler. His generally positive reaction was reassuring, even though his relationship with a sibling would obviously be different.

Looking after her also reminded me how diverse even the littlest kids are. Although the broad strokes of taking care of her were the same as they were with Sprout, the details, from diaper changing to sleep, were really different. Just like with him, we had to learn and adjust on the fly.

Lastly, this experience made me very glad that when I take maternity leave again that Chris will be at home with me. Besides it not being as boring, I can’t imagine taking care of a newborn and a toddler simultaneously (or even more challenging, newborn twins and a toddler like one of my friends has!). I may go back to work earlier than I did with Sprout, but at least those first few months will be easier. Having that second adult around will also allievate a lot of the potential sibling jealousy, as Chris could play with Sprout while I would be with the new baby.

I was glad to give my friends some time alone, but I was also quite content with giving her back. We have our hands plenty full with managing one kid at the time being!

Firsts for the Fourth

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

While America celebrated Independence Day over the July 4th weekend, we celebrated a number of firsts with Sprout.

My in-laws visited for the holiday, eager to spend time with Sprout before our August trip with them. They saw the trip as a bit of a “practice run” for Disney, testing out how he’d do with a variety of new experiences.

The first was staying up far past his bedtime to watch fireworks. He had actually seen fireworks before, but he was only two weeks old at the time. Then, we couldn’t bring him anywhere crowded because he hadn’t received his vaccines yet and I couldn’t muster much effort anyway in my sleep-addled state. So we just walked over to a pedestrian bridge less than half a mile away to see the town’s show half-blocked by buildings.

In contrast, this year we trekked up to lovely Frederick, Maryland, which hosts a huge 4th of July celebration at its city park, complete with bouncy rides, bathtub races, tons of food trucks (not the fancy ones), and a big fireworks display. Despite the other entertainments, the very first thing I noticed was how retro their playground was. After reading so many stories about how playgrounds are becoming overly safe to the point of monotony, it was refreshing to see metal slides and a merry-go-round! They even had a sand pit, where Sprout had his first feeling of sand between his toes as my mother-in-law helped him walk through it. Later on, we visited the petting zoo exhibit, where he got up close and personal with some goats. While he was mostly curious about them, it didn’t help when the farmer wrangled the baby goats out of the enclosure without a warning, causing all of the kids – human and not – to freak out.

After wandering around, we settled down to wait for the fireworks. With Can’t Stop Believin’ played by an adequate Journey cover band as our soundtrack, I tried to keep Sprout from wandering onto other people’s blankets and stealing their stuff. Just as he was experiencing new things, I too had to lighten up a little. As the culinary choices were limited, I tried to feed him some quesadilla (cheese has protein!), but he was totally uninterested. Instead, he managed to find his appetite for my Italian ice, slurping it down. Since he hadn’t eaten any dinner and we were outside any resemblance of a normal schedule, I let him eat as much sugar and red dye as he wanted. To quote my mother-in-law, “It’s July 4th!”

Despite missing his afternoon nap and the fireworks starting more than an hour after his bedtime, Sprout managed not only to stay awake until the show but more impressively, be in a good mood. He would have been a disaster if we had been at home, but there was enough people to look at that he forgot how tired he was. He even held out throughout most of the fireworks, watching them with the intense gaze that he’s turned to everything new since the day he was born. It’s a look of: “This is fascinating, but I’m not sure what to make of it yet. I’ll gather more information.” That was, until the finale. The continuous and overlapping booms put him over the edge and he burst out wailing. Fortunately, once the display was over, he calmed down and promptly fell asleep in his stroller despite the obstacle course-like path back to the car.

The next day, we continued the festivities by visiting a local outdoor mall that has a train ride, a carousel, and paddleboats. In my family, the mall is best known for the place where we did slow walking laps around the pond to induce labor when I was three days past my due date. Needless to say, this time around was much less stressful. To see how Sprout would potentially handle rides, my mother in law wanted to bring him on the carousel. Chris sat Sprout on a horse, holding on to him from the side, while I rode an eagle next to them. Much like with the fireworks, Sprout’s expression was observant without being outwardly happy. I have a suspicion this is going to be a common look at Disney. While he didn’t smile, I think he enjoyed it – he certainly knows how to let us know otherwise – and I suspect he would become much more obviously joyful as he got used to it. He was pretty impassive the first time we pushed him on the baby swing at the park, but now he grins in response.

That night, my in-laws got to be the guinea pigs for another first – the first time someone other than Chris or I put Sprout to bed. After a lot of bedtime drama that involved Sprout whining loudly at me for more than a half-hour a night, Chris recently switched to putting him to bed. But it would be a whole different challenge for someone else to put him down. Would he be worried that we weren’t there? Would he cry and reject consolation? Would he want to continue playing with Grandma and Granddad? Whatever happened, we wouldn’t be there to find out, gallivanting around D.C. baby-free. We bar hopped, going from one to watch the World Cup to another to play chess and skeeball. We wandered downtown, popping in a candy shop with adult confections, watching a street dance / acrobatics group that half-failed at their tricks, and listening to a jazz band on a corner in Chinatown. We finished the night with dinner at a fancy restaurant, eating Fruits de Mer and fois gras. The time was just for just the two of us, where there were no dishes to be done or baby monitor on in the background. It felt like a big sigh of relief. Fortunately, bedtime went just fine, at least according to my in-laws. They didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask for additional details.

The last day of their trip, we trekked to the town pool. Sprout loves splashing in the bath, but that’s quite different from even the kiddie pool. After slathering him up with enough sunscreen to let you walk on the sun, we put him in a disposable swim diaper and headed off. Much to my surprise, his shorts were already soaked when I lifted him out of his car seat, five minutes later. Lesson learned – disposable swim diapers are designed to allow pee to flow through, not hold it in. Ick.

Despite this knowledge, I still waded into the kiddie pool, holding Sprout’s hand so he could walk. He was hesitant at first, looking up at me for reassurance. I’m constantly telling him not to stand up in the tub, so I’m sure he was confused by me encouraging him to walk through water. But once he caught on, he thought it was great, combining bath time with his current favorite activity, leading us around so he can practice walking. The fun only increased when they turned up the little fountains. Of course, he chose the one that had another kid at it who wasn’t interested in sharing. To avoid a showdown, I finally picked Sprout up and relocated him to a different fountain. Even when the kids were all at their own fountains, they kept eying each other and wondering what was so awesome about the other fountain that the other kid was using it. I spent an absurd amount of time at the pool as a kid, so I hope this is only the first of many visits.

From fireworks to fountains, Sprout had an eventful Independence Day weekend.

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust. – Peter Pan

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

I’ve been working to win back Sprout’s trust since I returned from my work trip two weeks ago. Since then, he’s been somewhat skeptical that I wouldn’t leave him again. While Chris and I connected on FaceTime every night, seeing Mommy “in the box” just wasn’t the same as being in my arms.

When I first arrived home, Sprout’s reaction was subdued. It was close to his bedtime and Chris hadn’t been able to play with him much because he was sick, so Sprout was already in a bit of a mood. When I lifted him out of his car seat, he hardly cracked a smile. Certainly not the enthusiastic welcome I’d hoped for.

The next morning, once he realized I was back for good, his whole attitude changed. Then it became All Mommy, All the Time. When Chris was holding him, he’d reach his arms out to me. If I was present, I’d be the only one who could comfort him. If I was in the same room and not paying direct attention to him, he’d soon make sure I was. While I dislike Family Guy, I started to realize how true the bit where Stewie just says “Mommm, Mommmmmy” over and over again is. In general, his clingyness was getting really annoying. But because I appreciated Sprout’s need to feel attached to me and be reassured, I tried to be there mentally and physically for him as much as possible.

Of course, the worst was at night. At first, I tried to pick up where I left off on our sleep routine. When I left, he was able to fall asleep completely by himself with a little bit of babble-whining. After needing to go in and reassure him several times the first night, I realized I needed to back up a few steps on the sleep training. I think he associated me leaving him alone in his room with me Leaving Him. So I went back to sitting next to his crib with my eyes closed, present but not engaged. While we played the up-down game more than I would have liked (Sprout stands up, Mommy puts him down, Sprout stands up again, repeat up to 30 times), he eventually got used to the idea that I’d still be there when he went to sleep.

While we gradually worked our way back to a level of independence at bedtime, his reactions in the middle of the night have been far more unpredictable. While I was gone, he actually slept through the night a couple nights, much to Chris’s relief. The first few days after I returned, he either slept through the night or only woke once and went back to sleep after a reassuring hug. This calm lulled us into a sense of security and then his sleep schedule totally fell apart. He would fall asleep at bedtime, but then wake up in the middle of the night and not go back to sleep for hours at a time, no matter what we did. If I was holding him, he wouldn’t cry, just look at me with his big blue eyes. Nursing, rocking, holding – none of it worked. By training him not to rely on any of these methods, we seemed to immunize him against them being effective. And if we put him in his crib by himself – especially if I put him in his crib – he would start hard crying. As I really don’t believe in cry-it-out, it was horrifying. I either had to listen to my baby scream or not go back to bed – either way, I wasn’t getting back to sleep. I chose not to go back to bed, dragging Chris in for reinforcement. Because he takes much longer to fall back asleep than I do, I hate having to wake him in the middle of the night, but I didn’t have a choice.

We thought we had moved beyond this last week, but then Sprout got a cold and it reared its ugly head again. A few nights ago, I was so desperate that I tried to bring him into bed with us, but he was even less interested in sleeping there than he was in my arms. Instead, he thought it was playtime and promptly pulled Chris’s hair. I ended up sleeping on the couch for three hours with him in my arms.

As I respond to him during the day and night, Sprout’s feeling of security in my presence should continue to increase. In the meantime, I hope that we’re past most of the growing pains.

Raising Sprout

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Gardening has been on my mind a lot lately.

Last weekend, we visited the White House Garden, during one of the two days a year they open the gates to the general public. While Chris had previously been there for a sustainable food event in culinary school, I had never been. Although I was temporarily confused by the presence of tulips in the Rose Garden (roses are out of season), I enjoyed seeing the location of so many big announcements. I eagerly peered around crowds for a view of the White House kitchen garden and tried not to be stung by an occupant of the White House beehive. Meanwhile, Sprout was completely uninterested in the plants. However, he was enamored with holding on to the black lacquered security fence. No accounting for taste!

The next day, I worked in my own garden while Chris played with Sprout on the lawn. I planted sunflowers, arugula, chives, and peanuts, all of which are new to my garden this year. Next week, I’ll be transplanting my seedlings and sprouts of tomatoes, peppers, melon, beans, peas, and squash.

Because everything relates to parenting for me, I started thinking about how starting seeds is like parenting: you need to build good soil, be willing to get your hands (and everything else) dirty, and provide gradual transitions.

I believe a gardener’s job is more about cultivating good soil than growing plants. It’s all about creating the right conditions – plenty of light, the right amount of nutrients, the right amount of water, and the right temperatures. Not too little or too much of any one element. If you’re thoughtful about where you place your garden and prepare the soil well, even a large garden doesn’t need they much upkeep.

Just like I can’t actually make the seeds grow, I can’t and don’t want to have complete control over my son. I want him to develop at his own pace, without rushing or pressuring him. I want to model and create the circumstances around him that inspire a love of learning, enjoyment of nature, and compassion towards people. I see a child’s ideal soil as lots of hugs, physical and mental space to explore, play with kids of various ages, time spent outside, exposure to arts and music, and quality time with parents and other caring adults. While parents should try to provide as much of this as possible, they can’t do it alone. Fortunately, we have wonderful parents ourselves, a strong church community, activities offered through the town, and friends that support us. As with a garden, we hope a thoughtful approach and hard work up front will pay off later in a capable, caring kid.

In both cases, building good soil involves getting your hands dirty. My gardening style is literally earthy – I’ve always enjoying playing in the dirt. I don’t wear gardening gloves because they make me feel clumsy. Sometimes rather than use a trowel, I scoop potting soil out of the bag with my hands. After I garden, my hands and nails always have dirt ground into them.

Similarly, you can never escape the mess as a parent. Sprout has peed on me, sneezed ground bison on me, sprayed tomatoes and beef on me while blowing a raspberry, wiped snot on my shirt, and caused me to get poop on my hands. He has bit me on the nipple, knee, and arm. I’ve wiped drool off of his chin more times than I can count and have already committed the ultimate mom sin of using own spit to clean his face. (I swore I never would!) I’m far too familiar with the sticky pink goo that is Ora-Gel. I’ve looked like the walking dead after near-sleepless nights. I’ve been in my pajamas far too late in the day and changed into them far too early in the evening. Not that I was ever fashionable, but pumping and nursing drive a surprising amount of my wardrobe choices. I happily sit in the grass, watching Sprout rip up weeds and inspect leaves. Getting dirty is what we do around here.

Lastly, I think we need to respect the cycles and transitions of nature and children. When you raise seeds in early spring, you need to harden them off before you transfer them to the soil. Inside, they stay one temperature with consistent watering and light. If you take them from that controlled environment and plant them outside without first exposing them to the elements – sun, wind, temperature changes – they go into shock. They then die or are weaker than they would be otherwise. Like the baby plants, kids also need to be at first very protected then slowly exposed to the real world before adulthood. That small amount of exposure and gradual transition makes them far more resilient in the face of difficult situations.

Approaching change as a series of slow transitions works for less dramatic changes too. While it took about six (hard) months, our sleep training approach of moving from nursing to rocking to holding to being present and then to laying him down by himself has paid off. We made it through with a minimum of crying (albeit a lot of whining). Now, he’s asleep within 10 minutes and usually only wakes up once a night. Similarly, we think he’ll do pretty well when we go to Disney World this summer because he’s used to the busyness of the city and crowds of people. While some people refer to these in-between steps as a crutch, I would rather supply him with a crutch and transition away from it than have him fall hard on his face at first and be discouraged from trying again.

While most of the plants in my garden only last a season, how I treat Sprout will last a lifetime. Thankfully, he’s pretty forgiving and there are always more opportunities to get down and dirty.