Just over a year ago I had a baby. I still sit on the couch sometimes watching my son and think "holy crap, I have a baby!" It is still surreal to me. I have been blessed with such a good baby. He slept 12 hrs at about 3 months. There really isn't anything he doesn't eat. He wakes up happy. More and more he seems like his dad... this gives you some indication of how long I sleep for, what I eat and how I wake up.
In the past year I have learned a lot about myself - mainly how much I can tolerate or how much I want to tolerate. As much as Nori is a good sleeper and eater, he does occasionally have a loud crying/screaming fit. My patience is little to nonexistent when this happens. While he is audibly screaming, I am silently screaming. I imagine many things in my head - I won't put them here because someone may call children's services on me. Let's be honest here... when your child is screaming/crying at 1am and you have fed, changed and tried to comfort them and all they really want is out of their room. How do I know this? He's reaching for the door. It's frustrating and you think... hmm... how can I shut them up? One thing I never understood is why parents hit their children for crying - really?? You hit them for crying and guess what? They are STILL CRYING!! Stupid. When I get to the point of frustration in my mind where I am less comforting to him, I say to him "I am done". I put him in his crib and walk away. Sometimes my husband goes in but we wait a few minutes and he's out. I should feel so honoured and loved that someone intensely cries just so they can spend more time with me - my husband doesn't even do that. But I don't feel honoured... I feel tired. It's one thing when I inflict staying up late upon myself but when my child does it... not cool.
At about 6-8 months, when my son started crawling and pulling himself up on everything, it was time to teach him what not to touch. The television and everything connected to it, was one of those things. At first we would tell him no - remove him from the area... no - remove him from the area... no - remove him from the area. I typically like to give him a choice to move at first but I don't think he understands. Although, he will look at me while I am telling him no and (while still looking at me) he will reach out his chubby finger and poke the speaker. A friend told me they use the word 'stop' instead of no because they don't want their child yelling no to them all the time and No will be used in times of real concern or danger. GREAT IDEA! So, my husband and I have implemented this. Now I sound like I'm sending a telegram.
"Nori. Stop. Please don't touch that. Stop. Nori. stop. don't touch the speakers. stop."
Our son was really good at not touching the television or speakers. We had a friend come over with their son and they were 'playing together' - as much as a 10-11 month old can play with one another - just mainly consists of taking toys from one another and poking one another in the eye or smacking one another in the head/face. So my friend's son decided to touch and almost rip down our speaker - this is not a big deal to me because it's replaceable but if my son was in someone else's home I would expect him to not touch it. Since this happened, my son has consistently been going towards the speakers and television touching and pulling on them. It took months to 'train' him and about 5 seconds to destroy that. He rarely ever touched the television but he has recently started. In my heart of heart I fully believe he thinks it's one big iPad. He will touch it with one finger and when it doesn't do anything, the smack down comes out. So for the next few months it will be
"Nori, Stop. It's not an iPad. Stop. You aren't supposed to touch the TV. Stop"
